A shadow, in its most literal sense, is the projection of a silhouette against a surface and the obstruction of direct light from hitting that surface. For writers and artists, the shadows cast by their precursors can be either a welcome influence, one consciously evoked in textual production via homage or bricolage, or can manifest as an intrusive, haunting, prohibitive presence, one which threatens to engulf the successor. Many writers and artists are affected by an anxious and ambiguous relationship with their precursors, while others are energised by this relationship. The role that intertextuality plays in creative production invites interrogation, and this publication explores a range of conscious and unconscious influences informing relations between texts and contexts, between predecessors and successors. The chapters revolve around intertextual influence, ranging from conscious imitation and intentional allusion to Julia Kristeva’s idea of intertextuality. Do all texts contain references to and even quotations from other texts? Do such references help shape how we read? This multidisciplinary work includes chapters on the long shadows cast by Shakespeare, Dante, Scott, Virgil and Ovid, the shadows of colonial precursors on postcolonial successors, the shadows cast over Kipling and Murdoch, and chapters on other writers, dramatists and filmmakers and their relationships with precursor figures. With its focus on intertextual relationships, this book contributes to the thriving fields of adaptation studies and studies of intertextuality.

As both a late Romantic and a modern, W.B. Yeats has proved to be perhaps the most influential poet of the early twentieth-century. In this original study Steven Matthews traces, through close readings of significant poems, the flow of Yeatsian influence across time and cultural space. By engaging with the formalist criticism of Harold Bloom and Paul de Man in their dialogues with Jacques Derrida, he also considers Yeats's significance as the founding presence within the major poetry criticism of the century.

From the Upper West Side to Miami's pastel resorts, "Shadows on the Hudson" traces the intertwined destiny of survivors in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Critical study of Cuban novelist and Proust's influence on selected works.

Bringing together leading international scholars, John Banville and His Precursors explores Booker and Franz Kafka prize-winning Irish author John Banville's most significant intellectual influences. The book explores how Banville's novels engage deeply with a wide range of sources, from literary figures such as Samuel Beckett, Heinrich von Kleist, Wallace Stevens, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Henry James, to thinkers such as Freud, Heidegger, and Blanchot. Reading the full range of Banville's writings - from his Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea to his latest book, Mrs Osmond – John Banville and His Precursors reveals the richness of the author's work. In this way, the book also raises questions about the contemporary moment's relationship to a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions - Romanticism, Modernism, existentialism – and how the significance of these can be appreciated in new and often surprising ways.