Literary studies: general Books

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Book SynopsisEugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the fates of three men and three women. It was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.

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Book SynopsisPaints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This, Lewis's last book, has been hailed as 'the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind'.Table of ContentsPreface; 1. The medieval situation; 2. Reservations; 3. Selected materials: the classical period; 4. Selected materials: the seminal period; 5. The heavens; 6. The longaevi; 7. Earth and her inhabitants; 8. The influence of the model; Epilogue; Index.

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Book SynopsisUpdated and revised edition.Trade ReviewReviews of the first edition (1855-1974): 'Bahru Zewde, one of present-day Ethiopia's leading historians, must be thanked for producing the first serious history of his country from the coronation of the reforming emperor Tewodros in 1855 to the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974. The work encompasses the lives of Ethiopia's four last, and most important, monarchs: Tewodros, Yohannes, Menilek and Hayla Sellase, whose reigns, as the author presents them, form an historical continuum. The text is valuable in that it provides an historical overview of virtually the entire area of present-day Ethiopia, with sections on the south of the country, largely ignored by previous historians, as well as on the better-documented Semitic north. ... The book, though less than 250 pages in length, is packed with information not readily available elsewhere, and contains valuable new historical insights. There are moreover interesting discussions of how events in one part of the region influenced the situation in others...there are also interesting sections on such topics as Hayla Sellase's ideas of government. ...The author does not ignore the more positive features of the occupation. ... Bahru's work is the first history of modern Ethiopia to be written by an Ethiopian, and thus provides a new perspective. Though later imprisoned for several years by Ethiopia's post-imperial regime he does not see the Hayla Sellase era, through which he lived as a student, with rosy spectacles. -- Richard Pankhurst * JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY *...gaping void now filled with distinction by Bahru Zewde...He achieves too, the difficult tasks of balancing the political history of warlords and emperors with social and economic developments, and relating internal developments to the progressive increase in external pressures. His judgements are succinct and illuminating. ...In short, it is a model of its kind. -- Christopher Clapham * AFRICAN AFFAIRS *... timely ... wealth of illustrative material ... Required reading for practitioners, graduate students and advanced undergraduates. - * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface to 2nd edition - The background - Unification & independence 1855-1896 - From Adwa to Maychaw 1896-1935 - The Italian occupation 1936-1941 - From liberation to revolution 1941-1974 - Revolution & its Sequel - Conclusion

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Book SynopsisDavid Bordwell reveals how crime fiction, plays, and films made unconventional narrative mainstream. A sweeping, kaleidoscopic account written in a lively, conversational style, Perplexing Plots offers an ambitious new understanding of how popular culture has evolved over the past century.Trade ReviewDavid Bordwell has a brain I envy, one that makes connections and associations about books, film, and the arts that are breathtakingly unorthodox and exactly correct. I learned so much from reading Perplexing Plots about how crime narratives are situated in the larger literary and cinema spheres, and rejoiced in how much pleasure Bordwell's criticism provided, once more and always. -- Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him FreeMy favorite of David Bordwell’s many important books, this is an engrossing tour of crime and mystery storytelling in literature high and low, with asides on film, theater, and other media. I’m in awe of its encyclopedic reach, erudition, analytic brilliance, clarity, and wit. It’s wonderfully instructive and fun. -- James Naremore, author of More than Night: Film Noir in Its ContextsPerplexing Plots is the most illuminating study of narrative technique that I’ve read. David Bordwell’s investigation of popular storytelling benefits from his exceptional breadth of knowledge and analytic skills. But what is especially impressive is his ability to present information and insights so persuasively—and so readably. An admirable achievement. -- Martin Edwards, author of The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their CreatorsBordwell's is the first-ever-historical poetics of cross-media storytelling in which inventions and conventions, the new and the old, the brainy and the brainless are considered not as successive stages of, as Mandelstam called it, a "boring bearded development," but as complementary components of a creative symbiosis. -- Yuri Tsivian, author of Approaches to Carpalistics: Movement and Gesture in Art, Literature and FilmPerplexing Plots is a must. Rare is scholasticism this engaging — you’ll put it down with more than a handful of authors to discover, not to mention the movies adapted from them. * Boulder Weekly *Bordwell’s work is exceptionally well-researched and offers fascinating examinations of plot devices, patterns, and structure in crime fiction. This book is sure to be enjoyed by fans of crime fiction and film noir. * Hometowns to Hollywood *[Bordwell's] voluminous work on film underpins his sensitivity to questions of narrative voice, points of view and misdirection in novel-writing. Better yet, his writing radiates an enthusiasm that will please both genre fans and literary scholars. The book is readable and very entertaining. * Sight and Sound *An engaging study of how twentieth- and twenty-first-century storytellers across literature, film, radio, and stage have coaxed audiences along as collaborators in the narrative process . . . reading Perplexing Plots is a hell of a lot of fun. * Noir City Magazine *[A] terrific book. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *Perplexing Plots is unfailingly rich and fascinating, and Bordwell’s exegeses on popular narrative will be central to studies of the concept far into the future. * New Review of Film and Television Studies *Wildly illuminating. * The Film Stage *A highly recommended title. * Popcultureshelf.com *Like the great detectives he writes about, Bordwell shows off his encyclopedic knowledge and his dazzling analytic powers, laying out his case with an abundance of evidence. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews *Bordwell, America’s finest film scholar, has connected the dots between movies and popular detective stories . . . for a thrilling X-ray of genre. -- Phillip Lopate * The Millions *Highly recommended. * Journal of Popular Culture *[A] brilliant book . . . Bordwell has been one of the great exponents of precise formal analysis for whom methods of narration are never to be taken for granted. His writing is at once impeccably scholarly and acutely sensitive to the human use of stories and the part they play in people’s lives . . . I was exhilarated by Bordwell’s multiple demonstrations of the pleasures of deflection and distraction, shapely detours and sidewise turns, in the service of what he calls the “playful experience of form.” -- Geoffrey O’Brien * New York Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Mass Art as Experimental StorytellingPart I1. The Art Novel Meets 1910s Formalism2. Making Confusion Satisfactory: Modernism and Other Mysteries3. Churn and Consolidation: The 1940s and AfterPart II4. The Golden Age Puzzle Plot: The Taste of the Construction5. Before the Fact: The Psychological Thriller6. Dark and Full of Blood: Hard-Boiled Detection7. The 1940s: Mysteries in Crossover Culture8. The 1940s: The Problem of Other Minds, or Just OnePart III9. The Great Detective Rewritten: Erle Stanley Gardner and Rex Stout10. Viewpoints, Narrow and Expansive: Patricia Highsmith and Ed McBain11. Donald Westlake and the Richard Stark Machine12. Tarantino, Twists, and the Persistence of Puzzles13. Gone Girls: The New Domestic ThrillerConclusion: The Power of LimitsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisWere it not for the Marquis de Sade''s explicit use of language and complete disregard for the artificially constructed taboos of a religious morality he despised, the novelty and profundity of his thought, and above all, its fundamental modernity, would have long since secured him a place alongside the greatest authors and thinkers of the European Enlightenment. This Very Short Introduction aims to disentangle the ''real'' Marquis de Sade from his mythical and demonic reputation of the past two hundred years. Phillips examines Sade''s life and work: his libertine novels, his championing of atheism, and his uniqueness in bringing the body and sex back into philosophy. 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.Trade ReviewA brisk and lively introductory book. * John Phillips, Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. Beyond the Myth: The real Marquis de Sade ; 2. Man of Letters ; 3. Martyr of Atheism ; 4. Sade and the French Revolution ; 5. Theatres of the Body ; 6. Apostle of Freedom ; References ; Further Reading

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Book SynopsisA work of technical skill as well as outstanding literary merit, Structuralist Poetics was awarded the 1975 James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. It was during the writing of this book that Culler developed his now famous and remarkably complex theory of poetics and narrative, and while never a populariser he nonetheless makes it crystal clear within these pages.Trade Review''The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt'The brilliance, precision and clarity with which Dr Culler conducts his argument make this a book which all those concerned with the analysis of literature should read.' - A.S. Byatt, Times Education SupplementTable of ContentsPART I Structuralism and Linguistic Models 1 The Linguistic Foundation 2 The Development of a Method: Two Examples 3 Jakobson’s Poetic Analyses 4 Greimas and Structural Semantics 5 Linguistic Metaphors in Criticism PART II Poetics 6 Literary Competence 7 Convention and Naturalization 8 Poetics of the Lyric 9 Poetics of the Novel PART III Perspectives 10 ‘Beyond’ Structuralism: Tel Quel 11 Conclusion: Structuralism and the Qualities of Literature

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Book SynopsisA work of literary criticism that may become - deserves to become - the most influential of its time' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday TimesTrade Review"'The most important critical work for decades' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times 'Bate presents his case with an emotional conviction which is almost impossible to resist' The Times 'Anyone familiar with Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare will know how winningly he marries erudition to liveliness' John Coldstream, Daily Telegraph 'I came away from the book deeply grateful for its impassioned song' Adam Thorpe, Sun. Tel."

