ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisA Byron biography like no other published to mark the bicentennial of his death it tells the remarkable life story of the celebrated Romantic poet through ten of his best, most resonant letters. Using Byron's correspondence, Stauffer relates a vivid and engaging story of creativity, fame, sexual transgression and scandal.

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Book Synopsis'A writer of genius' - William DalrympleCan anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing.It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect.Travelling through Classical Greece, Ashoka's India, Tang dynasty China, and many other epochs, this triumphal new history reveals the crossing points which have not only inspired the humanities, but which have made us human.Trade Review'A writer of genius' -- William Dalrymple'Compellingly written' * Financial Times *'A breakneck, utterly captivating survey of threads of cultural transmission-how ideas, stories, and songs-survive, change, vanish, get borrowed, refined, coopted, and grafted through time ... I underlined sentences on every page.' -- Anthony Doerr'A remarkable book.' -- Kwame Anthony Appiah'Eminently readable ... The book's great strength lies in its ability to swoop deftly and lightly between things that may be familiar to us in themselves, but which we might be tempted to separate out in our attempts to form a picture of the world.' -- Edward Wilson-Lee * The Times Literary Supplement *'Martin Puchner has exceptional and invaluable gifts: intellectual fearlessness, dazzling erudition, trenchancy tempered by breadth of mind, and a humanist's eye for minute evidence that illumines huge problems.' -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto'Fearless and exhilaratingly erudite, Martin Puchner's panoramic tour of human culture across the millennia is a riveting page-turner.' -- Amy Chua'A forceful rebuke to those who argue that culture can be owned by groups, nations, religions or races. . . . [by] an adept storyteller.' -- Ismail Muhammad * New York Times *'A Harvard professor goes wide in this study of the humanities and human creativity, looking at standout moments and what they can tell us about our past and future. As [Martin Puchner] guides readers along a Nefertiti to TikTok continuum, he shows how cultural exchange and innovation help societies address some of life's most existential questions' -- Joumana Khatib * New York Times *'Elegantly written and full of erudite lore, this vibrant history illuminates the inveterate human yearning for expression.' * Publishers Weekly *'A thoughtful, generous vision of human creativity across centuries of culture.' * Kirkus *'Fluent and engaging.' -- Boyd Tonkin * Wall Street Journal *'A mighty, polymathic work . . . [by] a master storyteller -- Chris Vognar * Boston Globe *'Jaunty and readable but never lacking in depth, Culture hops through countries and eras to deliver a resonant argument.' -- Lauren Puckett-Pope * Elle *'Cultures develop by sharing, borrowing, and collaborating--but also by conquest, appropriation, and theft. Martin Puchner's timely book takes us on a breathtaking tour of world history, reminding us that as we judge the past, one day we, too, will be judged, and that when we ignore or try to erase our cultural heritage, we are only impoverishing ourselves' -- Louis Menand * Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club *'Puchner creates a perfectly balanced and incisively abridged version of the story of human culture. Ultimately, this is an examination of the making and transport of ideas, which is always an interaction between old and new. Each chapter builds a new layer, adding to the depth and complexity, while Puchner also provides a global who's who of cultural diffusion' * Booklist *'So many books these days are described as being 'sweeping histories'; Culture, which promises in its subtitle to take us from our most primitive artistic impulses all the way to the machinery of modern-day fandom. But what intrigues me most about Puchner's latest isn't its scope - it's its driving question: 'What good are the arts?' In my more hopeless moments, this question bubbles up inside me, and I'm chomping at the bit to hear Puchner's answer, grounded in history and informed by cultures around the world' -- Sophia Stewart'Well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way' -- Marguerite Johnson * The Conversation *

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Book SynopsisChildren′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Children’s Literature Chapter 2: Beginning Books Chapter 3: Picture Books Chapter 4: Transitional Novels Chapter 5: Poetry Chapter 6: Non-fiction Chapter 7: Fantasy Chapter 8: Realistic Fiction Chapter 9: Historical Fiction Chapter 10: Indigenous Literature Chapter 11: Digital Texts Chapter 12: Humour Chapter 13: Future Leanings

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus offers the complete 1604 A-text with embedded selections from the 1616 B-text. Its innovative format will make it easier for readers to note differences between these texts and to consider what is gained and lost in viewing them both separately and together. A full Introduction to the play, notes, and a rich selection of related texts further enhance the value of this edition to students of Renaissance drama, Reformation theology, magic, and occult philosophy.Trade Review“This most recent edition of Doctor Faustus is guaranteed to appeal to a fresh, widespread audience of students and scholars. Uniquely combining the full A- and B-texts of the play, the edition offers new possibilities for analysis and interpretation. In addition to a generous introduction, replete with crucial data, the edition supplies readers with a bibliography, notes, and an abundant selection of related texts, including the Faustbook. The range of valuable information will surely attract not only Marlovians and all those interested in Renaissance drama and related, historical contextual matters, but anyone interested in accounting for how Doctor Faustus has achieved its enduring fame.” —Robert A. Logan, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Hartford

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Book SynopsisA travelogue exploring the life and work of George Orwell through the places he lived, worked and wrote Following in the footsteps of his literary hero, researcher and historian Oliver Lewis set out to visit all the places to have inspired and been lived in by George Orwell. Over three years he travelled from Wigan to Catalonia, Paris to Motihari, Marrakesh to Eton, and in each location explored both how Orwell experienced the place, and how the place now remembers him as a literary icon. Beginning in Northern India, where Orwell was born in 1903, and ending in the Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay, where he was laid to rest in 1950, The Orwell Tour offers an accessible and informative new biography of Orwell through the lens of place.Trade ReviewOrwell roamed widely, living in London, Southwold, Henley, Wallington, Hayes and Jura. It's this rootless, restless man that writer Oliver Lewis pursues in his innovative and thorough book, The Orwell Tour. -- Daily TelegraphIf you enjoy Orwell and if you enjoy travelogues, you'll find a lot here to like. -- The Orwell Society

