Literary studies: ancient, classical Books

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMiller is one of the ablest experts in the language of Greek poetry, and he has a razor-sharp sense for the nuances of the wording. A lastingly important sourcebook; I strongly recommend it. --Gregory Nagy, Harvard UniversityAndrew Miller is one of the--if not the--leading authority on classical antiquity’s most difficult lyric poet, Pindar. This book of translations and social and literary commentary proudly takes its place next to Richmond Lattimore’s. There is no better introduction to the problems and accomplishments of Greek lyric poetry, and the expert will appreciate the seriousness and brilliance of insight from a Hellenist of the highest caliber. --Joseph M. Romero, Mary Washington College. . . the translations are first-rate, better than anything comparable I know. The author is intelligent and scrupulous; he succeeds in maintaining a much higher level of accuracy and readability than any of his competitors. --Emmet Robbins, University of Toronto

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Book SynopsisAlexander’s A History of Old English Literature is an outstanding introduction to a difficult period of literary history. It provides a simple historical and cultural context for the study of the Anglo-Saxons, and offers a history, illustrated by many passages in translation, of the whole of the literature that survives. While it contains solid, insightful and sensible criticism of individual literary works, its overall historical organization suggests that Old English literature was created in a cultural context that changed from one century to another. Although its intentions are scholarly, this history of Old English literature is also an introduction, assuming little knowledge of this period or its surviving products, and none of its language. This edition has been revised and rewritten throughout, and offers a new preface as well as an updated bibliography.Trade Review“Old English literature has long been the preserve of scholars and specialists. Michael Alexander’s A History of Old English Literature now fills a major gap by introducing both prose and poetry, literature and history, in an accessible style which communicates his own lifelong love of the subject. Especially attractive are the translations, at once accurate and colloquial, which disperse the antiquarian miasma hanging round the subject while keeping the vital touch of strangeness. Alexander’s book is now the best and most complete one-volume guide to the whole of Old English, oldest and best-recorded of the vernaculars of Dark Age Europe.” — Tom Shippey, St. Louis University“A lucid, eminently readable survey, altogether a cosy hearth-companion.” — Margaret Connolly, University College CorkTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsPrefaceChronological Table1. PERSPECTIVESWhat has SurvivedSongs and ScribesThe End of HeathenismThe Languages of BritainContexts2. ENGLAND 449-1066: A SKETCHOld EnglishConquestConversionSutton Hoo and warrior societyConversion and accommodationBede’s NorthumbriaTheodore and a learned ChurchWessexThe Benedictine Revival3. HEROIC POETRY INCLUDING BEOWULFThe heroic ethosGermanic heroic poetryVersificationPoetic dictionFormulaic compositionThe uses of poetryBeowulf 4. THE WORLD’S WONDER: RIDDLESRiddlesVerse Wisdom5. BEDE AND CÆDMONThe Ecclesiastical HistoryCædmon6. THE POETIC ELEGIES Wanderer and SeafarerOther Elegies7. ALFRED AND OLD ENGLISH PROSE The Anglo-Saxon ChronicleBooks most needful8. VERSE OF THE CHRISTIAN ESTABLISHMENTSaints’ lives: AndreasEleneChristThe Dream of the Rood 9. THE BENEDICTINE REVIVALAelfric’s ColloquyAelfric’s HomiliesWulfstanVerse of the tenth centuryThe Battle of Maldon 10. AFTERWARDSOld and MiddleLate ProseAppendix: A Note on DeorNotes on the PlatesBibliography and Further Reading

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Book SynopsisIn all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials. Innovative, authoritative and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature has established itself as a leader in the field.The full anthology comprises six bound volumes, together with an extensive website component; the latter has been edited, annotated, and designed according to the same high standards as the bound book component of the anthology, and is accessible by using the passcode obtained with the purchase of one or more of the bound volumes.In the revised third edition of this volume, the term 'Anglo-Saxon' has been removed from our editorial apparatus - a change made in response to recent scholarly work that has drawn attention to the term's historical and current usage by white supremacists. We have also taken the opportunity to implement a small number of additional improvements. We have also taken the opportunity to implement a small number of additional improvements; the pagination, however, remains the same.Trade ReviewBroadview offers the best selection of Old English texts I’ve ever seen in an anthology of this nature … Well done!"—Robert W. Barrett, Jr., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"With the publication of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, teachers and students in survey and upper-level undergraduate courses have a compelling alternative to the established anthologies from Norton and Longman. Having adopted the first two volumes for an early period survey course last year, I had no hesitation in repeating the experience this year. The medieval volume, in particular, is superb, with its generous representation of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman literary culture, as well as its growing collection of texts from the too little-known fifteenth century. This is a very real intellectual, as well as pedagogical, achievement."— Nicholas Watson, Harvard University"The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period offers remarkable features that make it an excellent choice for instructors. The anthology includes eight Canterbury Tales, compared to Longman’s six and Norton’s seven, enabling students to experience Chaucer’s generic and linguistic range much more fully. The footnotes to The Canterbury Tales are more comprehensive than those in either Longman or Norton, explaining clearly each pilgrim’s profession (not always included in other anthologies); pointing out ambiguous syntax and offering alternative readings. In addition, I was impressed that the editors indicate in the footnotes passages that are not included in Ellesmere, but are considered by some critics as late additions. This attention to scholarly detail models just the kind of accuracy we demand from ourselves and students while researching. The full manuscript page reproductions further enhance the students’ experience with medieval manuscript culture, opening the door to further discussion of this aspect of the written tradition. I especially appreciate the extensive and inclusive “Contexts” sections … [Overall,] The Broadview Anthology certainly contains the most up-to-date and comprehensive selections of medieval texts, with excellent introductory notes and reader-friendly organization."—Eileen S. Jankowski, Chapman University"Comments on The Broadview Anthology of British Literature:“ … sets a new standard by which all other anthologies of British Literature will now have to be measured."—Graham Hammill, SUNY Buffalo"With the publication of the Broadview Anthology of British Literature, teachers and students in survey and upper-level undergraduate courses have a compelling alternative to the established anthologies by Norton and Longman. … This is a very real intellectual, as well as pedagogical, achievement."—Nicholas Watson, Harvard University"an excellent anthology. Good selections for my purposes (including some nice surprises), just the right level of annotation, affordable—and a hit with my students. I will definitely use it again."—Ira Nadel, University of British Columbia

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Book SynopsisA rare female voice in the 12th century Christian Church, Hildegard of Bingen was a German nun, an oracle, a mystic, a prolific writer on religious subjects who practiced medicine, wrote plays, and composed music. The Ways of the Lord contains selections from Scivias, her major religious work, in which Hildegard describes amazing visions and explores the profound spiritual truths hidden within them. A HarperCollins Spiritual Classic, The Ways of the Lord includes a foreword by Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys, and is a glorious introduction to the genius and devotion of this extraordinary holy woman of the Middle Ages.

