Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

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Book SynopsisDevils, witches and evil - the insubstantial but terrifying world of the supernatural as it was seen by Robert Burns and his contemporaries is examined in this new book, brought out for the 250th anniversary of the poet's birth. Several of Burns' poems dealt with the supernatural, the most famous of which, "Tam o Shanter", is examined in detail. It is from this poem that the book's title comes: 'And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!" And in an instant all was dark And scarcely had he Maggie rallied When out the hellish legion sallied.' In contrast with the 'other world' was the everyday lives of the country people and the nature of the material world in which they lived; the book also examines this and the changes that were taking place in Burns' time.Trade Review'The "hellish legion" referred to in the title of this informative and friendly book, is that body of witches, ghosts, satanic sprites and anything else devilish that might have informed the lives of Robert Burns and his fellow Ayrshire men and women, and further, his own epic poem, Tam o' Shanter. ... It's possible, then, to read Tam o' Shanter also as a nostalgic piece, a recording of a way of looking at the world that was passing by.' The Herald '... does an excellent job in introducing the man and the places in which he lived.' The Folklore SocietyTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Life of Robert Burns The People of Lowland Scotland The Deil, Death and Ghosts Witches, Spirits and otehr Curious Things Eveil Men, Bad Weather and the Awful Future Medicines The Year Tam o' Shanter Select Bibliography Further Reading and Exploring Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book to present the life, times and poetry of one of the greatest poets in the Arab tradition, Abu Nuwas. Author Philip Kennedy provides the narrative of Abu Nuwas's fascinating life, which was full of intrigue and debauched adventure, in parallel with the presentation of his greatest poems, across all genres, in easy and accessible translations, giving commentary where needed.Trade ReviewGeert Jan van Gelder - Laudian Professor of Arabic, Oxford University"Philip has written a very good book on the great (in my view) greatest Arabic poet, Abu Nuwas... The literary analysis is generally excellent, balanced and erudite."Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1 “Dangling Locks and Babel Eyes” – A Biographical Sketch of Abu Nuwas (c. 757–814) 2 “Love, Wine, Sodomy ... and the Lash” – The Lyric Poetry of Abu Nuwas 3 “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” – On Panegyric and Satire 4 Some Hunting Poems and a Game of Polo 5 “Poetry for Mortals and the Dead” – On the Ascetic Poem and the Elegy An Afterword – “Walk the Even Path with Me ...” Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisForegrounds underrepresented agents (women, nature and the nonhuman) in and through the poetry of Theocritus.

