Recommendations based on "Brecht Collected Plays: 5 Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children"

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century.

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the essay as a literary form. This Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Essays is translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech. In 1572 Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading and reflection. There he wrote his constantly expanding 'assays', inspired by the ideas he found in books contained in his library and from his own experience. He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience. But, above all, Montaigne studied himself as a way of drawing out his own inner nature and that of men and women in general. The Essays are among the most idiosyncratic and personal works in all literature and provide an engaging insight into a wise Renaissance mind, continuing to give pleasure and enlightenment to modern readers. With its extensive introduction and notes, M.A. Screech's edition of Montaigne is widely regarded as the most distinguished of recent times. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1586) studied law and spent a number of years working as a counsellor before devoting his life to reading, writing and reflection. If you enjoyed The Complete Essays, you might like Francois Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Screech's fine version ... must surely serve as the definitive English Montaigne' A.C. Grayling, Financial Times 'A superb edition' Nicholas Wollaston, Observer

This work is a selection from Susan Sontag's early writings about the arts and contemporary culture. First published in 1966, the book quickly became a modern classic and has had enormous influence here and abroad. As well as the title essay, 'On Style' and the famous 'Notes on Camp', the book includes discussion of such figures as Satre, Simone Weil, Genet, Brecht, Beckett, Artaud, and Goddard.

A beloved multidisciplinary treatise comes to Penguin ClassicsSince its initial publication in 1958, The Poetics of Space has been a muse to philosophers, architects, writers, psychologists, critics, and readers alike. The rare work of irresistibly inviting philosophy, Bachelard’s seminal work brims with quiet revelations and stirring, mysterious imagery. This lyrical journey takes as its premise the emergence of the poetic image and finds an ideal metaphor in the intimate spaces of our homes. Guiding us through a stream of meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself, Bachelard examines the domestic places that shape and hold our dreams and memories. Houses and rooms; cellars and attics; drawers, chests, and wardrobes; nests and shells; nooks and corners: No space is too vast or too small to be filled by our thoughts and our reveries. In Bachelard’s enchanting spaces, “We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.”This new edition features a foreword by Mark Z. Danielewski, whose bestselling novel House of Leaves drew inspiration from Bachelard’s writings, and an introduction by internationally renowned philosopher Richard Kearney who explains the book’s enduring importance and its role within Bachelard’s remarkable career.For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This compilation assembles previously published and unpublished essays by Schnittke and supplements them with an interview with cellist and scholar Alexander Ivashkin. The book is illustrated with musical examples, many of them in Schnittke's own hand. In A Schnittke Reader, the composer speaks of his life, his works, other composers, performers, and a broad range of topics in 20th-century music. The volume is rounded out with reflections by some of Schnittke's contemporaries.

Although known primarily as the irreverent but dazzlingly witty playwright who penned The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde was also an able and farsighted critic. He was an early advocate of criticism as an independent branch of literature and stressed its vital role in the creative process. Scholars continue to debate many of Wilde's critical positions.Included in Richard Ellmann's impressive collection of Wilde's criticism, The Artist as Critic, is a wide selection of Wilde's book reviews as well as such famous longer works as "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.," "The Soul Man under Socialism," and the four essays which make up Intentions. The Artist as Critic will satisfy any Wilde fan's yearning for an essential reading of his critical work."Wilde . . . emerges now as not only brilliant but also revolutionary, one of the great thinkers of dangerous thoughts."—Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review"The best of Wilde's nonfictional prose can be found in The Artist as Critic."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

Although trained as a philosopher, Simone Weil (1909–43) contributed to a wide range of subjects, resulting in a rich field of interdisciplinary Weil studies. Yet those coming to her work from such disciplines as sociology, history, political science, religious studies, French studies, and women’s studies are often ignorant of or baffled by her philosophical investigations. In Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings, Eric O. Springsted presents a unique collection of Weil’s writings, one concentrating on her explicitly philosophical thinking. The essays are drawn chiefly from the time Weil spent in Marseille in 1940-42, as well as one written from London; most have been out of print for some time; three appear for the first time; all are newly translated. Beyond making important texts available, this selection provides the context for understanding Weil's thought as a whole. This volume is important not only for those with a general interest in Weil; it also specifically presents Weil as a philosopher, chiefly one interested in questions of the nature of value, moral thought, and the relation of faith and reason. What also appears through this judicious selection is an important confirmation that on many issues respecting the nature of philosophy, Weil, Wittgenstein, and Kierkegaard shared a great deal.