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Book Synopsis`every heart imagines itself the first to thrill to a myriad sensations which once stirred the hearts of the earliest creatures and which will again stir the hearts of the last men and women to walk the earth'' What is a life? How shall a storyteller conceive a life? What if art means pattern and life has none? How, then, can any story be true to life? These are some of the questions which inform the first of Maupassant''s six novels, A Life (Une Vie) (1883) in which he sought to parody and expose the folly of romantic illusion. An unflinching presentation of a woman''s life of failure and disappointments, where fulfilment and happiness might have been expected, A Life recounts Jeanne de Lamare''s gradual lapse into a state of disillusion. With its intricate network of parallels and oppositions, A Life reflects the influence of Flaubert in its attention to form and its coherent structure. It also expresses Maupassant''s characteristic naturalistic vision in which the satire of bourgeoTrade ReviewIn general, he [Pearson] shows himself sensitive to the various registers that Maupassant employs, and manages to convey the wistful flavour of this story of a largely disappointing life. * Robin Buss, TLS *It is possible to smile at the consistently downbeat tone, while at the same time admiring this finely constructed, austerely written tale. * Robin Buss, TLS *

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Book SynopsisSweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain''s Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol Ann Duffy, and a series of striking examples of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader. The narrative embraces not only the major literary movements such as Romanticism and Modernism, together with the most influential authors including Chaucer, Donne, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens and Woolf, but also little-known stories such as the identity of the first English woman poet to be honoured with a collected edition of her works. Written with the flair and passion for which Jonathan Bate has become renowned, this book is the perfect Very Short Introduction for all readers and students of the incomparable literary heritage of these islands.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.Trade ReviewWhile exploring towering works, Bate remins us that literature can also be terrific fun. * Christopher Hirst. The Independent *Table of Contents1. Once upon a time ; 2. What it is ; 3. When it began ; 4. The study of English ; 5. Periods and movements ; 6. Among the English Poets ; 7. Shakespeare and dramatic literature ; 8. Aspects of the English novel ; 9. The Englishness of English literature ; Further Reading

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Book SynopsisLove weighs the costs of the contemporary move to the mainstream in lesbian and gay culture. While widening tolerance for same-sex marriage and gay-themed media brings clear benefits, assimilation entails losses hard to identify or mourn, since many aspects of historical gay culture are so closely associated with the pain and shame of the closet.Trade ReviewIn supple readings of difficult, sometimes disturbing, yet always fascinating texts and contexts, Heather Love demonstrates that if we are to seriously engage with the queer past we must welcome the shame, fear, loneliness, obstinacy, and indeed backwardness that we encounter there. For all that, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History, with its beautiful prose, stunning theoretical sophistication, careful attention to detail, as well as a hard-headed respect for the artists and critics whom it treats, is a stunningly hopeful book. Throughout Love links her critiques of celebratory queer criticism with a passionate concern for the opening up of progressive forms of intellectual and political life. -- Robert F. Reid-Pharr, author of Once You Go Black: Choice, Desire and the Black American IntellectualHeather Love is the Marcel Proust of contemporary theory. Disappointed love and tormented desire find a compassionate commentator in Love, who turns to queer history's tragic, lonely, and despairing figures, not to sublimate or to save them, but to recognize and to respect them. A wise, worldly, and winning book. -- Diana Fuss, Professor of English, Princeton UniversityNow that, in the latest twist of tolerance, gays are required to flaunt their well-adjustedness, Feeling Backward may feel backward indeed as it contemplates the pain, anger, isolation, and sheer crankiness, prominent in literary figures of our queer past. But it is harder than ever to pause for thought—and not simply revulsion or compassion—over these prickly and unwholesome feelings, which lead an increasingly closeted existence in ourselves. Heather Love is in astonishing possession of the negative capability required by her undertaking, and her analytic finesse proves well-matched to her ethical delicacy. This book—together with the constellation of work it gathers around itself—belongs to what may deservedly be called a new wave in queer studies. -- D.A. Miller, University of California, BerkeleyLike Lot's wife, I like to look over my shoulder too much at salty scenes from the shameful past-- though I've yet to turn into a pillar of the community. The delightfully named Heather Love makes all that hankering after pre-gay sex on Hampstead Heath seem slightly romantic and illuminates why and how the queer past is not always about waiting for Stonewall and disco to happen. -- Mark Simpson, Editor of Anti-GayWhat does it mean to "feel backward"? By turning to, rather than away from, the texts of shame, injury, loss and failure that populate a queer past, Heather Love manages to shift queer studies away from the straight and narrow and back onto the slippery slope of stigma and dismay. Love refuses the triumphalist accounts of gay and lesbian progress and she insists on the spoiling of identity and on the political importance of "bad feelings." This is a rigorous book, a brave book, a wildly original and unrelenting book. It will be a central text in the backward future of queer studies. -- Judith Halberstam, author of In a Queer Time and PlaceIt seems to me this discontinuous book is a little bit like the stations of the cross. I mean if you like to stop, and most of us do. And sometimes the street was filled with us. All thinking about someone else. They are the past inside our present. He just put one in a cab. I like Feeling Backward... a lot. -- Eileen Myles, poetIn this interesting study of modernist literature and the challenges of history, the author encourages readers to consider how early-20th-century moments once labeled embarrassing, troubling, and evil continue to have an affect. Drawing from the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, the Marxist philosophy of Raymond Williams, and other schools of thought, Love rereads the works of Radclyffe Hall, Walter Pater, Willa Cather, and Sylvia Townsend Warner--often considered to turn away from an image of a brighter future for queer readers--in order to consider the "backward feelings" of shame, depression, and regret and describe how these texts have fallen into critical disrepute among queer theorists and scholars...This book is for those interested in the politics and history of emotion and sensibility. -- J. Pruitt * Choice *Feeling Backward is a brilliant work...Love looks fearlessly at literature from the past in which circumstances related to gender tend to produce victims rather than heroines. She establishes that our literature has been affected by homophobia and demands that we consider the implications of this fact. Love contends that we need to look at history and social politics less like Lot's wife, who's destroyed by looking back, and more like Odysseus, who listens to the past but isn't destroyed by it. The past haunts us whether we acknowledge it or not; we may be "looking forward," as we like to assure ourselves, even as we're "feeling backward." -- Martha Miller * Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide *Feeling Backward is a brilliant book that attempts the "impossible" and succeeds. Using Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick as theoretical touchstones, and incorporating Raymond Williams's "structures of feeling," Heather Love "feels backward" to reimagine and connect with aspects of a queer past that had been rendered invisible. In doing so--in risking (as she puts it) the fate of Lot's wife in turning back to revisit a painful past--she embraces the ruins, the "fugitive dead," the loneliness and failures and all the "negative affect" that need to be reclaimed as part of that history...Love moves bravely backwards to that murky time, the "queer life before Stonewall," and then crosses the modernist line backwards to feel what has been lost. In doing so she has made a profoundly imaginative and powerful contribution to queer history. -- Rick Taylor * Feminist Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Emotional Rescue 2. Permanent Exile: Walter Pater's Queer Modernism 3. The End of Friendship: Willa Cather's Sad Kindred 4. Unwanted Being: Stephen Gordon's Spoiled Identity 5. Impossible Objects: Sylvia Townsend Warner and the Longing for Revolution Epilogue: The Politics of Refusal Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTerry Eagleton looks back across sixty years to an extraordinary critical milieu that transformed the study of literature

