On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain

In this fascinating book, Edward Said looks at the creative contradictions that often mark the late works of literary and musical artists.

"These studies . . . buzz with excitement and intelligence and demonstrate...the extraordinary range of Said’s intellectual interests.” —Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

Said shows how the approaching death of an artist can make its way into his work, examining essays, poems, novels, films, and operas by such artists as Beethoven, Genet, Mozart, Lam...