Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book SynopsisIn My Century the great Polish poet Aleksander Wat provides a spellbinding account of life in Eastern Europe in the midst of the terrible twentieth century. Based on interviews with Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, My Century describes the artistic, sexual, and political experimentation --in which Wat was a major participant-- that followed the end of World War I: an explosion of talent and ideas which, he argues, in some ways helped to open the door to the destruction that the Nazis and Bolsheviks soon visited upon the world. But Wat''s book is at heart a story of spiritual struggle and conversion. He tells of his separation during World War II from his wife and young son, of his confinement in the Soviet prison system, of the night when the sound of far-off laughter brought on a vision of 'the devil in history.' 'It was then,' Wat writes, 'that I began to be a believer.'

Read more less

Book Synopsis“A visual treat as well as a literary one…for gardeners and garden lovers, connoisseurs of botanical illustration, and those who seek a deeper understanding of the life and work of Emily Dickinson.” —The Wall Street Journal Emily Dickinson was a keen observer of the natural world, but less well known is the fact that she was also an avid gardener—sending fresh bouquets to friends, including pressed flowers in her letters, and studying botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. At her family home, she tended both a small glass conservatory and a flower garden. In Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, award-winning author Marta McDowell explores Dickinson’s deep passion for plants and how it inspired and informed her writing. Tracing a year in the garden, the book reveals details few know about Dickinson and adds to our collective understanding of who she was as a person. By weaving together Dickinson’s poems, excerpts from letters, contemporary and historical photography, and botanical art, McDowell offers an enchanting new perspective on one of America’s most celebrated but enigmatic literary figures.

Read more less

Book SynopsisErnest Hemingway casts a long shadow in literature--reaching beyond his status as a giant of 20th-century fiction and a Nobel Prize winner--extending even into comic books. Appearing variously with Superman, Mickey Mouse, Captain Marvel, and Cerebus, he has even battled fascists alongside Wolverine in Spain and teamed up with Shade to battle adversaries in the Area of Madness.Robert K. Elder's research into Hemingway's comic presence demonstrates the truly international reach of Hemingway as a pop culture icon. In more than 120 appearances across multiple languages, Hemingway is often portrayed as the hypermasculine legend: bearded, boozed up, and ready to throw a punch. But just as often, comic book writers see past the bravado to the sensitive artist looking for validation. Hemingway's role in these comics ranges from the divine to the ridiculous, as his image is recorded, distorted, lampooned, and whittled down to its essential parts.As Elder notes, comic book creators and Hemingway share a natural kinship. The comic book page demands an economy of words, much like Hemingway's less-is-more "iceberg theory," only in graphic form. In addition, he turned out to be the perfect avatar for comic book artists wanting to tell history-rich stories, as he experienced beautiful places during the most chaotic times: Paris in the 1920s, Spain during the Spanish Civil War, Cuba on the brink of revolution, France during World War I and during World War II just after the Allies landed in Normandy.Hemingway in Comics provides a unique lens for considering one of our most influential authors. Not only for the dedicated Hemingway fan, this book will appeal to all those with an appreciation for comics, pop culture, and the absurd.Trade Review"Robert K. Elder identifies more than 120 Hemingway appearances in comics from around the world, and with 270 colorful illustrations, Hemingway in Comics reveals a great many of those sightings. Indeed, we see how Hemingway inspires comic writers and artists to create new stories of immense entertainment." — Foreword Reviews"Elder is an amiable guide to comic strips, books, and graphic novel series that use Hemingway as a springboard into satire, joke-telling, brooding existential meditations, and wonky literary archaeology. Overall verdict: Ka-Pow." — Booklist

Read more less

Book SynopsisMina Loy—poet, artist, exile, and luminary—was a prominent and admired figure in the art and literary circles of Paris, Florence, and New York in the early years of the twentieth century. But over time, she gradually receded from public consciousness and her poetry went out of print. As part of the movement to introduce the work of this cryptic poet to modern audiences, Poetic Salvage: Reading Mina Loy provides new and detailed explications of Loy’s most redolent poems. This book helps readers gain a better understanding of the body of Loy’s work as a whole by offering compelling close readings that uncover the source materials that inspired Loy’s poetry, including modern artwork, Baedeker travel guides, and even long-forgotten cultural venues. Helpfully keyed to the contents of Loy’s Lost Lunar Baedeker, edited by Roger Conover, this book is an essential aid for new readers and scholars alike. Mina Loy forged a legacy worthy of serious consideration—through a practice best understood as salvage work, of reclaiming what has been so long obscured. Poetic Salvage: Reading Mina Loy dives deep to bring hidden treasures to the surface.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Mina Loy: Her Life and Lifework An Aesthetic Invitation Part I: FUTURISM X FEMINISM: THE CIRCLE SQUARED (POEMS 1914–1920) Chapter 1: Women in Space and Time Part II: SONGS TO JOANNES (1917) Chapter 2: Pig Cupid and Psyche Part III: CORPSES AND GENIUSES (POEMS 1919–1930) Chapter 3: Portrait of the Poet as a Young Artist Chapter 4: Loy’s Coterie Chapter 5: Exilic Travels Part IV: COMPENSATIONS OF POVERTY Chapter 6: Urban Bricoleur Epilogopoeia: The Lost Lunar Baedeker Found Appendices Bibliography About the Author

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisOsip Mandelstam (1891-1938) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets. This collection, compiled, translated, and edited by poet and scholar Ian Probstein, provides Anglophone audiences with a powerful selection of Mandelstam's most beloved and haunting poems. Both scholars and general readers will gain a deeper understanding of his poetics, as Probstein situates each poem in its historical and literary context. The English translations presented here are so deeply immersed in the Russian sources and language through the ear of a Russian-born Probstein who has spent most of his adult life in the US, that they provide reader's with a Mandelstam unseen any translations that precede it. Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsA Note on the TextOsip Mandelstam: “Centuries encircle me with fire”On Translating MandelstamОсип Мандельштам (1891–1938)Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938)Из книги «Камень» (стихотворения 1908–1915)From Stone (poems of 1908–1915)Дано мне тело—что мне делать с ним . . .I am given a body—what should I . . .Я ненавижу свет . . .I hate the light . . .Паденье—неизменный спутник страха . . .The fall is a constant companion of fear . . .Айя-СофияHagia Sophia. . . На луне не растет . . .. . . Not a single blade . . .ПосохThe WandУничтожает пламень . . .The fire destroys . . .Из книги «Tristia» (стихотворения 1916–1922)From Tristia (poems of 1916–1922)ДекабристA DecembristКогда в тёплой ночи замирает . . .When a feverish forum of Moscow . . .Прославим, братья, сумерки свободы . . .Hail, brothers, let us praise our freedom’s twilight . . .TristiaTristiaНа каменных отрогах Пиэрии . . .On steep stony ridges of Pieria . . .Сёстры тяжесть и нежность, одинаковы ваши приметы . . .Sisters, heaviness and tenderness, your traits are akin . . .Вернись в смесительное лоно . . .Go back to the incestuous womb . . .Веницейской жизни, мрачной и бесплодной . . .The meaning of fruitless and gloomy . . .За то, что я руки твои не сумел удержать . . .Because I could not hold your hands in mine . . .Из книги «Стихотворения» (1928 г., стихотворения 1921–1925 гг.)From Poems (1928, poems of 1921–1925)С розовой пеной усталости у мягких губ . . .With the pink foam of fatigue around soft lips . . .ВекThe AgeНашедший подковуThe Horseshoe FinderГрифельная одаThe Slate OdeЯзык булыжника мне голубя понятней . . .Clearer than pigeon’s talk to me is stone’s tongue . . .А небо будущим беременно . . .And the Sky is Pregnant with the Future . . .1 января 1924January 1, 1924Нет, никогда, ничей я не был современник . . .No, I’ve never been anyone’s contemporary . . .Я буду метаться по табору улицы тёмной . . .I’ll rush along a gypsy camp of a dark street . . .Из Новых cтихотворений 1930–1934 гг.From New Poems of 1930–1934Армения1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12Armenia1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12На полицейской бумаге верже. . .On the police laid paper the night. . .Не говори никому . . .Don’t tell it anyone—forget . . .Колючая речь Араратской долины . . .A prickly speech of the Ararat Valley . . .Как люб мне натугой живущий . . .How dear to me are those people . . .Дикая кошка—армянская речь . . .A wild cat—the Armenian speech . . .Я скажу тебе с последней . . .I will tell you this, my lady . . .За гремучую доблесть грядущих веков . . .For the thunderous courage of ages to come . . .Нет, не спрятаться мне от великой муры . . .No, I won’t be able to hide from a great mess . . .НеправдаUntruthПолночь в Москве. Роскошно буддийское лето . . .Midnight in Moscow. A Buddhist summer is lavish . . .Отрывки из уничтоженных стихов1 | 2 | 3 | 4Excerpts from Destroyed Poems1 | 2 | 3 | 4Еще далеко мне до патриарха . . .I am far from being as old as patriarch . . .Сегодня можно снять декалькомани . . .Today we can take decals . . .ЛамаркLamarckИмпрессионизмImpressionismБатюшковBatiushkovДайте Тютчеву стрекóзу . . .Give Tiutchev a dragonfly . . .АриостAriostoНе искушай чужих наречий, но постарайся их забыть . . .Do not tempt foreign tongues—attempt forgetting them, alas . . .Квартира тиха как бумага . . .An apartment is quiet as paper . . .Давай же с тобой, как на плахе . . .Let’s start preparing for the scaffold . . .Мы живём, под собою не чуя страны . . .We live without feeling our country’s pulse . . .Восьмистишия1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11Octaves1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11Стихи памяти Андрея БелогоTo the Memory of Andrei BelyУтро 10 января 19341 | 2 | 3The Morning of January 10, 19341 | 2 | 310 января 1934 [вариант 2]January 10, 1934 [version 2]Из Воронежских тетрадей (стихотворения 1935–1937)From the Voronezh Notebooks (poems of 1935–1937)Из Первой тетрадиFrom the First NotebookПусти меня, отдай меня, Воронеж . . .Let go, Voronezh, raven-town . . .Я должен жить, хотя я дважды умер . . .I have to live though I died twice . . .Лишив меня морей, разбега и разлета . . .Having deprived me of seas, flight, and space . . .День стоял о пяти головах. Сплошные пять суток . . .The day was five-headed: five unbreakable days . . .Еще мы жизнью пóлны в высшей мере . . .We are still sentenced to life . . .Римских ночей полновесные слитки . . .Solid gold bars of the Roman nights . . .За Паганини длиннопалым . . .They run like a gypsy throng . . .Исполню дымчатый обряд . . .I’ll fulfill a dim rite . . .Из Второй тетрадиFrom the Second NotebookНе у меня, не у тебя—у них . . .Not I, not you—but they . . .Улыбнись, ягненок гневный с Рафаэлева холста . . .Smile, angry lamb from Rafael’s canvas, don’t rage . . .Дрожжи мира дорогие . . .World’s golden yeast, our dear . . .Еще не умер ты, еще ты не один . . .You haven’t died yet. You are not alone . . .Что делать нам с убитостью равнин . . .What should we do with murdered plains . . .Вооруженный зреньем узких ос . . .Armed with the vision of narrow wasps . . .Из Третьей тетрадиFrom the Third NotebookСтихи о неизвестном солдатеVerses on the Unknown SoldierСквозь эфир десятично-означенный . . .Through the ether of ten-digit zeroes . . .Для того ль должен череп развиться . . .Should the skull develop its brow . . .Для того ль заготовлена тара . . .Is the packaging of charm stored . . .Я молю, как жалости и милости . . .I beg like compassion and grace . . .Я скажу это начерно, шёпотом . . .I will say it in draft and in whisper . . .Может быть, это точка безумия . . .It might be the point of insanity . . .Не сравнивай: живущий несравним . . .A living man’s unique: do not compare . . .Чтоб, приятель и ветра и капель . . .To help a friend of rain and wind . . .Гончарами велик остров синий . . .A blue island, green Crete is extolled . . .Длинной жажды должник виноватый . . .A guilty debtor of a long-time thirst . . .О, как же я хочу . . .Oh, how I madly crave . . .Нереиды мои, нереиды! . .My nereids, oh, my nereids! . . .Флейты греческой тэта и йота . . .Greek flute’s theta and iota . . .На меня нацелилась груша да черемуха . . .I’m under fire of a bird cherry tree and a pear tree . . .[Стихи к H<аталии> Е. Штемпель]1 | 2[Poems for N Е. Shtempel]1 | 2AbbreviationsBibliographyPublications of Works by Osip E. MandelstamTranslations into EnglishTranslations of Osip Mandelstam’s Poems into Other LanguagesCriticism

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Making Sense of Metaphors and Other Tropes, veteran literary scholar David Reid examines figures of speech, arguing that figures of speech in prose and poetry, literature and talk, make sense as turns of rhetoric by means of their energeia (vividness, radiance, éclat). Reid analyzes figures from Homer to literary giants of the twentieth century, mostly drawn from poetry, but also from prose and colloquial turns of phrase. Making Sense of Metaphors will delight all those who enjoy literature and good talk, and make them think about what so takes their fancy.The book’s case for the centrality of energeia will also command the interest of philosophers, linguists, and theorists of poetry, not least for the objections it raises to some of their favorite lines of thought. The book concludes with an examination of transference of agency, an effect of many tropes. Although transference of agency reorders our ideas, the argument of the book is that agency falls under the rule of rhetoric, a forceful expressing of an idea rather than a means of arriving at one — a process of speech, not a fundamental shape of understanding or trick of mind.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn math for couples, we re-visit the past to discover our place in the contemporary world. A long-dead father watches his daughter work on her Mac, a woman converses with a photo of her young self. Adele Graf leads us on a journey that is rich and hopeful, evoking powerful nostalgia even if we've never been to the places described. When these poems release us back to our current lives, we feel restored to savour the warmth in a "glad red hat" and the love that arrives "still summer lush."

