Perpetual Carnival

Colin MacCabe is Distinguished Professor of English and Film at the University of Pittsburgh. His previous books include Tracking the Signifier (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70 (FSG-Faber & Faber, 2004), and True to the Spirit: Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity (OUP, 2011).

• Table of Contents Preface by Terry Eagleton Introduction: Perpetual Carnival: Essays on Film and Literature ModernismA Modernist Manifesto Cinema and ModernismModernism as Realism Shakespeare Review of Frank Kermode's Shakespeare's LanguageReview of Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the WorldReview of Peter Ackroyd's Shakespeare: The BiographyTanner and Shakespeare Language, Literacy and literature Television and LiteracyCompacted Doctrines: William Empson and the Meaning of Words (with Alan Durant)Why are the Arabs not free?Frank Kermode: The Greatest Literary Critic In Words We Are Made Flesh: Towards a New Cambridge Philology Theory A Defense of CriticismBarthes and Bazin: The Ontology of the ImageBataille and EroticismThe Schreber case: How Queer was Freud? Film Godard: The Commerce of CinemaFilm Essays from Criterion:Polanski: The Truest TessPasolini's Trilogy of LifeThe Decameron: The Past is the PresentThe Canterbury Tales: Sex and DeathArabian Nights: Brave Old WorldRossellini's The Taking of Power by Louis X1VSound, Image and Every Man for HimselfKieslowski's Three ColorsSudden Death: Asseyas's CarlosReport from Cannes 2015: Lazlo Nenes's Son of SaulDerek Jarman: A Lost LeaderWatching Films to Mourn the Death of Empire: Introduction to a website Politics and Culture An Interview with Stuart Hall Our Fenian Dead: The Inheritance of Martyrdom (with Jennifer Keating)

Perpetual Carnival shows that MacCabe's reputation is richly deserved. This eclectic collection of essays, reviews, lectures and interviews, published in various venues over the past two decades reflects the remarkable breadth of his interests ... Texts, Colin MacCabe states, have 'no obvious limits or boundaries', and the same might be said of Perpetual Carnival: moving between multiple media and traditions, the book reminds us of what criticism can still accomplish.