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Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot is regarded as the most important poetcritic of modern times, the twentieth century's Man of Letters' whose reputation was forged not only on the strength of his verse, but on the enduring influence of his critical writings. The Collected Prose presents those works that Eliot allowed to reach print in the order of their final revision or printing. Publishing across four volumes, the series aims to provide an authoritative and clean-text record of Eliot's approved texts and their revisions, beginning with his formative observations, written while he was at high school, and concluding in his final major opus, To Criticize the Critic, published in the months after his death.This second volume spans 19291934, a period in which Eliot's poetry was maturing into the reflective verse of Animula, Ash-Wednesday and Marina. It was also a moment that confirmed his critical reputation with the publication of Selected Essays

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring A pathbreaking analysis of the relationship between Mandela the myth, and Mandela the historical figure, looking at the way images, stories, and politics have been combined to create the iconic image of Mandela that we know today. Boehmer explores the long trajectory of Mandela''s life, explaining first the historical and political context of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and then the post-apartheid period of difficult reconciliation, including the shifts and changes in Mandela''s reputation since the millennium.This innovative postcolonial reflection takes on board the more critical revisionist literature on Mandela that has emerged since 2015, looking at responses to his death in 2013, and the 2018 commemorations of the 100th anniversary of his birth.The first edition set a trend in scholarship on Mandela by reading his character and achievements through the lens of his influences, interests, and leading ideas. The second edition extends this focus with a far-reaching critical look at meanings of reconciliation and Mandela''s ethic of reciprocity. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of Contents1: Mandela: story and symbol 2: Scripting a life: the early years 3: Growth of a national icon: later years 4: Influences and interactions 5: Sophiatown sophisticate 6: Masculine performer 7: Spectres in the prison garden 8: Mandela's legacy

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Book SynopsisThough well-known to many Whitman scholars, Specimen Days is an underrated 'late' prose work which chronicles the life of one of the world's best loved and most influential poets.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Walt Whitman SPECIMEN DAYS Appendix A: "Preface. To the Reader in the British Islands" Appendix B: "Additional Note. Written 1887 for the English Edition" Explanatory Notes Glossary of Persons Mentioned

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Book SynopsisThe Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century.Trade ReviewThis is a great updated English translation to acquire. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *How do we fare when we read Brian Nelson's translation? Are we getting a version of Proust that is discernibly great...? Well, yes. * Peter Craven, The Quadrant *Table of ContentsGeneral Editor's Preface to the Series Translator's Note Introduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Marcel Proust The Swann Way Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot is regarded as the most important poetcritic of modern times, the twentieth century's Man of Letters' whose reputation was forged not only on the strength of his verse, but on the enduring influence of his critical writings. The Collected Prose presents those works that Eliot allowed to reach print in the order of their final revision or printing. Publishing across four volumes, the series aims to provide an authoritative and clean-text record of Eliot's approved texts and their revisions, beginning with his formative observations, written while he was at high school, and concluding in his final major opus, To Criticize the Critic, published in the months after his death.This fourth and final volume from 19511966, covers a period of concluding productivity in Eliot's writing. Although his poetry was all but complete, his theatrical and critical work flourished through a decade that included such books as Poetry and Drama (1951)

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents a new translation of Aristotle''s Topics Book VI by Annamaria Schiaparelli, accompanied by a detailed commentary and textual notes providing insight into the history of the transmission of the text with its variants. In the Topics, Aristotle aims at developing his dialectical method. He introduces the four predicables (property, genus, accident, and definition) which are necessary for the classification and application of the topoi, or commonplaces. Book VI of the Topics is entirely devoted to the discussion of definition, the most extended and refined discussion of this subject handed down to us from the classical period. The concept of definition plays a central role not only in Aristotle''s logic but also in his ontology. Issues connected with definitions emerge constantly throughout his works. Moreover, definitions are at the centre of Platonic philosophy and sparked a lively discussion in philosophy of the Hellenistic and late classical periods.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION I: The Place of the Topics in Aristotle's Corpus II: The Contents of the Topics III: The Four Predicables IV: The Classifications of the Predicables V: The Logical Relations among the Predicables VI: The Predicable Definition VII: Types of Definition and their Rules VIII: The Notion of Causality in the Topics IX: Some Prominent Themes concerning Standard Definitions X: Structure and Interpretations of Book VI of the Topics TRANSLATION COMMENTARY Notes on the Text Appendix: The Predicables Logical Relations Select Bibliography Glossary: English-Greek / Greek-English Indexes

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Book SynopsisWords have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice. Words must never stand apart from those principles.'You end this collection…vowing to never let life, or writing, get so complicated again' GuardianReaders who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his beautifully surreal worlds will be fascinated by this highly personal look at the craft of writing.In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.'Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers' New York Times Book Review'A fascinating glimpse of the peculiar writerly life' Sunday Times** A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES and NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR**Trade Review[The] 11 essays here… deal with all the things that you’d like to ask [Murakami]…in the highly unlikely event that you were able to corner him at a book-signing session… You end this collection of beautiful essays vowing to never let life, or writing, get so complicated again * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Kannada Mahabharata, known as Kumāravyāsa Bhārata, is an innovative fifteenth-century retelling of the famous Mahabharata story centered on Krishna. Volume 1 includes “The Book of Beginnings” and “The Book of the Assembly.” This abridged edition presents a new English translation and authoritative Kannada text in the Kannada script.

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Book SynopsisThe Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran are adherents of the last surviving Gnostic tradition from the period of Late Antiquity, and the Book of Kings is the capstone to one of their most sacred scriptures. A universal history in four parts, it concisely outlines the entire 480,000 year span of the material world, from its creation to its destruction in the maw of the great Leviathan, with details including a succession of antediluvian cataclysms that have previously wiped out all human life, the reigns of the kings who have reigned over humanity and are still yet to reign, a lament on the end of pagan antiquity under the reign of the Arabs, and the apocalyptic drama attending those who have the misfortune to live at the end of the world era. For the first time ever, this work appears in English in its entirety, complete and unabridged, and directly translated from original Mandaic manuscripts, with the events mentioned within it coordinated with our calendar. It also includes an extensive commentary illustrating its relationship to contemporary historical writing and with the sacred literature of Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other neighbouring religious communities living under Sasanian rule.Trade Review‘[The book] offers interesting insights into a Middle Eastern community during the era of the Byzantine and Sasanid empires. It is useful for those wanting to compare religious beliefs between cultures.’ Medievalists.net

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Book SynopsisJane Austen and Lord Byron are often presented as opposites, but here they are together at last. In Regency England he was the first celebrity author while she was a parson's daughter writing anonymously. This book explores how their lives, interests, work and sense of humour often brought them within touching distance, and sets them side by side in the world of the Regency and Romantic period. Using some little-known sources and new research, it illustrates how they were distantly related by marriage; how they knew about each other even though they probably never met; the acquaintances they had in common and how their literary work often came close in subject-matter, approach, technique and tone.Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, this book will inform and delight scholars and Austen and Byron fans alike, showing that these two great authors were closer than you might think, even in their own day.

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Book SynopsisA new translation of Federico García Lorca’s captivating lecture on duende. For years, Federico García Lorca’s lecture on duende has been a source of insight for writers and performers, including Ted Hughes, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, and Amanda Gorman.Duende: Play and Theory not only provides a path into Lorca’s poetics and the arts of Spain; it is one of the strangest, most compelling accounts of inspiration ever offered by a poet. Contrasting the demon called duende with the Angel and the Muse, Lorca describes a mysterious telluric, diabolical current, an irreducible “it,” that can draw the best from both performer and audience. This new translation by Christopher Maurer, based on a thoroughly revised edition of the Spanish original of 1933, also included in this volume, offers a more accurate and fully annotated version of the lecture, with an introduction by eminent philologist José Javier León. Drawing on a deep knowledge of flamenco, and correcting decades of discussion about duende and its supposed origins in Spanish folklore and popular speech, León shows to what extent the concept of duende—understood as the imp of artistic inspiration—was the playful, yet deadly serious, invention of Lorca himself. Lorca’s bravura performance of duende is foreshadowed here with a bilingual version—the most complete ever—of his other major text on inspiration, “Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion,” in which he calls for greater freedom in poetry as if searching for duende and its “constant baptism of newly created things.”Trade Review"For many of my generation of poets & readers (& beyond), Lorca was & remains a radical & necessary voice—the poems foremost but linked by him to the creation or extension of a new/old poetics, drawing from a presumed folk & popular tradition, centered on the word 'duende' as a poetry of 'black sounds' & 'demonic' energies, both in writing & performance. It is this yearning to have duende, or be possessed by it, that this book allows us to view as Lorca presented it in several groundbreaking lectures: compact but rich enough to create a Spanish ethnopoetics or a still greater & deeper poetics for the world-at-large. What José Javier León & Christopher Maurer give us here is crucial to our renewed sense of where poetry, however made or enacted, can still take us. In that sense, remarkable." * Jerome Rothenberg, professor emeritus at the University of California-San Diego, renowned poet, anthologist, performance artist, critic, scholar, and author of Gematria Complete and Concealments & Caprichos *"In your hands is the definitive bilingual edition of what is perhaps the most enigmatic text of Federico García Lorca, the greatest poet of the 20th century in the Spanish language. Once again, the word of Christopher Maurer has illuminated the work of the great Federico, and José Javier León accompanies us on Lorca's path toward 'depths of the blood.' At a time when for many people the idea of poetry has become ever more banal, the recovery of this text, 'Juego y teoría del duende,' in this exquisite edition is cause for celebration for poetry lovers. The duende could not be in better hands." * Fernando Valverde, associate professor of Spanish and Poetry at University of Virginia, award-winning author of America *

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Book SynopsisFever is a fast-paced thriller from New York Times bestselling author and master of the medical thriller, Robin Cook.When his wife died of cancer and he desperately needed to know why, Doctor Charles Martel turned to research. Then his world is shattered for the second time. His daughter is admitted to hospital; his research project is cancelled.Suddenly, he’s a man fighting against the odds.Against doctors who want to treat his daughter’s leukaemia the wrong way.Against a research institute that puts profits before ethics.Odds enough to turn a responsible citizen into a desperate criminal . . .Trade ReviewThe master of the medical thriller. * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisI love fire. Fire is the colour of genius.In this audacious new work, Edna O'Brien gives voice to the women who were central to the life of James Joyce.James Joyce had been my ultimate hero for sixty years, but to paint the canvas of his life was daunting. Therefore I decided to depict him as seen by the key figures in his life - Mother, Wife, Mistress of a fleeting moment, his patron Harriet Weaver and his beloved Daughter Lucia, of whom he said her mind was but a transparent leaf away from his.'Written to celebrate the centenary of Ulysses, Joyce's Women premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in September 2022. This revised edition includes changes made by the author during rehearsals and previews of the play''s first production.

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Book Synopsis''I tender these tales of the Jazz Age into the hands of those who read as they run and run as they read.'' Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) was Fitzgerald''s second collection of short stories, and it contains some of the best examples of his talent as a writer of short fiction. Often overshadowed by his major novels, Fitzgerald''s short stories demonstrate the same originality and inventive range, as he chronicles with wry and astute observation the temper of the hedonistic 1920s. In ''May Day'' and ''The Diamond as Big as the Ritz'', two of his greatest stories, he conjures up the spirit of the age; in other stories he adopts a variety of forms - parody, a one-act play, fantasy - with unrivalled versatility. ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'', a tale of a man living his life backwards, features among the ''Fantasies'' in Fitzgerald''s self-deprecatory Table of Contents, alongside the groupings ''My Last Flappers'' and ''Unclassified Masterpieces''.Fitzgerald chose the stories for hTable of ContentsA Table of Contents The Jelly-Bean The Camel's Back May Day Porcelain and Pink The Diamond as Big as the Ritz The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Tarquin of Cheapside "O Russet Witch!" The Lees of Happiness Mr. Icky Jemima, the Mountain Girl

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Book SynopsisSylvia Plath is one of the most influential and iconic American writers of the twentieth century, popular with academic and general audiences alike. Plath, who died at age 30, left behind a body of work that changed the direction of modern poetry, and buttressed second-wave feminism. Her poetry and fiction have been especially important to generations of women readers who have found a powerful reflection of their own emotions and experiences in Plath''s art. In this incisive introduction, leading Plath scholar Heather Clark explores the intersections between Plath''s life and work while discussing key themes in Plath''s poetry collections The Colossus and Ariel, her novel The Bell Jar, and short stories Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, The Wishing Box, and Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom. Clark summarizes the ways in which Plath has been pathologized, and reframes her work within the broader context of poetic confessionalism, biography, feminism, politics, and mental illness.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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Book Synopsis''I liv''d indeed like a Queen; or if you will have me confess, that my Condition had still the Reproach of a Whore, I may say, I was sure, the Queen of Whores.''Left destitute by her husband, the heroine of Defoe''s final novel has to choose between her virtue and her life. Choosing survival, she makes her way as a kept woman and courtesan. The Fortunate Mistress (1724), also known under the title Roxana, tells the story of how she climbs society''s ladder by dint of her own enterprise, shedding and gaining multiple identities as she moves through the worlds of business and finance, and across the trade capitals of Europe. Amassing a fortune, her taste for men and luxuries veers increasingly to the aristocratic and exotic, culminating when she dances before the King at a masquerade dressed in the garb of a Turkish Sultana--at which point she is granted the name by which she is known to history, Roxana. Despite her rise, Roxana''s past never recedes from view, and her choices eventally

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Book SynopsisJohannes Haubold is Professor of Classics at Princeton University, USASophus Helle is Postdoctoral Fellow at The Free University of Berlin, Germany and Oxford University, UKEnrique Jiménez is Chair of Ancient Near Eastern Literatures at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, GermanySelena Wisnom is Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East, University of Leicester, UK

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Book SynopsisThe first detailed account of Austen's characters' reading experience to date, this book explores both what her characters read and what their literary choices would have meant to Austen''s own readership, both during her life and today.Jane Austen was a voracious and extensive reader, so it''s perhaps no surprise that many of her characters are also readersfrom Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Beginning by looking at Austen's own reading as well as her interest in readers' responses to her work, the book then focuses on each of her novels, looking at the particulars of her characters' reading and unpacking the multiple (and often surprising) ways in which what they read informs our reading. What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) uses Austen''s own love of reading to invite us to rethink the ways in which she imagined her characters and their lives beyond the novels.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Hindley paints a picture of magic’s place in medieval England, producing an eye-opening study of ‘words at their most powerful’ . . . that promise[s] to change the way we think about magic in the medieval world.” -- Mary Flannery * Times Literary Supplement *"A thought-provoking look at the distinctive ways medieval English people viewed language [that] intrigues. It’s an enlightening deep dive." * Publishers Weekly *“Hindley carefully and fruitfully rethinks what charms tell us about written and oral aspects of culture, drawing on a wonderfully abundant collection of source material from a period in which charms proliferated but were often kept secret. A valuable contribution to the history of magic, her book sheds light on both an impressively diverse archive and the implications of their textuality.” -- Richard Kieckhefer, Northwestern University“Hindley guides readers through the complete history of spoken and written charms in medieval England with seasoned ease. Through close readings and the latest archaeological insights, Textual Magic offers an indispensable introduction to medieval English charms, packed with examples in both their original language and modern English translation.” -- Lea Olsan, University of Louisiana at Monroe“Textual Magic is a significant new work in medieval studies, generously illustrated with images and transcriptions of charm texts. In particular, Hindley’s focus on the instructions accompanying charms and her awareness of their multilingual contexts are welcome additions to the literature on verbal charms.” -- Jonathan Roper, University of TartuTable of ContentsList of Boxes Note on Translation and Transcription Abbreviations Introduction Reading, Writing, and Charming Chapter 1 The Powers of Charm-Words and Relics Chapter 2 Before 1100: “Textual Magic” in Pre-Conquest England Chapter 3 1100 to 1350: Charm Language and the Boundaries of Text Chapter 4 1350 to 1500: “A Fayre Charme on Englysh” Conclusion The Changing Power of Words Acknowledgments Manuscripts Cited Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisThe legends collected in Saints at the Limits, despite sometimes being viewed with suspicion by the Church, fascinated Christians during the Middle Ages—as cults and retellings attest. These Byzantine Greek stories, translated into English here for the first time, continue to resonate with readers seeking to understand universal fears and desires.Trade ReviewWhat makes this volume truly invaluable is the translations. As knowledge of ancient languages diminishes, the translations make these texts more accessible than ever. It seems likely that all these texts will attract more scholarly interest over the next few years…This is a very valuable volume to have. -- Roger Pearse

