Available for the first time in paperback, the Journals of Andr Gide are remarkable literary works in their own right--they are unfailingly honest, endlessly fascinating, and a feast for the mind, enhanced by a new introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Richard Howard.

"Beginning with a single entry for the year 1889, when he was twenty, and continuing intermittently but indefatigably through his life, theJournals of Andr Gideconstitute an enlightening, moving, and endlessly fascinating chronicle of creative energy and conviction. Astutely and thoroughly annotated by Justin O'Brien in consultation with Gide himself, this translation is the definitive edition of Gide's complete journals.The complete journals, representing sixty years of a varied life, testify to a disciplined intelligence in a constantly maturing thought. These pages contain aesthetic appreciations, philosophic reflections, sustained literary criticism, notes for the composition of his works, details of his personal life and spiritual conflicts, accounts of his extensive travels, and comments on the political and social events of the day, from the Dreyfus case to the German occupation. Gide records his progress as a writer and a reader as well as his contacts and conversations with the bright lights of contemporary Europe, from Paul Valry, Paul Claudel, Lon Blum, and Auguste Rodin to Marcel Proust, Stephen Mallarm, Oscar Wilde, and Nadia Boulanger. Devoid of affectation, alternately overtaken by depression and animated by a sense of urgency and hunger for literature and beauty, Gide read voraciously, corresponded voluminously, and thought profoundly, always questioning and doubting in search of the unadulterated truth. ""The only drama that really interests me and that I should always be willing to depict anew,"" he wrote, ""is the debate of the individual with whatever keeps him from being authentic, with whatever is opposed to his integrity, to his integration. Most often the obstacle is within him. And all the rest is merely accidental."""

Presents the author's journals that testify a disciplined intelligence in a constantly maturing thought. This book offers details of his personal life and spiritual conflicts, accounts of his travels, and comments on the political and social events of the day, from the Dreyfus case to the German occupation.

"Beginning with a single entry For The year 1889, when he was twenty, and continuing intermittently but indefatigably through his life, theJournals of Andr Gideconstitute an enlightening, moving, and endlessly fascinating chronicle of creative energy and conviction. Astutely and thoroughly annotated by Justin O'Brien in consultation with Gide himself, this translation is the definitive edition of Gide's complete journals.The complete journals, representing sixty years of a varied life, testify to a disciplined intelligence in a constantly maturing thought. These pages contain aesthetic appreciations, philosophic reflections, sustained literary criticism, notes For The composition of his works, details of his personal life and spiritual conflicts, accounts of his extensive travels, and comments on the political and social events of the day, from the Dreyfus case To The German occupation. Gide records his progress as a writer and a reader as well as his contacts and conversations with the bright lights of contemporary Europe, from Paul Valry, Paul Claudel, Lon Blum, and Auguste Rodin to Marcel Proust, Stephen Mallarm, Oscar Wilde, and Nadia Boulanger. Devoid of affectation, alternately overtaken by depression and animated by a sense of urgency and hunger for literature and beauty, Gide read voraciously, corresponded voluminously, and thought profoundly, always questioning and doubting in search of the unadulterated truth. ""The only drama that really interests me and that I should always be willing to depict anew,"" he wrote, ""is the debate of the individual with whatever keeps him from being authentic, with whatever is opposed to his integrity, To his integration. Most often the obstacle is within him. And all the rest is merely accidental.""Volume 4 reveals a creative mind that remains vigorous and unique as Gide enters his seventies. He records the fall of France And The German occupation during World War II, The landing of the Americans And The fall of Tunis, As well as a memorable meeting with General de Gaulle. His literary commentary touches on such writers as Virgil, Goethe, Racine, Dashiell Hammett, and John Steinbeck."

Understanding Barthes, Understanding Modernism is a general assessment of the modern literary and philosophical contributions of Roland Barthes. The first part of the volume focuses on work published prior to Barthes's death in 1980 covering the major periods of his development from Writing Degree Zero (1953) to Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980). The second part focuses both on the posthumously published material and the legacies of his work after his death in 1980. This later work has attracted attention, for example, in conjunction with notions of the neutral, gay writing, and critiques of everyday life. The third part is devoted to some of the critical vocabulary of Barthes in both the work he published during his lifetime, and that which was published posthumously.

Essays on twentieth-century French playwrights who were largely influenced by non-French traditions, during the greatest age of French theater since the mid 1700s. French drama of the twentieth-century was cosmopolitan, experimental and eclectic and attempted to appeal to a wider audience than in the past. Dramatists came not only from Paris but from the provinces and the French states of the Caribbean as well as from Francophone countries such as Belgium.