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the 2020 PROSE Awards, Classics section Homer’s Odyssey is the first great travel narrative in Western culture. A compelling tale about the consequences of war, and about redemption, transformation, and the search for home, the Odyssey continues to be studied in universities and schools, and to be read and referred to by ordinary readers. Reading Homer’s Odyssey offers a book-by-book commentary on the epic’s themes that informs the non-specialist and engages the seasoned reader in new perspectives. Among the themes discussed are hospitality, survival, wealth, reputation and immortality, the Olympian gods, self-reliance and community, civility, behavior, etiquette and technology, ease, inactivity and stagnation, Penelope’s relationship with Odysseus, Telemachus’ journey, Odysseus’ rejection of Calypso’s offer of immortality, Odysseus’ lies, Homer’s use of the House of Atreus and other myths, the cinematic qualities of the epic’s structure, women’s role in the epic, and the Odyssey’s true ending. Footnotes clarify and elaborate upon myths that Homer leaves unfinished, explain terms and phrases, and provide background information. The volume concludes with a general bibliography of work on the Odyssey, in addition to the bibliographies that accompany each book’s commentary. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade Review"The book is a great pleasure to read....Reading Homer’s Odyssey is a book that does exactly what it promises: it helps its reader to read (and understand) the Odyssey. It will appeal to a broad readership as well as to scholars and students of Classics and other fields, and it may also be suggested as accompanying reading in Classical Civilization classes or similar courses."— Bryn Mawr Classical Review "An eloquently erudite and insightful analysis of one of the world's most famous works of literature from Ancient Greece."— Midwest Book Review "Recommended." — Choice Kostas Myrsiades’ remarkably accessible and lively commentary comes as a great boost to readers who approach the Odyssey with great interest but little background in the world of the epic and the techniques of Homer. This book serves as a kind of museum guide through each portion of the Odyssey, giving us the benefit of the author’s wealth of erudition and knowledge in readily understandable prose. Myrsiades not only explains the peculiar features of the narrative and content but also offers many helpful interpretive approaches, including some recent controversial suggestions, that have arisen from his decades of teaching this epic. This commentary will be especially helpful in giving high school and college teachers with little formal classical training the information and tools that will make them authoritative in the classroom. A pleasure to read.— Scott Richardson, Professor of Classics, St. John’s University and the College of St. BenedictTable of ContentsPreface I. From Ithaca to Wonderland Chapter 1: Telemachus' Journey (Od.1-4) Chapter 2: Odysseus from Calypso to the Phaeacians (Od.5-8) Chapter 3: Odysseus' Wanderings (Od.9-12) II. From Wonderland to Ithaca Chapter 4: Odysseus and Telemachus at Eumaeus' Hut (Od.13-16) Chapter 5: Odysseus and Telemachus Strategize at the Palace (Od.17-20) Chapter 6: Revenge, Reunion, and Reconciliation (Od.21-24) Afterword Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Relentlessly beautiful. . . . Everything seems to be here, laying the groundwork for a major career.” * Publishers Weekly *"Reminds us that [Duncan] wrote some of the most stunningly beautiful lines in postwar American poetry." -- Micah Mattix * Books & Culture *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Against our contemporary mania for growth, Campion positions poetry's particular contribution to a human understanding of the last hundred years of history as a form of cunning motility. The last line of this book proclaims, "We'll know the sincere poem by the way it moves," and the essays within move deftly with the poems themselves, capturing both spirit and form. American poetry, in Campion's story, doesn't celebrate freedoms preserved but acknowledges reality changed. I remember some of these essays, when they first appeared in the best journals, as vitally acerbic and fiercely challenging. And they remain so--but the raw material of the necessary book that collects them, Radical as Reality, is revealed to be wonder rather than judgment. Here, poet-critic Campion celebrates the spaciousness and splendor of a found family of American poets, less fathered by the great men of Modernism and their heir, Robert Lowell, than fostered in their own diverse practices."--Katie Peterson, author of A Piece of Good News and editor of Robert Lowell's New Selected Poems "Peter Campion's Radical as Reality returns poetry reviewing to its central place in American literary culture. His muscular prose is addressed to the reader looking for the pulse of America as it beats in the passions and rhythms of our best poets."--Bonnie Costello, author of The Plural of Us: Poetry and Community in Auden and Others

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Book Synopsis''Next, I applied to work in the accounts department, a sealed room where women operated clattering machines like enormous typewriters. After I had catastrophically and erroneously applied all the wrong information to several trolley loads of documents and lumbered the staff with weeks of corrective work, I was shown the door by a tight-lipped manageress. I knew what was coming. Over the relentless, furious din of machinery, I lip-read the familiar words: Lacks the necessary aptitude.''Pam Ayres'' early childhood in Stanford in the Vale was idyllic in many ways, and typical of that experienced by a great swathe of children born in rural areas in the immediate post-war years. Though her parents'' generation was harrowed by war, better times were coming. Everything the family needed was within walking distance in the village, and life with four older brothers and a sister in their crowded council house was exceedingly lively.In her late teens, Pam grew dissatisfied witTrade ReviewAyres gives a wonderful account of what it was like to grow up poor but respectable in post-war rural England. Some of her writing in the early chapters, describing life as the youngest of six children in a council cottage in the Vale of White Horse, Berkshire, has the original freshness of classics such as Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday *I find her work sweet and sour, gentle and sad, and often very moving in its wistful way ... The descriptions of post-war Berkshire life in The Necessary Aptitude are wonderful ... The world Ayres evokes is Hardy's Wessex ... I do admire (and envy) this marvellous woman -- Roger Lewis * Daily Mail *Excellent ... Unsentimental, especially about herself, Ayres gives a surprisingly moving account of what it was like to grow up poor in rural England without any "aptitude" for making something of herself -- Kathryn Hughes * Christmas Guide to a Cracking Read, Mail on Sunday *Highly readable ... Pam's memoirs are a masterclass in effective and effervescent prose * The Lady *An evocation of long-gone village life as captivating as Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford. At the book’s height, she reaches up and touches Laurie Lee * Buckinghamshire Life *

