The Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I and II: Dreams of Knowledge and Song Man

Malcolm Bowie (1943-2007) was described by A.S. Byatt as ‘one of our best living critics. He writes beautifully, subtly and lucidly about very difficult subjects.’ Bowie was Marshal Foch Professor of French at Oxford (1992-2002) and Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge (2002-2006). He received numerous honours, was invited to speak all over the world, and in 2001 won the international Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism for his Proust Among the Stars. The essays and reviews in these volumes have never before been brought together. Ranging across literature, art, music, and psychoanalysis, they offer fresh insights into topics tackled in Bowie’s books, and discuss quite new ones. Volume I, Dreams of Knowledge, presents essays on memory, Proust, modern poetry (Mallarmé, Valéry, Eluard), and psychoanalysis. Bowie explores the uncertainties of knowledge, the relationship between fantasy and experience, and the ways great writers, artists and thinkers represent these. Volume II, Song Man, presents shorter pieces, including Bowie’s essays on song and music criticism. They explore important cultural issues such as anti-Semitism, images of gender, and ideas of the nation. Among composers and writers figuring in this volume are Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Judith Butler, Borges, Leroy Ladurie and Edward Said; reviews cover films, plays, and operas as well as books. These volumes can be purchased separately or as a pair at a discounted rate. The Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie are edited by Alison Finch, Senior Research Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.