Synopses & Reviews
The novella is fully annotated and is accompanied by selected textual variants. Backgrounds and Contexts introduces readers to in the richest possible setting. The links between the author's life and his work are explored through an examination of his personal writings. Kafka's letters and diary entries illuminate the creative process behind his portrait of Gregor Samsa, his family, and their nightmarish ordeal. Criticism collects seven essays from the period 1970-95 representing the most important currents in literary theory--semiotics, feminism, identity philosophy, New Historicism, and post-Freudian cultural psychoanalysis. The essays offer a variety of perspectives on the novella by Iris Bruce, Nina Pelikan Straus, Kevin W. Sweeney, Mark Anderson, Hartmut Binder, Eric Santner, and Stanley Corngold. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
Synopsis
Franz Kafka's 1915 masterpiece is presented in this Norton Critical Edition in the acclaimed translation by Stanley Corngold based on the definitive German edition.
About the Author
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born of Jewish parents in Prague. Several of his story collections were published in his lifetime and his novels, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, were published posthumously by his editor Max Brod.Stanley Corngold is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is translator and editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Metamorphosis, author of Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka: The Necessity of Form, Complex Pleasure: Forms of Feeling in German Literature, The Fate of the Self: German Writers and French Theory, and Thomas Mann, 1875-1955. He is the recipient of Literary Paternity, Literary Friendship: Essays in Honor of Stanley Corngold.Stanley Corngold is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is translator and editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Metamorphosis, author of Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka: The Necessity of Form, Complex Pleasure: Forms of Feeling in German Literature, The Fate of the Self: German Writers and French Theory, and Thomas Mann, 1875-1955. He is the recipient of Literary Paternity, Literary Friendship: Essays in Honor of Stanley Corngold.