Upholding literature and film together as academically interwoven, Perpetual Carnival underscores the everlasting coexistence of realism and modernism, eschewing the popularly accepted view that the latter is itself a rejection of the former.

Table of Contents Preface by Terry Eagleton Introduction: Perpetual Carnival: Essays on Film and Literature Modernism A Modernist Manifesto Cinema and Modernism Modernism as Realism Shakespeare Review of Frank Kermode's Shakespeare's Language Review of Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World Review of Peter Ackroyd's Shakespeare: The Biography Tanner and Shakespeare Language, Literacy and literature Television and Literacy Compacted 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 Criticism Barthes and Bazin: The Ontology of the Image Bataille and Eroticism The Schreber case: How Queer was Freud? Film Godard: The Commerce of Cinema Film Essays from Criterion: Polanski: The Truest Tess Pasolini's Trilogy of Life The Decameron: The Past is the Present The Canterbury Tales: Sex and Death Arabian Nights: Brave Old World Rossellini's The Taking of Power by Louis X1V Sound, Image and Every Man for Himself Kieslowski's Three Colors Sudden Death: Asseyas's Carlos Report from Cannes 2015: Lazlo Nenes's Son of Saul Derek Jarman: A Lost Leader Watching 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.

"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." --David Winters, Times Literary Supplement

Selling point: Engages across disciplines with cosmopolitan interests, theoretical insight, and strong social purpose Selling point: Challenges widely accepted definitions of modernism as anti-realism Selling point: Underscores realism's enduring legacy and its coexistence in great modernist works of art

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).

Selling point: Engages across disciplines with cosmopolitan interests, theoretical insight, and strong social purpose Selling point: Challenges widely accepted definitions of modernism as anti-realism Selling point: Underscores realism's enduring legacy and its coexistence in great modernist works of art