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Book SynopsisDrawn from Peter H. Lee's Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Volume One, this abridged introductory collection offers students and general readers primary readings in the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of Korean from ancient times through the sixteenth century.Trade ReviewA monumental accomplishment. Korean Studies Beginning scholars of Asian Studies...will find this a challenging but worthwhile book to read. Korean QuarterlyTable of ContentsPreface Explanatory Note Contributors Part I. Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla 1. Origins of korean culture 2. The Rise of the Three Kingdoms 3. The Introduction of Buddhism 4. Consolidation of the State 5. The Rise of Buddhism 6. Poetry and Song 7. Local Clans and the Rise of the Meditation School Part II. Koryo Introduction 8. Early Koryo Political Structure 9. Koryo Society 10. Military Rule and Late Koryo Reform 11. Buddhism: The Ch'ont'ae and Chogye Schools 12. Popular Beliefs and Confucianists Part III. Early Choson Introduction 13. Founding the Choson Dynasty 14. Political Thought in Early Choson 15. Culture 16. Social Life 17. Economy 18. Thought 19. Buddhism Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis . . . is a brilliant work. Choice[Sternberg] has written a very important book, both for his comprehensiveness and for the clearly-avowed faith stance from which he understands and interprets the strategies of the biblical narratives. . . . a superb overview . . . Theological Studies . . . rated very highly indeed. It is a book to read and then reread. Modern Language Review . . . Sternberg has accomplished an enormous task, enriching our understanding of the theoretical basis of biblical narrative and giving us insight into a remarkable number of particular texts. Journal of the American Academy of Religion . . . an important book for those who seek to take the Bible seriously as a literary work because it shows, more clearly and emphatically than any book I know, that the Bible is a serious literary worka text manifesting a highly sophisticated and successful narrative poetics. Adele Berlin, ProoftextsTrade Review"This ... is a brilliant work." Choice "[Sternberg] has written a very important book, both for his comprehensiveness and for the clearly-avowed faith stance from which he understands and interprets the strategies of the biblical narratives... a superb overview ... " Theological Studies " ... rated very highly indeed. It is a book to read and then reread." Modern Language Review " ... Sternberg has accomplished an enormous task, enriching our understanding of the theoretical basis of biblical narrative and giving us insight into a remarkable number of particular texts." Journal of the American Academy of Religion " ... an important book for those who seek to take the Bible seriously as a literary work because it shows, more clearly and emphatically than any book I know, that the Bible is a serious literary work - a text manifesting a highly sophisticated and successful narrative poetics." Adele Berlin, ProoftextsTable of ContentsPreface1. Literary Text, Literary Approach: Getting the Questions StraightDiscourse and SourceFiction and HistoryForm and DoctrineThe Drama of Reading2. Narrative Models3. Ideology of Narration and Narration of Ideology Omniscience Charged and Monopolized: The Epistemological RevolutionThe Omnipotence Effect: Control Claimed and Disclaimed4. Viewpoints and InterpretationsPoint of View and Its Biblical ConfigurationThe Wooing of RebekahPositions and Discrepancies EstablishedThe Movement form Divergence to Convergence of PerspectivesNew Tensions and Final Resolution5. The Play of PerspectivesNarrator vs. GodNarrator and Reader vs. God and Characters Spheres of CommunicationThree Reading PositionsFrom Plot to PerspectiveFrom Ignorance to KnowledgePrivilege and Performance6. Gaps, Ambiquity and the Reading ProcessThe Literary Work as a System of GapsThe Story of David and Bathsheba: On the Narrator's Reticence and OmissionsThe Ironic ExpositionWhat Is the King Doing in the City?Uriah the Hittite Recalled to JerusalemDoes Uriah Know about His Wife's Doings? The Twofold HypothesisWhat Does David Think That Uriah Thinks? The Three-Way HypothesisHow Joab Fails to Carry Out David's OrderThe Analogy to the Story of Abimelech and the WomanOn Mutually Exclusive Systems of Gap-Filling: Turning the Screws of Henry James and Others7. Between the Truth and the Whole TruthFoolproof Composition in AmbiguityThe Relevance of AbsenceTemporary and Permanent GappingThe Echoing InterrogativeOpposition in JuxtapositionCoherence Threatened and FortifiedNorms and Their ViolationsFrom Gapping to Closure: The Functions of Ambiguity8. Temporal Discontinuity, Narrative Interest, and the Emergence of MeaningSuspense and the Dynamics of ProspectionThe Pros and Cons of Suspense in the BibleModes of Shaping the Narrative FutureDarkness in Light, or: Zigzagging toward Sisera's EndCuriosity and the Dynamics of RetrospectionJoseph and His Brothers: Making Sense of the PastSurprise and the Dynamics of Recognition9. Proleptic PortraitsCharacter and Characterization: From Divine to HumanWhy the Truth about Character Does Not SufficeThe Art of the Proleptic EpithetEpithets and the Rule of Forward-looking Exposition10. Going from Surface to DepthCharacter as Action, Character in ActionThe Composition of Character and the Limits of Metonymic InferenceOld Age in GenesisGood Looks in Samuel11. The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational RedundancySimilarity Patterns and the Structure of RepetitionFormulaic Convention or Functional Principle?Constant and Variable FactorsVerbatim RepetitionRepetition with Variation: Forms and Functions of DevianceRepetition and Communication: Pharah's DreamBasic Axes and Natural CombinationsFrom Natural to Functional CombinationsDeliberate Variation: (Figural) Rhetoric within (Narratorial) RhetoricGeneric Transformation into ParablePermutations and Some ComplicationsRepetition and Narrative Art: Some General Consequences12. The Art of PersusionPersuading in the Court of ConscienceDelicate Balance in the Rape of DinahThe Rhetorical Repertoire13. Ideology, Rhetoric, PoeticsJustifying the Ways of God to Man: Saul's RejectionDancing in ChainsDialogue as Pressure, Variations as JudgmentConvergence with Belated Discovery: Rhetorical OverkillNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisMartin Wiggins is a Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham.

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Book SynopsisAimed at students and readers of poetry at all levels, The Cambridge Guide to Reading Poetry takes a tour through a galaxy of examples, demonstrating how to come to terms with poetry's verbal, formal, emotional, and conceptual power. It shows how reading poems enhances our enjoyment and understanding of life.Trade Review'One of the advantages this book will have over competitors in the field is that its tone and approach are grounded in practical experience of introducing challenging texts to readers who are relatively inexperienced with (and not a little afraid of) poetry. Andrew Hodgson's guide manages to make reading poetry continuously exciting without sacrificing difficulty. Consistently literary, it makes the literary available rather than austerely or arcanely remote. Above, all students will listen because the advice is presented without condescension as if from a writer addressing fellow-practitioners. I will certainly be recommending this book to my first-year close readers and I am sincerely heartened by the fact that, published by Cambridge University Press, it is set to become a standard text.' Josie Billington, University of Liverpool'Any student of poetry, not just beginners, should find this book helpful and encouraging. Its tone is amiable but not condescending, its range of themes and examples is generous, and its insights are sensible, interesting and smart.' Michael Ferber, University of New HampshireDeeply thoughtful and superbly eloquent, this is the most inspiring guide to the study of poetry that I've ever encountered. It's an introduction and a masterclass at once. Like the literature it illuminates, this book has riches to offer readers of every kind. Refusing bullet points and jargon, refusing to flatten or over-simplify, Hodgson takes us seriously. Opening up conversation at every turn, he encourages us to embrace poetry in all its exhilarating complexity and to feel it changing our minds. He looks carefully under the microscope at rhyme and metre, form and voice, and – inseparably – he makes a powerfully sustained argument for the transformative presence of literature in our lives. … In sum it's as idiosyncratic, argumentative, stylish, loving and generally human as literature is and textbooks aren't.' Alexandra Harris, University of Birmingham'Hodgson's guide is lucid, learned, and just plain useful. He patiently and precisely describes the pleasures and value of reading and writing about verse. Filled with a wide selection of well-wrought exempla and some well-culled insights from poets themselves, the book beautifully describes why poetry matters and how it works. Like the best poets, Hodgson thinks and feels deeply about words.' Stephen Dobranski, Distinguished University Professor, Georgia State University'This is an incredibly useful, accessible guide for anyone interested in sharpening their appreciation of poetry. Andrew Hodgson's book manages to be engaging and friendly, even when introducing potentially intimidating topics like metre and scansion, without ever patronising the reader or reducing the complexity of the ideas raised. He also never loses sight of the fact that students need to discover their own reasons for engaging with poetry, beyond the mundane demands of university assessment. Through its series of wide-ranging and lucidly explored examples, his book inspires a further plunge into poetic history, by reminding us that poetry is a vital record of the diversity of human experience, rather than a rarefied separation from it.' Dr Sarah Parker, Loughborough University'… the book's language is accessible, lucid, and direct, rarely dipping into undefined poetic jargon. As such, The Cambridge Guide to Reading Poetry would be useful for technical communicators looking to reintroduce themselves to the act of reading poetry critically, or even those looking for a way to write a guide for difficult and diffuse subjects with clarity.' Dylan Schrader, Technical CommunicationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Reading Poetry; 1. Reading a Poem; 2. Studying a Poet; 3. Writing about Poetry; Epilogue: What Should You Read?; Glossary of Common Forms and Genres; Further Reading.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“A book that seems long overdue. As the former longtime libraries curator for the National Trust, Purcell is singularly qualified to discuss these troves.”—Adrian Higgins, Washington Post“Magisterial (and beautifully illustrated)”—David Jenkins, Tatler“For those who love books and the libraries in which they are stored this book is an essential volume to own.”—Social & Personal"As a whole, this book is a tremendous achievement."—John Goodall, Country Life"beautifully written, cogently argued and lavishly illustrated book"—Jason McElligott, Irish Arts ReviewIncluded in the Irish Independent end of year list for 2017."boundlessly informative"—David Ekserdjian, Evening Standard"Its title is unassuming, but it constitutes, in fact, a significant contribution to the scholarly discipline of book history."—Alexandra Marracini, TLS"the definitive account of the country house library in Britain and Ireland"—Matthew Sanders, Ancient Monuments Society Newsletter"beautifully produced and gorgeously, lavishly illustrated"—Leah Galbraith, Fiction Fan blog"And with 150 magnificent colour plates is it really only £45? Buy it quickly before the publishers notice their mistake."—Stephen Halliday, Times Higher Education Supplement“This is a ground-breaking book […] a cracking good read.” – John Martin Robinson, Literary Review. “[An] all-encompassing study” —Jeremy Musson, Art Newspaper“This book is the first major work to redress this imbalance and to put the contents of the library into its proper context” —Robert L. Betteridge, EBS“Beautifully illustrated with striking new photography, together with historical paintings and engravings, the book provides an outstanding overview of this important and strangely neglected subject.”—James W.P. Campbell, The Burlington Magazine