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhen Roy Fisher told Gael Turnbull in 1960 that he had ‘started writing like mad’ and produced ‘a sententious prose book, about the length of a short novel, called the Citizen’ he was registering a sea change in his work, finding a mode to express his almost visceral connection with Birmingham in a way that drew on his sensibility and a wealth of materials that could last a lifetime. Much later in his career he would say that ‘Birmingham is what I think with.’ This ‘mélange of evocation, maundering, imagining, fiction and autobiography,’ as he called it, was written ‘so as to be able to have a look at myself & see what I think.’ All that was known of this work before Fisher’s death in 2017 is that fragments from it had been used as the prose sections in City and that – never otherwise published – it was thought not to have survived. This proved not to be the case, and in The Citizen and the Making of City, Peter Robinson, the poet’s literary executor, has edited the breakthrough fragment and placed it in conjunction with the first 1961 published version of Fisher’s signature collage of poetry and prose, along with a never published longer manuscript of it found among the poet’s archive at the University of Sheffield, and some previously unpublished poems that were considered for inclusion during the complex evolution of the work that Robinson tracks in his introduction. By offering in a single publication the definitive 1969 text, two variant versions of City, its prose origins in The Citizen and continuation in Then Hallucinations, as well as some of the poetry left behind, this landmark publication offers a unique insight into Roy Fisher's most emblematic work. It is supplemented with an anthology of Fisher’s own comments on City and a secondary bibliography of criticism on his profound response to changes wrought upon England’s industrial cities in the middle of the 20th century.Trade ReviewCity's subject matter is urban, the technique a blend of the surreal, expressionist, realist and cubist, the whole thing almost cinematic in its abrupt transitions and dislocations… Most of the lineaments of Fisher's mature work are present in City…a remarkable achievement for a writer in his twenties. He sets out to write about an actual city but to "dissolve" its particulars and make them strange, until it becomes as much an inner perceptual field as a post-industrial Midlands wasteland… 'There is no poet alive whose work has challenged or interested me more. -- August KleinzahlerFisher stands outside, or alongside, whatever else is happening, an English late modernist whose experiments tend to come off. He is a poet of the city – his native Birmingham, which he describes as "what I think with". He is a redeemer of the ordinary, often a great artist of the visible… His range is large: he suits both extreme brevity and book-length exploration; his seeming improvisations have a way of turning into architecture. The best place to start is The Long and the Short of It. It might look and sound like nothing on earth at first, but then it becomes indispensable. -- Sean O'Brien * The Guardian *Roy Fisher's The Long and the Short of It: Poems 1955–2010 should be read by anyone with a serious interest in post-war English poetry. -- William Wootten * Times Literary Supplement *I was proud to be able to choose his Selected Poems, The Long and the Short of It... as my book on Desert Island Discs, and I know that I'll be returning to that book over and over again in the next few weeks and months, now that one of the most important inhabitants of the island has gone. -- Ian McMillan * paying tribute to Roy Fisher *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on texts The Citizen (1959) From a Citizen notebook (1960) Five city poems: The Fog at Birmingham Midlanders Sea Monster in Hospital Shed Where We Are Lost, Now City (1961) ‘CITY by Roy Fisher’ City (1969) Notes Roy Fisher’s published comments on City Secondary bibliography

