Background
KERMODE, John Frank was born on November 29, 1919 in Douglas, Isle of Man. Son of John Pritchard Kermode and Doris Kennedy.
(For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and write...)
For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and writer, has steadily established himself as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. Questioning the public's harsh perception of 'the artist', Kermode at the same time gently pokes fun at artists' own, often inflated, self-image. He identifies what has become one of the defining characteristics of the Romantic tradition - the artist in isolation and the emerging power of the imagination. Back in print after an absence of over a decade, The Romantic Image is quintessential Kermode. Enlightenment has seldom been so enjoyable!
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(Frank Kermode is one of our most distinguished critics of...)
Frank Kermode is one of our most distinguished critics of English literature. Here, he contributes a new epilogue to his collection of classic lectures on the relationship of fiction to age-old concepts of apocalyptic chaos and crisis. Prompted by the approach of the millennium, he revisits the book which brings his highly concentrated insights to bear on some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of writers from Plato to William Burrows, Kermode shows how they have persistently imposed their "fictions" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit. Kermode then discusses literature at a time when new fictive explanations, as used by Spenser and Shakespeare, were being devised to fit a world of uncertain beginning and end. He goes on to deal perceptively with modern literature with "traditionalists" such as Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce, as well as contemporary "schismatics," the French "new novelists," and such seminal figures as Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett. Whether weighing the difference between modern and earlier modes of apocalyptic thought, considering the degeneration of fiction into myth, or commenting on the vogue of the Absurd, Kermode is distinctly lucid, persuasive, witty, and prodigal of ideas.
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(A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fic...)
A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fiction to a more general theory of fiction, using fictions of apocalypse as a model. This pioneering exploration of the relationship of fiction to age-old conceptions of chaos and crisis offers many new insights into some of the most unyielding philosophical and aesthetic enigmas. Examining the works of a wide range of writers from Plato to William Burroughs, Kermode demonstrates how writers have persistently imposed their "fictions" upon the face of eternity and how these have reflected the apocalyptic spirit.
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( Frank Kermode has long held a distinctive place among ...)
Frank Kermode has long held a distinctive place among modern critics. He brings to the study of literature a fine and fresh critical intelligence that is always richly suggestive, never modish. He offers here an inquiry--elegant in conception and style--into the art of interpretation. His subject quite simply is meanings; how they are revealed and how they are concealed. Drawing on the venerable tradition of biblical interpretation, Mr. Kermode examines some enigmatic passages and episodes in the gospels. From his reading come ideas about what makes interpretation possible--and often impossible. He considers ways in which narratives acquire opacity, and he asks whether there are methods of distinguishing all possible meaning from a central meaning which gives the story its structure. He raises questions concerning the interpretation of single texts in relation to their context in a writer's work and a tradition; considers the special interpretative problems of historical narration; and tries to relate the activities of the interpreter to interpretation more broadly conceived as a means of living in the world. While discussing the gospels, Mr. Kermode touches upon such literary works as Kafka's parables, Joyce's Ulysses, Henry James's novels, and Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49. By showing the relationships between religious interpretation and literary criticism, he has enhanced both fields.
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( Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, and...)
Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, and author, was an inspired critic. Forms of Attention is based on a series of three lectures he gave on canon formation, or how we choose what art to value. The essay on Botticelli traces the artist’s sudden popularity in the nineteenth century for reasons that have more to do with poetry than painting. In the second essay, Kermode reads Hamlet from a very modern angle, offering a useful (and playful) perspective for a contemporary audience. The final essay is a defense of literary criticism as a process and conversation that, while often conflating knowledge with opinion, keeps us reading great art and working with—and for—literature. “Kermode’s volume has the virtue of a lecturer’s accessible style designed for a listening audience. It is also self-consciously spare of ‘naked criticism.’ There is, nonetheless, an abundance of learned commentary, steady substance, and unveiled critical excellence. Which is to say the volume is a useful and engaging reflection of its learned author.”—London Review of Books
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( Frank Kermode is the preeminent practitioner of the ar...)
