Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Charm in Literature from Classical to Modernism

Charmed Life

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard Beckman

    1. Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Informed by psychology, history, aestheticism, and affect theory

  • Definitive study showcasing the nuanced use of charm in literature including abrasive charm, uncanny charm, and more

  • Provides a wide-ranging reading of the literary etymology of charm

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Preface

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 1-3

  3. The Sirens in Homer

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 5-13

  4. Charm in Chaucer

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 15-17

  5. Spenser Versus Charm

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 19-23

  6. Shakespeare and Charm

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 25-48

  7. Milton and Dryden

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 49-51

  8. Pope

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 53-55

  9. Charm Transfigured

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 57-58

  10. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 59-83

  11. Gaskell, Thackeray, and Joyce

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 85-86

  12. Acerbic Charm; Ludic Charm

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 87-89

  13. Proust

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 91-125

  14. Charm and Cleverness in Joyce

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 127-137

  15. Mann’s Felix Krull

    • Richard Beckman
    Pages 139-152

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 153-157
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

Charm in Literature from Classical to Modernism: Charmed Life discusses charm as both an emotional and aesthetic phenomenon. Beginning with the first appearance of literary charm in the Sirens episode of the Odyssey, Richard Beckman traces charm throughout canonical literature, examining the metamorphoses of charm through the millennia. The book examines the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Proust, Joyce, Mann, and others, considering the multiplicity of ways charm is defined, depicted, and utilized by authors. Positioning these poems, dramas, and novels as case studies, Beckman reveals the mercurial yet enduring connotations of charm.  


Reviews

“This study is a wide-ranging, accessible, witty, and informed survey of charm in literature from Homer to the present. Every aspect is explored, including how charm may be faked. Because of its charm, it is an enjoyable and highly enlightening “read.” Given there are no serious definitive prior studies of the many writers embodying charm as an aesthetic phenomenon, Charm in Literature from Classical to Modernism  by Richard Beckman is wonderfully ground-breaking.” (Daniel T. O’Hara, Emeritus Professor of English, Temple University, USA, author of Virginia Woolf and the Modern Sublime: The Invisible Tribunal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and an editor of the Journal of Modern Literature)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

    Richard Beckman

About the author

Richard Beckman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Temple University, USA.  He is the author of Joyce’s Rare View: the Nature of Things in Finnegans Wake (2007), and has published numerous articles and essays in the James Joyce Quarterly and the Journal of Modern Literature. 


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Charm in Literature from Classical to Modernism

  • Book Subtitle: Charmed Life

  • Authors: Richard Beckman

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25345-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-25344-8Published: 01 October 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-25345-5Published: 16 September 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 157

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Literary History, Comparative Literature, Shakespeare

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation