Albert Cook

Forces in Modern and Postmodern Poetry examines the works of classic authors in the modern and postmodern literary tradition, including St phane Mallarm , Wallace Stevens, Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Charles Olson, Paul Celan, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, and John Ashbery, all from a comparative perspective. The concepts, modern and postmodern, are not used to provide definitive answers but to raise questions concerning the status of representation, issues of the self, and the use of imagery and musical invention. The wide range of the study is matched by the richly detailed analysis of specific poetic texts from an author noted for the scope and acuity of his attention to modern poetry in all its varied forms.

The Stance of Plato addresses Plato's particular fusion of literature and philosophy. Albert Cook examines a number of Plato's major dialogues to ascertain further the bearing of 'rhetoric' and the dramatized dialogue on the relationship between literature and philosophy. Using an engaging and occasionally poetic style, Cook studies the implications of Plato's literary form and the historical context of his ideas. The Stance of Plato helps bridge the gap between scholars interested in Plato's arguments and logic and those interested in their literary aspects, suggesting that literature and philosophy may not be separable domains. The book will be an important work for classicists, philosophers, and scholars of literature.

Professor Cook develops his philosophical exploration of comedy from the ideas of the probable and the wonderful. These two profoundly different approaches to human experience imply the related poles of rationalism-idealism, society-individual, concept-symbol, and reason-imagination. In discussing the implications of these symbolic attitudes, Professor Cook casts new light on the nature of both tragedy and comedy, their subjects, goals, and techniques.