Literature, Myth and Education

Classic Texts and the Nature of Authority

Classic Texts and the Nature of Authority Book Cover Donald and Louise Cowan, editors

Authority for leadership has its source in those who are led and is bestowed on a leader by a community as a mark of trust in an ability to interpret events and draw sound conclusions. Classic works of literature are the most readily available resource for the initiation and practice of the habit of interpretation. The present volume of essays from a Principals' Institute, together with texts of the subject works, constitutes something of a guidebook for this mode of study.

ISBN: 0-911005-23-4
303 pages. Paper, $19.95

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W.B. Yeats and the Learning of the Imagination

W.B. Yeats and the Learning of the Imagination Book Cover by Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Raine has long been recognized as one of the most profound commentators on Yeats’s work. Her words in this book distill for us the essence of Yeats’s imagination. We appreciate not only the beauty of the poems of this great craftsman of words but also his desire to inspire the deepening of soul knowledge.

"It is beautifully presented, and it contains some very important ideas. I learned a great deal from it and felt inspired in relation to my own work." Thomas Moore

ISBN: 0-911005-36-6
128 pages. Cloth, $24.00

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Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age - OUT OF STOCK

Unbinding Prometheus Book Cover by Donald Cowan

This collection of essays by a distinguished physicist and educator unites a cultural and technological imagination of education. Essays include "Imagination, Redundancy, and the Act of Learning," "The Three Moments of Learning," "The Uncertainty Principle in Education," "Scientific Discovery and Gratitude," and "The Economics of Taste."

ISBN: 0-911005-33-1
228 pages. Paper, $15.00

The Epic Cosmos

The Epic Cosmos Book Cover Louise Cowan, general editor

The community of scholar-critics that brought out The Terrain of Comedy has produced the second volume in its studies of the four genres, with Larry Allums as editor. Louise Cowan postulates a culture-generating cosmos as the identifying mark of epic. The essays illustrate the applicability of her theory of genres to major works in the epic tradition.

ISBN: 0-911005-22-6
378 pages, indexed. Paper, $19.95

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The Terrain of Comedy - OUT OF STOCK

The Terrain of Comedy Book Cover Louise Cowan, editor

The Dallas school of critics centered around Louise Cowan here presents a thorough probing of comedy as one of the territories through which the soul must journey. In the Introduction, Cowan sets forth her theory of genres; the following ten essays apply aspects of the theory to major works of the West, from Homer to Faulkner.

ISBN: 0-911005-05-6
259 pages, indexed. Paper, $16.00

The Tragic Abyss

The Tragic Abyss Book Cover Louise Cowan, general editor

This collection of eighteen essays on tragedy is the third in a series on literary genre issued by Dallas Institute publications. Dr. Glenn Arbery is editor of this volume on the genre most emphasized by Aristotle and most debated through the centuries by critics and commentators. The essays explore tragedies from the Old Testament and the ancient Greeks to the most contemporary instances of the tragic action in dramatic and narrative forms.

ISBN: 0-911005-41-2
403 pages, indexed. Paper, $22.00

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The Southern Critics - OUT OF STOCK

The Southern Critics Book Cover by Louise Cowan

An introduction to the Southern Critics for those who do not know them. Dr. Cowan has concentrated on the three founders of the school—Ransom, Tate, and Davidson—because it was in their minds and imaginations that the movement took form.

ISBN: 0-911005-35-8
84 pages Cloth, $3.95