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CAROL ANN DUFFYAnna Akhmatova is one of the most accomplished and well loved poets Russia has ever produced. Her moving and passionate writing has won her an ardent readership all over the world. This selection, beautifully translated by poet and novelist D.M. Thomas, illustrates her broad scope and brilliant imaginative gifts. It covers both her earlier work and the poems she produced during her persecution by the Russian authorities.Trade ReviewA genius of Russian poetry * Sunday Times *Once, when young, she had written the lines which lovers quoted to one another. Later she provided words which thousands of men and women repeated under their breath, as they suffered, feared and waited. * Observer *The greatest Russian poetess of the twentieth century -- Joseph BrodskyHer fortitude and independence, the breadth of her compassion and the clarity of her realistic vision erased the line between herself and others; her intensely personal lyrics became the void of her nation's tragedy * New York Times Book Review *The extraordinary misery of her life and the extraordinary merits of her poems make Anna Akhmatova one of the great literary figures of modern times * Economist *

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Book Synopsis*SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S ELIOT PRIZE AND COSTA POETRY AWARD 2013*''A stone is lobbed in ''84, hangs like a star over Orgreave. Welcome to Sheffield. Border-land,our town of miracles...'' - ''Scab''From the clash between striking miners and police to the delicate conflicts in personal relationships, Helen Mort''s stunning debut is marked by distance and division. Named for a street in Sheffield, this is a collection that cherishes specificity: the particularity of names; the reflections the world throws back at us; the precise moment of a realisation. Distinctive and assured, these poems show us how, at the site of conflict, a moment of reconciliation can be born.Trade ReviewHelen Mort is among the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of young British poets -- Carol Ann DuffyOutstanding… There's a confidence and wit that's rare in a first book, but underlying it all is the bedrock of the north of England, its landscapes and stories. These are poems of passion, risk, tenderness and power -- Michael Symmons Roberts, winner of the Forward Prize 2013There’s been a buzz around Helen Mort for a while, and her debut, Division Street, doesn’t disappoint -- Suzi Feay * Independent *An excellent first poetry collection -- lucid, intelligent, politically aware, and loyal to the landscape that inspired it. -- Blake Morrison * Guardian Picks of the Year *Mort is a fast-rising star of British poetry… marked by a gritty urban lyricism and a terrific rhythmic vitality * i *A poet of exceptional talent, with a strong clear voice, a sure sense of metre and a poetic sensibility which has an unshakeable attachment to the real world. * Herald *Although Helen Mort is just 28, it's surprising that Division Street is her first full collection -- so frequently and impressively does her work appear in magazines and competitions... It's a brilliant debut. -- Bill Greenwell * Independent *A first class first full-length collection * Tribune *Gritty, witty, stylish and totally memorable. Division Street is a book which has something important to say, addressing a wide range of topics with novelty and intelligence. * John Glenday *The beauty of her debut collection is partly the sense that it has been written against the clock. Every poem is on the move... the style is satisfyingly Orwellian -- no long words where a shorter one would serve. Nor is she a poetic detective assisting with mysteries. She knows when to let be and let go. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *

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Book SynopsisCarpe diem 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!' is a prominent motif throughout ancient literature and beyond. This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study reveals its significance in ancient poetry and art, especially in creating the almost magical impression that something is happening here and now.Table of Contents1. The archaeology of Carpe Diem: Sardanapallus, monuments, epigrams, and false beginnings; 2. A moveable feast: Wine storage-places as drinkable calendars in Horace; 3. Gathering leaves: Horace, choice of words, cyclical time, and the production of presence; 4. The pleasure of images: Epigrams and objects 100 ʙᴄ – ᴀᴅ 100; 5. As is the generation of leaves, so are the generations of cows, mice, and gigolos…: Excerpe Diem! or excerpts of 'Carpe Diem'.