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Book SynopsisJames Macpherson''s "poems of Ossian", first published from 1760 as Fragments of Ancient Poetry, were the literary sensation of the age. Attacked by Samuel Johnson and others as "forgeries", nonetheless the poems enthralled readers around the world, attracting rapturous admiration from such figures as diverse as Goethe, Diderot, Jefferson, Bonaparte and Mendelssohn. This International Companion examines the social, political and philosophical context of the poems, their disputed origins, their impact on world literature, and the various critical afterlives of Macpherson and of "Ossian".

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Book SynopsisWordsworth's lines on Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) contributed to a legend that became better known than Chatterton's work itself. His story is moving: a sensitive, unhappy boy, he fell in love with the medieval world and escaped into it from miserable schooling and the drudgery of apprenticeship. He read and then wrote "medieval" poetry which he passed off as genuine. When the poems he wrote in his own name brought him some success, he went to London to seek his fortune as a writer. After six months' struggle, too proud to admit defeat, starving and alone, he killed himself in his attic room. He was seventeen. There is more to Chatterton than the romantic archetype. His poetry was admired by Keats, Shelley, Coleridge and Wordsworth; as Grevel Lindop says in his introduction, "Chatterton's work contains in essence the whole of Romanticism". This selection, with its detailed notes, shows the historical significance and unexpected range of Chatterton's poetry, and also enables the reader to enjoy it for its rich resonance and wonderfully memorable rhythms.

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Book SynopsisBombarded with the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb a day for half a century, Pacific people have long been subjected to man-made cataclysm. Well before climate change became a global concern, nuclear testing brought about untimely death, widespread diseases, forced migration, and irreparable destruction to the shores of Oceania. In The Ocean on Fire, Anaïs Maurer analyzes the Pacific literature that incriminates the environmental racism behind radioactive skies and rising seas. Maurer identifies strategies of resistance uniting the region by analyzing an extensive multilingual archive of decolonial Pacific art in French, Spanish, English, Tahitian, and Uvean, ranging from literature to songs and paintings. She shows how Pacific nuclear survivors’ stories reveal an alternative vision of the apocalypse: instead of promoting individualism and survivalism, they advocate mutual assistance, cultural resilience, South-South transnational solidarities, and Indigenous women&r

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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 SynopsisRanging from early medieval times to the present, this diverse collection explores the myriad ways in which literary texts are informed by their historical contexts. The thirty-one chapters draw on varied themes and perspectives to present stimulating new readings of both canonical and non-canonical texts and authors. Written in a lively and engaging style, by an international team of experts, these specially commissioned essays collectively represent an incisive contribution to literary studies; they will appeal to scholars, teachers and graduate and undergraduate students. The book is designed to complement Paul Poplawski's previous volume, English Literature in Context, and incorporates additional study elements designed specifically with undergraduates in mind. With an extensive chronology, a glossary of critical terms, and a study guide suggesting how students might learn from the essays in their own writing practices, this volume provides a rich and flexible resource for teachingTrade Review'An impeccable selection of wide-ranging but sharply focused texts in their historical and cultural contexts by seasoned scholars with a keen sense of the past as well as a sharp eye for essential contemporary issues such as feminism, environmentalism, immigration, and politics. The crisp and succinct essays are packed with engaging questions that suggest lively classroom discussion as well as thoughtful critical examination.' Stephen Kern, Ohio State University'Studying English Literature in Context helps ease students' transition from second- to third-level study by offering scholarly essays that are written specifically for students. This makes academic writing and argument more accessible to students coming to such material for the first time, with the further resources offering the additional benefit of helping students think more critically about what they are reading. This book offers new university students much needed support as they work towards the broader and deeper critical inquiry in which they will engage at later stages of their programme. It is likely to be widely assigned in undergraduate survey courses and much used.' Naomi McAreavey, University College Dublin'Driven by the conviction that texts are fruitfully understood within the context of their time, this enormously hospitable and adaptable book manages, without strain, to appeal both to scholars and students, to bookworms and neophytes. It covers the entire history of English literature and drama with a ease and dexterity matched only by ambition and range. The collection deploys an innovative hinged structure in which each of the thirty-one essays is supplemented by a critical reflection that allows the author to reflect upon the preceding essay he or she has just written, while also mapping the scholarly field. Pedagogically, that will afford students a critical example of how to position their own work while also informing them, without dryness, of the scholarly tradition to which they contribute. This collection is suffused with the balm of utility, clear-sightedness and practical good sense and deserves a place on reading lists wherever English literature is nurtured and cherished.' Ronan McDonald, The University of Melbourne, Australia'Studying English Literature in Context will undoubtedly advance the theory and practice of cultural materialist pedagogy in higher education. I recommend this lively and enjoyable volume as a valuable resource for teachers and students of English Literature and as an excellent anthology of scholarly essays in its own right.' Caroline Franklin, Swansea University'Studying English Literature in Context is a superb collection of essays by leading scholars that will foster stimulating response, reignite debate, and demand intellectual engagement by readers of representative texts from the long history of English. The authors recognise that from The Dream of the Rood's multivalence to Aphra Behn's colonial novel Oroonoko and Grace Nichols' feminist poetry, literature both contributes to, as well as reflects socio-cultural critique, linking past modes of creative expression with current conversations about form, textual ambiguity, literary resistance, and periodisation. In addition to this impressive set of critical interpretations, generous resources are provided to situate the student in the long chronology and complex range of generic, stylistic, material, and performative possibilities offered by literature. The whole volume works to ensure enhanced understanding of the significance of poetry, prose, and drama both to authors and creators and to audiences globally; as Poplawski anticipates, this book offers contextured readings, encouraging connections between eras, affect, and modalities to amplify the power of the written and spoken word.' Elaine Treharne, Stanford UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Paul Poplawski; Section I. Medieval English, 500–1500: 1. Finding the dream of the rood in old English literature Emily V. Thornbury; 2. The translator as author: The case of Geoffrey Chaucer's the Parliament of Fowls Filip Krajnik; 3. Arthurian romance as a window onto medieval life: The Case of Ywayne and Gawayne and The Awntyrs off Arthure K. S. Whetter; Section II: The renaissance, 1485–1660: 4. The renaissance in England: A meeting point Alessandra Petrina; 5. 'Mr Spencer's moral invention': The global horizons of early modern epic Jane Grogan; 6. Arden of Faversham Christa Jansohn; 7. 'A little touch of Harry in the night' – mysteries of kingship and the stage in Shakespeare's the life of king Henry the fifth Ina Habermann; 8. Poems and contexts: The case of Henry Vaughan Robert Wilcher; Section III: The restoration and eighteenth century, 1660–1780: 9. Periodising in context: The case of the restoration and eighteenth Century Lee Morrissey; 10. Truth-telling and the representation of the Surinam 'Indians' in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko Oddvar Holmesland; 11. 'The pamphlet on the table': The life and adventures of sir Launcelot Greaves Richard J. Jones; Section IV: The romantic period, 1780–1832: 12. 'Transported into asiatic scenes': Romanticism and the orient Daniel Sanjiv Roberts; 13. Historical fiction in the romantic period: Jane Porter, Walter Scott and the sublime hero Fiona Price; 14. Jane Austen and her publishers: Northanger Abbey and the publishing context of the early nineteenth century Katie Halsey; 15. 'O for a life of sensations' or 'the internal and external parts': Keats and medical materialism Paul Wright; Section V: The victorian age, 1832–1901: 16. Poetry and science in the victorian period Jordan Kistler; 17. 'In characters of tint indelible': Life writing and legacy in Charlotte Brontë's Villette Maria Frawley; 18. Money, narrative and representation from Dickens to Gissing Ben Moore; 19. Reading and remediating nineteenth-century serial fiction: Closing down and opening up Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla Fionnuala Dillane; 20. Public places, private spaces in Fin de Siècle British women's writing Sue Asbee; Section VI: The Twentieth Century, 1901–1939: 21. D. H. Lawrence's women in Love: An anthropological reading Stefania Michelucci; 22. The epigraph for T. S. Eliot's Marina: Classical tradition and the modern era Anna Budziak; 23. Passing as a male critic: Mary Beton's coming of age in Virginia Woolf's a room of one's own Judith Paltin; Section VII: The twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 1939–2020: 24. An ecocritical reading of the poetry of Ted Hughes Terry Gifford; 25. Women publishers in the twenty-first century: Assessing their impact on new writing – and writers Catherine Riley; 26. Crisis and community in contemporary British theatre Clare Wallace; Section VIII: Postcolonial literature in english: 27. Complexities and concealments of eros in the African novel: Chinua Achebe's things fall apart F. Fiona Moolla; 28. Bessie Head's feminism of everyday life Loretta Stec; 29. The gender politics of Grace Nichols: Joy and resistance Izabel F. O. Brandao; 30. 'The all-purpose quote': Salman Rushdie's meta-contextuality Joel Kuortti; 31. Postcolonial literature and the world, 2017–2019: Contemporary complexities Ulla Rahbek; Appendices; Appendix A: Glossary of critical terms; Appendix B: Study guide: Learning from the essays; Appendix C: Essays listed by genre and theme; Index.

