The present volume of Studies in Literature in English is brought out in response to the growing demand for this series by our erudite readers.
The twenty brilliant essays that constitute this volume offer new insights into old authors. Starting with the Bard of Avon, the good old Shakespeare, perennial and inexhaustible, we make an intellectual excursion into the world of the English canonical authors: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jane Austen, Keats, Emily Bronte, W.B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, George Orwell and William Golding. Then, for a change, we meet the noted American critic, R.S. Crane and conclude our excursion with a visit to the celebrated Canadian critic, Northrop Frye.
It is really fascinating to see how all these old authors are still amenable to new interpretations, and, more importantly, how they stand the test and the taste of modern critics. It is amazing, for example, to see how brilliantly Shakespeare comes off even when examined by the Indian criteria of the poetic relish.
One special attraction of this volume is the classic essay by the great nineteenth century American expert, James Russell Lowell, who guides us through the world of Wordsworth and reveals before us the essential Wordsworth with all his achievements and limitations.
Anybody going through this volume is bound to be impressed as much by the extraordinary richness and variety of subjects as by the critical insights of the authors.
Since the authors discussed in this volume are studied in all the universities, the teachers, scholars, and students of Literature in English will find this book extremely useful. The common readers who are interested in Literature in English will also experience this book as a delightful and rewarding intellectual excursion.
Mohit K. Ray, a full Professor since 1982, is one of the senior most professors in the country. He has three books and a large number of research papers published in scholarly journals in India and abroad, which reflect his wide range of scholarship including Criticism, Comparative Literature, New Literatures, Canonical Literature, Comparative Poetics and Translation Studies.
Professor Ray has attended and chaired sessions as an invited participant in many international Conferences, Seminars, and Colloquia held in different parts of the globe—England, France, Austria, Finland, Estonia, America, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, etc.
Professor Ray has studied several languages including Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, French and German.
He has edited several anthologies of critical studies, and edits two research journals in addition to The Atlantic Critical Review.
Professor Ray is a distinguished member of many international bodies including Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, Paris, and Association Internationale des Critiques Littéraires Paris.