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Book SynopsisPrince Siegfried chances upon a flock of swans while out hunting. When one of the swans turns into a beautiful woman, Odette, he is enraptured. But she is under a spell that holds her captive, allowing her to regain her human form only at night. The evil spirit Von Rothbart, arbiter of Odette’s curse, disguises his daughter Odile as Odette to trick Siegfried into breaking his vow of love. Fooled, Siegfried declares his love for Odile, and so dooms Odette to suffer under the curse forever. Swan Lake was Tchaikovsky’s first score for the ballet. Given its status today as arguably the best-loved and most admired of all classical ballets, it is perhaps surprising that at its premiere in 1877 Swan Lake was poorly received. It is thanks to the 1895 production by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov that Swan Lake has become part of not only ballet consciousness but also wider popular culture. That success is secured not only by the sublime, symphonic sweep of Tchaikovsky’s score but also by the striking choreographic contrasts between Petipa’s royal palace scenes and the lyric lakeside scenes created by Ivanov. Swan Lake has had a special role in the repertory of The Royal Ballet since 1934. Since then there has been a succession of productions, the most recent of which was overseen by Anthony Dowell. This 2019 Season sees a new production with additional choreography by ROH Artist-in-Residence Liam Scarlett. Scarlett, while remaining faithful to the Petipa-Ivanov text, will bring fresh eyes to the staging of this classic ballet, in collaboration with his long-term designer John Macfarlane. This beautifully produced new Royal Ballet branded book with photographs by Bill Cooper is a collection of exclusive photographs which shines the spotlight on Swan Lake. These exquisite photos feature some of the finest dancers on stage today and give an exclusive insight into the Royal Ballet’s work.Table of ContentsForeword by Kevin O'Hare Introduction by Liam Scarlett Prologue Act I Act II Act III Act IV Production Afterword by John Macfarlane 2017/18 Season Image Captions

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Book SynopsisWhat buried secret lies beneath the stones of one of England's greatest former churches and shrines, the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds? The search for the final resting place of King Edmund has led to this site, beneath which Francis Young argues the lost king''s remains are waiting to be found. Edmund: In Search of England''s Lost King explores the history of the martyred monarch of East Anglia and England''s first patron saint, showing how he became a pivotal figure around whom Saxons, Danes and Normans all rallied. Young also examines Edmund''s legacy in the centuries since his death at the hands of marauding Vikings in the 9th century. In doing so, this fascinating book points to the imminent rediscovery of the ruler who created England.Trade ReviewSimultaneously a sophisticated work of history, a compelling detective story and a moving meditation on what it is to be English, this is a fascinating and wonderful book. -- Tom HollandThe author's enthusiasm for his subject, and for the quest to find the mortal remains of St. Edmund, everywhere shines through. Authoritative and reliable, this volume is at the same time an enjoyable and engaging read. -- John Ashdown-Hill, MBETable of ContentsPreface List of Illustrations Abbreviations Chronology Introduction 1. Angelcynn: Edmund’s People 2. Death of a King 3. Invincible Martyr: The Early Cult of Edmund, 869-1066 4. ‘Patron of all England’: Edmund in the Medieval World, 1066-1539 5. A Lost King: Edmund since the Reformation Conclusion: Finding Edmund? Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe story of a battle in AD 986 -- a strong ruler and his men versus a famed warrior community that feared no one and dared all.Table of Contents Foreword Introduction 1. Knút the Foundling 2. King Gorm's Dreams 3. Earl Harold's Visions 4. Knút Gormsson Is Slain in England 5. King Harold and Earl Hákon Plot Together 6. King Harold Has Áki Tókason Slain 7. Palnir's Marriage. The Rise of Palnatóki 8. Of King Harold and Saumaesa 9. Svein's Dealings with King Harold 10. Palnatóki Slays King Harold and Proclaims Svein King 11. Palnatóki Acknowledges His Arrow 12. The Founding of Jómsborg 13. Of Earl Strút-Harold and Véseti and Their Sons 14. King Svein Arbitrates the Feud 15. Búi, Sigvaldi, and Vagn Join the Jómsvikings 16. Of Palnatóki's Death and Sigvaldi's Ambition 17. Sigvaldi Captures King Svein 18. The Vows of the Jómsvikings 19. Geirmund Escapes and Warns Earl Hákon 20. Preparations for the Battle 21. The Battle 22. The Aftermath 23. The Testing of the Jómsvikings 24. Of Vagn, Sigvaldi, and the Other Jómsvikings

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Book SynopsisWritten in about 1340 by the Benedictine preacher Pierre Bersuire, The Moralized Ovid was a highly influential interpretation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the High Middle Ages. It contains descriptions of the gods followed by allegorical interpretations of major myths. This edition presents a new English translation and an authoritative Latin text.

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Book SynopsisThe twelfth-century Latin beast epic Ysengrimus is one of the great comic masterpieces of the Middle Ages. It recounts the persecution of the wolf Ysengrimus--who represents a hybrid abbot-bishop--by his archenemy Reynard the fox. The narrative's details are carefully crafted to make the wolf's punishment fit the abbot-bishop's crime.

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Book SynopsisAldus Manutius (c. 1451–1515) was the most important scholarly publisher of the Renaissance. His Aldine Press was responsible for more first editions of classical literature, philosophy, and science than any other publisher before or since. This volume presents Aldus’s prefaces to Latin classics and modern humanist writers, translated into English.Trade ReviewThis priceless I Tatti volume collects and translates into English, many for the first time (although with the I Tatti Library, that almost goes without saying), the prefaces Manutius wrote for the volumes that came off his presses, the allurements intended for potential customers, the introductions to often complex subject matters, and, delightfully, some of that extensive correspondence, which lays bare both the artful flattery that comes with the territory when doing business in Venice and the knowingly public confidentiality in which every arriviste revels when they find themselves hob-nobbing with household names…Humanism and the Latin Classics makes the perfect bookend with the earlier Aldus Manutius volume The Greek Classics, and taken together or separately, they bring to the reader the whirring and clacking of the printer’s shop, the wheeling and wheedling of the time’s book industry, and most of all the burbling and rumorous and striving intellectual atmosphere of the Renaissance in its full flower, when books and learning and reading and writing seemed to awake from centuries of slumber and begin ferociously multiplying again in every town and city and seat of learning from London to Baghdad. Aldine books were everywhere during that explosion, carried in pockets, bought and traded, discussed by all, and these I Tatti volumes take readers inside the tornado and introduce them to the man in the eye of it all. -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *

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Book SynopsisWas there ever such a thing as Byzantium? Certainly no emperor ever called himself Byzantine. While the identities of eastern minorities were clear, that of the ruling majority remains obscured behind a name made up by later generations. Anthony Kaldellis says it is time for the Romanness of these so-called Byzantines to be taken seriously.Trade ReviewRomanland is brilliant. With great lucidity, Anthony Kaldellis challenges us to set aside an immense tradition of misdirection. He excavates the conceits by which the West created ‘Byzantium’—and itself—and then demolishes them. Only then do we see what was in fact there all along: a community of Romans, and a polity of remarkable creativity and endurance. This is tremendous scholarship. -- Clifford Ando, author of Roman Social ImaginariesEthnicity in the later Roman empire has been highly contested and immensely controversial, from medieval times to the present. Like a Hercules cleaning the Augean stables, Kaldellis is purging the field of the nationalistic contentions and prejudices that have beset scholarship, starting with the artificial name ‘Byzantium.’ This blockbuster of a book performs for ‘Byzantine’ Studies the service that Edward Said’s Orientalism did for Arabic and Islamic Studies. Romanland offers a clean slate for serious and sophisticated study, with love and empathy, of the history of these societies. -- Dimitri Gutas, author of Greek Thought, Arabic CultureIn his most persuasive work to date, Kaldellis calls an astonishing number of medieval witnesses to testify that they were Romans, rather than the ‘Byzantines’ scholars have wanted them to be. This extraordinary book should shift the ground under Byzantine studies. -- Leonora Neville, author of Guide to Byzantine Historical WritingFascinating…Kaldellis’s scholarship is always learned, but also fiercely iconoclastic, tearing down orthodoxies that have stood for centuries…[An] innovative and eye-opening book by one of the most important Byzantinists working today. -- Thomas F. Madden * New Criterion *

