Briefer Mention

BRIEFER MENTION Furness, Raymond. Wagner and Literature. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. $25.00 Wagner's influence on Western culture is well established, and Furness proposes to trace his influence on French Symbolists, writers of decadence, and Edwardian novelists. He devotes some attention to Beardsley, Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, Moore, and Shaw. For ELT readers, Chapters 1 and 2 may prove of interest: "Symbolism and Modernism," "Wagner and Decadence." Jackson, Dennis, ed. Irish Renaissance Annual III. Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated Univ. Presses, 1982. $25.50 This collection of nine essays on modern Irish writers includes three of interest to ELT readers: "Yeats's Apocalyptic Horsemen," by Edward Hirsh; "Maud Gonne MacBride: Violent Pacifist," by Conrad A. Balliet; "The Presence of Parnell in Three Plays by Lady Gregory," by Benilde Montgomery. Shattock, Joanne, and Michael Wolff, eds. The Victorian Periodical Press: Samplings and Soundings. Leicester: Leicester Univ. Press; Toronto and Buffalo: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1982. $65.00 This collection of fourteen original essays on the Victorian periodical concentrates on the 1830-1870 period, but includes one essay by Brian Harrison which focuses on both the Victorian and Edwardian periods: "Press and Pressure Group in Modern Britain." Simpson, David. Fetishism & Imagination: Dickens, Melville, Conrad. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982. $14.50 This work explores the ways in which fetishism—an excessive concentration on one subject or figure—is used to describe the alienation of the human imagination . The book emphasizes an interaction among literature, history, and the history of ideas. ELT readers might find Chapter 4 provocative, "Joseph Conrad: Digging for Silver, Dreaming of Trade." Warner, Alan. A Guide to Anglo-Irish Literature. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981. $25.00 This is not a dictionary or encyclopedia, but, as Warner puts it, "a personal and selective guide to Anglo-Irish literature." His purpose is to introduce the field, indicate some problems involved in studying it, and "stimulate interest in a number of writers who are not yet widely read, even in Ireland." The book is divided into five parts. Part One is an introduction comprising three chapters: "The Scope of Anglo-Irish Literature," "The Growth of Anglo-Irish Literature," "A Sense of Ireland." Part Two—with a duel title, "Views from the Big House," "Views from the Smaller Houses"— discusses George Moore and Frank O'Connor among others. Part Three, entitled "A Group of Dubliners," covers Joyce, James Stephens, Sean 0'Casey, Austin Clarke, and Flann O'Brien. Part Four is entitled "Yeats and Synge," and Part Five focuses on "Some Living Writers." 73 ...