Frank Kermode is the preeminent practitioner of the art of criticism in the English-speaking world. As such his task entails the readiness to evaluate in general terms the widest range of texts, both ancient and modern, and also the ability to make public sense of the seemingly arcane debates about theories of literature as they pertain to the ongoing process of evaluation. It has been Kermode's distinction to make a virtue--as all the best critics have done--of the necessarily occasional nature of his profession. That virtue is evident in every page of this set of essays. This is a book in which Kermode asks the reader to share his pleasure in the literature of a set of major writers--Milton, Eliot, Stevens. He vividly evokes Milton after the Restoration of Charles II, with a fine speculative discussion of the interplay between his personal and political circumstances and the preoccupations of his poetry. He sets before us T. S. Eliot living in a condition of permanent exile, Wallace Stevens in his old age dwelling poetically in Connecticut, and author/critic William Empson, whose singular career was marked by both the pleasure of the text and the delight in conceptual issues that characterizes so much of the contemporary taste for theory. Other essays draw our attention to debates on the literary canon and problems of biblical criticism and their implications for the study of narrative in particular and the interpretation of secular literary texts in general. These are professional essays that nevertheless defy the excesses of modern professionalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the polemical Prologue to the book, in which Kermode sorts out the good from the meretricious in contemporary criticism. He argues that some proclaimed theorists "seem largely to have lost interest in literature," while the best, like Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida, have never lost what Kermode prizes most highly, the very appetite or hunger for poetry and literature. Always readable, elegant even on gnarled matters, and courteous in contexts where others are bad-tempered, An Appetite for Poetry is the work of one of the most distinguished minds of our time. In reaffirming the professional responsibilities of criticism now being neglected, it displays a generous hospitality to new ideas.
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(Frank Kermode is one of the pre-eminent practitioners of ...)
Frank Kermode is one of the pre-eminent practitioners of the art of criticism in the English speaking world. It has been his distinction to make a virtue – as all the best critics have done – of the necessarily occasional nature of his profession. That virtue is evident on every page of this collection of essays. In one group of essays he asks the reader to share his pleasure in a number of major writers – Milton, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens. In another, he discusses ideas about problems in biblical criticism and their implications for the study of narrative in particular and the interpretation of secular literary texts in general. In them he gives clear accounts of questions relating to interpretation and the debate about canons. A key essay looks at the career of William Empson, a career lived between literature and criticism, between the pleasure of the text and the delight in conceptual issues which is characteristic of so much of the contemporary taste for theory. It is Empson's career, perhaps, which is the foundation for the polemical prologue to the book, where Kermode challenges those who doubt the possibility (and the necessity) of the cross-over between literature and criticism, and who argue that criticism is mere appreciation, mere connoisseurship, that theory has displaced criticism and has left literature in the dust, that theory is the avant-garde of critical thought. This piece defines the author's position in the debate about literature and value.
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( From a great critic of english literature, a different ...)
From a great critic of english literature, a different kind of text: a luminous account of his own life. Throughout this uniquely personal work, Frank Kermode touches on the deeper, lighter, ineffable issues of autobiography, and he does so with his characteristic grace, precision, and amused wisdom. Tracing his life from his childhood through his six years in the Royal Navy during World War II, from his student days in Liverpool to his battles at Cambridge over the literature curriculum and faculty, he shows us the miraculous connections between life and literature, between the world and the word; more, he transforms and ennobles both.
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(Frank Kermode has a strong claim to be Britain's most dis...)
Frank Kermode has a strong claim to be Britain's most distinguished literary critic. Over the course of a long career, he has written on a enormous variety of English literature, most recently William Shakespeare's plays. This collection should be of keen interest to lovers of that literature, and also to those interested in post-war British intellectual life. For as much as these essays exemplify the tension, the patience and the insight of a great critic, in their defense of proportion and clarity they are also works of ethical importance.
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(Sir Frank Kermode is acknowledged as one of the greatest ...)
Sir Frank Kermode is acknowledged as one of the greatest critics of our time, renowned for the wit humanity and good sense of his writing. Pleasing Myself brings together the very best of his shorter pieces, on topics ranging from Donne and Yeats to modern art and money.
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( Sir Frank Kermode has been writing peerless literary cr...)
