This bracing and far-ranging study compares modern (post-1492) literary treatments of millenarian narratives--"end of the world" stories charting an ultimate battle between good and evil that destroys previous social structures and rings in a lasting new order. While present in many cultures for as long as tales have been told, these accounts take on a profound dramatic resonance in the context of Europe's centuries-long colonization of the American hemisphere. With an impressive interdisciplinary approach that employs insights from history, ethnography, and theology, Thomas O. Beebee provides nuanced readings of the apocalyptic vision in a diverse group of forms and writers, stretching from the letters of Christopher Columbus to the lyrics of Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, the poetry of Ernesto Martínez, and the bestselling novels of the Left Behind franchise, among other works. Throughout, he pointedly illustrates how millennial discourse has been used as a technology of control to further national and imperial agendas while paradoxically, often simultaneously, serving the forces of resistance. Drawing on a wide variety of records, his analysis shows that repeated eruptions of imagined, epochal conflicts reveal native populations fighting against the eradication of traditional ways of life, making sense of unprecedented violence, and searching for sources of origin. It seems that Americans--North, South, Middle, and Caribbean--tend to define themselves by narrating their End. Informed by extensive research and an imaginative marshalling of diverse insights, Beebee presents a comprehensive comparative treatment of millennial themes in works from English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. In so doing, he illustrates that prophesies of telos, and the literature that imagines them, provide a vital context for understanding the connected yet distinct cultures that have shaped the American hemisphere.

Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492-2002 (Imagining the Americas)

Literature & Fiction

Beebee, Thomas O.

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

"Clarissa" on the Continent defines and explores two strategies of literary translation—creative vs. preservative and strong vs. weak—as they transform one of the most influential English novels. Thomas Beebee compares the two opposing strategies as they influence the French translation of Clarissa by the novelist Antione François de Prévost and the German translation by the Göttingen Orientalist Johann David Michaelis, and in doing so he demonstrates that each translator found authority for his procedure within the text itself. Each translation is also examined in light of Richardson's other writings and placed in its literary and cultural context. 
This study uses translations in order to interpret Clarissa, to show how the basis for the novel's reception on the Continent was laid, and to explore the differences and interactions among three literary and cultural systems of the eighteenth century. The close examination of these two important translations enable the formulation of not only a theory of creative vs. preservative translation but also the interconnections between literary theory and translation theory. Beebee also looks at later translations of Clarissa as products of literary and historical change and at Prévostian strategies of the novel.

Clarissa on the Continent: Translation and Seduction

Reference

Penn State University Press

The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability

In a series of comparative essays on a range of texts embracing both high and popular culture from the early modern era to the contemporary period, The Ideology of Genre counters both formalists and advocates of the "death of genre," arguing instead for the inevitability of genre as discursive mediation. At the same time, Beebee demonstrates that genres are inherently unstable because they are produced intertextually, by a system of differences without positive terms. In short, genre is the way texts get used. To deny that genres exist is to deny, in a sense, the possibility of reading; if genres exist, on the other hand, then they exist not as essences but as differences, and thus those places within and between texts where genres "collide" reveal the connections between generic status, interpretive strategy, ideology, and the use-value of language.

Essays & Correspondence

In a series of comparative essays on a range of texts embracing both high and popular culture from the early modern era to the contemporary period, The Ideology of Genre counters both formalists and advocates of the "death of genre," arguing instead for the inevitability of genre as discursive mediation. At the same time, Beebee demonstrates that genres are inherently unstable because they are produced intertextually, by a system of differences without positive terms. In short, genre is the way texts get used. To deny that genres exist is to deny, in a sense, the possibility of reading; if genres exist, on the other hand, then they exist not as essences but as differences, and thus those places within and between texts where genres "collide" reveal the connections between generic status, interpretive strategy, ideology, and the use-value of language.

Thomas O. Beebee offers a history of epistolary fiction as a major phenomenon practiced across Europe from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. He shows how epistolary fiction appropriated the status and power the letter had already acquired, and goes on to explore a number of related discourses and themes, including the letter writing manual, self-referential aspects of the letter, news and travel reporting, the relationship between letters and gender, and historically-specific letter writing by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors including Austen, Balzac, and Dostoevsky. There is a bibliography of major European epistolary fiction to 1850.

Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 1500–1850

Cambridge University Press

Thomas O. Beebee offers a history of epistolary fiction as a major phenomenon practiced across Europe from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. He shows how epistolary fiction appropriated the status and power the letter had already acquired, and goes on to explore a number of related discourses and themes, including the letter writing manual, self-referential aspects of the letter, news and travel reporting, the relationship between letters and gender, and historically-specific letter writing by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors including Austen, Balzac, and Dostoevsky. There is a bibliography of major European epistolary fiction to 1850.

Epistolary Fiction in Europe 1500-1850

Bai Hua shifts from tragicomic farce to earthy eroticism to modernist playwriting in this carefully wrought exploration of the clash between two ways of life. In alternating chapters, the novel tells the stories of Sunamei, a winsome young woman from an idyllic matriarchal community, and Liang Rui, a self-absorbed man who is also weary witness to the Cultural Revolution. Through his two protagonists, Bai Hua addresses themes of the repression and freedom of sexuality, the brutality of modernity, and the fluidity of gender roles as the novel moves hypnotically and inevitably toward a collision between two worlds. First published in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in 1988, The Remote Country of Women has since been translated into French, German, and Russian. It appears now in English for the first time.

The Remote Country of Women (Fiction from Modern China)

Bai, Hua

Wu, Qingyun

Contemporary

Univ of Hawaii Pr

This study compares modern and contemporary literary works from around the globe that have translation as a central theme, and that treat one of four of said black-box issues: language as embodiment; unknown language; conversion; and postcolonial derivations.

Transmesis: Inside Translation’s Black Box

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Beebee, Thomas O.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Beebee, Thomas O.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Beebee, Thomas O.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492-2002 (Imagining the Americas)

Clarissa on the Continent: Translation and Seduction

The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability

The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability

The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability

Clarissa on the Continent: Translation and Seduction

Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 1500–1850

Epistolary Fiction in Europe 1500-1850

The Remote Country of Women (Fiction from Modern China)

Transmesis: Inside Translation’s Black Box