Twentieth-Century Literature: Critical Issues and Themes

Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Themes, Variations and Constants....Pages 1-47
Visions of Childhood I: The Child Unhappy on its own Account....Pages 48-67
Visions of Childhood II: The Child Wicked on its own Account....Pages 68-84
Varieties of Realism I: Plays, Intertextuality and Myth....Pages 85-106
Varieties of Realism II: Censorship, the Novel and the City; the Use of Myths in Joyce and Tournier....Pages 107-127
Varieties of Realism III: Naturalism, Tragedy and the Unconscious....Pages 128-143
Moral Certainties and the Problem of Determinism: The Example of the Literature of Cowardice....Pages 144-156
Moral Dilemmas I: Religion, Ethics and some Incidental Truths....Pages 157-169
Moral Dilemmas II: Philosophy, Free Will, and some Visions of the Future....Pages 170-184
Moral Dilemmas III: Ends, Means and Irony; the Examples of Shaw, Dürrenmatt, Steiner and Sartre....Pages 185-201
Politics, Commitment and the Responsibilities of the Scientist....Pages 202-215
Madness, History and Sex....Pages 216-224
Magic Realism, Post-modernism and Toni Morrison....Pages 225-272
Back Matter....Pages 273-301