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Book SynopsisWas the experience of poetry--or a cultural practice we now call poetry--continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson''s Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, the place of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII''s court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era. Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.Trade ReviewIt is bracing to follow a prominent senior scholar in his exploration of so many centuries—millennia encountered not with any ex cathedra jadedness but with open enthusiasm that should immediately engage readers at every academic level. * Stephen Hinds, University of Washington, Modern Language Quarterly *There are many ways to write a history (or a "pre-history") of poetry; despite the gravitational pull of the English Renaissance, this one turns into an inventory of impressive and meticulously curated literary-historical epiphanies, each encountered in its own present ... It is bracing to follow a prominent senior scholar in his exploration of somany centuries—millennia—encountered not with any ex cathedra jadedness but with open enthusiasm that should immediately engage readers at every academic level. * Stephen Hinds, University of Washington, Modern Language Quarterly *Attridge's exploration is detailed and extensive as he considers how the demands of social norms and the changes in production technologies influenced the ways in which poetry might be experienced by readers and listeners. In turn, the volume will be of interest to those studying any of the time frames that it discusses as well as those interested in questions regarding the reception and transmission of literature. * John S. Garrison, Renaissance Studies *...[the volume] is of significant value to classical scholarship, encouraging as it does a contextualising of ancient engagements with this literary form, and our own study of such engagements, within a much broader cultural history of poetry...this book offers an invaluable opportunity to consider the material with which we are most familiar as set within the wider evolution of poetry as a cultural phenomenon. But perhaps more significantly, we can become aware of how our perceptions of poetry by the ancient Greeks and Romans have likely been shaped by the different forms that poetry took in subsequent centuries... it should also encourage us to approach any poetry belonging to antiquity as part of a broader cultural activity than is often acknowledged. * Emily Patterson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *A spectacularly rich and vast storehouse of poetic history, both convincingly homogeneous as a longue durée and absorbing in its smaller diverse details. * Esther Osorio Whewell, Cambridge Quarterly 49.2 (June, 2020) *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction PART ONE: Ancient Greece 1: Homeric Greece: Courts and Singers 2: Archaic to Classical Greece: Festivals and Rhapsodes 3: Classical Greece to Ptolemaic Alexandria: Writers and Readers PART TWO: Ancient Rome and Late Antiquity 4: Ancient Rome: The Republic and the Augustan Age 5: Ancient Rome: The Empire after Augustus 6: Late Antiquity: Latin and Greek, Private, Public, Popular PART THREE: The Middle Ages 7: Early Medieval Poetry: Vernacular Versifying 8: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Performing Genres 9: Lyric, Romance, and Alliterative Verse in Fourteenth-Century England 10: Chaucer, Gower, and Fifteenth-Century Poetry in English PART FOUR: The English Renaissance 11: Early Tudor Poetry: Courtliness and Print 12: Late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Poetry: The Circulation of Verse 13: Late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Poetry: The Idea of the Poet Bibliography

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Book SynopsisRomeo and Juliet is routinely called “the world’s greatest love story”, as though it is all about romance. The play features some of the most lyrical passages in all of drama, and the lovers are young, beautiful, and ardent. But when we look at the play, the lyricism and the romance are not really what drive things along. It is true that Romeo, especially early on in the play, acts like a young man determined to take his place in an immortal tale of love. Everything he says is romantic – but rather like an anniversary card is romantic. His words propel nothing, or nothing but sarcastic admonitions from his friends to forget about love and to treat women as they should be treated, with careless physical appetite. The world we have entered is rapacious more than romantic. Everyone knows something of this, from the film versions of the story if nothing else. Romeo and Juliet must fight for their love inside a culture of stupid hatreds. But it is not a simple case of love versus war, or the city against the couple. If it were, it would nicely reinforce clichés about true love, fighting against the odds. In this book Simon Palfrey suggests that the play Shakespeare actually wrote is more troubling than this. Juliet’s passion – for all her youth, for all its truth – is at the very cusp of murderousness. Juliet is the world’s scourge, in the sense that she will whip and punish and haunt it; she is also its triumph, in the sense of its best and truest thing. The deaths her love leads to are in no way avoidable, and in no way accidental. They are her inheritance, the thing she was born to. Of course she takes Romeo with her. But it is at heart her play.

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Book SynopsisExam Board: AQALevel: GCSE Grade 9-1Subject: English LiteratureSuitable for the 2024 examsEverything you need to revise for your GCSE 9-1 set text in a snap guideEverything you need to score top marks on your GCSE Grade 9-1 English Literature exam is right at your fingertips! Revise Lord of the Flies by William Golding in a snap with this new GCSE Grade 9-1 Snap Revision Text Guide from Collins. Refresh your knowledge of the plot, context, characters and themes and pick up top tips along the way to ace your AQA exam. Each topic is explained in an easy-to-read format so you can get straight to the point. Then, put your skills to the test with plenty of practice questions included in every section. The Snap Text Guides are packed with every quote and extract you need. We've even included examples of how to plan and write your essay responses! This Collins English Literature revision guide contains all the key information you need to practise and pass.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisExam Board: SQALevel: N5/Higher Subject: EnglishNeed extra help with English Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation? Revise National 5 and Higher English in a snap with Leckie SNAP Revision! Revise and review your understanding of sentence structure, word choice, close reading and language skills with this handy RUAE guide. First, different SQA-type questions are broken down so that you know exactly what to expect on the day of your exam. Next, exam topics and techniques such as understanding, language, written answers and grammar are detailed clearly and concisely, with colourful sections that are easy-to-read. Finally, put your knowledge to the test with plenty of exam practice, followed by model answers that allow you to check your understanding. With lots of top tips included throughout, this SQA English revision guide has all the tools you need to get a top mark! Revise SQA Poetry in a snap with Leckie SNAP Revision: Poetry by Norman MacCaig (9780008306670) and Carol Ann Duffy (9780008306687).