Sir Frank Kermode has been writing peerless literary criticism for more than a half-century. Pieces of My Mind includes his own choice of his major essays since 1958, beginning with his extraordinary study of "Poet and Dancer Before Diaghilev" and ending with a marvelous consideration of Shakespeare's Othello and Verdi-Boito's Otello. Important essays on Hawthorne, on Wallace Stevens, on problems in literary theory and analysis, on Auden, on "Secrets and Narrative Sequence," and three previously unpublished essays (including one on "Memory" and one on "Forgetting") fill out this rich and rewarding volume. Pieces of My Mind also contains recent considerations of the work of major modern writers--Don DeLillo, Raymond Carver, Tom Paulin, and others. Of Kermode's last book, Shakespeare's Language, Richard Howard wrote that it was "a triumph of inauguration and the crowning action of his splendid career of criticism. It is, and will doubtless remain, the first book one should read about Shakespeare's plays, and with those plays." Pieces of My Mind has equal authority and power, and it will be equally praised.
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(In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history...)
In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the religious and dynastic events that defined England in the age of the Tudors, Kermode takes the reader on a tour of Shakespeare’s England, vividly portraying London’s society, its early capitalism, its court, its bursting population, and its epidemics, as well as its arts—including, of course, its theater. Then Kermode focuses on Shakespeare himself and his career, all in the context of the time in which he lived. Kermode reads each play against the backdrop of its probable year of composition, providing new historical insights into Shakspeare’s characters, themes, and sources. The result is an important, lasting, and concise companion guide to the works of Shakespeare by one of our most eminent literary scholars. From the Hardcover edition.
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( A major reassessment of the great English novelist Thi...)
A major reassessment of the great English novelist This impressive new book by the celebrated British critic Frank Kermode examines hitherto neglected aspects of the novelist E. M. Forster's life and work. Kermode is interested to see how it was that this apparently shy, reclusive man should have claimed and kept such a central position in the English writing of his time, even though for decades he composed no fiction and he was not close to any of his great contemporaries--Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce. Concerning E. M. Forster has at its core the Clark Lectures that Kermode gave at Cambridge University in 2007 on the subject of Forster, eighty years after Forster himself gave those lectures, which became Aspects of the Novel. Kermode reappraised the influence and meaning of that great work, assessed the significance of Forster's profound musicality (Britten thought him the most musical of all writers), and offered a brilliant interpretation of Forster's greatest work, A Passage to India. But there is more to Concerning E. M. Forster than that. Thinking about Forster vis-àvis other great modern writers, noting his interest in Proust and Gide and his lack of curiosity about American fiction, and observing that Forster was closest to the people who shared not his literary interests or artistic vocation but, rather, his homosexuality, Kermode's book offers a wise, original, and persuasive new portrait not just of Forster but of twentieth-century English letters.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374532389/?tag=2022091-20
( A major reassessment of the great English novelist Thi...)
A major reassessment of the great English novelist This impressive new book by the celebrated British critic Frank Kermode examines hitherto neglected aspects of the novelist E. M. Forster’s life and work. Kermode is interested to see how it was that this apparently shy, reclusive man should have claimed and kept such a central position in the English writing of his time, even though for decades he composed no fiction and he was not close to any of his great contemporaries—Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce. Concerning E. M. Forster has at its core the Clark Lectures that Kermode gave at Cambridge University in 2007 on the subject of Forster, eighty years after Forster himself gave those lectures, which became Aspects of the Novel. Kermode reappraised the influence and meaning of that great work, assessed the significance of Forster’s profound musicality (Britten thought him the most musical of all writers), and offered a brilliant interpretation of Forster’s greatest work, A Passage to India. But there is more to Concerning E. M. Forster than that. Thinking about Forster vis-àvis other great modern writers, noting his interest in Proust and Gide and his lack of curiosity about American fiction, and observing that Forster was closest to the people who shared not his literary interests or artistic vocation but, rather, his homosexuality, Kermode’s book offers a wise, original, and persuasive new portrait not just of Forster but of twentieth-century English letters.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091NB9DE/?tag=2022091-20
( "The history of interpretation, the skills by which we...)