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe young journalist and reformer Horace Traubel visited Whitman nearly every day at his home in Camden, New Jersey. Whitman liked to talk, especially about the big issues, spiritual, political - all he'd learned over seven decades of peace and war. To mark the bicentenary of Walt Whitman's death, Carcanet presents Brenda Wineapple's distillation from these conversations with the great American poet. Whitman speaks from the heart, an old man who changed the course of American poetry and, by extension, the poetries of Europe, Asia, Latin America. Here, too, is the poet's worldly side - recalling the opprobrium heaped on Leaves of Grass for its poetic risks and sexual frankness; memories of Thoreau, Emerson and Lincoln; his judgments of Shakespeare, Goethe and Tolstoy; and his sense of the Nation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written with reference to Browning correspondence only recently available, argues that the poet was a strong and determined woman largely responsible for her own incarceration in Wimpole Street. The author traces her life from her early childhood and adolescence and explores her marriage. She draws a picture of early Victorian family life and aims to show that Elizabeth was a considerable and dedicated poet, self-willed, witty and courageous. Forster has also edited the companion volume "Selected Poems" of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and is author of several other biographies.Trade ReviewThis is the most exciting sort of biography to read, or to write: the myth-dispelling biography which overturns an old story, and does so most convincingly' * New Statesman *If it is a test of a good biography to send the reader hot-foot to the subject's works, Margaret Forster's has succeeded triumphantly * The Times *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs an independent publisher, Jeremy Robson always punched above his weight with a roster of authors that have been the envy of many large publishers. As a poet, he has been at the centre of the poetry scene since the 1960s, with a number of highly praised volumes to his credit and the friendship of many leading poets and musicians. In this engrossing memoir, Robson looks back at both his publishing career and life as a poet. Stories abound; whether it be driving Muhammad Ali around Britain, coping with Michael Winner or working in the desert with David Ben-Gurion. Time spent joyously laughing with Maureen Lipman and Alan Coren while undertaking an exciting poetry reading tour with Ted Hughes, and packing the Royal Festival Hall for a historic poetry and jazz concert. Jeremy recounts treasured and life-long friendships with the poets and writers; Dannie Abse, Alan Sillitoe, Vernon Scannell, Laurie Lee, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Elie Wiesel and Frederic Raphael. Well known and celebrated as both publisher and poet, Jeremy Robson has produced a delicious memoir that will delight the reader.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated literary work of medieval England, portrays the culture of the late Middle Ages as a deeply commercial environment, replete with commodities and dominated by market relationships. However, the market is not the only mode of exchange in Chaucer’s world or in his poem. Chaucer’s Gifts reveals the gift economy at work in the tales. Applying important recent advances in anthropological gift theory, it illuminates and explains this network of exchanges and obligations. Chaucer’s Gifts argues that the world of the Canterbury Tales harbours deep commitments to reciprocity and obligation which are at odds with a purely commercial culture, and demonstrates how the market and commercial relations are not natural, eternal, or inevitable – an essential lesson if we are to understand Chaucer’s world or our own.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Chaucer’s Commodities, Chaucer’s Gifts 1 The Franklin’s Potlatch and the Plowman’s Creed: The Gift in the General Prologue 2 The Lack of Interest in the Shipman’s Tale: Chaucer and the Social Theory of the Gift 3 Giving Evil: Excess and Equivalence in the Fabliau 4 The Exchange of Women and the Gender of the Gift 5 Sacred Commerce: Clerics, Money and the Economy of Salvation 6 ‘Fy on a thousand pound!’ Debt and the Possibility of Generosity in the Franklin’s Tale Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor the modern world Greek tragedy is represented almost entirely by those plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides whose texts have been preserved since they were first produced in the fifth century BC. From that period and the next two hundred years more than eighty other tragic poets are known from biographical and production data, play-titles, mythical subject-matter, and remnants of their works quoted by other ancient writers or rediscovered in papyrus texts. This edition includes all the remnants of tragedies that can be identified with these other poets, with English translations, related historical information, detailed explanatory notes and bibliographies. Volume 1 includes some twenty 5th-century poets, notably Phrynichus, Aristarchus, Ion, Achaeus, Sophocles’ son Iophon, Agathon and the doubtful cases of Neophron (author of a Medea supposedly imitated by Euripides) and Critias (possibly author of three other tragedies attributed to Euripides). Volume 2 will include the 4th- and 3rd-century tragedians and some anonymous material derived from ancient sources or rediscovered papyrus texts.Remnants of these poets’ satyr-plays are included in a separate Aris & Phillips Classical Texts volume, Euripides Cyclops and Major Fragments of Greek Satyric Drama, edited by Patrick O’Sullivan and Christopher Collard (2013).Trade Review‘The most valuable element of the volume is the introductory discussions for each author and for each title, as well as the commentary notes to the testimonies and fragments.' Felice Stama, Bryn Mawr Classical Review ‘Our general opinion on Cropp's work is highly positive: well documented, scientifically up-to-date and rigorous, but at the same time easy to consult.’ Paolo B. Cipolla, Exemplaria Classica (translated from Italian).‘The clear translations, appropriately designed commentaries, and especially the excellent introductions to the individual poets and plays, in which Cropp includes both older and recent interpretations, while frequently adding his own thought-provoking suggestions, will find a grateful readership.’ Hauke Schneider, Gymnasium (translated from German)Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionTragedy in the fifth century: a sketchSourcesThis editionTexts, Translations and NotesThespis (TrGF 1) Choerilus (TrGF 2) Phrynichus (TrGF 3) Pratinas (TrGF 4) Polyphrasmon (TrGF 7) Aristias (TrGF 9) Euphorion, Euaeon (TrGF 12, 13) Aristarchus (TrGF 14) Neophron (TrGF 15) Euripides I, II (TrGF 16, 17) Ion (TrGF 19) Achaeus (TrGF 20) Iophon (TrGF 22)Philocles I (TrGF 24) Xenocles I (TrGF 33) Agathon (TrGF 39) Critias? (TrGF 43) Diogenes of Athens (TrGF 45) Abbreviations and references Indexes (Poets; Titles; Sources; General)

Read more less

Book SynopsisSituated at the intersection of affect studies, ecocriticism, aesthetics, and Romantic studies, this book presents a genealogy of love in Romantic-era poetry, science, and philosophy. While feeling and emotion have been traditional mainstays of Romantic literature, the concept of love is under-studied and under-appreciated, often neglected or dismissed as idealized, illusory, or overly sentimental. However, Seth Reno shows that a particular conception of intellectual love is interwoven with the major literary, scientific, and philosophical discourses of the period. Romantic-era writers conceived of love as integral to broader debates about the nature of life, the biology of the human body, the sociology of human relationships, the philosophy of nature, and the disclosure of being.Amorous Aesthetics traces the development of intellectual love from its first major expression in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics, through its adoption and adaptation in eighteenth-century moral and natural philosophy, to its emergence as a Romantic tradition in the work of six major poets. From William Wordsworth and John Clare’s love of nature, to Percy Shelley’s radical politics of love, to the more sceptical stances of Felicia Hemans, Alfred Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold, intellectual love is a pillar of Romanticism.This book will interest scholars and students of Romanticism, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, affect studies, ecocriticism, aesthetics, and those who work at the intersection of literature and science.Trade Review‘Amorous Aesthetics is an important contribution to the field of Romantic studies and a successful first book…the book is significant for tracking an indisputably major concept, love, across many decades of Romantic writing and a significant number of canonical poets, which, I think, could make the book foundational for further research in this area.’ David Sigler, The Review of English Studies'Throughout Amorous Aesthetics, Reno resists the insights of the New Historicism, which subordinated aesthetics and affect to cultural context and ideology. Focusing on 1788 to 1805 (from The Evening Walk to The Prelude), his reading of the former poem is masterful, for it highlights the tension between sublimity (that vertical, fearsome force of nature) and sentimentality (a warmer and more horizontalizing form of affect).'Colin Carman, European Romantic Review'With focus on Romantic poetry, Reno's book interrogates quests for transcendental love in relation to the seemingly contrary pull of human bonds. [...Reno's] challenge to the dominant interpretations of young Wordsworth as an unadulterated Pantheist is welcome [...and] the first chapter breaks new ground in explaining Erasmus Darwin's influence on Wordsworth. [...] While much remains for scholarship to say on intellectual love, this book offers substantial contributions.'Chris Murray, Review 19Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Recovering Intellectual LoveChapter 1: Wordsworthian LoveChapter 2: John Clare and Ecological LoveChapter 3: Shelleyan LoveChapter 4: Felicia Hemans and the AffectionsChapter 5: Tennyson, Arnold, and the Victorians: The Legacy of Romantic LoveBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisDon Paterson is one of Britain’s leading contemporary poets. A popular writer as well as a formidably intelligent one, he has won both a dedicated readership and most of Britain's major poetry prizes, including the T. S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, the Forward Prize in every category, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In this first comprehensive study of Paterson’s poetry, Ben Wilkinson presents him as a modern-day metaphysical, whose work is characterised by guileful use of form, musicality, colloquial diction and playful wit, in pursuit of poetry as a moral and philosophical project. Drawing on a wide range of commentators, Wilkinson traces Paterson’s development from collection to collection, providing detailed close readings of the poems framed by theoretical and literary contexts. An essential guide for students, specialists, and the general reader of contemporary poetry, it presents Paterson as a major lyric poet.Table of ContentsBiographical OutlinePrologue1. For the Hell of It: Nil Nil (1993)2. Which Man I Am: God's Gift to Women (1997)3. Not Your Name, Not Mine: The Eyes (1999)4. Shrewd Obliquity of Speech: Landing Light (2003)5. Breath, You Invisible Poem: Orpheus (2006)6. None of This Matters: Rain (2009)Coda: 40 Sonnets (2015) and Zonal (2020)

