What was the ethical perspective of modernist literature? How did Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett represent ethical issues and develop their moral ideas? Lee Oser argues that thinking about human nature restores a perspective on modernist literature that has been lost. He offers detailed discussions of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics to illuminate close readings of major modernist texts. For Oser, the reception of Aristotle is crucial to the modernist moral project, which he defines as the effort to transform human nature through the use of art. Exploring the origins of that project, its success in modernism, its critical heirs, and its possible future, The Ethics of Modernism brings a fresh perspective on modernist literature and its interaction with ethical strands of philosophy. It offers many new insights to scholars of twentieth-century literature as well as intellectual historians.

The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett

Literature & Fiction

Oser, Lee

British & Irish

Cambridge University Press

***OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE: FEBRUARY 21, 2014***
The Oracles Fell Silent by Lee Oser: When the legendary Sir Ted Pop hires young Richard Bellman as his secretary, Bellman’s work on the great man’s memoir transforms his young life into a divine comedy—or is it a devilish farce? In a New York beach house in Southampton, Bellman treads the forbidden ground of Ted’s final hour with Johnny Donovan, his partner in fame, who “fell” from a London rooftop in 1969. Sir Ted battles false prophets and mad messiahs for control over his own story, but what rock’s biggest mystery reveals to Bellman is the unthinkable hand of God.
 “You think Johnny understood his fate when he fell? You think you understand your fate, or I understand mine? Your story will be written, all right, but not by you. It will be written by someone you could never buy, and you wouldn’t like the narrative. Not that it matters, but you would scarcely recognize yourself, not since you lost your soul on its great crusade to nowhere.”
Wiseblood Books fosters works of fiction, poetry, and philosophy that render truths with what Flannery O'Connor called an unyielding "realism of distances." Such works find redemption in uncanny places and people; wrestle us from the tyranny of boredom; mock the pretensions of respectability; engage the hidden mysteries of the human heart, be they sources of either violence or courage; articulate faith and doubt in their incarnate complexity; dare an unflinching gaze at human beings as "political animals"; and suffer through this world's trials without forfeiting hope.

The Oracles Fell Silent

Wiseblood Books

Shakespeare, Lee Oser argues, is a Christian literary artist who criticizes and challenges Christians, but who does so on Christian grounds. Stressing Shakespeare's theological sensitivity, Oser places Shakespeare's work in the "radical middle," the dialectical opening between the sacred and the secular where great writing can flourish. According to Oser, the radical middle was and remains a site of cultural originality, as expressed through mimetic works of art intended for a catholic (small "c") audience. It describes the conceptual space where Shakespeare was free to engage theological questions, and where his Christian skepticism could serve his literary purposes. Oser reviews the rival cases for a Protestant Shakespeare and for a Catholic Shakespeare, but leaves the issue open, focusing, instead, on how Shakespeare exploits artistic resources that are specific to Christianity, including the classical-Christian rhetorical tradition. The scope of the book ranges from an introductory survey of the critical field as it now stands, to individual chapters on A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Henriad, Hamlet, and King Lear. Writing with a deep sense of literary history, Oser holds that mainstream literary criticism has created a false picture of Shakespeare by secularizing him and misconstruing the nature of his art. Through careful study of the plays, Oser recovers a Shakespeare who is less vulnerable to the winds of academic and political fashion, and who is a friend to the enduring project of humanistic education. Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature is both eminently readable and a work of consequence.

Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature

Dramas & Plays

The Catholic University of America Press

Written in a fine and lucid prose style, T. S. Eliot and American Poetry presents a critical study of Eliot's major poems as it examines what America means to its poets. Eliot's contribution to a poetic dialogue on this subject with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Robert Lowell, John Ashbery, and other literary figures plays a significant role in this groundbreaking study.Investigating Eliot's literary inheritance through his familial traditions, represented particularly by his mother, Charlotte Eliot, and in terms of the American Renaissance, Lee Oser addresses all phases of Eliot's career as a poet. Following an introduction that reevaluates the importance of Poe and Whitman for Eliot and modernism, the discussion proceeds from Eliot's reaction against the progressive ethos of late Puritan culture, to the appearance in his writing of numerous figures of exile and disinheritance as an expression of lost American patrimony, to his flight from the realm of history, and his eventual return to the spiritual and cultural traditions of New England. A final chapter weighs Eliot's impact on Robert Lowell, John Ashbery, and Elizabeth Bishop.Through its dialectical view of American literary and intellectual history, T. S. Eliot and American Poetry constructs a practical methodology for comparing Eliot with other American poets. Juxtaposing Eliot's poems, lectures, and essays (including generous excerpts from Eliot's uncollected prose) with landmark texts by Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and many others, Oser engages in a deeper analysis of Eliot's Americanness than has hitherto been possible. In addressing Eliot's treatment of America as symbol and topos, the work presents a multifaceted chronicle of Eliot's development that enriches formalist and historicist approaches alike.T. S. Eliot and American Poetry makes numerous original contributions to the field of literary history. No previous work has so richly pursued Eliot's literary and familial inheritance, as well as his legacy to American poetry; the result is a highly nuanced perspective on contemporary debates about poetry, criticism, and culture.

T. S. Eliot and American Poetry (Volume 1)

History & Criticism

University of Missouri

Among the prominent intellectual debates of the twentieth century was the literary clash between a dogmatically relativist modernism and a robust revival of Christian humanism. In The Return of Christian Humanism, Lee Oser ranges widely over English literature, from Chaucer to Beckett, taking in the thoughts of critics, philosophers, and theologians in order to compare the fruits of Christian humanism with those of its rivals, both secular and religious.
 Oser reveals that Christian humanism informs a broad and important literature and maintains that it encourages a genuine diversity of thought based on reason, nature, and the accomplishments of artistic genius. He first describes how the liberal humanism of Matthew Arnold gave way to the Christian humanism of G. K. Chesterton, then proposes the work of J. R. R. Tolkien as a litmus test for modern critics—contradicting those who dismiss it as childish and defending its imaginative power. And in pointing out a strong Augustinian strain in T. S. Eliot, Oser shows that this poet can best be understood in comparison with Chesterton and Tolkien. Along the way, he tackles such issues as the canon and the education of taste and takes on some of today’s most prominent literary critics, including Helen Vendler and Harold Bloom.
 Writing at the interface of literature and religion, Oser challenges the assumption that Christian orthodoxy is incompatible with humanism, freedom, and democracy. He argues that contemporary academic culture has overlooked Christianity’s gifts to literature and civilization, and he shows humanism’s influence on the shape of Western cultural history, as well as the consequences of humanism for philosophy and theology.
 The Return of Christian Humanism argues that the Christian humanist occupies the “radical middle” between church and state, past and future, faith and reason, as it makes a compelling argument for reconsidering how this movement informs and sustains much of our great literature. In addition to reopening this important debate, Oser argues that Christian humanists are often more genuinely tolerant than are champions of multiculturalism and diversity—and that Christian humanist authors offer a balanced yet dynamic view of art and life.

The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien, and the Romance of History (Volume 1)

Set on the West Coast during Bush II's first term, Out of What Chaos showcases the escapades of Rex and The Brains as they settle into the Portland rock scene, record their first CD, and tour from Vancouver to LA behind their chart-topping single, "F U. I Just Want To Get My Rocks Off." The boys party on, finding their way amidst the frenzied panorama of twenty-first century America. The country embraces them in all its crazy glory, from witches to priests, from groupies to politicians, from drug dealers to porno stars to college professors. As the band's fame grows, tragedy strikes, and Freddie finds himself torn between his rock-and-roll lifestyle and his girlfriend, Sheila Corcoran, whose claim on his heart continues to grow. In the end, the worlds of love and celebrity collide, and Freddie must make a decision about how to live. "This book is more or less what one would expect if Walker Percy wrote about a cynical rock musician who converts to Catholicism, and then Nabokov added some of his verbal pyrotechnics, and then Buster Keaton and the Marquis de Sade and Lionel Trilling inserted a few extra passages. It is a loving and yet appalled description of the underground music scene in the Pacific Northwest. And it is a convincing representation of someone very, very smart." -Matt Greenfield, The Valve, www.thevalve.org "In smart, wiry prose, Lee Oser has created a witty Bildungsroman set in the world of rockers in the Northwest. In a world where the "choices" offered are life-denying or trivial, Oser negotiates a set of alternatives for his characters-and his readers." -James Najarian, Boston College. "Well-versed in the lifestyle, Lee Oser has crafted a hedonistically spiritual rock 'n' roll morality play; one filled with characters culled from his own musical experience. Freddie Fontane is the new Holden Caulfield for the wi-fi generation-registering his every thought and impression upon the quickly turned page. In a world of transient American Idols, in relentless pursuit of their Warholian fifteen minutes, Freddie Fontane is the unfailing pragmatist, searching for truth in a world of pretense and artifice." -S. P. Clarke, Two Louies magazine.