"The history of interpretation, the skills by which we keep alive in our minds the light and dark of past literature and past humanity, is to an incalculable extent a history of error." So writes Frank Kermode of a history to which he has contributed many luminous pages. This book is a record of Kermode's "error," his wandering through literature past and present. He notes that "in thirty-odd years I have written several hundred reviews, an example I would strongly urge the young not to follow" From these hundreds Kermode has selected the pieces he treasures most, and they provide an example that indeed will be difficult to follow. The Uses of Error contains some of Kermode's very best writing. Again and again he proves himself to be more than a commentator or chronicler; he is rather a creator of cultural value in his interaction with the texts at hand. The appeal of this book is broad. Everything is here from Augustine to Aries on death and dying, from Wilde to Woolf and writer's block, from Joachim of Fiore to Flaubert's Parrot. In a phrase or an aside on any of these subjects Kermode can open a vista, wither a reputation, or spotlight an intellectual mantrap. The core of the volume is a group of essays on the central figures of modern English literature. Kermode tells more here--about Tennyson, Shaw, Forster, and Eliot--than most people could in twice the space. His brief, vivid, and sympathetic writings extol the range of British writing and mark out the difference between an interest that is solely academic and the richer view of one who writes from inside the culture and shares a common experience with its interpreters. There is also Kermode the man. He saves a set of autobiographical essays until the end, and they are a veritable dessert for those who read the volume straight through. But they will stand first in the reader's memory afterward, because they give body to the mind so clearly in evidence throughout the book. Kermode shows us the means by which he gained the perspective to become a transnational critic--not a critic on the margin, but one who shows us where the margins are. For anyone who is not yet familiar with Frank Kermode's work, this is the place to begin. For those who are already acquainted with it, here is the chance to see the pattern of the whole.
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(8 1/2"x11" 63 page softcover art exhibition book publishe...)
8 1/2"x11" 63 page softcover art exhibition book published by Mead Art Museum, Amherst College in 1988
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( In Ariel and the Police, Frank Lentricchia searches thr...)
In Ariel and the Police, Frank Lentricchia searches through the totalizing desires for power that have built and help to maintain tangible and intangible structures of confinement and purification within, and sometimes as, the house of modernism. And what he finds, in his lyrical effort to redeem the subject for history, is that someone lives there, slyly, sometimes even playfully defiant.
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(In the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosopher Socrates ...)
In the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosopher Socrates perfected a method of teaching in which he would ask disarmingly simple questions that actually forced people to admit what they didn't know. As you read this book, you'll find a number of questions that follow the Socratic tradition. The reason? Today's managers need more than the predefined answers we might think are correct, but which seldom fit the problem at hand. Stop Telling. Start Leading is a work book and should be used as such. It offers many open-ended questions to the manager, offering ways to determine why something has gone off-center. Because every manager is different-the result of education, cultural background, ethnicity, etc.-offering predefined "one size fits all" answers can't do it any longer. Managers need to answer tough, pointed questions that will force them to come to terms with their goals. Once they do that, they can manage more effectively and more positively-which helps them and their team. Step 1: What Is Management? Without the proper foundation, any building will be unable to stand solidly. Different existing definitions are introduced, including the classics from Maccoby, Myers Briggs and Keirsey, as well as some lesser-known ones. Step 2: Know the Sins As a manager you must be well aware of the shortfalls that can break your business: starting with the 13 most deadly sins like "Demand and Encourage," "Ignore Standards," "Tolerate Negligence" or "Let Everything Go Uncontrolled." You'll learn about a manager who punished underperforming employees with a whip. Step 3: Take Responsibility Managers need to understand that taking responsibility means standing up for their employees. But employees need to take responsibility as well. Responsibility is more than just focusing on making money. Companies that understand the importance of customers and employees and treat them accordingly, easily outperform those that don't. Step 4: What Do You Pay? A bonus is worth more than a thousand words. Bonuses don't have to be cash, but they do have to be meaningful and appropriate to the job being rewarded. Think how the right bonuses could make employees more motivated and loyal. Step 5: Make Your Team Work Designing teams seems to be turning into a lost art. Most teams are thrown together too quickly. Just throw in a few folks with a "reputation" and the rest will work itself out-or will it? Can the underdogs outperform the stars? Shotgun teams-just like shotgun weddings, just as unhappy. Managers are proud of their accomplishments, but when things go awry do they take responsibility or blame the team? Step 6: Change, Growth and Trust During a speech at a Rotary Club a formerly silent member felt comfortable enough to speak up. What made him feel confident enough? Skilled managers can get the best out of their employees. Through good manners, understanding cultural differences and respecting personal space and keeping things organized (or not). Step 7: Bring the Fun to Work Having fun can't be a requirement, but it's a desired side effect. The fun has to be added to the work expertly or else the employees will see the fun as just more work. When managers can loosen up the staff, the workplace is more relaxed and productive. The more fun, the better employees work.
