Literary Practice: Volume III Esthetics of Literary Subjects

Literary Practice III concludes Dushan Bresky’s major critical trilogy. Following Volume I, outlining a comprehensive method for evaluating literary art, and Volume II, analyzing the elusive stimulative qualities of style, Volume III focuses on the esthetics of literary content. Its time-tested subjects include violent and psychological conflicts, erotic bonds, as well as humorous, supernatural, fantastic, utopian, and bizarre topics. In estimating their potential impact, Bresky draws not only on the French heritage (his academic specialty) but branches into all Western literatures, ranging from the Illiad and the medieval Legenda Aurea to the novels of Samuel Beckett and John Updike. In the Biocybernetic Epilog written just before his death in 1998, collaborator Miroslav Malik discusses the evolution of biometric techniques designed to monitor our responses to perception and their auxiliary role in esthetic literary criticism.