Stephen Benson

Considers the profound influence of fairy tales on contemporary fiction, including the work of Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Robert Coover, Salman Rushdie, and Jeanette Winterson.

Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale

Clare Connors

Including pieces by creative critics as varied as Anne Carson, Jacques Derrida, Geoff Dyer, Hélène Cixous, Ali Smith, and John Cage, this anthology and guide celebrates the formal and intellectual inventiveness of works which also demonstrate a deep fidelity to the writing or art they address. The Anthology is of interest to all students, teachers and critics of literature and creative writing, and especially those students who are required to write critical essays. All 14 texts included respond innovatively to the question: How do we write criticism? As examples of academic critical writing they are all sympathetic to works whose aim is to change the ways in which we see and describe our world. Key Features * Unique as an anthology of and guide to creative critical writing * Demonstrates a range of ways to write critically and creatively * Extensive introduction & explanatory headnotes to each text Contents Roland Barthes, from A Lover's Discourse: Fragments; John Cage, from 'Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?'; Anne Carson, 'Every Exit is an Entrance (A Praise of Sleep)'; Hélène Cixous, 'Without end, no, State of drawingness, no, rather: The Executioner's taking off'; Jacques Derrida 'Aphorism Countertime'; Geoff Dyer, from Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H. Lawrence; Benjamin Friedlander, 'Gertrude Stein: A Retrospective Criticism'; Peter Gizzi, 'Correspondences of the Book'; Kevin Kopelson, 'Music Lessons'; Denise Riley, 'Lyric Selves'; Eve Sedgwick, 'Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl'; Ali Smith, 'Green'; John Wilkinson, 'Imperfect Pitch'; Sarah Wood, 'Anew Again'. Stephen Benson and Clare Connors teach in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Stephen Benson is the author of Cycles of Influence: Fiction, Folktale, Theory (2002) and Literary Music: Writing Music in Contemporary Fiction (2006), and the editor of Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale (2008). Clare Connors is the author of Force from Nietzsche to Derrida and Literary Theory: A Beginner's Guide (2010).

An Anthology and Guide

Creative Criticism

Stephen Frank Benson

Analyzes how the folktale has influenced the development of narrative theory and how postmodern fiction has drawn on the folktale to experiment with diverse narrative concepts.

Fiction, Folktale, Theory

Cycles of Influence

Will Montgomery

A field recording is any audio recording made outside of the studio. Such recordings have lately become important to contemporary musicians, sound artists and environmentalists. However, less attention has been given to the relation of sound, as manifested in the theory and practice of the field recording, to writing. The 11 essays collected here take the recent explosion of interest in field recording as the point of departure for an investigation of the sounded field in music and its relationship to literature and writing. Including seminal pieces on field thinking by John Berger and Lisa Robertson, Writing the Field Recording analyses contemporary text scores, histories, composer statements, critical literature, poetry and nature writing in the context of sound studies. Drawing on expertise from a range of backgrounds, including composers, musicians, poets and critics, the collection presents an inter-disciplinary exploration of the various registers in which the field recording is written, such as the essayistic, the creatively exploratory, the experimental and the philosophical alongside critical reflections on artistic practice.

Sound, Word, Environment

Writing the Field Recording

Lorna Sage

Jack Zipes

Marina Warner

Robert Cooper

Elise Bruhl

Kathleen E. B. Manley

Jacques Barchilon

A diverse collection of essays, artwork, interviews, and fiction on Angela Carter.

Stephen Benson

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