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( Fantasy art's most popular painter was also one of the ...)
Fantasy art's most popular painter was also one of the most popular comic book illustrators during the industry’s golden age. Telling Stories: The Classic Comic Art of Frank Frazetta celebrates the rare and largely forgotten stories created five decades ago by this iconic artist. These jungle adventures, true-life tales of heroism, and dreamy love stories not only exhibit the skill of a master craftsman but also provide tantalizing glimpses of where the young artist’s career would ultimately take him.
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KERMODE, John Frank was born on November 29, 1919 in Douglas, Isle of Man. Son of John Pritchard Kermode and Doris Kennedy.
Bachelor, Liverpool University, 1940. Master of Arts, Liverpool University, 1947. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), University Chicago, 1975.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Liverpool University, 1981. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Amsterdam University, 1988. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Newcastle University, 1993.
Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Yale, 1995. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), University Wesleyan, 1997. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), University London, 1997.
Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), University Sewanee, 1999. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Columbia University, 2003. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Harvard University, 2004.
J.E. Taylor professor English Manchester University, England, 1958-1965. Winterstoke professor English Bristol University, England, 1965-1967. Lord Northcliffe professor English University College London, 1967-1974.
King Edward VII professor English Cambridge University, 1974-1982. Visiting professor humanities Columbia University, New York City, 1983, 85. Charles E. Norton professor Harvard University, 1977-1978.
Henry Luce professor Yale Y., 1994.
( In Ariel and the Police, Frank Lentricchia searches thr...)
( "The history of interpretation, the skills by which we...)
( A major reassessment of the great English novelist Thi...)
( A major reassessment of the great English novelist Thi...)
(In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history...)
(For the past four decades Frank Kermode, critic and write...)
(A pioneering attempt to relate the theory of literary fic...)
(Sir Frank Kermode is acknowledged as one of the greatest ...)
( Fantasy art's most popular painter was also one of the ...)
( Honoring the centennial of Stevens' birth, this volume ...)
(Frank Kermode is one of the pre-eminent practitioners of ...)
( From a great critic of english literature, a different ...)
(8 1/2"x11" 63 page softcover art exhibition book publishe...)
( Frank Kermode is the preeminent practitioner of the ar...)
( Sir Frank Kermode has been writing peerless literary cr...)
( Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, and...)
(Frank Kermode has a strong claim to be Britain's most dis...)
(Frank Kermode is one of our most distinguished critics of...)
( Frank Kermode has long held a distinctive place among ...)
(One of the Wellek Library lectures at the University of C...)
(Book by Doggett, Professor Frank A.)
(In the fifth century B.C. the Greek philosopher Socrates ...)
(1st)
Author: Romantic Image, 1957, Wallace Stevens, 1960, The Sense of an Ending, 1967, David Herbert Lawrence, 1973, The Classic, 1975, The Genesis of Secrecy, 1979, The Art of Telling, 1983, Forms of Attention, 1985, History and Value, 1988, An Appetite for Poetry, 1989, The Uses of Error, 1991, Not Entitled, 1995. (with Anita Kermode) The Oxford Book of Letters, 1995, Shakespeare's Language, 2000, Pleasing Myself, 2001, Pieces of My Mind: Essays and Criticism, 1958-2002, 2003, The Age of Shakespeare, 2001, Concerning E. M Forster, 2009. Co-editor Encounter, 1965-1967.(with Robert Alter) The Literary Guide to the Bible, 1987. Editor Modern Masters Series, 1969-1991, Oxford Authors, 1984-2010.
Served to lieutenant Royal Navy, 1940-1946. Fellow British Academy, Royal Society Literature. Member American Academy Arts and Sciences (honorary), American Academy Arts and Letters (honorary), Accademia dei Lincei.
Squash, music.
Married Maureen Eccles in 1947 (divorced), one son one daughter.