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Book SynopsisExam board: EdexcelLevel: A-level Year 2Subject: MathsSuitable for the 2024 examsComplete revision and practice to fully prepare for the A-level exam Discover how to banish ineffective revision and use study skills that will help you to do brilliantly in your A Level exams Understand what really successful students do to help them towards top grades in A Level English Literature Implement practice methods that actually improve your memoryRead this book to find out more!Chapter 1. Effective revision for English examsChapter 2. Organising your notes and annotationsChapter 3. Building up a bank of killer quotesChapter 4. Exploding your quotesChapter 5. Applying critical viewpointsChapter 6. Using context successfullyChapter 7. Developing your academic styleChapter 8. Improving practice essaysChapter 9. Getting ready for the unseen textsChapter 10. Taking care of yourself and coping with examsTrade Review‘This new guide to revision focusses on helping students maximise their potential and their time, as well as showing them how to stretch themselves and achieve success in A Level English Literature. Roberts’ practical strategies are presented in an accessible, concise format, making this volume useful for both students and teachers alike…’ – Amy Smith Literature

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Book SynopsisWhile armies have seized enemy records and rare texts as booty throughout history, it was only during World War II that an unlikely band of librarians, archivists, and scholars traveled abroad to collect books and documents to aid the military cause. Galvanized by the events of war into acquiring and preserving the written word, as well as providing critical information for intelligence purposes, these American civilians set off on missions to gather foreign publications and information across Europe. They journeyed to neutral cities in search of enemy texts, followed a step behind advancing armies to capture records, and seized Nazi works from bookstores and schools. When the war ended, they found looted collections hidden in cellars and caves. Their mission was to document, exploit, preserve, and restitute these works, and even, in the case of Nazi literature, to destroy them. In this fascinating account, cultural historian Kathy Peiss reveals how book and document collecting became part of the new apparatus of intelligence and national security, military planning, and postwar reconstruction. Focusing on the ordinary Americans who carried out these missions, she shows how they made decisions on the ground to acquire sources that would be useful in the war zone as well as on the home front. These collecting missions also boosted the postwar ambitions of American research libraries, offering a chance for them to become great international repositories of scientific reports, literature, and historical sources. Not only did their wartime work have lasting implications for academic institutions, foreign-policy making, and national security, it also led to the development of today''s essential information science tools. Illuminating the growing global power of the United States in the realms of intelligence and cultural heritage, Peiss tells the story of the men and women who went to Europe to collect and protect books and information and in doing so enriches the debates over the use of data in times of both war and peace.Trade ReviewIn Information Hunters Kathy Peiss documents how information gathering was central to the U.S. victory in Europe—and how 'collecting' also came to mean, after the conflict ended, keeping information away from certain populations....Information hunting changed the course of the war, Peiss convincingly argues, and 'made an imprint on the postwar world of books and information.'...In a time when we suffer from an overload of dematerialized information, Peiss's book is a valuable reminder of how different the world was when that information was scarce and existed only in vulnerable, physical form. * Greg Barnhisel, Journal of American History *In her fascinating new book on information gathering and intelligence during WW II, Peiss spotlights the contributions of the American scholarly community. Her study—impressively researched and engagingly written—explores the ways in which librarians, archivists, and academics traveled throughout Europe to collect information relevant to the war effort....Peiss's narrative traces the work of these scholars from the procurement of open source materials at the beginning of the war through the collection of enemy documents in its closing stages to the thorny questions surrounding mass acquisitions in postwar Germany....In illuminating the link between information science and intelligence gathering, as well as the importance of foreign holdings in libraries as a symbol of American power, Peiss demonstrates that the academic community and military enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. * CHOICE *The book is carefully researched, written with care and skill, and provides an additional warning about the horrors of wartime. * Bob Lane, Metapsychology *Excellent and engaging....[Peiss's] analysis is smart, insightful, and compelling....Thanks to Peiss's informative and original book, we now know...why and how so many war-era German books and documents ended up in American research libraries....The information hunters...contributed to the development of information science,...helped tighten the relations between government, the military, and research university and libraries...and shaped the postwar intelligence activities and tactics of the National Security Agency and the CIA. * Matthew Avery Sutton, Reviews in American History *In astonishing detail, Peiss's study chronicles the multi-pronged efforts of American librarians, archivists, scholars, and military and intelligence personnel who activated a mass acquisitions programme that resulted in some two million foreign books and periodicals, thousands of microfilm reels, and 160,000 volumes looted from European Jewry by the Nazis and their collaborators, which found their way to repositories in the United States. * Christine Schmidt, Library & Information History *A marvelous new book about spy craft and the book world....I beg the creatives out there to read...and write a dramatic miniseries about bookish spies during the Second World War. * Elyse Graham, Public Books *Illuminating the growing global power of the United States in the realms of intelligence and cultural heritage, Peiss tells the story of the men and women who went to Europe to collect and protect books and information and in doing so enriches the debates over the use of data in times of both war and peace. * Tom Gilson, Against the Grain *This well-written and astutely researched book makes the wartime work of librarians engaging and engrossing. Those fascinated by intelligence missions or keen on the history of library science will appreciate this excellent read. * Library Journal (starred review) *Information Hunters is Kathy Peiss's wonderfully surprising history of a little-known, World War II intelligence effort to gather newspapers, magazines, books, and every other kind of printed information about business, science, and ordinary life in Germany and occupied Europe. Working mainly through cities in neutral countries — Lisbon, Stockholm, Bern, and the like — agents quietly arranged to gather bundles, then truckloads, finally ship- and train-loads of books and paper for analysts to study. It's a beautiful piece of scholarship that reveals the war in a new light - as a struggle for knowledge and truth. * Thomas Powers, author of Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb *This fascinating book tells the story of the American librarians who set out on vast collecting missions amidst the destruction of World War II Europe. Cultural historian Kathy Peiss deftly reconstructs their work here, showing how librarians shaped the war and, in turn, how the war re-shaped libraries and librarianship. Beautifully told, this surprising story provides a valuable new perspective on the historical connection between war and the production of knowledge. * Lisa Moses Leff, American University *Kathy Peiss uncovers fascinating episodes in the history of information: the World War II entanglement of bibliography and spycraft as well as the postwar dilemmas of denazifying German culture while also dealing with cultural heritage collections that the Nazis left orphaned in their double project of confiscation and genocide. With its lucid attention to 'open source' intelligence gathering, incipient 'archive-consciousness,' and the anxieties of American influence on the world, this is history that is at once powerful and timely. * Lisa Gitelman, New York University *Kathy Peiss's Information Hunters tells the fascinating and important story of the American archivists and librarians who, during World War II, helped rescue, preserve, and repatriate huge numbers of books, newspapers, and manuscripts looted by the Nazis or otherwise hidden from sight. Their principal objectives were to confiscate and, in many cases, destroy Nazi materials and to locate and return or redistribute looted Jewish books. Many books wound up in American libraries and archives, greatly boosting their size and prestige, and helping to develop the field of information science. * John B. Hench, author of Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II *Through savvy research Kathy Peiss has uncovered the enormous historical, ethical, and personal stakes of Americans' overseas efforts to collect-or destroy-the printed word during World War II. Her vivid account follows teams of scholars who scoured Europe's bookstores, battered cities, castles, and caves in search of material that bore witness to the continent's cultural heritage as well as its lies, secrets, and crimes. Pulling a book off the shelf of an American research library will never be the same after reading Information Hunters. * Brooke L. Blower, author of Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars *Table of ContentsPrologue Introduction Ch. 1 The Country of the Mind Must Also Attack Ch. 2 Librarians and Collectors Go to War Ch. 3 The Wild Scramble for Documents Ch. 4 Acquisitions Grand Scale Ch. 5 Fugitive Records of War Ch. 6 Book Burning-American Style Ch. 7 Not a Library, but a Large Depot of Loot Conclusion Epilogue Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBreathes new life into Shakespeare's story by establishing fresh interpretations of his baptism; evidence pertaining to his father; his wedding; his home; his will; and his monument.Trade Review...Orlin has made the simple point that there will always be novel discoveries to be found within the broader depths of Warwickshire archives. Hers is a methodology that should arm researchers when approaching any historical figure, and any archival record. * Francesca Rhodes, Midland History journal *Lena Cowen Orlin's The Private Life of William Shakespeare sets a new standard for literary biography. Comparing the key documents of Shakespeare's biography to a wide array of similar documents from Shakespeare's contemporaries, Cowen Orlin manages to separate what is fact and what is probable about the life of England's most influential writer from what is mere speculation. Employing the most rigorous archival methodologies, her book challenges the shibboleths that have accumulated around the religion of Shakespeare's parents, his early marriage to the older Anne Hathaway, his life as a property owner, his will, and his death and monument [...] Early modern scholars will likely be reading and re-reading this book decades from now, perhaps arguing over this or that detail, but Cowen Orlin's approach will remain uncontested - a new benchmark for the field. * Brian Lockey, on behalf of the Committee for the Roland Bainton Prize in Literature *After more than three hundred years of research on Shakespeare we are unlikely to find more documents relating to the monument, and the question of authorship may never be fully resolved. What could be done, however, is to conduct a full physical and technical examination, which would certainly help with questions of authenticity and alterations. This would involve dismantling the memorial and removing at least some of the later paintwork which now obscures its history. It would be an expensive process, requiring the services of fully qualified conservators, but it would surely not be beyond the resources of Shakespeare devotees around the world. Professor Orlin's highly valuable book would serve as inspiration for the project. * Adam White, Church Monuments *Lena Cowen Orlin examines a series of seminal moments in the writer's private life … [a] painstakingly detailed recontextualisation of evidence * David McInnis, Australian Book Review *The great and lasting result of her labors is how punishingly she demolishes shoddy claims and biased inferences that have distorted our understanding of Shakespeare's life....it reads like a detective story in which a skilled investigator returns to a cold case...detailed and dazzling...[an] impressive and valuable book, a biography that will lead many to revise their classroom lectures. * James Shapiro, New York Times *Table of ContentsIntroduction: 26 April 1564 1: 23 January 1577: Shakespeare's Father 2: 28 November 1582: Shakespeare's Wedding 3: 4 May 1597: Shakespeare's Home 4: 25 March 1616: Shakespeare's Will 5: 25 April 1616: Shakespeare's Monument List of Abbreviations Appendix I. Shakespeare in the West Midlands Appendix II. The Quiney Papers Appendix III. Shakespeare's Last Will Appendix IV. Shakespeare's Earlier Will Appendix V. The 'Shakespeare Type' of Funerary Monuments Appendix VI. Shakespeare Documented

