Studies in Literature in English, Vol. 17 (Hardbound - 2012)

This is the seventeenth volume in the series, Studies in Literature in English. The twenty-one essays in this volume cover a broad spectrum including British canonical authors from different eras like Milton, Keats, Arnold and Auden, as well as ‘new wave’ science fiction writers like J.G. Ballard, while a look at a non-British European master, Hermann Hesse, adds a new strand to the collection. Furthermore, there are essays addressing a powerful mainstream American writer like Hemingway, as also the eminent black American author Toni Morrison.

Apart from this, we have six essays on Indian authors, or authors of Indian origin, one comprehensive overview of the recent trends and concepts in the domain of comparative literature, and four theory-oriented discourses relating to I.A. Richards, modernism, deconstruction/ intertextuality and globalization respectively.

The studies are as insightful and interesting as they are topical. It is fascinating to see how effectively the scholars, in their in-depth critical studies of the authors and texts from the varied range across lands, ages and cultures use modern ideas and perceptions. The volume shall be useful to the students and teachers of English literature, as well as researchers in this field.

A full-time Professor since 1982, and now retired, Dr Mohit K. Ray (1940-) is one of the seniormost Professors in the country. He has five books and a large number of research papers published in scholarly journals in India and abroad, which reflect his wide range of literary works 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. He has studied several languages including Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, French, and German.

Professor Ray has edited several anthologies of critical studies, and is editor of The Atlantic Critical Review, an international quarterly with global circulation. He is also at present working as the Chief Editor of Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd. He is associated with many international bodies including Association Internationale de Litérature Comparée, Paris (International Association of Comparative Literature), Association Internationale des Critiques Littéraires, Paris (International Association of Literary Critics) and SANART Association of Aesthetics and Visual Culture. His CV is available in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in the Commonwealth, International Book of Honour, etc.

Professor Ray was awarded the title International Man of the year 2003 by International Biographical Centre, Cambridge. He received the C.V. Kapoor Education Foundation Distinguished Teacher Award in 2000. He has also done a UGC-sponsored Major Research Project on “A Comparative Study of the Indian Poetics and the Western Poetics”.