Read more less

Book SynopsisYanked every emotion on the spectrum out of me' JAMIE LOFTUSIn this powerful, candid collection, Olivia Gatwood explores the trials and triumphs of growing up as a woman. She celebrates the teenage girl and the colour pink while questioning the role that fear and male violence play in who we are and what we become. These piercing poems are at times blistering and riotous, and at times soulful and exuberant. Balancing singularity of view with a sense of universal experience, Life of the Party is about the pain, the joy, the challenge, the reward of being a girl and a woman in today's world. Olivia Gatwood is a revolution of woman, a flurry of insight harnessing the language of self-assessment and acceptance' MAHOGANY L. BROWNEAsks us to remember the stories of those most vulnerable, the women whose stories are too often ignored' THEM.USAn electrifying collection of poems about the agonies and ecstasies of being a young woman' LEIGH STEIN

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe fine tradition of the Spanish sonnet, developed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the subject of Rutherford’s The Spanish Golden Age Sonnet (2016), has been extended and developed during the subsequent centuries. This book presents one hundred of the best sonnets of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including sonnets written in the Catalan and Galician languages, together with their translations into modern English sonnets and a critical commentary on each. There is a general introduction to the genre, followed by summaries of the historical and literary backgrounds and a discussion of the problems facing the translator of sonnets. The life and works of each poet are summarised and a select bibliography of further reading concludes the volume. The translations bring these sonnets to new life in the modern English language, and they can be read both as interesting and lively poems in their own right and as leads into the originals.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Diego de Torres Villarroel Nicolás Fernández de Moratín José Cadalso Tomás de Iriarte Juan Meléndez Valdés José de Espronceda Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda Carolina Coronado Adelardo López de Ayala José Echegaray Pedro Antonio de Alarcón Gaspar Núñez de Arce Gustavo Alonso Bécquer Leopoldo Cano y Masas Manuel Curros Enríquez Joan Alcover Salvador Rueda Miguel de Unamuno Rubén Darío Manuel Machado Antonio Machado Ramón Cabanillas Juan Ramón Jiménez Josep Carner Tomás Morales J. V. Foix Jorge Guillén Carles Riba Xosé Crecente Vega Gerardo Diego Avelino Díaz Federico García Lorca Rosa Chacel Dámaso Alonso Rafael Alberti Miguel Hernández Xosé María Díaz Castro Blas de Otero Joan Brossa Rafael Morales Luz Pozo Garza José María Valverde Ramón García González Antonio Gamoneda Francisco Brines Antonio Carvajal Jesús Royo Arpón Luis Alberto de Cuenca Darío Xohán Cabana Ramiro Fonte Acknowledgements Select Bibliography Index of first lines of Spanish sonnets Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisEver since Pushkin, Russian poets have been famous for their ability to combine private and public experience in lyric poetry of a comprehensiveness and intensity unmatched elsewhere. Ranging in extremes from the melting tenderness of unrequited love to the bitter comedy of political chaos, this collection of poems covering two centuries includes work by Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Annensky,Mayakovsky, Bely, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Brodsky and others less celebrated but no less extraordinary. The text is divided into six sections. Russian poets constantly reflect on their art, so the first section is appropriately entitled 'The Muse'. Their other great topic is Russia herself, explored in parts two and three. Part four presents the inner world, parts five and six traditional themes of love and mortality. Poetry has often been a matter of life and death in Russia, where Mandelstam was not the only poet to perish in the Gulag. The comfortable private domain familiar to many English and American writers barely exists in a country where political realities are exigent - one reason for the fierce intensity found in so many of these poems.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first ever translation of the whole of the rich and compelling body of tales contained in Chrétien's poem and its four Continuations. The mysterious and haunting Grail makes its first appearance in literature in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval at the end of the twelfth century. But Chrétien never finished his poem, leaving an unresolved story and an incomplete picture of the Grail. It was, however, far too attractive an idea to leave. Not only did it inspire quite separate works; his own unfinished poem was continued and finally completed by no fewer than four other writers. The Complete Story of the Grail is the first ever translation of the whole of the rich and compelling body of tales contained in Chrétien's poem and its four Continuations, which are finally attracting the scholarly attention they deserve. Besides Chrétien's original text, there are the anonymous First Continuation (translated here in its fullest version), the Second Continuation attributed to Wauchier de Denain, and the intriguing Third and Fourth Continuations - probably written simultaneously, with no knowledge of each other's work - by Manessier and Gerbert de Montreuil. Two other poets were drawn to create preludes explaining the background to Chrétien's story, and translated here also are their works: The Elucidation Prologue and Bliocadran. Only in this, The Story of the Grail's complete form, can the reader appreciate the narrative skill and invention of the medieval poets and their surprising responses to Chrétien's theme - not least their crucial focus on the knight as a crusader. Equally, Chrétien's original poem was almost always copied in conjunction withone or more of the Continuations, so this translation represents how most medieval readers would have encountered it. Nigel Bryant's previous translations from Medieval French include Perlesvaus - the High Bookof the Grail, Robert de Boron's trilogy Merlin and the Grail, the Medieval Romance of Alexander, The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel and Perceforest.Trade ReviewBryant's translations are very readable. * FABULA *This fine edition of the Grail story surrenders many treasures to a close read. Bryant capsulizes the seminal Chrétien version and the continuations in the introductory section, providing a helpful guide through the nearly six hundred pages that follow. * COMITATUS *Nigel Bryant's translation is highly reliable, engaging, and as lively as he can make it (his stint as Head of Drama at Marlborough College has served him well). . . . This new and Complete Story of the Grail offers a fresh translation with complete texts for all four continuations, as well as two prequels, along with more supporting apparatus to guide a twenty-first-century public. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *This book makes a significant contribution to Arthurian studies. . . . Bryant should again be commended for his ability to bring that which was distant closer and make it just as compelling. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chrétien de Troyes: Perceval The First Continuation The Second Continuation Gerbert's Continuation The Third Continuation Appendix 1: The Elucidation Prologue Appendix 2: Bliocadran Appendix 3: Independent conclusion to the Second Continuation in the Bern manuscript [Burgerbibliothek 113]

