Literature's intellectual and spiritual independence and great public appeal afford it great potential as a moving force in today's increasingly secular, unphilosophical, and nonliterary world, which nonetheless longs for harmony, unity of purpose, and spiritual oneness. Although political oppression and literary commercialism threaten literature…

The Theatre of the Grotesque, a dramatic movement in Italy from 1916 until 1930, grew directly out of Pirandello's concept of "umorismo," the painful laugh accompanying the tragic sense of bewilderment at the incongruities and cruelties of life. Growing first of all from a reaction against positivism and its theatrical counterpart,…

Four twentieth century playwrights--Pirandello, Giraudoux, O'Neill, and Albee--differed in their solutions to the human dilemma and in their philosophic apprehensions of human dilemma, but all four showed interest in the basic concerns of all humanity: body and soul, appearance and reality, the real and the ideal. Albee, the only one of the four…

An examination of Albert Camus' definition of the actor in "The Myth on Sisyphus" helps to illuminate the character and role of The Player in Tom Stoppard's play and, hence, to bring light to an understanding of the philosophy of the play itself. The actor, for Camus, reveals our mortality in the face of the absurdity of our mortality,…

Presents the concept of bibliotherapy and discusses the value of books--particularly modern fiction and poetry--for helping individuals to cope with death and other personal crises. Several specific titles are recommended for adults. (MES)

Noting that the first adult fiction detective novel by an African-American was published in 1932, this bibliography lists and discusses 72 novels either written by African-Americans or featuring African-American detectives. The bibliography is divided into four sections: the first section discusses detective fiction written by African-American…

Anne Tyler's rare talent for combining comedy and pathos enables her to create characters whose pain is felt by the reader or student even as that same reader is led into laughter by the ludicrous situations in which Tyler places these characters. In her last three novels, "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,""The Accidental…

Because the term feminism linguistically narrows the essence of woman's existence when it is used consistently to describe female writing that deals with individual freedom and considered choices, it is essential to distinguish between feminism and existentialism. While feminism is primarily concerned with women in the context of a dominant male…

The existential implications in Bontemps'"Black Thunder," Richard Wright's "Native Son," and Ellison's "Invisible Man" are explored in this paper. Each of these novels exhibits a concern about man structuring his existence through the choices he makes in an absurd world. Gabriel, the protagonist of "Black…

Born in 1900, Jacques Prevert was destined to become one of the most popular poets of the twentieth century. After spending his young adulthood with artists linked with the surrealist movement, Prevert became a satirist, social critic, songwriter, writer of children's stories and television programs, and poet. Prevert's interests in the visual…

The lesbian detective of current fiction may be single, but she is not alone; she has a lover. In varying degrees of realism and fantasy, sexuality is part of her character. While some writers in the field argue that romances involving the protagonists of feminist detective fiction distract from the plot, these critics themselves sometimes break…

Subjects such as death, divorce, and homosexuality appeared in few children's books two decades ago, but today children may be given a steady diet of books on different issues every time in their lives that something happens, such as the first day of school, the birth of a new sibling, or the death of a pet. Heather Quarles' award-winning novel "A…

Some critics of Robertson Davies' three novels that comprise the Salterton trilogy, "Tempest-Tost" (1951), "Leaven of Malice" (1954), and "A Mixture of Frailties" (1958) complain of their creaky novelistic machinery, suggesting that they merely show an essayist, or journalist, becoming a novelist. These three novels,…

This paper discusses the positive impact of American Indian cultures on three twentieth-century non-Indian authors (Willa Cather, Frank Waters, and Margaret Craven), as portrayed through their Indianized protagonists. First, the influence of American Indian culture on the protagonists of two novels by Willa Cather, "The Professor's…

An upper school English program has been experimenting with ways to reinforce its traditional literary curriculum with contemporary works. Three contemporary novels in particular (Naylor's "The Women of Brewster Place," Walker's "The Color Purple," and Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz") have been found to foster a sense of continuity with the…