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched.The Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most sophisticated writers of the twentieth century, suffered from sexual impotence. This emotionally overwhelming condition shaped his literary experience in ways that have not been understood. Until now Borges has largely been considered an asexual author who could not read, think, or write about desire and sex, but in this book historian Ariel de la Fuente shows that sexuality was a major preoccupation for him, both as a reader and as an author. De la Fuente has conducted an extensive literary investigation in Borges’s figurative erotic library and presents for the first time a study of the relationship between Borges’s sexual biography, his erotic readings, and the writing of desire and sex in his work. The author explores relevant literary questions while employing a historical method and the book is truly an interdisciplinary study at the intersection of history with Latin American, European, and Eastern literatures, poetry, philosophy, and sexuality. Argued with clarity, Borges, Desire, and Sex offers an unexpected perspective on the literature and figure of a world-wide influential author.Trade Review'It is remarkable that there remains under-explored an area of Borges scholarship, yet the central questions posed here are important, original, and compelling.'William Rowlandson, University of Kent'This is a work of exceptional originality. The historical rather than literary perspective has brought to the fore entirely new readings, both regarding the interplay between Borges’s life and his work, and between his reading and creative output. At the moment it stands almost alone in its approach and methodology. This work will become a mandatory tool in the development of future research.'Evelyn Fishburn, University College London, author of A Dictionary of Borges'The author offers a detailed argument…assembling strong evidence for his case, while opening new avenues of investigation of Borges’s life and works…For [its] novel investigations of key [Borges’s] works, for highlighting the erotic focus of some of Borges’s readings, for offering a timely reminder of the importance of Stoic philosophy in the Argentine writer’s thinking, as well as for its exposition of the sexual dimensions of Borges’s poetry on the arrabal, among other merits, the book is very valuable. In the end, it serves to bring to light the important role that sex and desire played in [Borges’s] life and work.' Bill Richardson (National University of Ireland), Variaciones Borges'De la Fuente makes a compelling argument not merely for the importance of sexuality in Borges’s work, but for its extent. The author marshals his evidence and presents it clearly… Borges, Desire, and Sex makes a major contribution to our better, more complete understanding of the man and his work. I recommend it highly.' Earl Fitz (Vanderbilt University), Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y El CaribeTable of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: On Borges’s SexualityChapter 2: Biography in Literature and the Reading of Desire and Sex in BorgesChapter 3: Borges’s Erotic Library: The Poetry ShelfChapter 4: Sir Richard Burton’s Orientalist Erotica: The Thousand Nights and a Night and The Perfumed GardenChapter 5: Schopenhauer and Montaigne, Philosophy and SexChapter 6: Desire and Sex in Buenos Aires: Borges’s Poetry on the ArrabalChapter 7: Stoicism and Borges’s Writing of WomenChapter 8: Emma Zunz: Sex, Virtue, and PunishmentChapter 9: La intrusa: Incest and Gay ReadingsWorks Cited

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Book SynopsisMysterious, esoteric, baffling – John Ashbery is notorious for the seeming difficulty of his work. But Ashbery is also entertaining, humorous and charming, and responsive to his shifting social and political contexts. This biography charts his emergence from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. In this entertaining account, Jess Cotton provides a legible and accessible map of Ashbery’s work that draws connections between the poetry, the New York art and literary world and the political climate of the middle decades of the twentieth century. It makes the case for a more approachable, enjoyable and engaged Ashbery and will appeal to both students and the general reader, as well as anyone interested in American poetry, queer lives and twentieth-century history.

