Even as the decline of the reading of literature, as argued by the National Endowment for the Arts, proceeds in our culture, the author, gives us a meditation on the usefulness and uselessness of literature in the digital age. What is literature, anyway? How has it been understo…
"Learning How to Feel explores the ways in which children and adolescents learn not just how to express emotions that are thought to be pre-existing, but actually how to feel. The volume assumes that the embryonic ability to feel unfolds through a complex dialogue with the socia…
How do readers experience literary narrative? Drawing on narrative theory, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind, this book offers a principled account of the dynamics underlying readers' responses to narrative. Through its interdisciplinary approach, this study combines…
Fama, or fame, is a central concern of late medieval literature: where fame came from, who deserved it, whether it was desirable and how it was acquired and kept. An interest in fame was not new but was renewed and rethought within the vernacular revolutions of the later Middle …
"I sing of arms and of a man: his fate had made him fugitive: he was the first to journey from the coasts of Troy as far as Italy and the Lavinian shores". The resonant opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid rank among the most famous and consistently recited verses to have been passe…
"A towering figure in world literature, Dante wrote his great epic poem Commedia in the early fourteenth century. The work gained universal acclaim and came to be known as La Divina Commedia, or The Divine Comedy. Giuseppe Mazzotta brings Dante and his masterpiece to life in thi…
Indirect Translations and Non-Translation: The (Fateful) Adventures of Czech Literature in 20th-century Portugal, a pioneering study of the destiny of Czech and Slovak literature in 20th-century Portugal, is a gripping read for anyone seeking to look into intercultural exchanges…