Read more less

Book SynopsisWordsworth’s process of revision, his organization of poetic volumes and his supplementary writings are often seen as distinct from his poetic composition. Bates asserts that an analysis of these supplementary writings and paratexts are necessary to a full understanding of Wordsworth’s poetry.Trade Review'meticulously researched and documented ... refreshingly clearly written and free of jargon, while at the same time critically astute.' Romanticism 'Wordsworth's Poetic Collections is an admirable addition to a series that has produced first-rate works for those interested in book history, genre, authorship, and the emerging reader.' SHARP News 'Bates's book can teach us something about fundamental qualities of Wordsworth 's style' New Books Online 19 'Bates does make stimulating suggestions about the literary and editorial context of Wordsworth's compositions' CERCLES 'a fascinating and detailed study of Wordsworth's paratext and parody.' BARS BulletinTable of ContentsIntroduction; Chapter 1 Reframing Lyrical Ballads (1800/1798); Chapter 2 Textual Travelling in the 1800 Lyrical Ballads; Chapter 3 Short-Circuiting Wordsworth’s 1807 Poems : Richard Mant’s the Simpliciad; Chapter 4 Wordsworth’s 'Library of Babel’: The Excursion and the 1815 Poems; Chapter 5 Opening up Chapter 13 of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria; Chapter 6 J. H. Reynolds’s ‘Peter Bell’ and the Wordsworthian Reputation; Chapter 7 The River Duddon Volume and Wordsworth’s Canonical Ascent;

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis comprehensive anthology celebrates four centuries of women’s poetry, covering over 100 poets from a wide range of social backgrounds across the English-speaking world. Familiar names – Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Brontë sisters, Emily Dickinson, and Christina Rossetti – appear alongside other writers from America, Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand as well as the UK. The poets range from queens and ladies of the court to a religious martyr, a spy, a young slave, a milkmaid, labourers, servants, activists, invalids, émigrées and pioneers, a daring actor, and the daughter of a Native American chief. Whether writing out of injustice, religious or sexual passion, humour, or to celebrate their sex, their different cultures, environments, personal beliefs and relationships, these women have strong, independent spirits and voices we cannot ignore. In 1652, speaking of the poems she had published as her ‘babes’, a woman we know only as ‘Eliza’, answered ‘a Lady that bragged of her children’: Thine at their birth did pain thee bring, When mine are born, I sit and sing. Robyn Bolam’s helpfully annotated selection is illustrated with informative biographies. The texts are based on early editions or manuscripts but with modern spelling.

Read more less

Book SynopsisPikovaia dama (The Queen of Spades) has continued to fascinate readers since its first publication in 1834, and has been successfully adapted to both operatic stage and screen. The most generally admired of Pushkin’s stories, it has earned a high place amongst his works as a whole and in many ways is the embodiment of ‘essential’ Pushkin. With its play on both psychology and the fantastic, its tersely precise language and its openness to multiple readings, it continues to mesmerise critics, teachers and students alike. This book contains the complete text in Russian of The Queen of Spades, with an introduction to Pushkin's life and work. The text is also supplemented with extensive notes in English and a complete vocabulary.Table of ContentsIntroduction Text Vocabulary

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn exciting addition to Everyman's Library: a new series of small, handsome hardcover volumes devoted to the world's classic poets. Our books will have twice as many pages as Bloomsbury Classics' 128pp and will cost 7. 99 against Bloomsbury's 9. 99. The binding, paper and production will be visibly superior in every way to that of Bloomsbury

Read more less

Book Synopsis'I have put this book together, not as a prose narrative is usually constructed, but as a poem might be. In turnings and returnings. In parts which find and repeat themselves and re-state the argument until it loses its reasonable edge and hopefully becomes a sort of cadence.' In "Object Lessons" Eavan Boland meditates on womanhood in the specific places and times of her life. She engages, in a scrupulous and evocative prose, the issues of nationhood as well, clearing a space within Ireland where to be a woman and a poet has seemed in the past a contradiction in terms. The book functions in her work as Wordsworth's "Prelude" does in his, though Boland does not allow herself the luxury of rapture: to say no more or less than she means, she focuses on particulars, on 'obstinate details' that contain and represent larger meaning, connection and force. The autobiography here is not of a confessional kind: the facts which connect with other voices, other lives, matter. What the London Review of Books called Boland's 'radical but undoctrinaire feminism' informs all the related meditations in "Object Lessons", an enabling document of our time.Unease with Modernism, a concern with the erotic in time, and at every point a sense of continuities, mark the book as a portrait of a critical imagination of deep integrity finding a way among history's obstacles, finding itself in and through the lessons of the objects - particularly artifacts and poems - that it encounters.Trade Review'This is essential reading for any woman interested in poetry.' - Robyn Marsack, Director of the Scottish Poetry Library. 'Object Lessons is a record of a learning process. In a time when poetry by women is coming out of the shadows in Irish literature, such records need to be written and read, in "turning and returnings" repeated and re-stated.' - Poetry Ireland Review.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCaptain Cook in the Underworld is a book-length poem by a gifted Maori poet, an archetypal exploration of Western mythology and legend as it 'discovers' itself in the South Pacific. The poem was commissioned as the libretto for a new work with composer John Psathas for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Wellington's Orpheus Choir. Captain Cook in the Underworld offers fresh perspectives on the familiar story of Cook's Pacific explorations; it has a broad bi-cultural (European/Polynesian) frame of references; and Sullivan employs a bold risk-taking approach. The book is a highly stylised, 'operatic' account of the voyages, with similarities to the musical structure of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner', and opera. As the poem unfolds, European myth (Orpheus, Venus, etc) has to make space for Polynesian myth (Maui, Reinga, etc). In the final pages, Cook is required after his death to face up to the damage his expeditions have inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the Pacific. This theme of European guilt and recognition will have a strong and shocking impact.