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Book SynopsisThis selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from 33 of antiquity’s major authors includes poetry, dialogue, philosophical writing, history, descriptive reporting, satire, and fiction—giving a glimpse at the wide range of arts and sciences, thought and styles, of Greco-Roman culture.Trade ReviewA small book that has been my companion on every train and bus journey for the past two weeks… It is a pocket-sized selection of some of the greatest writers who ever lived… Most of the passages in the book are all the better for being highly familiar—Medea contemplating the murder of her own children, Socrates dismissing his wife so that he can die talking bravely with chaps about the afterlife, Laocoon fearing the Greeks, even when bringing gifts such as the Trojan horse. -- A. N. Wilson * Daily Telegraph *A winsome book, only 6 ½ inches high, the Reader differs from classical anthologies that one typically sees on bookstore shelves: It provides not only a translation of the selections but also the text in the original Greek or Latin. Its appearance carries on the tradition of the Loeb Classical Library and celebrates the publication of the 500th title in a series that began in 1912. -- Michael Poliakoff * Wall Street Journal *Even for those with little Latin and less Greek, this compendium will bring enormous pleasure. Loeb is, indeed, a many-splendoured thing. -- Peter Jones * The Spectator *This little book is a delight to hold and to read… You would, if you’re remotely interested in books, be hard-pressed to find anything better anywhere on which to spend your money. -- Bradley Winterton * Taipei Times *It is ideal reading for bar, bus, bed or beach. Everyone, teacher and taught alike, should have one. It is this year’s must-have present. -- Peter Jones * Journal of Classics Teaching *If medals were given for heroic achievements in the publishing world, a big, bright, shiny gong would surely have been awarded long ago to the Loeb Classical Library… A Loeb Classical Library Reader is a trim little paperback, consisting of short extracts from 33 of Loeb’s authors. It is an easily accessible, genuinely pocket-sized anthology. -- Anthony Lejeune * The Tablet *This anthology provides a leisurely flat-rock skip across the wide, roistering seas of ancient experience. Nevertheless, while the current general editor, Jeffrey Henderson, claims that selecting passages for the Reader ‘occasioned no little debate’ among those charged with the choosing, the result satisfies… These byway pieces most of us never read in school, and they remind us that more always waits to be discovered. And raising the curtain on the slightest portions of these treasures may be this anthology’s greatest virtue. -- Tracy Lee Simmons * Weekly Standard *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""[It is] difficult to exaggerate the importance of Mackay’sbook as a statement on ancient Roman religion. . . . Essential."---R. E. Winn, Choice

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Otto Gründler Book Prize, The Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University""Winner of the Beatrice White Prize, The English Association, University of Leicester""Winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, The British Academy""Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, The Wolfson Foundation""Longlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown, Historical Writers’ Association""Finalist for the PROSE Award in Biography and Autobiography, Association of American Publishers""One of The Times' Best Literary Non-Fiction Books of 2019""One of the Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2019""One of the Sunday Times' Best Literary Books of 2019""A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""One of New Statesman's Books of the Year 2020"

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The diversity of source material (combined with the alphabetical arrangement) provides for unexpected and sometimes delightful juxtapositions: entries from the Kama Sutra sit alongside Buddhist instructions for charnel ground meditations, and the sublime attitudes of the brahma-viharas are sandwiched between the malicious and the macabre. . . . Being fully aware of one’s own emotional experience is a wonder, a miracle. In this light, Words for the Heart offers the reader 177 entry points to wonder."---Sarah Fleming, Tricycle"An homage to the Sanskrit tradition. . . . A good sample of Sanskrit literature and philosophy that will, I am sure, whet many appetites for more writings from and about classical India."---Sophus Helle, Marginalia Review of Books

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Book SynopsisIn the third volume of his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War, Donald Kagan examines the years between the signing of the peace treaty and the destruction of the Athenian expedition to Sicily in 413 B.C.Trade ReviewA profound analysis of the relation of strategy to politics, a sympathetic but searching critique of Thucydides' masterpiece, and a trenchant assessment of the voluminous modern literature on the war. -- Bernard Knox * The Atlantic Monthly *"The temptation to acclaim Kagan's four volumes as the foremost work of history produced in North America in the twentieth century is vivid.... Here is an achievement that not only honors the criteria of dispassion and of unstinting scruple which mark the best of modern historicism but honors its readers. To read Kagan's 'History of the Peloponnesian War' at the present hour is to be almost unbearably tested."-George Steiner, The New YorkerThis is a solid piece of scholarship, a readable, consistent, and understandable account of a difficult period in Greek history, and rife with astute and provocative observations on Thucydides. * The Historian *Table of ContentsPart One: The Unraveling of the Peace 1. A Troubled Peace 2. The Separate League 3. The Alliance of Athens and Argos 4. The Challenge of the Separate League 5. The Battle of Mantinea 6. After Mantinea: Politics and Policy at Sparta and AthensPart Two: The Sicilian Expedition 7. The Decision to Attack Sicily 8. Sacrilege and Departure 9. Athenian Strategy and the Summer Campaign of 415 10. The First Attack on Syracuse 11. The Siege of Syracuse 12. Athens on the Defensive 13. Defeat on Land and Sea 14. Retreat and Destruction ConclusionsBibliography General Index Index of Modem Authors Index of Ancient Authors and Inscriptions

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Book SynopsisReaders will find that the book remains recognizably Klaeber's work, but with altered and added features designed to render it as useful today as it has ever been.Trade ReviewRevising Klaeber's Beowulf was a feat commensurate with the heroic deeds of the poem's protagonist. The new edition is a roaring success. -- Anatoly Liberman, Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis, vol 15:01:10

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Book SynopsisMonsters provide a key to understanding the culture that spawned them. So argues the essays in this wide-ranging collection that asks the question, what happens when critical theorists take the study of monsters seriously as a means of examining our culture?Table of ContentsPart 1 Monster theory: Monster culture (seven theses), Jeffrey Jerome Cohen; Beowulf as palimpsest, Ruth Waterhouse; Monstrosity, illegibility, denegation: the martyrology after de Man, David L. Clark. Part 2 Monstrous identity: the odd couple: Gargantua and Tom Thumb, Anne Lake Prescott; America's united siameses brothers: Chang and Eng and nineteenth century ideologies of democracy and domesticity, Allison Pingree; Liberty, equality, monstrosity: revolutionizing the family in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, David Hirsch. Part 3 Monstrous inquiry: No monsters at the resurrection: inside some conjoined twins, Stephen Pender; Representing the cripple: cognition, cripples, and other limp parts, Larry Kritzman; Hermaphrodites newly discovered: the cultural monsters of sixteenth century France, Kathleen Perry Long; Anthropometamorphosis: John Bulwer's monsters of cosmetology, Mary Baine Campbell. Part 4 Monstrous history: Vampire culture, Frank Grady; The alien and the alienated as unquiet dead in the sagas of the Icelanders, Will Sayers; Unthinking the monster: twelfth-century responses to saracen alterity, Michael Uebel; Dinosaurs-R-us: the (un)natural history of Jurassic Park, John O'Neill.