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Book SynopsisLanguage, Society and Power provides an accessible introduction to the study of language in a variety of social contexts. This book examines the ways language functions, how it influences the way we view society, and how it varies according to age, ethnicity, class, and gender. Readers are encouraged to consider whether representations of people and their language matter, explore how identity is constructed and performed, and examine the creative potential of language in the media, politics, and everyday talk. With updates and new international examples throughout, the sixth edition of this popular textbook features: Thoroughly revised chapters on politics and media to include topics such as environmentalism, the politics of consumer choice, injustice in legal systems, and the power of social media in political activism Expanded coverage of ongoing debates around fake news, gender fluidity and representation, and multilingualism DiscussTrade Review"This edition of Language, Society and Power is up to date with current developments in society that impact issues of power and ideology. It involves the reader – tutors and students alike – in an analysis of these developments, sucks them in to explore their in-ward understanding of language issues." – Ayo Amuda, University of South Wales, UK "Language, Society and Power contains a balanced and very accessible coverage of the core concepts of sociolinguistics, illustrated through carefully chosen and meticulously discussed data. It is a must for students and everyone interested in understanding and analysing how we use language in our societies." – Irene Theodoropoulou, Qatar University Table of ContentsContents List of Figures List of Images List of Tables Transcription Conventions Preface to the Sixth Edition Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Language? 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Why Study Language? 1.3 What Is Language? 1.3.1 Language: A System 1.3.2 Language: A System with Variation 1.3.3 The Potential to Create New Meanings 1.4 The ‘Rules’ of Language: Prescription Versus Description 1.5 Power 1.5.1 Ideology 1.6 ‘Political Correctness’ 1.7 Summary Further Reading Chapter 2 Language, Thought and Representation 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Language as a System of Representation 2.2.1 Different Kinds of Language 2.2.2 Signs and Structure 2.3 Linguistic Diversity 2.3.1 Semantics 2.3.2 Syntax 2.4 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 2.4.1 Linguistic Relativism and Determinism 2.4.2 Numbers, Things, and Animals 2.5 One Language, Many Worlds 2.6 A Model for Analysing Language 2.6.1 Lexical Choices 2.6.2 Transitivity 2.7 Summary Further Reading Chapter 3 Language and Politics 3.1 Introduction 3.2 What is ‘Politics’? 3.3 Politics and Ideology 3.4 Three Persuasive Strategies: Logos, Pathos, Ethos 3.5 Biscuits are Political?: Introducing Linguistic Tools 3.6 Climate Change and Political Discourse 3.7 Language, Ideology, and Metaphor 3.7.1 Student as Customer 3.8 Twitter and Political Agency 3.9 Silly Citizenship 3.9.1 Jorts the Cat 3.9.2 ‘K-Pop and TikTok 3.10 Summary Further Reading Chapter 4 Language and the Media 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Mass Media 4.3 The Changing Context 4.3.1 Structure 4.3.2 Who is Producing Content? 4.4 Manufacture of Consent 4.4.1 Filtering the Facts 4.5 News Values 4.5.1 Actors and Events 4.6 New News Values 4.7 Who is the Expert; Who is the Author? 4.8 Fake News 4.8.1 ‘Fake news’ as Delegitimising Accusation 4.8.2 Fabricated News Reports to Misinform 4.8.3 Fabricated News Reports to Entertain 4.8.4 Comedy News Shows 4.9 Summary Further Reading Chapter 5 Linguistic Landscapes 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Defining the Linguistic Landscape 5.2.1 Space and Meaning 5.2.2 Different Kinds of Signs 5.2.3 'Top-down' and 'Bottom-up' as a Continuum 5.3 Signs and Multilingualism and Power 5.3.1 Invisible Language 5.4 Signs and Ideology 5.5 Transgressive Signs: Graffiti 5.6 Surveillance 5.7 Online Landscapes 5.7.1 Twitter 5.7.2 Instagram 5.7.3 Memes 5.8 Summary Further Reading Chapter 6 Language and Gender 6.1 Introduction 6.2 What is Gender? 6.3 Inequality at the Lexical Level 6.3.1 Marked Terms 6.3.2 Semantic Derogation 6.3.3 Pronouns 6.4 Differences in Language Use: Doing Being a ‘Woman’ or A ‘Man’ 6.4.1 Tag Questions 6.5 Gossip 6.5.1 Gossip and Men 6.5.2 Features of Men’s Talk 6.6 Gender and Power 6.6.1 Do Women Talk More than Men? 6.6.2 Gender or Power? 6.6.3 Intersectionality 6.7 Gendered Talk: Performing Identity 6.7.1 Mate 6.7.2 Variation 6.8 Summary Further Reading Chapter 7 Language and Ethnicity 7.1 Introduction 7.2 What Do We Mean By ‘Ethnicity’? 7.3 Racism and Representations of Ethnicity 7.3.1 Representations of Race 7.3.2 Racism Online 7.3.3 Reclaiming Terms 7.4 Ethnicity and Language Variation 7.4.1 Ethnolect or Repertoire? 7.4.2 African American Language 7.5 Ethnicity and Identity 7.5.1 Situated Ethnicity 7.6 Consequences for Ethnolinguistic Repertoires 7.6.1 Australian Aboriginal English 7.6.2 Sociolinguistic Labour 7.9 Summary Further Reading Chapter 8 Language and Age 8.1 Introduction 8.2 What do We Mean by 'Age'? 8.3 Early Life Stage 8.3.1 Language Used to Talk to Children 8.4 Adolescent Life Stage 8.4.1 What Teenagers Do 8.4.2 Multiple Negation 8.4.3 ‘Like’ as a Discourse Marker 8.4.4 Changes to Morphology 8.5 Middle Life Stage 8.5.1 Thanks Across the Generations 8.6 Later Life Stage 8.6.1 Representations of Older People 8.6.2 Self-representation of Older People 8.6.3 Language Used to Talk to Older People 8.6.4 Learning to Use the Internet 8.7 The Creep of Ageism 8.7.1 OK Boomer and Bla, Bla, Bla 8.8 Summary Further Reading Chapter 9 Language, Class and Symbolic Capital 9.1 Introduction 9.2 What is Social Class? 9.3 Attitudes to Class 9.3.1 Social Class as Other 9.3.2 Representations of Social Class 9.3.3 Pittsburghese 9.4 Linguistic Variation 9.4.1 New York City 9.4.2 Norwich 9.4.3 Glasgow 9.5 Intersection of Social Class and Other Variables 9.5.1 Social Class and Gender 9.6 Social Networks 9.7 Communities of Practice 9.8 Symbolic Capital 9.9 Revising the British Social Class Model 9.9.1 Power and Access to Symbolic Capital 9.9.2 Capital in the Global South 9.10 Summary Further Reading Chapter 10 Global Englishes 10.1 Introduction 10.2 What Does Global English Mean? 10.3 Learning English 10.3.1 Two Models 10.3.2 ‘Lingua Franca Core’ 10.4 ‘Singlish’ 10.5 Indian English 10.6 Linguistic Marketplace 10.6.1 Call Centres and English 10.7 Linguistic Imperialism 10.8 What do Language Varieties Mean in the Global Context? 10.8.1 Language Repertoires 10.8.2 Discourse in Advertising and Linguistic Landscapes 10.9 Summary Further Reading Chapter 11 Projects 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Things to Bear in Mind with Data Collection 11.2.1 What is 'Data'? 11.2.2 Transcribing 11.2.3 Data Analysis 11.3 Projects Project 1 – Mini Dictionary Project 2 – Political Texts Project 3 – Your Own Many Voices Project 4 – Conversational Politics Project 5 – Expertise in the Media Project 6 – Representation of Gender Project 7 – Titles Around the World Project 8 – Identity Project 9 – Digital Detox Project 10 – Little Bits of Data Project 11 – Children’s Television Project 12 – Texts and Social Media Project 13 – Linguistic Landscapes Project 14 – Political Agency 11.4 Research Resources 11.4.1 Where to Find Published Research 11.4.2 Other Resources Further Reading Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisToy Stories: Analyzing the Child in Nineteenth-Century Literature explores the stakes of recurrent depictions of children’s violent, damaging, and tenuously restorative play with objects within a long nineteenth century of fictional and educational writing. As Vanessa Smith shows us, these scenes of aggression and anxiety cannot be squared with the standard picture of domestic childhood across that period. Instead, they seem to attest to the kinds of enactments of infant distress we would normally associate with post-psychoanalytic modernity, creating a ripple effect in the literary texts that nest them: regressing developmental narratives, giving new value to wooden characters, exposing Realism’s solid objects to odd fracture, and troubling distinctions between artificial and authentic interiority. Toy Stories is the first study to take these scenes of anger and overwhelm seriously, challenging received ideas about both the nineteenth century and its literary forms. Radically re-conceiving nineteenth-century childhood and its literary depiction as anticipating the scenes, theories, and methodologies of early child analysis, Toy Stories proposes a shared literary and psychoanalytic discernment about child’s play that in turn provides a deep context for understanding both the “development” of the novel and the keen British uptake of Melanie Klein’s and Anna Freud’s interventions in child therapy. In doing so, the book provides a necessary reframing of the work of Klein and Freud and their fractious disagreement about the interior life of the child and its object-mediated manifestations.Table of ContentsPreface: A Toy Is Being Beaten | ix Introduction: Child’s Play | 1 1 Proper Objects | 27 2 Possible Persons | 54 3 Our Plays | 82 4 Bildung Blocks | 110 Conclusion: Toy Stories | 137 Acknowledgments | 147 Notes | 149 Works Cited | 189 Index | 205

