This Companion brings together an international 'Brodie set' of critics to trace the history, impact, reception and major themes of Spark's work, from her early poetry to her last novel. It encompasses the range of Spark's output, pursuing contextual lines of approach including biography, geography, gender, identity, nation and religion, and considering her legacy and continuing influence in the twenty-first century. Spark emerges here as a serious thinker on issues as diverse as the Welfare State, secularisation, decolonisation, and anti-psychiatry, and a writer whose work may be placed alongside Proust, Joyce, Nabokov, and Lessing. The critics collected here are mindful of how, although overwhelmingly known as a novelist, by the time of her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957, Spark already had a significant profile through poetry, biographical criticism, and literary journalism, as chair of the Poetry Society and editor of the Poetry Review, and as author or co-author of a number of scholarly studies of writers including Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, the Brontes, Cardinal Newman, and John Masefield.
Within a relatively modest space this Companion touches on the whole range of Spark's work and, in introducing the oeuvre thematically for those looking to explore this elegant and challenging author further, also sets the agenda for future Spark studies. Key Features * A collection of original, specially commissioned chapters by leading experts in the field * Covers the whole spectrum of Spark's work * Addresses the key issues and themes in Spark's work without losing sight of the questions of form and content * Provides original insights into the contexts of Spark's work as viewed through literary theory
This Companion brings together an international 'Brodie set' of critics to trace the history, impact, reception and major themes of Spark's work, from her early poetry to her last novel. It encompasses the range of Spark's output, pursuing contextual lines of approach including biography, geography, gender, identity, nation and religion, and considering her legacy and continuing influence in the twenty-first century. Spark emerges here as a serious thinker on issues as diverse as the Welfare State, secularisation, decolonisation, and anti-psychiatry, and a writer whose work may be placed alongside Proust, Joyce, Nabokov, and Lessing. The critics collected here are mindful of how, although overwhelmingly known as a novelist, by the time of her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957, Spark already had a significant profile through poetry, biographical criticism, and literary journalism, as chair of the Poetry Society and editor of the Poetry Review, and as author or co-author of a number of scholarly studies of writers including Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, the Brontes, Cardinal Newman, and John Masefield.
Within a relatively modest space this Companion touches on the whole range of Spark's work and, in introducing the oeuvre thematically for those looking to explore this elegant and challenging author further, also sets the agenda for future Spark studies. Key Features * A collection of original, specially commissioned chapters by leading experts in the field * Covers the whole spectrum of Spark's work * Addresses the key issues and themes in Spark's work without losing sight of the questions of form and content * Provides original insights into the contexts of Spark's work as viewed through literary theory
Series Editors' Preface; Brief Biography of Muriel Spark; Introduction, Michael Gardiner and Willy Maley; 1 Muriel Spark and the Problems of Biography, David Goldie; 2 Poetic Perception in the Fiction of Muriel Spark, Vassiliki Kolocotroni; 3 Body and State in Spark's Early Fiction, Michael Gardiner; 4 The Stranger Spark, Marilyn Reizbaum; 5 Muriel Spark and the Politics of the Contemporary, Adam Piette; 6 Spark, modernism and postmodernism, Matthew Wickman; 7 Muriel Spark as Catholic Novelist, Gerard Carruthers; 8 Muriel Spark's Break with Romanticism, Paddy Lyons; 9 The Post-war Contexts of Spark's Writing, Randall Stevenson; 10 Muriel Spark's Crimes of Wit, Drew Milne; Endnotes; Further Reading; Notes on Contributors; Index.
Michael Gardiner is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. As well as creative fiction and comparative cultural history and world literature, his books include The Cultural Roots of British Devolution (EUP, 2004), Modern Scottish Culture (2005), and From Trocchi to Trainspotting; Scottish Literary Theory Since 1960 (2006). Willy Maley is Professor of Renaissance Studies in the Department of English Literature, University of Glasgow. He writes on both Renaissance and Scottish literature, most recently Nation, State and Empire in English Renaissance Literature: Shakespeare to Milton (2002), Muriel Spark for Starters (2009). Edited collections include, with Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare and Scotland (2004) and, with Alex Benchimol, Spheres of Influence: Intellectual and Cultural Politics from Shakespeare to Habermas (2006).
As with all of the books in this series, the essays collected here
offer fresh and insightful analysis of Spark's writing from a
number of perspectives.-- "Years Work in English Studies, vol 91,
no 1, 2012"
This volume provides a number of innovative critical perspectives
on Spark's fiction, whilst engaging in lively debate with previous
Spark criticism.--Colin W. McIlroy, University of Glasgow "Scottish
Literary Review"
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