Out of What Chaos

Contemporary

Scarith

Portland art dealer Devin Adams is content earning a semi-honest living until one night his friend John Sun comes knocking at the door, bearing a mysterious baby. Rumored to be the greatest painter of his generation, Sun lives in a crumbling warehouse under the Fremont Bridge. Despite Devin’s strong natural preference for easy profits and easy women, the baby moves him in his wayward soul to join Sun on an absurd quest—a life-or-death adventure that stretches from the temples of junk to the corridors of power, from the shadowy streets of gangland to the wide, wide deserts of lust.
If Lee Oser intended to give readers a kind of Catholic Portlandia he succeeded. In this fast-paced, adventure-packed narrative about a Portland art dealer, a colorful cast of characters—from Jesuit priests to Chinese gang members—pursue the meaning of art and love, while the mysterious movement of grace directs their exploits to a satisfying conclusion. The dream of the Catholic novel is alive in Lee Oser’s Oregon Confetti.
 –Jeffrey O. Nelson, Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Oregon Confetti is a fantastic mash-up of Portland vogue, crime fiction, contemporary art, and Christian myth. It’s a post-secular fable for people who don’t want to be cynics any longer. In witty, energetic prose, Oser takes on easy American cultural pieties and pushes his characters (despite themselves) to believe in something ultimate that can’t be ironized out of existence.
–R. Clifton Spargo, author of Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald
Author Bio: Novelist Lee Oser was born in New York City in 1958, of Irish and Jewish extraction. He grew up on Long Island and, after working in his father’s publishing firm, moved to Portland, Oregon in 1978, where he played bass in a series of rock bands including The Riflebirds, one of Portland’s best-known groups during the New Wave period. He graduated from Reed College in 1988 and went on to do graduate work in English at Yale University, which awarded him the doctorate in 1995. Around this time he returned for good to the Catholic faith. He taught at Yale and Connecticut College before landing at Holy Cross in 1998, becoming full professor in 2010. Oser has published three influential books of literary criticism and a well-received novel, The Oracles Fell Silent, also through Wiseblood Books. Professionally, he is known for his efforts on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW), a literature-advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

Oregon Confetti

Literary

***OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE: FEBRUARY 21, 2014*** The Oracles Fell Silent by Lee Oser: When the legendary Sir Ted Pop hires young Richard Bellman as his secretary, Bellman's work on the great man's memoir transforms his young life into a divine comedy-or is it a devilish farce? In a New York beach house in Southampton, Bellman treads the forbidden ground of Ted's final hour with Johnny Donovan, his partner in fame, who "fell" from a London rooftop in 1969. Sir Ted battles false prophets and mad messiahs for control over his own story, but what rock's biggest mystery reveals to Bellman is the unthinkable hand of God. "You think Johnny understood his fate when he fell? You think you understand your fate, or I understand mine? Your story will be written, all right, but not by you. It will be written by someone you could never buy, and you wouldn't like the narrative. Not that it matters, but you would scarcely recognize yourself, not since you lost your soul on its great crusade to nowhere." Wiseblood Books fosters works of fiction, poetry, and philosophy that render truths with what Flannery O'Connor called an unyielding "realism of distances." Such works find redemption in uncanny places and people; wrestle us from the tyranny of boredom; mock the pretensions of respectability; engage the hidden mysteries of the human heart, be they sources of either violence or courage; articulate faith and doubt in their incarnate complexity; dare an unflinching gaze at human beings as "political animals"; and suffer through this world's trials without forfeiting hope.

Createspace Independent Pub

Old Enemies: A Satire

Humor & Satire

Senex Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oser, Lee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Oser, Lee

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Oser, Lee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett

The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett

The Oracles Fell Silent

Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature

T. S. Eliot and American Poetry (Volume 1)

The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien, and the Romance of History (Volume 1)

Out of What Chaos

Oregon Confetti

The Oracles Fell Silent

Old Enemies: A Satire