Read more less

Book SynopsisHailed by Plato as the "Tenth Muse" of ancient Greek poetry, Sappho is inarguably antiquity's greatest lyric poet. Born over 2,600 years ago on the Greek island of Lesbos, and writing amorously of women and men alike, she is the namesake lesbian. What's left of her writing, and what we know of her, is fragmentary. Shrouded in mystery, she is nonetheless repeatedly translated and discussed - no, appropriated - by all. Sappho has most recently undergone a variety of treatments by agenda-driven scholars and so-called poet-translators with little or no knowledge of Greek. Classicist-translator Jeffrey Duban debunks the postmodernist scholarship by which Sappho is interpreted today and offers translations reflecting the charm and elegant simplicity of the originals. Duban provides a reader-friendly overview of Sappho's times and themes, exploring her eroticism and Greek homosexuality overall. He introduces us to Sappho's highly cultured island home, to its lyre-accompanied musical legends, and to the fabled beauty of Lesbian women. Not least, he emphasizes the proximity of Lesbos to Troy, making the translation and enjoyment of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey a further focus.More than anything else, argues Duban, it is free verse and its rampant legacy - and no two persons more than Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound - that bear responsibility for the ruin of today's classics in translation, to say nothing of poetry in the twentieth century. Beyond matters of reflection for classicists, Duban provides a far-ranging beginner's guide to classical literature, with forays into Spenser and Milton, and into the colonial impulse of Virgil, Spenser, and the West at large.Trade Review"A humanities degree between two covers. Brilliant." - David Dubal, The Juilliard SchoolTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Guide to Pronunciation Preface Part I. 1. Greek Lyric, Greek Epic, and Old Testament; the Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns 2. Greekless Translators, Theorizing Scholars 3. Selected Lyric Poets of Antiquity: Archilochus, Alcman, Anacreon & Ibycus 4. Sappho: Antiquity's Poetess and Ours 5. Sappho's Eroticism 6. The Loves of Men, Gods, and Primordial Forces 7. Lesbos, Troy, and Environs; the Principal Greek Genres and Dialects Part II. 8. Sappho and the "Lyric Nine," An Aesthetic for Lyric Translation 9. The Aesthetic of English-Language Prosody in the Translation of Classical Verse 10. Translatability: Achieving Charm and Distinction in Translation 11. Translation as the Profession of Ignorance: Mary Barnard, Willis Barnstone, and Others 12. Translations Compared Part III. Translations: sappho alcman anacreon archilochus ibycus Part IV. 13. Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid: The Epic Cycle in Progress 14. Cosmic Preservation and the Heroism of Heracles 15. Self-Perpetuation and the Heroism at Troy 16. Imperishable Fame and the Evolution of Greek Epic 17. Imperishable Fame Denied: Sappho's "Marriage of Hector and Andromache" 18. Cataclysm Averted: Homer's Separation of Helen and Achilles Part V. 19. Homeric and Sapphic Meter, Metric Formulae and Oral Composition, the Origins of Rhyming Poetry, Milton on Blank Verse 20. Accentuation, Sound, and Word Order in Ancient Greek Poetry Part VI. 21. Growing Latin from Greek Roots, Rome's Imperial Vision and Its Aftermath Part VII. Equal to the Gods: Poetic Sublimity, Inner Collapse Equal to a God: Form and Content in Convulsive Union Frenzied Emotion, Expressive Control: Form and Content Bound Modernism Wins Out: Form and Content Abandoned "Freedom, Freedom, Prison to the Free": The Obfuscatory Unfettered Sappho Unbound and Boundaryless- Theorized, Personalized, Politicized Boundaries, Artistic Fit, and What "Art" Means and Does Part VIII. Not Making It New (or Better): Recent Iliads and Aeneids So Old It's New (and Better): The Smith/Miller Hexametric Iliad On Leaving Well Enough Alone: Rejecting Lattimore for R. Fitzgerald Pope's Iliad and E. FitzGerald's Ruba iya t; Pope on Chapman's Iliad Versions and Perversions of Homer: R. Fitzgerald, Fagles, and Logue Ezra Pound: Damage to Sextus Propertius Addendum Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisOpened in 1837 and inspired by the Pere Lachaise in Paris, West Norwood became known as the Millionaire's Cemetery. But within its opulent grounds there are twelve buried names whose currency is language: these are the dead poets of West Norwood. In the first instalment of a project to map the Magnificent Seven, Chris McCabe takes us off the main track of London writing and asks why the works of Hopkins, Tennyson and Browning are still read above those buried in this suburban enclave of South London. Join McCabe on the hunt for a great lost poet, as he walks the winding Gothic paths of the Cemetery and makes an unexpected discovery underground in the catacombs. The stories of those loved and dismissed by Charles Dickens are carefully uncovered; those who influenced Lewis Carroll and Winston Churchill; and those whose burial in the common ground has not been enough to silence them. A startling and original work of literary detection, In the Catacombs is written across a range of forms - prose, Gothic fiction, criticism and poetry - and places West Norwood Cemetery and its dead poets back into the foreground of the London psyche.

Read more less

Book Synopsis"Splendidly various" TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Typewriters, plagiarism and the poetic line are just three of the subjects under the spotlight in this book of essays by much-loved literary blogger Katy Evans-Bush. Studies of Ted Hughes, Louis MacNeice and Dylan Thomas sit alongside a new look at Keats, a search for forgotten war poet Eloise Robinson, and practical guides on poetic technique. Katy Evans-Bush combines the intellectual rigour of the literary critic with the dynamism of a seasoned traveller in the blogosphere. These essays place poetry at the heart of contemporary culture, meeting at the borders it shares with music, politics and sculpture. She writes about art and life in a way that is generous, witty and incisive.Trade Review"Sharp, wry ... wears its considerable erudition lightly." Time Out "An incredibly astute, accessible and stylish critic. Poetry for her is not some arcane pursuit. It is a way of thinking and being in the world. I love her work." Suzanne MooreTable of ContentsThe Hidden Life of PoetsThe Poem is a Question: Keats, Negative Capability and UsJames Merrill: Formal RadicalCompendium in TimeAn Earnest Chestnut for Remembrance DayThe Search for Eloise RobinsonA Hell of an Underwriter: Three Insurance Men with a DifferenceBecause London Is Still a KaleidoscopeThere's No Place Like Home: The Poetry of Dorothy MolloyMen's Troubles: Seidel, Ashbery & ElliotTo Hull and Braque: Marching to the DrumbeatThese Fragments We Have Shored Against Our RuinGifts of Earth: Letters of Ted HughesThe Dylan Thomas QuestionMan of Jazz and Conscience: MacNeice's Autumn JournalBeauty and Meaning: Free the Word!By the Light of the Silvery Moon: Dowson, Schoenberg and the Birthof ModernismNow I'm a Real Boy: Poetry's Plagiarism ProblemThe LineMy Life in Typewriters

