Bowie Now I Have the Knowledge
Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I : Dreams of Knowledge ; II: Song Man - édition d'A. Finch
- Legenda
- EAN: 9781907975486
- Date de publication : 0 novembre 2013
Référence bibliographique : Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I : Dreams of Knowledge ; II: Song Man - édition d'A. Finch, Legenda, 2013. EAN13 : 9781907975486 (85 £ les deux volumes)
Malcolm Bowie (1943-2007) was described by A.S. Byatt as 'one of our best living critics. He writes beautifully, subtly and lucidly about very difficult subjects.' Bowie was Marshal Foch Professor of French at Oxford (1992-2002) and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge (2002-2006). He received numerous honours, was invited to speak all over the world, and in 2001 won the international Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism for his Proust Among the Stars. His books were translated not only into other European languages but also, for example, into Arabic and Korean. His essays and reviews, however, have hitherto been far less easily located, and these volumes bring together a wealth of material which will be new to almost all of his readers. Ranging across literature, art, music, and psychoanalysis, they offer fresh insights into topics tackled in Bowie's books, and discuss many others.
Volume I, Dreams of Knowledge, presents essays on memory, Proust, modern poetry (Mallarmé, Valéry, Eluard), and psychoanalysis. Bowie explores the uncertainties of knowledge, the relationship between fantasy and experience, and the ways great writers, artists and thinkers represent these.
Volume II, Song Man, presents shorter pieces, including Bowie's essays on song and music criticism. They explore important cultural issues such as anti-Semitism, images of gender, and ideas of the nation. Among composers and writers figuring in this volume are Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Judith Butler, Borges, Leroy Ladurie and Edward Said; reviews cover films, plays, and operas as well as books.
The Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie are edited by Alison Finch, Senior Research Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.
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"This month the Legenda series publishes two volumes of selected essays by Malcolm Bowie, who was one of the UK's best-loved and most admired literary critics. Bowie published numerous beautifully written books, articles and reviews for academic audiences and the wider public and was internationally acclaimed. He won the US Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism and was translated into European languages and beyond (Arabic, Korean and others). At the height of his powers, Bowie was shockingly struck down by cancer of the bone-marrow and died in 2007 at the age of 63.
From humble origins, Bowie was one of the millions who benefited from the 1944 Education Act, in his case spectacularly so. He was able to go to grammar school and university, and scored early and brilliant professional successes, such as his election at the age of 32 to the Chair of French at Queen Mary, University of London. His career culminated with the Oxford Marshal Foch Chair of French and then the Mastership of Christ's College, Cambridge. But, as much as public honours, it was Bowie's passion for inquiry and for the arts, and his personality, that made him a charismatic figure. He wrote not only on literature but also on music, painting, philosophy, psychoanalysis and cultural issues. It is particularly appropriate that Legenda should publish the Selected Essays, since Bowie was the imprint's key founder in 1995, and guided its development as chair of the Editorial Board.
Bowie published almost everything he wrote. Radio 3 talks appeared in The Listener, lectures became articles or the material of reviews. His articles and reviews, however, had remained scattered. Bowie's widow Alison Finch, herself a distinguished scholar of French literature, has now published them in a collection that reveals Bowie the delightful man as well as Bowie the unique intellectual. Like his books, the essays display his virtuoso writing and his irreverent yet subtle humour. Accompanying the collection is a short biography of Bowie by his Oxford successor Michael Sheringham, an appreciation by the renowned critic Gillian Beer, and an introduction by Finch." communiqué de presse : Legenda
Bowie Now I Have the Knowledge
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