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Book SynopsisAmy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant examine the many ways in which the medieval past has been manipulated to promote discrimination, oppression, and murder. Tracing the fetish for medieval times behind toxic ideologies like nationalism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and white supremacy, Kaufman and Sturtevant show us how the Middle Ages have been twisted for political purposes in every century that followed. The Devil’s Historians casts aside the myth of an oppressive, patriarchal medieval monoculture and reveals a medieval world not often shown in popular culture: one that is diverse, thriving, courageous, compelling, and complex.Trade Review"This is an important overview of both extremism in society today and its use of medieval symbols, folktales, and rewritten history by groups to justify everything from degradation of women to racism to the arbitrary construct of two genders." -- Wendy J. Turner * Medievally Speaking *"With a strong and well-argued thesis, supported with plentiful details, this book should be read by those who teach medieval studies as a guide to the political minefield their area has become." -- S. Morillo, Wabash College * Choice *"For anyone keen to know how medievalist myths are used as weapons, this book is the place to start. It is also a mine of information and analysis for anyone wishing to research more deeply into the dangerous uses of medievalism." -- Helen Dell, The University of Melbourne * Parergon *"The Devil’s Historians is an accessible and quick introduction to many of the problems we confront in studying the medieval past in the twenty-first century, laying out both the stakes and some possible avenues of countering the use of history to support hate." -- Matthew Gabriele, Virginia Tech * The Public Historian *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Weaponizing History 1. The Middle Ages: Foundational Myths 2. Nationalism and Nostalgia 3. The “Clash of Civilizations” 4. White (Supremacist) Knights 5. Knights in Shining Armor and Damsels in Distress 6. Medievalism and Religious Extremism Epilogue: The Future of the Medieval Past Notes Further Reading

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Book SynopsisMonstrous Fantasies asks why medieval romances reimagining the crusades ending in a Christian victory circulated in England with such abundance after the 1291 Muslim reconquest of Acre, the last of the Latin crusader states in the Holy Land, and what these texts reveal about the cultural anxieties of late medieval England. Leila K. Norako highlights the impact that the Ottoman victory and subsequent massacre of Christian prisoners at the battle of Nicopolis in 1396 had on intensifying the popularity of what she calls recovery romance. These two episodes inspired a sense of urgency over the fate of the Holy Land and of Latin Christendom itself, resulting in the proliferation of romances in which crusading English kings like Richard I and anachronistic legends like King Arthur not only reconquered Jerusalem but committed genocidal violence against the Muslims. These romances, whichas Norako arguesalso influenced Geoffrey Chaucer''s Canterbury Tales,

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Book SynopsisHow, Barbara Newman asks, did the myth of the separable heart take such a firm hold in the Middle Ages, from lovers exchanging hearts with one another to mystics exchanging hearts with Jesus? What special traits gave both saints and demoniacs their ability to read minds? Why were mothers who died in childbirth buried in unconsecrated ground? Each of these phenomena, as diverse as they are, offers evidence for a distinctive medieval idea of the person in sharp contrast to that of the modern subject of individual.Starting from the premise that the medieval self was more permeable than its modern counterpart, Newman explores the ways in which the self''s porous boundaries admitted openness to penetration by divine and demonic spirits and even by other human beings. She takes up the idea of coinherence, a state familiarly expressed in the amorous and devotional formula I in you and you in me, to consider the theory and practice of exchanging the self with others in five relational

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Book SynopsisThe Death of Arthur brings the Vulgate Cycle to its tragic ending. It opens with the aftermath of the Grail quest, and the king's attempts to revive the much depleted Round Table. But at this point the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere intensifies, and comes into the open when Agravain succeeds in catching them in the act. Lancelot saves the queen from the stake, and flees with her to his castle of Joyous Gard, which is besieged by Arthur. The final pages recount Arthur's death at the hands of his illegitimate son Mordred, and the deaths of Lancelot and Guinevere. For a full description of the Vulgate Cycle see the blurb for the complete set.

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Book SynopsisThe legend of Mélusine examined in a pan-European context. Readers have long been fascinated by the enigmatic figure of Mélusine - a beautiful fairy woman cursed to transform into a half-serpent once a week, whose part-monstrous sons are the ancestor of several European noble houses. This study is the first to consider how this romance developed from a local legend to European bestseller, analysing versions in French, German, Castilian, Dutch, and English. It addresses questions on how to study medieval literature from a European perspective, moving beyond national canons, and reading Mélusine's bodily mutability as a metaphor for how the romance itself moves and transforms across borders. It also analyses key changes to the romance's content, form, and material presentation - including its images - and traces how the people who produced and consumed this romance shaped its international transmission and spread. The author shows how Mélusine's character is adapted within each local context, while also uncovering previously unknown connections between the different branches of this multilingual tradition. Moving beyond established paradigms of separate national traditions, manuscript versus print, and medieval versus Renaissance literature, the book integrates literary analysis with art historical and book historical approaches.Trade ReviewThe Mélusine Romance in Medieval Europe is a refreshing and rigorous investigation into the European Mélusine romance tradition. * NOTTINGHAM MEDIEVAL STUDIES *Zeldenrust [...] offers an important contribution to studies of the Mélusine romance. By placing the Mélusine romance in a broad literary and historical context, Zeldenrust expands on previous studies that focus primarily on French versions. * CHOICE *[I]mpressively wide-ranging and engaging... Zeldenrust's work is a vital, informative, and original contribution to scholarship on this important, spellbinding narrative tradition. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Zeldenrust's comparative exploration produces innovative insights and revisits well-­traveled topics from new perspectives. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Mutations of Mélusine Chapter 1: The French Mélusine and Roman de Parthenay Textual Witnesses: Audience, Variance, Selected Corpus Mélusine: God's Marvellous Monster Careful Plotting: Revealing Mélusine's Curse and Fairy Nature From Half-Serpent to Serpent: Hybridity and Transformation Inheriting Monstrosity: Mélusine's Sons Chapter 2: The German Melusine From Manuscript to Print: Audiences, Images, and Textual Stability Melusine the Ideal Christian Fairy Serpent or Half-Serpent? Melusine the Monstrous Mother Chapter 3: The Castilian Melosina The 1489 Edition by Parix and Cleblat The 1526 Edition by the Crombergers Key Transformations in Style and Paratext Melosina: More Fairy than Human? A Catholic Wedding Duality Versus Animality Depicting/Recycling the Monstrous Body: Melosina's Sons Chapter 4: The Dutch Meluzine The 1491 Edition by Gheraert Leeu The 1510 Edition by Henrick Eckert van Homberch The 1602 Edition by Hieronymus I Verdussen A Hybrid Translation: How, Why, and Which Source? More Human than Fairy Becoming the Animal Increased Focus on Hybridity Chapter 5: The English Melusine and Partenay The Prose Melusine The Printed Melusine Fragments The Verse Partenay Why Translations of Both Versions? Translation Strategies: Content versus Form 'ryght as the frenshe wil yiff me evidence': Invisibility and Close Translation Melusine and Her Part-Monstrous Sons Conclusion: Mélusine's European Dimensions Appendix: Manuscripts and Printed Editions of the Various Mélusine Versions (up to c. 1600)