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Book SynopsisBibliophobia is a book about material books, how they are cared for, and how they are damaged, throughout the 5000-year history of writing from Sumeria to the smartphone. Its starting point is the contemporary idea of ''the death of the book'' implied by the replacement of physical books by digital media, with accompanying twenty-first-century experiences of paranoia and literary apocalypse. It traces a twin fear of omniscience and oblivion back to the origins of writing in ancient Babylon and Egypt, then forwards to the age of Google. It uncovers bibliophobia from the first Chinese emperor to Nazi Germany, alongside parallel stories of bibliomania and bibliolatry in world religions and literatures. Books imply cognitive content embodied in physical form, in which the body cooperates with the brain. At its heart this relationship of body and mind, or letter and spirit, always retains a mystery. Religions are founded on holy books, which are also sites of transgression, so that writing Trade ReviewAs a book historian, I felt dazzled...It is full of treasures and sparkling insights...be prepared to be led through a rich gallery of intriguing scenarios at a cracking pace. I advise taking a deep breath before diving in. * Martyn Lyons, Modern Philology *Richly illustrated with textual forms, material objects and art works, this book's inspiration remains staunchly within the power that books always (and continue to) have amid the emotional, spiritual, bodily and imaginative lives of readers. * David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews *It is full of treasures and sparkling insights...Be prepared to be led through a rich gallery of intriguing scenarios at a cracking pace. * Martyn Lyons, University of New South Wales, Modern Philology *Table of ContentsPreface Note on Texts I. DEATH OF THE BOOK 1: Is there a future for the book? 2: The library as computer 3: The message of Ashurbanipal from antiquity 4: Living in the Tower of Babel II. BOOKS AND VIOLENCE 5: The book-fires of 1933 6: The making and unmaking of libraries 7: Incombustible heresy in the age of Luther 8: The bondage of the book III. SACRED TEXT 9: The mystery of Arabic script 10: The unnameable Hebrew God 11: How the alphabet came to Greece from Africa 12: The characters of Chinese IV. THE CULT OF THE BOOK 13: Words and images 14: Kissing the book 15: Books under the razor 16: Shakespeare and bibliofetishism V. THE BODY AND THE BOOK 17: The book incarnate 18: The hand in the history of the book 19: Written on the flesh 20: Book burial VI. GHOST IN THE BOOK 21: The book after the French Revolution 22: The smartphone inside our heads 23: Heresy and modernity 24: Glyph Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn this book, Gavin Francis writes about the resonance for him as medic in reading the work of early modern polymath Sir Thomas Browne.Trade Review[S]plendid...[an] excellent panegyric. * John Quinn, The Tablet *It always good to read something coming towards Browne from several directions at once. And especially the sympathies of a medical man, writer, and general practitioner. * Iain Sinclair *The biographical material and quotes from his writings accompany the beautifully written analysis, creating a book that reads well and is a fine introduction to the life and work of this remarkable seventeenth century physician. * Arpan K. Banerjee, Solihull, UK, Hektoen International *In Sir Thomas Browne: The opium of time,...autobiography and intellectual history are woven together under the conceptual generosity of eight thematic chapters and two letters to its subject. * Georgina Wilson, Times Literary Supplement *A compelling read ... Gavin Francis's perspective on Browne's life and works ... beautifully encapsulate[s] the complexity of [Browne's] character. * Nick Golding, Church Times *This slim volume forms part of a series of biographies whose authors express deeply rooted ties with their subjects and who share something of themselves and their own experiences to add an autobiographical dimension. The formula works and the result is a compelling read. * Revd Richard Greatrex, Church Times *Table of ContentsChronology An Introductory Letter to Dr Browne 1: Ambiguity 2: Curiosity 3: Vitality 4: Piety 5: Humility 6: Misogyny 7: Mobility 8: Mortality A Concluding Letter to Dr Browne

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Book SynopsisSeldom has a royal court invited such intensive study as that of Henry VIII, or become so prominent in popular culture. Nonetheless, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII is committed to offering a fresh perspective on Tudor court culture, by using continental sources to contextualize, nuance, and challenge long-held perspectives that have been formed through the use of well-studied, Anglophone sources.Using a wide variety of textual sources, from ambassadorial correspondence, account books, household étiquettes, legal records, royal warrants, and marital contracts, to play texts and travel accounts, this study presents original research in history, literature, and cultural history.The case studies in Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII address specific questions that challenge what we know or think we know about Tudor court culture. For example: was it good taste to bring a jester to a royal deathbed? Was John Blanke really the first black musician Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Queen's Trumpet or Second Fiddle 2: Deathbed Foolery 3: Food for thought 4: Fashion Victims 5: Leaving an Impression Conclusion