A visual and written record of the work of pioneer painter-performance artist Carolee Scheemann.Carolee Schneemann is one of the pioneers of performance, installation, and video art. Although other visual artists, such as Salvador Dali and Yves Klein, had used live self-portraiture and performance as a vehicle for public provocation, Schneemann was among the first to use her body to animate the relationship between the world of lived experience and the imagination, as well as issues of the erotic, the sacred, and the taboo. In the 1960s, her work prefigured the feminist movement's sexual self-assertion for women, and by the mid-1970s, her work anticipated the field of women's studies and its critique of patriarchal institutions. In the 1980s, she was one of the first to experiment with virtual environments.Imaging Her Erotics integrates images from Schneemann's works in painting, collage, drawing, and video sculptures with written material drawn from the artist's journals, dream diaries, essays, and lectures. Encompassing four decades of her work, it demonstrates her profound influence on artists in all media. An opening essay by Kristine Stiles presents Schneemann's major themes and places her work in a historical context. Among other topics, the book covers Schneemann's response to the widespread use by artists of the ideas of theoreticians such as Georges Bataille, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan; her relationship to male artists such as Joseph Cornell, Robert Morris, and Claes Oldenburg; and reminiscences about her friends Ana Mendieta, Charlotte Moorman, and Hannah Wilke. The book also contains essays by Jay Murphy and David Levi-Strauss and interviews with the artist by Kate Haug, Linda Montano, and Aviva Rahmani.

Blending intellectual speculation with anecdote and personal reflection, the Renaissance thinker and writer Michel de Montaigne pioneered the modern essay form. This edition contains all of his idiosyncratic and timeless writings on subjects as varied as the virtues of solitude, the power of the imagination, the pleasures of reading, the importance of sleep and why we sometimes laugh and cry at the same things. Montaigne's complete Essays, translated by M. A. Screech, are presented here as a beautifully produced, desirable collector's edition. This oversize volume is printed in two-colour, bound in high-quality rich blue cloth and embellished with gold foil stamped into the design. Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, was born in 1533. He was brought up to speak Latin as his mother tongue and always retained a Latin turn of mind; though he knew Greek, he preferred to use translations. In 1569 he published his French version of the Natural Theology of Raymond Sebond; his Apology is only partly a defence of Sebond and sets sceptical limits to human reasoning about God, man and nature. He retired in 1571 to his lands at Montaigne, devoting himself to reading and reflection and composing his Essays (first version 1580). He loathed the fanaticism and cruelties of the religious wars of the period, but sided with Catholic orthodoxy and legitimate monarchy. He died at Montaigne in 1592 while preparing the final, and richest, edition of his Essays. M. A. Screech is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is recognised as a world authority on the Renaissance, especially for his studies on Rabelais, Erasmus and Montaigne. His translation of Montaigne was immediately welcomed for its discrete learning and elegance. In recognition of his achievements the French Republic made him a Chevalier dans l'Ordre national du Merite and then a Chevalier dans la Legion d' Honneur.

This book is a magisterial account of the life and times of Marcel Proust, one of the greatest literary voices of the twentieth century. Based on a host of recently available letters, memoirs, and manuscripts, it sheds new light on Proust's character, his development as an artist, and his masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (long known in English as Remembrance of Things Past). The biography also sets Proust's life in the decadent artistic and social context of the French fin de sihcle and the years leading up to World War I. The glittering Parisian world of which Proust was a part was also home to such luminaries as Anatole France, Jean Cocteau, and Andri Gide. William Carter brings this vibrant social world to life while he explores the inner world of Proust's intellectual and artistic development, as well as his most intimate personal experience. Carter examines Proust's passionate attachment to his mother, his deep love for the scenes of his youth, his flirtation with Parisian high society, his complicated sexual desires, and his irrevocable commitment to literary truth and shows how all these played out in the making of his great novel. In the book's abundance of detail, its we