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"Dr Ronald Gray, Fellow of Emmanuel College, lectured at Cambridge on German Literature and Philosophy for 33 years, and now expands his article, 'Will in the Universe, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Plato's

In this 1976 introduction to Brecht's theatre and theory, Ronald Gray explores the dramatist's interacting roles as a committed Marxist seeking to influence audiences and as one of the most innovative craftsmen ever to work in the theatre. Dr Gray traces the development of Brecht's dramatic work in the context of his life and time and discussed its significance, devoting chapters to reappraisals of the major plays. Particular attention is paid to Brecht's dramatic theories and their relationship to Hegelian and Marxist philosophy, to the tradition of political theatre in Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the influence Brecht had on English and American post-war drama. There are also detailed accounts of how many of the plays appeared in Brecht's own productions, and frequent references to actual performances in widely differing theatrical styles.

This 1973 text provides a critical introduction to the writings of Franz Kafka. Within it Ronald Gray surveys the novels and short stories, and glances also at the religious or confessional writings. He presents a persuasive and coherent account of Kafka's personal and artistic development and its meaning and value for us. Dr Gray argues that the early short stories are most finished and controlled; here Kafka recognised and managed to find a form exactly fitting his own condition, and the writing is less compulsive and obsessional than it became later. Dr Gray quotes extensively, translating specifically for the purpose. He writes for all whose who read Kafka, especially the many who read him in translation and would like a helpful and shrewd guide to understanding. Kafka's work hauntingly expresses one whole area of the modern mind - its anguish, dissociation and guilt - and this sane and sympathetic book puts him into a humane perspective.

Originally published in 1966, this book contains a selection of over a hundred poems from the whole range of Goethe's poetry, except for the scientific and dramatic works. The poems are arranged in groups. Each group has a brief introduction, and each poem is followed, where necessary, by a brief glossarial note and by a longer comment. This incorporates some historical or biographical information, but is mainly critical. The poems give a cumulative sense of the detail of Goethe's art. There is a general introduction, which deals briefly with Goethe's life and has a long section on his use of language. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Goethe's poetry and literary criticism.

This book, first published in 2000, draws on the great wealth of associations of street-names in Cambridge. It is not a dictionary, but it provides a series of entries on such topics as the Reformation, George IV and his wife, twentieth-century British scientists, businessmen, Elizabethan times, medieval Cambridge, mayors, millers, and builders. It includes hermits and coal merchants, field marshals and laundresses, martyrs and bombers, unscrupulous politicians and the founder of a Christian community, Cromwell and Newton, an Anglo-Saxon queen and the discoverer of Uranus - all people who lived in or often visited Cambridge. The ancient Stourbridge fair is included, along with castles and boat-races, sewage pumps and the original Hobson of 'Hobson's Choice'. Who was St Tibb? Where did Dick Turpin hide? Where was the medieval takeaway? Unlike earlier works, this is a history of everybody for everybody.

This is a detailed analysis of Kafka's novel The Castle, followed by a note on The Trial which points to the resemblance between the two books. Gray's starting point is the patient investigation of what the novel says and does. His object is to avoid any premature decision about 'what Kafka was driving at', for the result of that decision in previous critics was that, armed with a theological, political or psychoanalytical theory that partly fitted, they violated the delicacy and simplified the complexity of the book's operation on the mind. The Castle is not an allegory in which every component 'stands' for some simple thing or quality; it has to be entered and moved about in, the parts referred to each other, the resonances listened to. The Castle is a great work in itself and also has relationships with others in other languages. Gray's exemplary method makes his book valuable to any serious reader of literature.

Originally published in 1965, this book was written to provide 'a not too obtrusive guide' to German poetry from Luther's time up until Brecht's. For the most part, the text consists of poems followed by questions, whose purpose is not to provoke an interpretation or to test knowledge so much as to suggest possible starting-points from which lines of thought or of imagination may run. On the whole, the questions are not meant to be answered one by one, but rather to arouse a certain kind of interest and appreciation. A glossary and a guide for further reading are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in poetry and German literature.

In his autobiography, Goethe half-apologetically admits the youthful enthusiasm he experienced for alchemical and mystical readings: Georg von Welling's obscure Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum et Theosophicum and the anonymously published Aurea Catena Homeri, as well as works by Paracelsus, Basilis Valentinus and van Helmont. Originally published in 1952, this study shows how the symbols and concepts of alchemy played a key role in the genesis of Goethe's later works, both scientific and literary. Author of, among other books on German literature, Goethe: A Critical Introduction (1967) and An Introduction to German Poetry (1965), Ronald D. Gray details Goethe's alchemical readings, and shows how these influences were processed and transformed into a unique blend of scientific and poetic accounts of reality. Unprecedented in its approach, this study will be of interest to readers of German literature, as well as to anyone interested in the history and evolution of mysticism.

A concise survey and criticism of Goethe's work, for the general reader and the student.

Cao Xueqin was a Chinese novelist born in Nanjing around 1715, and still famous for his huge novel Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), which is considered the foremost of the four great classic n

Never in human history has food been so abundant, widely available, and cheap. Yet that abundance comes with major costs, ones that are largely hidden when we go to the grocery store or a restaurant.