On Late Style

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, Lampedusa, Euripides, Cavafy, and Mann, among others. He uncovers the conflicts and complexity that often distinguish artistic lateness, resulting in works that stood in direct contrast to what was popular at the time and were forerunners of what was to come in each artist's discipline–works of true genius.

Eloquent and impassioned, brilliantly reasoned and revelatory, On Late Style is Edward Said's own great last work.