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Book SynopsisWhen I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond...Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a leading figure in the American Transcendentalist movement and the era of U. S. literary emergence, an intellectual with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker, naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau''s Walden, an autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. It has generated scores of literary imitations and thousands of neo-Walden experiments in back-to-basics living, both rural and urban. Thoreau''s great essay, Civil Disobedience, is a classic of American political activism and a model for nonviolent reform movements around the world. Thoreau also stands as an icon of modern American environmentalism, the father of American nature writing, a forerunner of modern ecology, and a harbinger of freelance spirituality combining the wisdom of west and east.Thoreau is also a controversial figure. From his day to ours, he has provoked sharply opposite reactions ranging from reverence to dismissal. Scholars have regularly offered conflicting assessments of the significance of his work, the evolution of his thought, even the facts of his life. Some disagreements are in the eye of the beholder, but many follow from challenges posed by his own cross-grained idiosyncrasies. He was an advocate for individual self-sufficiency who never broke away from home, a self-professed mystic now also acclaimed as a pioneer natural and applied scientist, and a seminal theorist of nonviolent protest who defended the most notorious guerrilla fighter of his day. All told, he remains a rather enigmatic figure both despite and because we know so much about him, beginning with the two-million-word journal he kept throughout his adult life. The esteemed Thoreau scholar Lawrence Buell gives due consideration to all these aspects of Thoreau''s art and thought, framing key issues and complexities in historical and literary context.Trade ReviewLawrence Buell's Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently is the essential guide to the essential Thoreau. Distilling a career's worth of study and thought, Buell deftly situates Thoreau, the 'confessed misfit,' at the center of 'the Transcendentalist centrifuge,' and proceeds to reveal how, in one too-short lifetime, this man of many gifts succeeded in leaving behind for us treasures of his own: a hybrid style of creative writing, a biocentric conception of life on our planet, a road map for political action, and perhaps the greatest of all, his 'vision of human infinitude.' * Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, The Peabody Sisters, and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast *A scintillating distillation of Buell's career-long engagement with Thoreau's life and times, this volume stands as the best introduction to this iconic figure in American culture. Buell captures the essence of Thoreau's compelling personality as he details his remarkably varied contributions to antebellum intellectual life. This book is yet another gem in Buell's scholarly diadem. * Philip F. Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill *Mr. Buell's book powerfully motivates us to treat Thoreau 'not as an oracle but as a stimulus to see and be beyond the ordinary.' * Christopher Irmscher, The Wall Street Journal *The best brief introduction to Thoreau we now have... His book is a schoolroom. Enroll in this class. * Todd Shy, Los Angeles Review of Books *Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently by Lawrence Buell, meanwhile, seeks to make some broader sense of the complex figure behind the work. * Costica Bradatan, TLS *Thinking Disobediently by Lawrence Buellâ¦seeks to make some broader sense of the complex figure behind the work... For all the disconcerting variety, Buell finds a sense of unity and harmony in Thoreau. * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. Life and Mythmaking 2. Essential Thoreau 3. Contexts: Antebellum America, Transcendentalism, Emerson 4. The Writer 5. The Turn to Science 6. The Political Thoreau 7. Matters of Faith Acknowledgments Notes Further Reading

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Book SynopsisThis AQA AS and A Level English Literature A Student Book prepares students and teachers for the requirements of the AQA A Level English Literature specification.Structured and written to build on skills students acquired at GCSE, this book helps students to develop the skills needed to succeed in their AQA AS and A Level English Literature exams and coursework.Through a range of source texts, activities and practice exam questions students of all abilities will be able to make clear progress.Whether students are taking AS or A Level AQA English Literature, this resource offers guidance and activities to help all students achieve their potential.Trade ReviewPacked with helpful information about the course and how to approach the examination papers. The section on independent study (coursework) is particularly useful. Recommended. * 5 star Amazon review *

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Book SynopsisGet to grips with set texts and be fully prepared for the AS/A Level exam with the Modern Languages Oxford Literature Companions. The Companions are written by experienced lecturers, teachers and examiners and provide comprehensive coverage of characters, themes, plot, language and context with activities in French to consolidate your knowledge of the text. There are also extensive sections on exam preparation and response planning, with a bank of annotated sample answers and practice questions. This guide covers L''étranger by Albert Camus. Modern Languages Oxford Literature Companions are also available for selected Spanish and German set texts.

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Book SynopsisThis work is addressed to students of Virgil and of literature in general, including those who may be approaching the Aeneid for the first time. It attempts through discussion of particular topics to convey a balanced impression of the nature of the poem as a whole.Trade Review'The work deserves to be edited, and Cauchi has done the task impeccably... An edition which -deservedly- will never be superseded'. Colin Burrow, Journal of Roman Studies.Table of ContentsPRELIMINARY; STORY AND ITS SUBJECT: ROME; HERO: AENEAS; SECONDARY HEROES: DIDO AND TURNUS; HIGHER POWERS: FATE AND THE GODS; PRINCIPLES OF STRUCTURE: CONTINUITY AND SYMMETRY; POETIC EXPRESSION: LANGUAGE AND SENSIBILITY; MAKING THE STORY: FUSION OF THE LEGEND OF AENEAS' COMING TO ITALY WITH MATTER FROM ILIAD AND ODYSSEY; MAKING AN EPISODE: FUSION OF INHERITED MATERIALS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE 6TH BOOK; ECHOES OF HISTORY; RELEVANT AND IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS. CONCLUSION; APPENDICES

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Book SynopsisFeaturing 218 poems and songs in Scots, English, and Gaelic, this collection places Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and other major writers of the period alongside lesser known or even entirely forgotten figures. A significant number of important long poems are given in full, and many of the shorter works feature for the first time in a modern edition.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Note on the Texts Select Bibliography Chronology Poems List of Poets Explanatory notes

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Book SynopsisLush Diodorus sets the lads on fire,But now another has him in his net -Timarion, the boy with wanton eyes . . . Meleager, AP 12.109Encompassing four thousand short poems and more, the ramshackle classic we call the Greek Anthology gathers up a millennium of snapshots from ancient daily life. Its influence echoes not merely in the classic tradition of the English epigram (Pope, Dryden) but in Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, Virgina Woolf, T. S. Eliot, H.D., and the poets of the First World War. Its variety is almost infinite. Victorious armies, ruined cities, and Olympic champions share space with lovers'' quarrels and laments for the untimely dead - but also with jokes and riddles, art appreciation, potted biographies of authors, and scenes from country life and the workplace.This selection of more than 600 epigrams in verse is the first major translation from the Greek Anthology in nearly a century. Each of the Anthology''s books of epigrams is represented here, in manuscript order, anTrade ReviewThis new edition of Greek epigrams, translated by Gideon Nisbet ... must be counted as a service to society as well as a significant literary achievement. * Robert S. Erickson, The New Criterion *The verse translations are elegant, often witty, and amazingly faithful, and all the explanatory material helpful. * Professor Simon Hornblower, University of Oxford *This lively, learned, witty, yet sometimes melancholy, translation is a thing of great beauty. Dipping in and out of it has been a joy. * Professor Llloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Cardiff University *My quibbles with Nisbet often concern the Greek text being translated. He accepts that of W.R. Paton, The Greek Anthology, Loeb Classical Library, 5 vols (Cambridge MA 1916-1918), but a look at subsequent textual work might have repaid the effort: for example, Tueller's revision of Paton for the difficult texts of book 3. Nisbet wisely avoids burdening his book with scholarly detail, although the endnotes are helpful on mythical and historical matters, and sometimes on stylistic points hard to convey in translation. He provides further guidance in the introduction and index. Especially for those new to the subject, the introduction (vii-xlii) outlines the history of Greek epigram and the Anthology, reviews its content, sketches modern reception and offers a helpful bibliography. * Joseph W. Day, JHS *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Christian epigrams Epigrams at Cyzicus Erotic epigrams by various poets The dedicatory epigrams Epigrams on tombs Epigrams of Saint Gregory the Theologian Rhetorical epigrams Advisory epigrams Sympotic and scoptic epigrams Strato's Boyish Muse Epigrams in assorted metres Arithmetical problems, riddles, and oracles Miscellaneous epigrams The Planudean Appendix Explantory Notes

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Book Synopsis''The victor belongs to the spoils.''F. Scott Fitzgerald''s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. But their intense romance turns sour as they waste their time and energy in decadent leisure and luxury. Their happiness comes to depend on gaining a vast inheritance from Anthony''s grandfather, but they are stifled by their inner fears and are ill-prepared for the inevitable loss of youth and prosperity. Set amid the vibrant social and commercial world of New York in the early twentieth century, the novel expresses the promise and disillusionment of America at the start of the Jazz Age.This is the novel that confirmed Fitzgerald''s status as the most celebrated young American writer of the Twenties. The author''s exuberant and enchanting style is on full display, three years before the critical triumph of The Great Gatsby.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of F. Scott Fitzgerald THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Donne''s poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by rarely published letters and extracts from Donne''s sermons - to give the essence of his work and thinking. John Donne (1572-1631) is today celebrated as one of the greatest of the metaphysical poets, whose verse was daringly original and whose use of imagery and conceits marked a new, intellectual approach to poetry. His Satires, Elegies, and Songs and Sonnets, which contain his most famous love poems, were complemented by his religious writing, both verse and prose. He was one of the most renowned preachers of his day, and this volume does equal justice to the full range of his work. In addition to nearly all his English poetry this volume includes over 130 extracts from Donne''s sermons, as well as the full text of his last sermon, ''Death''s Table of Contents* INTRODUCTION * TEXTUAL NOTE * BIBLIOGRAPHY * CHRONOLOGY * EXPLANATORY NOTES *INDEX

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