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Book SynopsisA sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in written culture and human imagination over three millenniaTrade ReviewEcocritical Book Award Finalist, sponsored by ASLE“This book of remarkable conception—from bioarcheology to contemporary book art, across many millennia and cultures—surpasses previous routine responses to reveal parchment as a deep archive of both human and animal history.”—Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford“On Parchment has great range: it spans millennia, treats Jewish, Muslim, and Christian literatures, and matches stories of a Dun Cow with studies of its distant relatives’ DNA. This book is erudite and provoking by turns; an enriching, unsettling, and necessary challenge to established ideas about the literary past.”—Alexandra Gillespie, University of Toronto“In an epic sweep, Bruce Holsinger examines both the medieval fascination with this precious material and the modern fixation. On Parchment is an intelligent and engaging book that will capture the attention of medievalists and students.”—Raymond Clemens, coauthor of Introduction to Manuscript Studies“Elegant, capacious, and engaging, this is an astoundingly broad yet detailed investigation into the manufacture, use, and imaginative understandings of parchment across a range of cultures from antiquity to the present.”—Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan“In this deeply researched and creative book, distinguished medievalist and novelist Bruce Holsinger grapples with the manifold ways in which humans have literally enrolled animals in the task of memorializing the past. This book puts conversations about archival methods and historical memory in direct contact with the natural sciences, and it does so in ways that are deeply important for the humanities.”—Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