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Book SynopsisThe Middle Kingdom (c.1940-1640 BC) was a golden age of Ancient Egyptian writing. This pioneering book is the first comprehensive study of this literary legacy. The status of literature is controversial in many ancient civilizations, and Middle Kingdom poems have often been regarded as propaganda for the ruling dynasty. This study radically reassesses their cultural role, drawing on recent studies of the individual texts, some by the author, and on general developments in literary criticism, to argue that they were entertainments that voiced potentially dissident views while also being integral to elite culture. The book explores literature's status as a differentiated form of discourse, suggesting what social practices made its role possible and offering an innovative model for the reader's engagement with these subtle and complex ancient works. The book also surveys the social and ideological context of literature and proposes readings of the main tales, discourses, and teachings. The conclusion sets the readings in a broad context, while an appendix surveys the entire range of surviving texts.Trade Review'[T]he book reviewed here certainly represents a landmark. It is the first monograph devoted to an integral study and interpretation of the entire corpus of literature preserved from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom.' Joachim Friedrich Quack, Freie Universitat Berlin, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 124.2 'This is an extremely important book' Piotr Michalowski, George G. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations University of Michigan 'Dr Parkinson has produced a work which surpasses all that has been written on Egyptian literature of the classicA" period till now.' E. Hornung, Professor Emeritus, University of BaselTable of ContentsPart One: Approaches 1. The Study of Middle Kingdom "Literature" 2. General Considerations: Definitions, Genre, Interpretation Part Two: Context and Intertext 3. Texts and Intertext 4. The Social Context 5. Literature and Culture 6. Literary Form 7. Cultural Themes of Literature Part Three: Readings 8. Tales 9. Discourses and Dialogues 10. Teachings 11. Reading the Poems Appendix 1: Survey of the Middle Kingdom Literary Corpus Appendix 2: Kemit

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Book SynopsisKeats is celebrated as a writer in three forms: lyric verse, narrative verse and letters. All three are represented here in a volume which reprints all the famous odes, a selection os sonnets and other short poems, both versions of HYPERION, extentsive selections from ENDYMION, and the complete ISABELLA, LAMIA and THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. Finally, there-are letters in which Keats discusses his attitude to poetry and to other poets.

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Book SynopsisA dazzling collection of essays on how the best poems work, from the master poet and popular essayistPoetry, Jane Hirshfield has said, is language that foments revolutions of being. In ten eloquent and highly original explorations, she unfolds some of the ways this is done--by the inclusion of hiddenness, paradox, and surprise; by a perennial awareness of the place of uncertainty in our lives; by language''s own acts of discovery; by the powers of image, statement, music, and feeling to enlarge in every direction. Closely reading poems by Dickinson, Bashō, Szymborska, Cavafy, Heaney, Bishop, and Komunyakaa, among others, Hirshfield reveals how poetry''s world-making takes place: word by charged word. By expanding what is imaginable and sayable, Hirshfield proposes, poems expand what is possible. Ten Windows restores us at every turn to a more precise, sensuous, and deepened experience of our shared humanity and of the seemingly limitless means by which tha

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Book SynopsisA rich, multifaceted consideration of the poetry and other writings of Donald Revell

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

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Book SynopsisIn this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.

