The essays in this collection are concerned with the philosophical problems that arise in connection with the understanding and evaluation of literature - such problems as the relationship between the work and the author (authorial intention), between the work and the world (reference and truth), the definition of a literary work, and the nature of literary theory itself. Professor Olsen attacks many of the orthodoxies of modern literary theory, in particular the enterprise to build a comprehensive systematic literary theory. His own work is informed by a consistent perspective: the assumption that literature is a social institution governed by conventions, and that answers to problems of interpretation and appreciation can be found only through an analysis of these conventions. This is an important book for scholars and students of literary theory and philosophy, especially for those who see an ever-increasing cross-fertilization between the two disciplines.

“Suspenseful . . . almost impossible to put down.”—Sacramento Union In the city of the Red Sox and the Red Line someone is leaving roses—red ones, of course—on the bodies of women he kills. For a psychologist named Susan Silverman and a P.I. named Spenser, the case is personal. But Spenser knows it's the wrong man. Because the right one has come calling on Susan—with a red rose in hand. “A novel worth reading with an ending that is worth waiting for.”—South Bend Tribune

The shift in attitudes and concerns that took place in the Taisho period (1912-1926) was signaled by the emergence of a new and authentically contemporary Japanese sense of self. For many, Sato Haruo's novella Gloom in the Country marked that shift. Originally entitled The Sick Rose, this story has long been regarded as an icon of the period and is the masterpiece that made Sato instantly famous when it burst on the literary scene in 1918. Introduction by Thomas J. Rimer

Back in print for the first time in decades, Auden’s National Book Award–winning poetry collection, in a critical edition that introduces it to a new generation of readers The Shield of Achilles, which won the National Book Award in 1956, may well be W. H. Auden’s most important, intricately designed, and unified book of poetry. In addition to its famous title poem, which reimagines Achilles’s shield for the modern age, when war and heroism have changed beyond recognition, the book also includes two sequences—“Bucolics” and “Horae Canonicae”—that Auden believed to be among his most significant work. Featuring an authoritative text and an introduction and notes by Alan Jacobs, this volume brings Auden’s collection back into print for the first time in decades and offers the only critical edition of the work. As Jacobs writes in the introduction, Auden’s collection “is the boldest and most intellectually assured work of his career, an achievement that has not been sufficiently acknowledged.” Describing the book’s formal qualities and careful structure, Jacobs shows why The Shield of Achilles should be seen as one of Auden’s most central poetic statements—a richly imaginative, beautifully envisioned account of what it means to live, as human beings do, simultaneously in nature and in history.

Six accomplished poetsGuillermo Castro, Amy Lemmon, Katrinka Moore, Joan Lauri Poole, Elizabeth Poreba, and Sarah Sterndemonstrate the power of a writing community.