Summary: William Golding's power to create contemporary myth is unparalleled in modern literature. In this program, Golding, his daughter, and others discuss his life as a child, father, and naval officer in World War II. They also summarize his views on human nature. Excerpts from several works-including The Inheritors and Pincher Martin-are used to illustrate those who inhabit Golding's fiction as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: In this program, Forster's biographer, friends, and literary critics paint a detailed portrait of this widely successful and accessible author. Forster's humanistic views promoting equality among races, classes, and nationalities are revealed in readings from his masterpiece, A Passage to India. Room with a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread-largely set in Italy-compare repressive middle-class...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: No other poet in modern history matched the rhythmic drive and verbal flamboyance of the Welshman, Dylan Thomas, destroyed by alcoholism at age 39. In this program, poet Danne Abse, Thomas's wife Caitlin, and others speak frankly about his dissolute lifestyle and its influence on his writing. Readings from poems including "Return Journey," "Ceremony after a Fire Raid," "Old Garbo," and "Poem in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Born in Dublin, James Joyce first chose a medical career, then wandered through the singing, acting, and teaching professions before finally settling his fortunes on writing. His most controversial work, Ulysses, shocked early 20th-century readers and was banned in Britain and the U.S. until 1936. In this program, critics and those who knew Joyce trace events in his life through passages in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, Orlando. All of these titles, written by novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf, stand at the forefront of 20th-century literature. In this program, those who knew Woolf trace her life and prolific career from her childhood in London to her final days as a victim of mental illness and eventual suicide. As a leading member of the Bloomsbury group,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Certainly one of the most colorful and controversial writers of the 20th century, D. H. Lawrence's humble beginnings as a fragile child in a Nottingham mining town hardly foreshadowed the fame he would acquire through his writing. In this program, Lawrence biographer John Worthen and others who knew the writer discuss the author's life, his many love affairs, and his turbulent marriage to his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005