An argument for ordinary language philosophy's ability to transform the prevailing understanding of language, theory and reading in literary studies today.This radically original book argues for the power of ordinary language philosophy—a tradition inaugurated by Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and extended by Stanley Cavell—to transform literary studies. In engaging and lucid prose, Toril Moi demonstrates this philosophy's unique ability to lay bare the conne...

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is the founder of modern theater, and his plays are performed all over the world. Yet in spite of his unquestioned status as a classic of the stage, Ibsen is often dismissed as a boring old realist, whose plays are of interest only because they remain the gateway to modern theater. In Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, Toril Moi makes a powerful case not just for Ibsen's modernity, but also for his modernism. Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Moderni...

Three renowned critics discuss character in literary studies offering "a new paradigm . . . in which we take seriously the demands characters make upon us" ( Los Angeles Review of Books ).Over the last few decades, character-based criticism has been seen as either naive or obsolete. But now questions of character are attracting renewed interest. Making the case for a broad-based revision of our understanding of character, ...

Ibsen's greatest late plays in superb modern translations, part of the new Penguin Ibsen series.This volume includes The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken - Ibsen's last four plays, written in his old age in Oslo. In The Master Builder, a married, middle-aged architect becomes bewitched by a strange young woman who claims to have known him for years. A sudden death in Little E...

Marguerite Gautier is the most beautiful, brazen—and expensive—courtesan in all of Paris. Despite being ill with consumption, she lives a glittering, moneyed life of nonstop parties and aristocratic balls and savors every day as if it were her last.Into her life comes Armand Duval. Young, handsome, and recklessly headstrong, he is hopelessly in love with Marguerite, but not nearly rich enough. Yet Armand is Marguerite’s first true love, and against her better judgment, she throws a...