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Book SynopsisA strikingly original approach to Beowulf, linking its structure to the dynastic life-cycle. The original audience of Beowulf was steeped in ancient Scandinavian royal legend. But for modern readers of the poem, these traditions are frustratingly obscure and confusing. This book argues that Beowulf is a dynastic drama centred on the fortunes of three great royal houses, the Scyldings, Scylfings and Hrethlings. At the centre of the poem is the Geatish hero, whose adventures provide the link between these three dynasties. By unravelling the web of Scandinavian royal legends known to the work's original audience, the volume allows the modern reader to appreciate better the role of the monsters as portents of dynastic and national crises. It begins by offering a new interpretation of the work's structure based on the principle of the dynastic life-cycle, providing explanations for features of the poem that have never been satisfactorily explained, most famously its many digressions and episodes. Highlighting the work's often-overlooked originality, it then proposes that the poet created a fictionalized monster-slaying hero and inserted him into royal legend in order to dramatize specific moments of dynastic crisis. Finally, it brings into focus the poet's debt to biblical paradigms of kingship and considers how the Anglo-Saxons came to read Beowulf as their own Book of Kings.Trade ReviewAs a thematic study of Beowulf, Dynastic Drama is an outstanding work. [...]. It is certain that Dynastic Drama will continue to be an essential reference work for many years to come. -- PARERGONThis is an important work that provides a great deal to consider, discuss and debate. * PAUL MORTIMER, WULFHEODENAS *The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf is a learned and stimulating book that should have a major impact on Beowulf studies. This book does something that has rarely been done before: it develops a coherent interpretation of the entirety of Beowulf through a series of close readings that are philologically and historically plausible. In an era of ephemeral scholarship, Leneghan has triumphed over time and written a book that will last. * ANGLIA *Each chapter, as well as the whole book, is very well organised, which makes his discussion both convincing and easy to follow. The volume deals in detail with many of the major issues that have been debated in earlier scholarship on Beowulf. [...] It will surely become a must-read in the field of Beowulf studies. * TOEBI NEWSLETTER *This rich study offers a compelling reading and will be of great interest to scholars of early medieval thinking about kingship and succession, comparative work on Old English and Scandinavian literature, religious and poetic syncretism, and of course Beowulf itself. * Review of English Studies *Table of ContentsFamily Trees: The Dynasties of Beowulf Dramatis Personae Introduction: Reading Beowulf as a Book of Kings Chapter One: The Dynastic Life-Cycle and the Structure of the Poem Chapter Two: Shaping the Dynastic Drama Chapter Three: The Role of the Monsters in the Dynastic Drama Chapter Four: Beowulf and Biblical Kingship Conclusion: Reading the Dynastic Drama in Anglo-Saxon England Appendices Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive survey of Malory's Morte Darthur, one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages. Malory's Morte Darthur is now a canonical and widely-taught text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in understanding its milieux:textual, literary, cultural and historical. This volume adds to and updates the influential Companion of 1996, offering scholars, teachers and students alike a full guide to the text and the author. The essays it contains provide a synthetic overview of, and fresh perspectives on, the key questions about and contexts connected with the Morte. MEGAN G. LEITCH is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University; CORY JAMES RUSHTON is Associate Professor in the Department of English at St Francis Xavier University, Canada. Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Thomas Crofts, Siân Echard, Rob Gossedge, Daniel Helbert, Amy Kaufman, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Catherine Nall, Ralph Norris, Raluca Radulescu, Lisa Robeson, Meg Roland, Cory Rushton, Masako Takagi, Kevin Whetter.Trade ReviewAll essays are written by experts and reflect the erudite and sophisticated engagement these scholars have with Malory's text-its historical, cultural, and political contexts and especially recent theoretical concepts. This volume is required reading for those who wish to go beyond literary formalism. Among the standout and exceedingly current essays are those on gender, emotion, and secular and spiritual concerns in the text. Highly Recommended. * CHOICE *I will not hesitate to recommend the New Companion to undergraduate and graduate students. Taken together, the essays provide engaging and accessible investigations of important topics, issues, and questions relating to the Morte Darthur, and demonstrate a range of ways of reading and approaching the text. * THE RICARDIAN *An invaluable resource, which will doubtless, in turn, lead to further fruitful labour in that fair field. * PARERGON *Table of ContentsIntroduction Malory in Historical Context - Catherine Nall Malory and His Sources - Ralph Norris Writing the Morte Darthur: Author, Manuscript, and Modern Editions - Kevin S Whetter and Thomas Howard Crofts Malory in Literary Context - Megan G. Leitch Malory in Print - Sian Echard Malory and Form - Cory Rushton Malory and Character - Dorsey Armstrong Malory and Gender - Amy S. Kaufman Malory and Emotion - Andrew Lynch Secular Malory - Lisa Robeson Spiritual Malory - Raluca Radulescu Malory and the Wider World - Meg Roland Malory in Wartime Britain - Robert Gossedge Malory in Japan - Masako Takagi Malory in America - Daniel Glynn Helbert

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Book SynopsisWide-ranging examination of women's achievements in and influence on many aspects of medieval culture. Medieval women were normally denied access to public educational institutions, and so also denied the gateways to most leadership positions. Modern scholars have therefore tended to study learned medieval women as simply anomalies, and women generally as victims. This volume, however, argues instead for a via media. Drawing upon manuscript and archival sources, scholars here show that more medieval women attained some form of learning than hitherto imagined, and that women with such legal, social or ecclesiastical knowledge also often exercised professional or communal leadership. Bringing together contributors from the disciplines of literature, history and religion, this volume challenges several traditional views: firstly, the still-prevalent idea that women's intellectual accomplishments were limited to the Latin literate. The collection therefore engages heavily with vernacular writings (in Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, French, Dutch, German and Italian), and also with material culture (manuscript illumination, stained glass, fabric and jewelry) for evidence of women's advanced capabilities. But in doing so, the contributors strive to avoid the equally problematic view that women's accomplishments were somehow limited to the vernacular and the material. So several essays examine women at work with the sacred languages of the three Abrahamic traditions (Latin, Arabic and Hebrew). And a third traditional view is also interrogated: that women were somehow more "original" for their lack of learning and and dependence on their mother tongue. Scholars here agree wholeheartedly that women could be daring thinkers in any language; they engage readily with women's learnedness wherever it can be found.Trade ReviewThe team of scholars who pulled this collection together have rendered us a great service. . . . Each contributor is a gifted and concise writer. Younger scholars will find much here to expand their own research and thinking; so will graduate students in many fields. The book is especially valuable in its modeling of effective collaboration among interdisciplinary fields. * Magistra *The readers will find it helpful to have the introductory sections focus on the wider methodological framework and scholarship for each of the approaches taken, while the didactic setup makes this book an ideal tool for teaching purposes. The overall introduction and epilogue are superb in setting the scene, warning of pitfalls, and identifying new avenues of research. Above all, they remind the reader that the women discussed in this volume constitute probably only the tip of an iceberg and for this reason they encourage us to continue digging in archives and libraries to identify more of them. * Church History *Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages is an impressive volume of essays that ranges across academic disciplines, countries, time periods, and sources in order to contribute to key debates about women's history and role in intellectual life throughout the medieval period. The editors, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, and John Van Engen, set out to "tak[e] early women intellectuals and leaders seriously," as the title of Kerby-Fulton's introduction puts it, and in this aim it absolutely succeeds. * Journal of British Studies *Table of Contents"Taking Early Women Intellectuals and Leaders Seriously" - Kathryn Kerby-Fulton "Authorship and Intellectual Life: Jewish and Muslim Women" - Ruth Karras "Gender, Scholarship, and the Construction of Authority in the Pre-Modern Muslim World" - Asma Afsaruddin "The Historiography of Absence: Preliminary Steps Towards a New History of Andalusi Women Poets" - S.J. Pearce "Medieval Anglo-Jewish Women at Court" - Adrienne Williams Boyarin "Intellectuals, Leaders, Doctores" - David Wallace "Agnes of Harcourt as Intellectual: New Evidence for the Composition and Circulation of the Vie d'Isabelle de France" - Sean L. Field "Catherine of Siena, Auctor" - F Thomas Luongo "Christine de Pizan on the Jews, in Three Texts: The Heures de contemplation sur la Passion de Nostre Seigneur Jhesucrist, the Fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, and the Mutacion de Fortune" - Thelma Fenster "Walking in Grandmothers' Footsteps: Mary Ward and the Medieval Spiritual and Intellectual Heritage" - Gemma C.J. Simmonds "New Solutions to Old Problems" - Kathryn Kerby-Fulton "A Woman Author? The Middle-Dutch Dialogue between a 'Good-willed Layperson' and a 'Master Eckhart'" - John Van Engen "Recovery and Loss: Women's Writing around Marie de France" - Jocelyn Wogan-Browne "The Visions, Experiments, and Operations of Bridget of Autruy (fl. 1305-15)" - Nicholas Watson "Methodological Innovations for the Study of Women's Authorship and Agency" - Nicholas Watson "Written with Her Own Hand: Perpetua's Representation of Non-Binary Gender in Old English Hagiography" - Leanne MacDonald "The Materialization of Knowledge in Thirteenth-Century England: Joan Tateshal, Robert Grosseteste, and the Tateshal Miscellany" - Anna Siebach-Larson "Networks of Influence: Widows, Sole Administration, and Unconventional Relationships in Thirteenth-Century London" - Amanda Bohne "Religious Women in Leadership, Ministry, and Latin Ecclesiastical Culture" - John Van Engen "Bede's Abbesses" - Sarah Foot "Women's Latinity in the Early English Anchorhold" - Megan J. Hall "The Treatment of Ordination in Recent Scholarship on Religious Women in the Early Middle Ages" - Gary Macy "Saint Colette de Corbie (1381-1447): Reformist Leadership and Belated Sainthood" - Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski "Women Priests at Barking Abbey in the Late Middle Ages" - K.A. Bugyis "Laywomen as Leaders" - Dyan Elliott "Women Donors and Ecclesiastical Reform: Evidence from Camaldoli and Vallombrosa, c. 1000-1150" - Maureen C. Miller "Laywomen's Leadership in Medieval Miracle Cults: Evidence from Britain, ca. 1150-1250" - Rachel Koopmans "Mechthild of Magdeburg at Helfta: A Study in Literary Influence" - Barbara Newman "Positioning Women in Medieval Society, Culture, and Religion: An Epilogue" - John Van Engen