Read more less

Book SynopsisEdwin Morgan (1920-2010) is one of the giants of modern poetry. Scotland''s national poet from 2004 to his death in 2010, in his long life he produced an incredible range of work, from the playful to the profound. This INTERNATIONAL COMPANION gives a comprehensive overview of Morgan''s poetry and drama. A range of expert contributors guide the reader along Morgan''s astonishing, multi-faceted trajectory through space and time, and provide students with an essential and accessible general introduction to his life and work.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe work combines biographical material with theoretical readings of the poems, and offers new reinterpretations of some original and intriguing literature. Much of this had been by-passed or forgotten before Angela Leighton''s work.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis study discusses the representation of class in poetry in English from Britain and Ireland between the fourteenth and twenty-first centuries, and the effect of class on the production, dissemination, and reception of that poetry. It looks at the factors which enable and obstruct the production of poetry, such as literacy, education, patronage, prejudice, print, and the various alleged revivals of poetry in Britain, and the relationship between class and poetic form. Whilst this is a survey that cannot be comprehensive, it offers a number of case-studies of poets and poems from each period considered.Table of Contents1. Introduction2. The Late Middle Ages3. The Early Modern Period4. The Eighteenth Century5. The Late Eighteenth to Early Nineteenth Century​6. The Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century7. The Twentieth Century: To the 1960s8. The Twentieth Century: After the 1960s

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book re-evaluates the philosophical status of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by providing an extended comparison between his work and the phenomenological theory of Edmund Husserl. Examining Coleridge’s accounts of the imagination, perception, poetic creativity and literary criticism, it draws a systematic and coherent structure out of a range of Coleridge’s philosophical writing. In addition, it also applies the principles of Coleridge’s philosophy to an interpretation of his own poetic output.Table of Contents1. Introduction.- 2. Anti-psychologism and Ideal Laws in Biographia I.-3. Coleridge’s phenomenological engagements with idealism.- 4. Imagination and Intentionality.- 5. Coleridge’s Epoché.- 6.‘The acts of the mind itself’: Eidetic Intuition and the ‘Conversation Poems’.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis monograph reorients discussion of Blake’s prophetic mode, revealing it to be not a system in any formal sense, but a dynamic, human response to an era of momentous historical change when the future Blake had foreseen and the reality he was faced with could not be reconciled. At every stage, Blake’s writing confronts the central problem of all politically minded literature: how texts can become action. Yet he presents us with no single or, indeed, conclusive answer to this question and in this sense it can be said that he fails. Blake, however, never stopped searching for a way that prophecy might be made to live up to its promise in the present. The twentieth-century hermeneuticist Paul Ricoeur shared with Blake a preoccupation with the relationship between time, text and action. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics thus provide a fresh theoretical framework through which to analyse Blake’s attempts to fulfil his prophetic purpose.Trade Review“Cogan’s book does an exceptional job of exploring such tensions across the range of Blake’s corpus. None of the caveats above lessens my admiration for its daring and innovative engagement with Blake’s treatment of prophecy.” (G. A. Rosso, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly, Vol. 56 (3), 2022-2023)Table of Contents1 Introduction: Prophetic Failure2 Calling All Prophets3 Prophetic Action4 The Origins of Loss5 Delusive Visions6 Prophet of Eternity7 Conclusion

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book explores the “battles” of words, songs, poetry, and performance in Africa and the African Diaspora. These are usually highly competitive, artistic contests in which rival parties duel for supremacy in poetry composition and/or its performance. This volume covers the history of this battle tradition, from its origins in Africa, especially the udje and halo of the Urhobo and Ewe respectively, to its transportation to the Americas and the Caribbean region during the Atlantic slave trade period, and its modern and contemporary manifestations as battle rap or other forms of popular music in Africa. Almost everywhere there are contemporary manifestations of the more traditional, older genres. The book is thus made up of studies of contests in which rivals duel for supremacy in verbal arts, song-poetry, and performance as they display their wit, sense of humor, and poetic expertise. Table of Contents1. Introduction.—Tanure Ojaide.Part I: African Origins.2. Battle by All Means: Udje as Oral Poetry and Performance—Tanure Ojaide.3. Halo: The Ewe Battle Tradition of Music, Songs, and Performance—Honore Missihoun.4. Poetry and Ping-Pong: Auto/Biographical Verbal Duels in Yoruba Polygamous Households—Adetayo Alabi 5. Shairi and Malumbano: The Tradition of Verbal Warfare in Swahili Literature—Mwenda Mbatiah.6. Moral Authority of Shona Women’s Battlesongs: Revising Customary Law in the Context of Performance Within African Indigenous Knowledge System—Beauty Vambe.Part II: Diaspora Manifestation7. Battles, Raps, Cappin’, The Dozens: African-American Oral Traditions of Insult—Michele Randolph and Maliek Lewis.8. Black Greek Step Shows—Debra Smith.9. Battle Rap: An Exploration of Competitive Rhyming in Hip Hop —Matthew Oware 10. Fighting Words: Songs of Conflict, Censure, and Cussout in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival—Funso Aiyejina.11. Oral Tradition and Cultures in Dialogue: Ondjango Angolano and Jongo da Serrinha— Tonia Leigh Wind.12. Stanzas and Sticks: Poetic and Physical Challenges in the Afro-Brazilian Culture of the Paraíba Valley, Rio de Janeiro—Matthias RohrigAssuncao.Part III: New Transformations.13. Yabis, A Nigerian Genre of Insult—Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega. 14. Epistemic Recuperation and Contemporary Reconfiguration of the Verbal Battle Tradition in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide and Kofi Anyidoho—Mathias IroroOrhero.15. The Creativity of Abuse: Power, Song and the ‘Authority of Insults’ in Zimbabwean Music, Post 2017—Maurice TaonezviVambe.16. Bongo Fleva: Its Lyrics, “Inappropriate” Content, Source, and Possible Harm—Dunlop Ochieng.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book considers Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s engagement with ‘Whig poetry’: a tradition of verse from the eighteenth century which celebrated the political and constitutional arrangements of Britain as guaranteeing liberty. It argues that, during the 1790s, Coleridge was able to articulate radical ideas under the cover of widely accepted principles through his references to this poetry. He positioned his poetry within a mainstream discourse, even as he favoured radical social change. Jacob Lloyd argues that the poets Mark Akenside, William Lisle Bowles, and William Cowper each provided Coleridge with a kind of Whig poetics to which he responded. When these references are understood, much of Coleridge’s work which seems purely personal or imaginative gains a political dimension. In addition, Lloyd reassess Coleridge’s relationship with Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, to provide an original, political reading of ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’. This book revises our understanding of the political and poetic development of a major poet and, in doing so, provides a new model for the origins of British Romanticism more broadlyTable of Contents1 Introduction.- 2 Coleridge and Whig Politics, 1794–1796.- 3 Whig Poetics and Akenside.- 4 Coleridge, Enthusiasm, and Bowles.-5 Coleridge’s Poetry of 1796 and 1797.-6 The Politics of Ancient Ballads: ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’ and Christabel.-7 Retirement Politics in the Fears in Solitude Quarto.-8 ‘Dejection. An Ode’ and the Renunciation of Political Poetics.-9 Conclusion

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less