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Book SynopsisThis is the OCR-endorsed edition covering the Latin A-Level (Group 2) prescription of Annals XIV, 113, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed material to be read in English for A Level.Tacitus is one of the great Roman historians. His Annals, written in the early-2nd century CE, described the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero, covering the years 1468 CE. In this selection he provides a memorable vignette of Nero's decadence and cruelty in the failed and then successful murder of his own mother, Agrippina. The drama of Nero's reign must be read in the context of Tacitus' perspective as an author writing within living memory of the events he describes, events which shaped the further development of imperial rule.Supporting resources are available on the Companion Website: https://www.bloomsbury.pub/OCR-editions-2024-2026Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Text Commentary Notes Vocabulary

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Book SynopsisA Son at the Front offers a vivid portrait of American expatriate life in Paris during World War I. Wharton's only full-length novel dealing with the war, it portrays the relationship between an American expatriate artist father and his soldier son.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Edith Wharton Maps A Son at the Front Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisA renowned scholar of the English language, Tolkien is today celebrated as the father of the high fantasy genre. Drawing on his knowledge of languages, mythology and legend, he created an entire alternative reality, Middle Earth, and populated it with hobbits, orcs, ents, dragons, magicians and giant spiders.Packed with fascinating facts about Tolkien's life and labours, this delightful volume includes extracts from his works, letters and interviews, as well as from his contemporaries and admirers. It's a celebration of the writer whose imagination and creative genius changed the course of fantasy literature.'I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.' The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)'I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking...' Tolkien in a letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October 1958In July 1915, Tolkien took part in the Somme offensive, the bloodiest battle of the Great War. While recovering in hospital from trench fever, he wrote his first Elvish word list, as well as the first fragments of what would become The Silmarillion.The inspiration for The Hobbit came to Tolkien unexpectedly in the summer of 1930, while he was working his way through a huge stack of student essays. On a blank page he found himself scrawling, 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'Table of ContentsTolkien the Man and the Hobbit • Languages • Storyteller • Fantasy Worlds and Fables • Ents and Elves • Tolkien's Legacy

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Book SynopsisCompiled in the early tenth century, the Kokinshū is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems that became celebrated as the cornerstone of the Japanese vernacular poetic tradition. This book offers an inviting and immersive selection of roughly one-third of the anthology in English translation.Trade ReviewThese eminently readable and often beautiful translations will appeal to a new generation of readers in Japanese studies and beyond. The accompanying essays survey the genesis and afterlives of the collection and offer significant new insights on the original language of the poems and how to appreciate them in translation. -- Joseph T. Sorensen, author of Optical Allusions: Screens, Paintings, and Poetry in Classical Japan (ca. 800–1200)From the cries of the warbler in spring to the lonely nights of longing for a lover, Duthie offers fresh translations from each book of the Kokinshū, while grounding us in histories of scripts, reading and writing practices, and the power of poetry in premodern Japan. -- Christina Laffin, author of Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women: Politics, Personality, and Literary Production in the Life of Nun AbutsuThis book should appeal to anyone interested in Japanese poetry, both for its evocative rendering of selections from the Kokinshū and for its concisely informative account of the classic waka anthology. -- Gustav Heldt, translator of The Kojiki: An Account of Ancient MattersTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. TranslationMana PrefaceSelected Poems from the KokinwakashūKana PrefacePart II. Essays1. Poetry Before the Heian Period2. The Heian Court and Kana Writing3. The Conception and Structure of the Kokinshū4. Topics of Composition5. Prosody and Rhetorical Conventions6. The Kokinshū Prefaces7. The Kokinshū Text and Its Commentarial Tradition8. Translating the KokinshūAppendix: Poets in This BookBibliography and Further ReadingIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Open Admissions Danica Savonick traces the largely untold story of the teaching experience of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich at the City University of New York (cuny) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This period, during which cuny guaranteed tuition-free admission to every city high school graduate, was one of the most controversial in US educational history. Analyzing their archival teaching materials—syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments—alongside their published work, Savonick reveals how these renowned writers were also transformative educators who developed creative methods of teaching their students to navigate and change the world. In fact, many of their methods—such as student-led courses, collaborative public projects, and the publication of student writing—anticipated the kinds of student-centered and antiracist pedagogies that have become popular in recent years. In addition to recovering the pedagogical le

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Book SynopsisThis momentous study of Benjamin’s critical practice marks a sea change in Eagleton’s thought. Its goal is not merely to contemplate Benjamin’s approach to language, history, and art but to chart a dynamic new course for contemporary socialist criticism. To do this, Eagleton brushes Benjamin’s Trauerspiel against seventeenth-century British literature, tests his concept of the ‘aura’ against Freud and Lacan, and undertakes his most sustained engagement with Derrida and the political crossroads of deconstruction.

