Frank Kermode is one of our most distinguished critics of English literature. Here, he contributes a new epilogue to his collection of classic lectures on the relationship of fiction to age-old concepts of apocalyptic chaos and crisis. Prompted by the approach of the millennium, he revisits the book which brings his highly concentrated insights to bear on some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of writers from Plato to William Burrows, Kermode shows how they have persistently imposed their "fictions" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit. Kermode then discusses literature at a time when new fictive explanations, as used by Spenser and Shakespeare, were being devised to fit a world of uncertain beginning and end. He goes on to deal perceptively with modern literature with "traditionalists" such as Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce, as well as contemporary "schismatics," the French "new novelists," and such seminal figures as Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett. Whether weighing the difference between modern and earlier modes of apocalyptic thought, considering the degeneration of fiction into myth, or commenting on the vogue of the Absurd, Kermode is distinctly lucid, persuasive, witty, and prodigal of ideas.

Autorentext

Frank Kermode was formerly King Edward VII Professor of English Literature, Cambridge University.

Klappentext

A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fiction to a more general theory of fiction, using fictions of apocalypse as a model. This pioneering exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis offers many new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of a wide range of writers from Pato to William Burroughs, Kermode demonstrates how writers have persistentlyimposed their 'fictions' upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit.

Zusammenfassung
Frank Kermode contributes a new epilogue to his collection of lectures on the relationship of fiction to age-old concepts of apocalyptic chaos and crisis.

Inhalt

• 1: The End
• 2: Fictions
• 3: World without end or beginning
• 4: The modern apocalypse
• 5: Literary fiction and reality
• 6: Solitary confinement
• Epilogue: The Sense of an Ending, 1999
• Notes