The Edinburgh Companion to Muriel Spark

Michael Gardiner; Willy Maley

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2010

The Edinburgh Companion to Muriel Spark

Michael Gardiner and Willy Maley

In the series Edinburgh Companions to Scottish Literature

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748637706

Overview
Contents

About this book

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 Bröntes, 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

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Series Editors’ Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Brief Biography of Muriel Spark Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Michael Gardiner and Willy Maley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER ONE Muriel Spark and the Problems of Biography David Goldie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
CHAPTER TWO Poetic Perception in the Fiction of Muriel Spark Vassiliki Kolocotroni Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
CHAPTER THREE Body and State in Spark’s Early Fiction Michael Gardiner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
CHAPTER FOUR The Stranger Spark Marilyn Reizbaum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
CHAPTER FIVE Muriel Spark and the Politics of the Contemporary Adam Piette Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
CHAPTER SIX Spark, Modernism and Postmodernism Matthew Wickman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
CHAPTER SEVEN Muriel Spark as Catholic Novelist Gerard Carruthers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
CHAPTER EIGHT Muriel Spark’s Break with Romanticism Paddy Lyons Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
CHAPTER NINE The Postwar Contexts of Spark’s Writing Randall Stevenson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
CHAPTER TEN Muriel Spark’s Crimes of Wit Drew Milne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
Endnotes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
Further Reading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 160
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 9780748637706