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Book SynopsisThe Geoffrey Chaucer of this book is not the Father of English Literature that you think you know. In this wide-ranging collection of essays you will find wartime Chaucer, postcolonial Chaucer, feminist Chaucer, misogynist Chaucer, radical Chaucer and conservative Chaucer, among many other interpretations. Featuring beautiful illustrations of early manuscripts and rare editions, Chaucer Here and Now gives a picture of how varied adaptations of and responses to his work have been, from fifteenth- century scribes who finished off incomplete tales, through early printers who constructed Chaucer as the Father of the Nation, to contemporary postcolonial writers such as Zadie Smith. The book moves through years of censorship, the creation of children’s Chaucer, Protestant Chaucer and imperial Chaucer – and the travels of Chaucer all around the world. It also explores Chaucer on film and Chaucer in the present moment. Today’s creative responses follow in a line of irreverent, partial responses that we can trace back to Chaucer’s very first readers and editors, showing that Chaucer is available for every here and now to remake, rework and reinvent.Trade ReviewAficionados will be thrilled by Chaucer Here and Now, which contains gorgeous illustrations of early manuscripts and rare editions. * The Independent *This impressive book ends with a look at Chaucer in the digital age, and how, in the 21st century, “Chaucer is also finding his way into new media”. * The Independent *

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Book Synopsis"The T 'ain B 'o Cuailnge", centre-piece of the 8th century Ulster cycle of heroic tales, is Ireland's greatest epic. This translation is based on the partial texts in two medieval manuscripts, with elements from other versions, and adds a group of related stories which prepare for the T 'ain.Table of ContentsTranslator's Note and Acknowledgements ; Artist's Note ; Introduction ; Maps ; Some Recommended Books ; Pronunciation of Irish Words ; Before the Tain ; The Tain ; Notes on the Text

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Book SynopsisIn his history, Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) is centrally concerned with how and why Roman power spread. The main part of the work, a vital achievement despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five books of an original forty survive, describes the rise of Rome, its destruction of Carthage, and its eventual domination of the Greek world.Trade ReviewPolybius found a brilliant subject for his history in the Roman drive to supremacy in the Mediterranean. As an experienced Greek politician who lived as a hostage among the elite in Rome from 167 to 159 BC, he was ideally positioned to write it. He had formidable organizational powers, and he really did know what he was talking about. Without him, our understanding of the whole period and of the dynamics of Roman imperialism would be inconceivably impoverished. -- Denis Feeney * Times Literary Supplement *These are the first two volumes of a revised text and translation of the Histories of Polybius. Polybius was the Greek historian who wrote of the rise of Rome to Mediterranean power, and who is usually ranked as one of the ancient world’s great historians. This edition is based on that of W. R. Paton (1922), which has long served scholars but has been in sore need of updating and correction. This new version comes thanks to Frank W. Walbank (1909–2008), the great Polybius scholar of the modern world, whose monumental three-volume A Historical Commentary on Polybius (1957–79) is the starting point for all modern studies of the historian and the era he chronicled. While writing his commentary, Walbank systematically corrected Paton’s edition in hundreds of places, and these changes have now been incorporated by Christian Habicht, himself one of the great historians of the Hellenistic age. Habicht has provided a new introduction, bibliography, and notes, and the result is a splendid, reliable, and up-to-date edition of Polybius that will be accessible to students and scholars alike. One looks forward eagerly to the remaining volumes that are to appear over the next year. -- J. M. Marincola * Choice *

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Book SynopsisAntigone, Interrupted explores the intertwined history of law, politics, gender and humanism through a new reading of Sophocles' classical tragedy. Studying the play in its fifth-century and modern contexts, Bonnie Honig argues for an Antigone committed not just to dissidence but to a positive politics of counter-sovereignty and solidarity.Trade Review'Honig's sweeping consideration of how the 'Antigone' is read and misread offers us a new way to approach the pauses, the ellipses, and the frank interruptions that punctuate this classic text. We have all struggled so hard to make the words mean in this or that way that we have perhaps forgotten the more dramatic features of the text in which relationships rupture, words trail off, and events still language. This book offers a trenchant analysis of sovereignty, belonging, and freedom through a perspective at once dramatic, literary, and political. Honig's sustained engagement with contemporary criticism shows how important the figure and text of Antigone is for any effort to think about the risks and the necessity of contestatory democratic culture.' Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley'Bonnie Honig provides a stunning, capacious and intensely 'political' reanimation of the 'Antigone'.' Simon Critchley, The New School for Social Research'Many books pride themselves on being 'provocative' - but this is the real thing! Engaged and engaging, sophisticated and polemical, Antigone, Interrupted interrupts the critical mainstream with real political urgency and edge.' Simon Goldhill, King's College, Cambridge'Bonnie Honig's Antigone, Interrupted shows how central Sophocles' play is to recent and current philosophical, political, cultural, psychoanalytical and gender theory debates in Europe and the USA. The book is not primarily an analysis of these debates (though one learns a great deal about them along the way), but an attempt to make a striking intervention in them.' Craig Hannaway, Bryn Mawr Classical Review'When a leading theorist of agonistic democracy writes a book on Antigone, it seems fitting to acknowledge the accomplishment by contesting its core claims. Bonnie Honig's Antigone, Interrupted, offers much to praise and is certainly a book worth reading, contesting, and interrupting for all interested in contemporary political theory. It demonstrates the ongoing significance and contestability of Antigone, for democratic theory, feminist theory, and political thought more generally.' Paul E. Kirkland, Review of Politics'Antigone, Interrupted is a significant book. Like all of Honig's work, it is theoretically sophisticated, erudite, and engaging, furnishing both a trenchant critique of prior interpretations of Antigone and an original, provocative, and highly political revisioning of the play. In so doing, it asks significant questions not only about the political consequences and risks of privileging mortality and vulnerability as ontological facts of the human condition but also about the terms of democratic political engagement. It deserves to be widely read.' Moya Lloyd, Perspectives on Politics'Honig's book [offers] a very useful critical map of current thinking while providing a reappraisal - and 'interruption' - of all Antigones that have gone before.' Morning Star'One of the great virtues of Antigone, Interrupted (and there are many) is its systematic disruption of these, now conventional, conceptions or receptions of Antigone as an isolated, heroic figure of mourning and resistance. … Honig's readings of the text … are inventive, unexpected and, in some parts, nothing short of inspired.' Paul Muldoon, History of Political ThoughtTable of ContentsPreface; Introduction; Part I. Interruption: Introduction to Part I: 1. Tragedy, maternalism, ethics: toward an agonistic humanism; 2. 'Antigone versus Oedipus', I: feminist theory and the turn to Antigone; 3. 'Antigone versus Oedipus', II: the directors' agon in Germany in Autumn; Part II. Conspiracy: Introduction to Part II: 4. Mourning, membership, and the politics of exception: plotting Creon's conspiracy with democracy; 5. From lamentation to logos: Antigone's conspiracy with language; 6. Sacrifice, sorority, integrity: Antigone's conspiracy with Ismene; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThe prolific scholar-poet Callimachus of Cyrene spent his career at the royal court and great Library at Alexandria. Creatively reworking the language and generic properties of his predecessors, Callimachus developed a distinctive style, learned and elegant, that became an important model for subsequent poets both Greek and Roman.

