Background
Calin, William was born on April 4, 1936 in Newington, Connecticut, United States.
( The French presence in English literary history in the ...)
The French presence in English literary history in the centuries following the Conquest has to some extent been glossed over or treated as an interlude. During this period, roughly 1100 - 1420, French, like Latin, was the language of the educated; in the courts of England, and for nobles, clerics, and the rising commercial elements, communication was multilingual. In his ground-breaking study, William Calin explores indepth this era of medieval English literature and culture in relation to its distinctly French influences and contemporaries. He examines the Anglo-Norman contribution to medieval literature, concentrating on romance and hagiography; the great continental French texts, such as Prose Lancelot and the Romance of the Rose, which had a dominant role in shaping literature in English; and the English response to the French cultural world - the two 'modes' in English where the French presence was most significant: court poetry (Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve) and Middle English romance. This book is grounded in French sources both well-known and relatively obscure. Translations of the Old French make The French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England accessible to scholars and students of Medieval English, comparatists, and historians, as well as those proficient in French. Calin develops a synthesis of medieval French and English literature that will be especially useful for classroom study.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080207202X/?tag=2022091-20
( The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics revisits the wor...)
The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics revisits the work and place of eight scholars roughly contemporary with Anglo-American New Criticism: Leo Spitzer, Ernst Robert Curtius, Erich Auerbach, Albert Béguin, Jean Rousset, C.S. Lewis, F.O. Matthiessen, and Northrop Frye. William Calin first considers the achievements of each critic, examining his methodology and basic presuppositions as well as the critiques marshalled against him. Calin explores their relation to history, to canon-formation, and to our current theoretical debates. He then goes on to show how all eight form a current in the history of criticism related to both humanism and modernism. Underscoring the international, cosmopolitian aspects of literary scholarship in the twentieth century, The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics brings together humanist critical traditions from Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America and reveals the surprising extent to which, in various languages and academic systems, critics were posing similar questions and offering a gamut of similar responses.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802094759/?tag=2022091-20
(This collection is the first full-length literary study o...)
This collection is the first full-length literary study on Machaut, France's leading poet and musician of the 14th century. Machaut's narrative poems, called dits, have only been lightly studied. Here, author William Calin examines the works for their intrinsic merit and for their historical importance in influencing many writers, most notably Chaucer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813151619/?tag=2022091-20
(The vast majority of books on French verse, published in ...)
The vast majority of books on French verse, published in France, present a Romantic or post-Romantic notion of the nature of poetry: a view of the poem as a brief lyric distinguished by concrete, striking imagery which expresses the sincere feelings of the poet. The poet discovers therein, and transmits to his reader, universal secrets. Yet prior to this 'modern view' is another tradition that poems can be short or long; can be narrative, didactic, satirical, and meditative as well as lyrical; can express universal truths, not the individual voice; and that to do so they adhere to time-honored genres, modes, and levels of style. But contemporary critics and criticism ignore this latter tradition. They are unaware of French verse prior to Lamartine or Baudelaire; or they claim that the early masters were not poets, and that poetry has only come into its own in the last 100 years. Thus they assume a canon of masterpieces that emphasizes the period from Baudelaire to Valéry. This book applies to French poetry as a whole the insights of an American medievalist: knowledge of the pre-Romantic tradition and of the contributions of Anglo-American new criticism. It revises conventional notions as to the nature of French poetry (critical theory) and the generally accepted canon of French verse (literary history).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0271004371/?tag=2022091-20
( A quiet renaissance has been unfolding in certain parts...)
A quiet renaissance has been unfolding in certain parts of Europe - a renaissance of literature written in minority languages. In this book, William Calin explores the renaissance through an examination of twentieth-century works in Scots, Breton, and Occitan minority languages flourishing inside the borders of the United Kingdom and France. For each of the three bodies of literature Calin considers major authors whose works include novels, poetry and plays, and shows that all three literatures have evolved in a like manner, repudiating their romantic folk heritage and turning instead to modern and postmodern concerns. Drawing on current critical theories in periodization, postcolonialism and cultural studies, Calin raises a range of comparative questions: Is there a common form of narrative prevalent in minority cultures that is neither realism nor metafiction? Is the minority-language theatre limited to plots treating past history and the rural present? What is the relationship between the minority literature and literature in the national language? What kind of history should be written on the literatures of Scotland, Brittany and the South of France, manifest in their several languages? Calin's pioneering study is the first comparative scrutiny of these minority literatures and the first to bring all three together into the mainstream of present-day criticism. His work demonstrates the intrinsic importance in their twentieth-century renewal, as well as their contribution to global culture, in both aesthetic and broadly human terms.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802048366/?tag=2022091-20
Calin, William was born on April 4, 1936 in Newington, Connecticut, United States.
Bachelor, Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, 1957. Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven, 1957—1960.
Instructor Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1960—1962, assistant professor, 1962—1963. Professor Stanford University, Stanford, California, 1964—1965, associate professor, 1965—1970, professor, 1970—1973, University Oregon, Eugene, 1973—1988. Graduate research professor University Florida, Gainesville, since 1988.
Visiting professor University Poitiers (France), 1982, 84. Edwin Arnold visiting professor Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, 1987.
(The vast majority of books on French verse, published in ...)
( The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics revisits the wor...)
( The French presence in English literary history in the ...)
( A quiet renaissance has been unfolding in certain parts...)
(This collection is the first full-length literary study o...)
(Book by Calin, William)
(Book by William Calin)
(2nd Revised edition)
Member of Modern Language Association (president medieval French division 1981, president Provençal and Catalan division 1989, 2001), Conseil International l'ecrit en Langue d'Oc, South Atlantic Modern Language Associaion (president international courtly literature society division 1990-1991), Association International d'Etudes Occitanes (international vice president 1993—2002), International Guillaume de Machaut Society (president 1987-1989), Society International Rencesvals (president American branch 1973-1976).