Martin Luther College

William Logan has been called both the "preeminent poet-critic of his generation" and the "most hated man in American poetry." For more than a quarter century, in the keen-witted and bare-knuckled reviews that have graced the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement (London), and other journals, William Logan has delivered razor-sharp assessments of poets present and past. Logan, whom James Wolcott of Vanity Fair has praised as being...

One of the most influential writers of this century, Kafka's work, most notably The Metamorphosis, The Castle, and The Trial, did not gain widespread recognition until after his death.

James Joyce is one of the most revered and influential writers of the 20th century. This Irishman transformed novelistic conventions through experimentation in language and narrative structure.

Considered one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century, Ernest Hemingway composed many classic works, including The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms, earning the Nobel Prize in Lite

This book attempts a close reading of the fiction of Flannery O'Connor, story by story, with one eye on her use of the Bible, and her view of the Bible in relation to her own work. After introductory chapters on O'Connor's markings in her own Roman Catholic Bible, her book reviews in diocesan newspapers, and her impatience with her wayward readers, Michaels looks first at her two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, and then at seventeen...

A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars--the most famous and romantic of all Sherlockian groups. Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes's creator, as well as a rare insider's account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars. Because...

Acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as crucial to understanding "The Waste Land," Jessie Weston's book has continued to attract readers interested in ancient religion, myth, and especially Arthurian legend. Weston examines the saga of the Grail, which, in many versions, begins when the wounded king of a famished land sees a procession of objects including a bleeding lance and a bejewelled cup. She maintains that all versions defy uniform applications of Celtic...

Bloom suggests that poetry became subjective after Wordsworth. This volume presents critical views on "The Prelude," "Tintern Abby," "Lyrical Ballads," and "The Ruined Cottage."

Written just after the Restoration period in England, Milton's blank verse epic, Paradise Lost, dramatized man's "fortunate fall" from grace and earned him a permanent place in the canon.