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Book SynopsisIn his history, Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) is centrally concerned with how and why Roman power spread. The main part of the work, a vital achievement despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five books of an original forty survive, describes the rise of Rome, its destruction of Carthage, and its eventual domination of the Greek world.Trade ReviewPolybius found a brilliant subject for his history in the Roman drive to supremacy in the Mediterranean. As an experienced Greek politician who lived as a hostage among the elite in Rome from 167 to 159 BC, he was ideally positioned to write it. He had formidable organizational powers, and he really did know what he was talking about. Without him, our understanding of the whole period and of the dynamics of Roman imperialism would be inconceivably impoverished. -- Denis Feeney * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis''we can speak of no greater contest than Olympia''The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including the Olympics. He celebrated the victories of athletes competing in foot races, horse races, boxing, wrestling, all-in fighting and the pentathlon, and his Odes are fascinating not only for their poetic qualities, but for what they tell us about the Games. Pindar praises the victor by comparing him to mythical heroes and the gods, but also reminds the athlete of his human limitations. The Odes contain versions of some of the best known Greek myths, such as Jason and the Argonauts, and Perseus and Medusa, and are a valuable source for Greek religion and ethics. Pindar''s startling use of language - striking metaphors, bold syntax, enigmatic expressions - makes reading his poetry a uniquely rewarding experience.Anthony Verity''s lucid translations are complemented by an introduction and notes that provide insight into competition, myth,

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Book SynopsisWordplay has been at the heart of Western literature for many centuries, and medieval riddles provide insights into the extraordinary and the everyday. The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition assembles, for the first time ever, an astonishing array of riddles composed before 1200 CE that continue to entertain and puzzle.Trade ReviewA comprehensive new collection beautifully edited…Riddles represent the whole of Anglo-Saxon life. These short pieces range about as widely as possible in tone and form, from ribald cracks to grammar lessons to ornate religious puzzles by the archbishop of Canterbury. For perhaps the first time, Orchard’s collection gathers these early medieval riddles from across centuries and languages. -- Adrienne Raphael * New York Times Book Review *The size of the work alone bespeaks years of industrious effort…I should say as well that these riddles are immense fun (a statement that cannot be made about every weighty tome of Anglo-Saxon literature), and these two volumes [this volume and Orchard’s A Commentary on The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition] make them accessible to all…An immensely valuable contribution to scholarship. -- David Porter * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents two complementary medieval anthologies containing lyrics by two outstanding Latin poets of the second half of the twelfth century. The collection is further augmented by verse as varied as Christmas poems and satires on the venality of the Roman Curia and immoral bishops.Trade ReviewThe material in the volume repays study and the scholarly apparatus is impressive...This volume should receive a warm welcome. [The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library] will be a boon to professional medievalists, their students and the general reader, and every good library ought to own the series. -- Keith Sidwell * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisStatius’s Silvae, thirty-two occasional poems, were written probably between AD 89 and 96. The verse is light in touch, with a distinct pictorial quality. D. R. Shackleton Bailey’s edition, which replaced the earlier Loeb Classical Library edition by J. H. Mozley, is now reissued with corrections by Christopher A. Parrott.

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of how the image and idea of the dragon has evolved through historyHow did the dragon get its wings? Everyone in the modern West has a clear idea of what a dragon looks like and of the sorts of stories it inhabits, not least devotees of the fantasies of J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, and George R. R. Martin. A cross between a snake and some fearsome mammal, often sporting colossal wings, they live in caves, lie on treasure, maraud, and breathe fire. They are extraordinarily powerful, but even so, ultimately defeated in their battles with humans. What is the origin of this creature? The Dragon in the West is the first serious and substantial account in any language of the evolution of the modern dragon from its ancient forebears. Daniel Ogden''s detailed exploration begins with the drakon of Greek myth and the draco of the dragon-loving Romans, and a look at the ancient world''s female dragons. It brings the story forwards though Christian writings, medieval illustrated manuscripts, and the lives of dragon-duelling saints, before concluding with a study of dragons found in the medieval Germanic world, including those of the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and the Norse sagas.Trade Reviewan impressive achievement * Scott G. Bruce, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *The Dragon in the West is a more orderly scrutinizing of the development of dragon myths and legends in Europe...This is a truly compendious volume that lays out its argument and evidence clearly, with appendices, tables, and explanatory footnotes. It also usefully provides many sources, which are all translated into English. * Greece & Rome *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part One: Heroes 1: Drak=on: The Classical Dragon 2: Draco: The Roman Dragon 3: Drakaina: The She-dragon 4: From Worm to Wyvern: The Evolution of the Western Dragon Part Two: Saints 5: Scripture and Shape 6: The Etiquette of the Saintly Dragon Fight (i): Its Principal Narrative Course 7: The Etiquette of the Saintly Dragon Fight (ii): Some Important Narrative Subroutines 8: Close to the Point of Origin: Lucian's Chaldaean Snake-blaster 9: Theodore and George: Two Military Saints in Context Part Three: Vikings 10: Worms (Still) and Wyverns: The Form of the Germanic Dragon 11: To the River and Back: The Etiquette of the Germanic Dragon Fight Conclusion