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Book SynopsisSeminal, inspired translations of one of the greatest poets of all time by Edna St. Vincent Millay and George Dillon, now available in a sleek new edition.It''s no exaggeration to say that Charles Baudelaire invented modern poetry. Flowers of Evil has been a bible for poets from Rimbaud to T.S. Eliot to Edna St. Vincent Millay, who, with Georges Dillon, brought out an inspired rhymed version of the book in 1936. Here it is reprinted, with the French originals, for the first time in many years. Millay and Dillon''s versions are virtuosic in their handling of rhyme and meter, and their take on the Flowers of Evil as a whole is among the most persuasive English, capturing in flowing lines comparable to Baudelaire''s the tortured consciousness and troubling sensuality that are his opulent music''s counterpart. The book also allows readers a new appreciation of the range of Millay''s own achievement as a poet and translator.

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Book SynopsisIlluminating the central struggle in The Lord of the Rings to deepen understanding of the whole of Tolkien's legendariumIn this remarkable work of close reading and analysis, Thomas P. Hillman gets to the heart of the tension between pity and the desire for power in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. As the book traces the entangled story of the One Ring and its effects, we come to understand Tolkien's central paradox: while pity is necessary for destroying the Ring, it cannot save the Ring-bearer from the Ring's lies and corruption.In composing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien explored the power of the Ring and the seeming powerlessness of pity. All the themes his mythology had come to encompass—death and immortality, fate and free will, divine justice and the problem of evil, power and war—took on a new dimension in the journey of Frodo Baggins. Hillman's attention to specific etymologies and patterns of words used in the text, complemented by his judicious use of Tolkien's letters, earlier drafts of the novels, and Tolkien's essays, leads to illuminating and original insights. Instead of turning his interpretation to allegory or apologetics, Hillman demonstrates how the story works metaphorically, allowing Tolkien to embrace both Catholic views and pagan mythology.With this fresh understanding of familiar material, Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring will ignite new discussions and deeper appreciation among Tolkien readers and scholars alike.Trade Review"Tom Hillman brings compassion—and a wealth of knowledge—to this analysis of Tolkien's use of pity in The Lord of the Rings. Scholars, students, and fans will learn from it." —Verlyn Flieger, author of Splintered Light and A Question of Time "Thomas Hillman gives the finest sustained close reading that The Lord of the Rings has ever received. Hillman examines how pity, as a concept and sentiment, manifests itself in the actions of Frodo and others as they struggle with the uncanny, malevolent lure of the One Ring." —Nicholas Birns, author of The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien "Hillman's study of Tolkien is both timely and timeless. Timely, because events in our world seem to be mirroring what Tolkien saw around him as he wrote and revised his masterpiece. Timeless, because Hillman's insights, despite being entirely original, are the kinds of observations that make you think 'Of course! How did I not think of that?' and forever change your understanding of a work you thought you knew."—Michael D. C. Drout, Wheaton College, Massachusetts

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Book SynopsisThe Possibility of Literature is an essential collection from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in contemporary literary studies. Bringing together key compositions from the last twenty-five years, as well as several new pieces, the book demonstrates the changing fate of literary thinking over the first decades of the twenty-first century. Peter Boxall traces here the profound shifts in the global conditions that make literature possible as these have occurred in the historical passage from 9/11 to Covid 19. Exploring questions such as ''The Idea of Beauty'', the nature of ''Mere Being'', or the possibilities of Rereading, the author anatomises the myriad forces that shape the literary imagination. At the same time, he gives vivid critical expression to the imaginative possibilities of literature itself ? those unique forms of communal life that literature makes possible in a dramatically changing world, and that lead us towards a new shared future.

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Book SynopsisPart of the Norton Library series

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Book SynopsisThe Politics of Emotion explores the intersection of powerful emotional stateslove, melancholy, grief, and madnesswith gender and political power on the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Using an array of sourcesliterary texts, medical treatises, and archival documentsNuria Silleras-Fernandez focuses on three royal women: Isabel of Portugal (14281496), queen-consort of Castile; Isabel of Aragon (14701498), queen-consort of Portugal; and Juana of Castile (14791555), queen of Castile and its empire. Each of these women was perceived by their contemporaries as having gone mad as a result of excessive grief, and all three were related to Isabel the Catholic (14511504), queen of Castile and a woman lauded in her time as a paragon of reason.Through the lives and experiences of these royal women and the observations, judgments, and machinations of their families, entourages, and circles of writers, chronicles, courtiers, moralist

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Book SynopsisThe Retrospective Muse showcases the celebrated work of Froma I. Zeitlin. Over many decades, Zeitlin''s innovative studies have changed the field of classics. Her instantly recognizable work brings together anthropology, gender studies, cultural studies, and an acute literary sensibility to open ancient texts and ideas to new forms of understanding. A selection of her luminous essays on topics still timely today are collected for the first time in a volume that shows the full range and flair of her remarkable intellect. Together, these illuminating analyses show why Zeitlin''s work on ancient Greek culture has had an enduring impact on scholars around the world, not just in classics but across multiple fields. From Homer to the Greek novel, from religion to erotics, from myth and ritual to theatrical performance, she expounds on some of the most important works of ancient writing and some of modernity''s most significant critical questions. Zeitlin''s writing st

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Book SynopsisWhile so many literary artists of earlier eras fall away, F. Scott Fitzgerald retains a hold on us. There is something inscrutable in him, a fact he recognized himself and which New Yorker writer Arthur Krystal takes head-on in a biography that gives us the life but leaves the minutiae behind in search of a more penetrating analysis.

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