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Book SynopsisR.M. Liuzza’s translation of Beowulf, first published by Broadview in 1999, has been widely praised for its accuracy and beauty. The facing-page translation is accompanied in this edition by genealogical charts, historical summaries, and a glossary of proper names. Historical appendices include related legends, stories, and religious writings from both Christian and Anglo-Saxon traditions. These texts help readers to see Beowulf as an exploration of the politics of kingship and the psychology of heroism, and as an early English meditation on the bridges and chasms between the pagan past and the Christian present.Appendices also include a generous sample of other modern translations of Beowulf, shedding light on the process of translating the poem. This new edition features an updated introduction and an expanded section of material on Christianity and paganism.Trade Review“This Beowulf translation is a masterful synthesis of history, poetry, and narrative. Liuzza’s deep knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon period, combined with an ear keenly attuned to the cadences of Old English poetry, renders the volume an invaluable resource for medievalists everywhere. This is a brilliant, exemplary edition and a must-have for any serious student of the poem. Liuzza has set the standard for many years to come.” - Stacy S. Klein, Rutgers University“The translation I use … is R.M. Liuzza’s. Liuzza’s choices are moderate, combining easy readability with a good level of literal translation. … His diction is plain, not fancy, but it seeks to alliterate where possible … Liuzza’s appendices include many of the texts often discussed in conjunction with Beowulf, which makes the edition indispensable to the amateur scholar.” - Ruth A. Johnston, A Companion to Beowulf“This close and readable translation, put together by a scholar who knows so much about the poem and its craft, remakes the old tale in a new register. From the prickly dignity of overdressed spearbearers to the sad songs of beefy breakers-of-rings in their cups, there is much here to surprise and delight.” - Roberta Frank, University of Toronto“Liuzza takes account of recent scholarly research and provides a commentary, a collection of supporting texts, and an excellent introduction to this ‘Christian poet’s bittersweet elegy for the doomed heroic life.’ His account of the peculiarities of Old English poetic style is particularly helpful.” - Frank Kermode, The New York Review of Books“Liuzza’s volume is a resource pack for studying Beowulf and its translations. He includes specimens of other translations down the generations as well as invaluable supplementary material, the whole informed by scholarship of the highest quality and laid out attractively. The translation is fluent and unshowy. … Understandably, it (and its supplementary material) is popular with students and instructors, and it is likely to remain so in the years ahead.” - Hugh Magennis, Professor of Old English Literature and Director of Medieval Studies, Queens University Belfast, in Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English VerseTable of Contents Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Beowulf between Myth and History Beowulf between Song and Text Beowulf between Court and Cloister Beowulf between Old and Modern English A Note on the Text A Note to the Second Edition Reading Old English Beowulf Glossary of Proper Names Genealogies The Geatish-Swedish Wars Appendices Works Cited and Recommended Reading

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Book SynopsisThe Satyrica, traditionally attributed to the Neronian courtier Petronius, is a comic-picaresque fiction recalling the narrator’s adventures in the early imperial demimonde, including Trimalchio’s banquet. Apocolocyntosis (Pumpkinification) is a satirical pamphlet lampooning the death and deification of the emperor Claudius.

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Book SynopsisThe Hsu-Tang Library presents authoritative and eminently readable translations of classical Chinese literature, in bilingual editions, ranging across three millennia and the entire Sinitic world.In the early years of the Mongol empire, the Quanzhen Daoist master Qiu Chuji (1148-1227, religious name Changchun) made an arduous three-year round-trip journey from north China to the Hindu Kush in 1221-23 in response to a summons by Chinggis Qan. The record of this journey compiled by Li Zhichang (1193-1255), one of Qiu''s disciples, offers a detailed eyewitness account of travel across the Mongolian plateau as well as Central Asia in the immediate aftermath of Mongol conquest. It stands out from other thirteenth-century Chinese travel narratives in length, quality, and thoroughness of detail, endowing it with unique historical, geographical, cultural, and literary value. Ruth Dunnell, Stephen West, and Shao-yun Yang''s new, complete, and annotated translation of the text for the first time renders all of Qiu Chuji''s poems in the original Chinese. Omitted from older translations as insipid or irrelevant, Qiu''s poetry opens a window into the Quanzhen practice of self-cultivation and its proselytizing mission and captures an educated Chinese observer''s impressions of a vast, unfamiliar world of grasslands, deserts, and towering mountain ranges. This book includes an appendix with translations of related documents (such as the edicts of Chinggis Qan to Qiu), and concise yet detailed notes drawing upon a wealth of recent scholarship to guide both general and specialist readers. In addition to an introduction that situates the reader in the worlds inhabited by Qiu Chuji and his patron, the Mongol Qan, the translators have provided a digital StoryMap of Changchun''s journey.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Table of Weights and Measures of the Early Thirteenth Century Table of Dynasties Finding List for Qiu Chuji's Poems Maps Introduction Daoist Master Changchun's Journey to the West Preface The First Volume In Shandong Departing Shandong At Yanjing Through Juyong Pass to Stay at Longyang Monastery To the Camp of Great Prince Otegin at Hulun Buir Across the Mongolian Plateau to the Qatun's Ordo To the City of Chinqai and into the Yinshan (Tian Shan) Range Through the Yinshan (Tian Shan) Range to Samarkand and the Imperial Camp With the Qan in Afghanistan, Samarkand, and Central Asia The Second Volume Return to the East Return to Yanjing Death and Apotheosis Text-Critical Notes Additional Note Appendices 1. Chinggis Qan's rescript requesting Qiu Chuji to journey to the West 2. Qiu Chuji's request to remain in the Yanjing and Dexing area 3. Edict: Chinggis Qan's response to Qiu Chuji's request for delay 4. Emperor Chinggis Qan's sage directive to all officials 5. Chinggis Qan's sage directive delivered by Alixian 6. Imperial edict from Chinggis Qan conveyed by Jia Chang 7. Shimo [Xiandebu] invites Qiu Chuji to take charge of Tianchang monastery 8. Wang [Juchuan] invites Qiu Chuji to take charge of Tianchang monastery 9. Shimo [Xiandebu] invites Qiu Chuji to reside permanently in Tianchang monastery 10. Disciples who accompanied the Master 11. Four Mongols ordered to escort and protect the Master 12. Record of the Felicitous Encounter with the Mysterious Wind 13. Excerpt from A Disputation of Contrived and False Records 14. Wang Guowei's Preface to his edition of Changchun's Journey List of Sources Consulted and Cited Index

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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 SynopsisOnce again, we encounter Notley as one the great interlocutors of the world, a dedicated advocate for what is between and beyond definition. Tess Michaelson, Full StopAlice Notley, the author of more than 40 books of poetry, has delivered an expert array of discussions over the last three decades. Telling the Truth as It Comes Up: Selected Talks & Essays 1991-2018 offers a significant contribution to literature, reimagining the possibilities of writing in our time and the complicated business of how and why writers devote their lives to their craft. Whether she is writing about other poetsEd Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Homer, bpNichol, Douglas Oliver or William Carlos Williamsnoir fiction, the First Gulf War, dreams or giving us insight into her own work, Notley''s observations are original, sobering and always memorable. This collection often eschews the typical style of essay or lecture, resisting any categorization, and is consciously disobedient to academic structures in form. The results are thrilling new modes of thinking that may change the ways we read and write.Alice Notley was born in Bisbee, Arizona, in 1945, and grew up in Needles, California. During the late 60s and early 70s she lived a traveling poet's life before settling on New York's Lower East Side. For 16 years there, she was an important force in the eclectic second generation of the so-called New York School. Notley is the author of more than 40 books of poetry, including At Night the States, the double volume Close to Me and Closer . . . (The Language of Heaven) and Désamère and How Spring Comes, which was a co-winner of the San Francisco Poetry Award. In 1998, Penguin published Mysteries of Small Houses, which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry. In 2015 she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize for lifetime achievement in poetry.

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Book SynopsisWithin the library of the world''s classics, the book of Psalms occupies a unique place. Few books were composed over a longer period of time and have exercised more cultural and religious influence than the Psalms, the longest and most complex collection in the Hebrew Bible. Nearly 1,000 years in the making with dozens of contributors, this ancient anthology includes 150 prayers and poems for a host of public occasions and private exigencies, ranging from the comforting passage Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Ps 23:4 to some of the most violent imprecations, such as Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth, Ps 58:6). The Psalms is an introduction to the world of the Psalms that focuses on the content and the poetic forms in the collection, guiding the reader toward an appreciation of the purposes of the Psalms and their contribution to the Scriptures of Israel. Rather than abstract theorizing, Keith Bodner offers close readings of numerous psalms, exploring th

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