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Book SynopsisSeven poets of diverse region, gender, sexual orientation, race, and generation. Seven poets linked by experiment and opposition. Robert Kroetsch discusses postmodernism''s history, Fred Wah talks about ethnic hybridity, and Dionne Brand muses on postcolonial struggle and community. Erin Mouré encourages excessiveness while Daphne Marlatt speaks of salvaging. On writing, poetics, and culture, Marie Annharte Baker and Jeff Derksen share their personal perspectives and experiences. Poets Talk brings new insights to the value of inspiration, imagination, and poetic re-invention.Trade Review"In a landscape that seems to favour fewer and fewer reviews of Canadian poetry, poets talk is an impressive and essential collection of critical interviews with poets conducted by Butling, Lecturer Emeritus at The Alberta College of Art and Design, and Susan Rudy, Professor and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Calgary. Published as a companion to their anthology Writing in Our Time: Canada's Radical Poetries in English (1957-2003), forthcoming in March 2005 from Wilfrid Laurier University Press, the interviews are built over long processes of what makes their work work..More and more lately, the gap has been widening in Canadian poetry between those working the innovative poetic and those in the fixed idea, so a collection of interviews with seven poets with very little overlap, yet all working opposition and the innovative poetic, makes for an interesting read. Each interview begins with a short critical introduction of each of the poets; I think everyone should own this book." rob mclennan, blog, http://robmclennan.blogspot.com, March 11, 2005"Reading interviews, I often skip the questions and skim for juicy bits in the answers. Not so with Poets Talk. For Butling and Rudy are active participants, confronting these writers with their blind spots, or prodding and cajoling them into risky and marvelous territory." Meredith Quartermain, Terminal City (Complete review at http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/quarterm/reviews.htm) April 11, 2005"The poets of Poets Talk's title.all share an interest in formal innovation and, to a lesser extent, in constructing a theory of poetics to inform their writing. They spend at least as much time, though, discussing how being part of a community, whether literary, political or both, has influenced their work. This makes a pleasant change from the emphasis on the individual writer...and also reveals, in passing, the genealogy of self-consciously innovative writing in Canada." Alex Rettie, AlbertaViews, April/May 2005"Readers of these conversational interviews will want to explore the poetry and a bibliography of "Works Cited" will be most helpful for this purpose. The papers of Robert Kroetsch and Fred Wah can be found at the University of Calgary Archives, for inveterate researchers." Prairie Journal, Fall 2005"Reading Poets Talk is like overhearing an interesting conversation in a café: you eat up the discussion, but you also want to jump in and ask your own questions. The poets would be fascinating tablemates: diverse in terms of sexuality and race, they are united by how they understand language's relation to social power structures, and how they challenge the 'rules' of language to subvert or expose other, often implicit, social rules..[T]he collection usefully counters the popular image of the poet as a figure working in romantic isolation: the work of these writers is rooted in the social and continues to both reproduce and question that space." Alison Calder, Great Plains Quarterly, Summer 2006."[T]hese interviews are most definitely conversations in which the two interviewers bring a great deal of knowledge and understanding of both innovative poetry and the theories and ideologies that ground its varieties to bear..They are also highly entertaining, and offer readers a sense of the poets as people one would enjoy talking with. Poets Talk is a necessary conversation." Douglas Barbour, Canadian Book Review Annual, 2006".Poets Talk has the courage of its convictions, and perhaps more importantly, its interviewers/editors have the curiosity to pursue the slippery matters of poetics and politics in Canadian literature. Asserting the volume 'addresses the challenges of reading "difficult" poetry,' Pauline Butling and Susan Rudy have produced a book that satisfies with its wide-ranging interest in all poetic concerns, not the least because as editors and interviewers they ask the questions that need to be asked about Canadian poetics and its future..By treating the poems as living texts and as canonical artifacts, Butling and Rudy do the poets the service of encouraging discussion about the material and cultural influences on the production of poetry in Canada." Tanis MacDonald, Canadian Literature, vol.190, Autumn 2006."Author interviews have been an important element in Canadian literary criticism, no doubt because ours is a young literature in which the contemporary plays a substantial role..If you are interested in the authors being interviewed, these conversations are all of real value..[T]he up-to-date prefaces to these interviews serve as valuable introductions to the writers and both they and the interviews feature ample selections of poetry, enough to give readers unfamiliar with these writers a sense of what's at stake. As well, Butling and Rudy have brought together highly articulate writers-theoretically informed about the problematics and poetics of their craft-so their conversations are studded with interesting observations." Russell Brown, University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1, Winter 2007"This is a lively, thought-provoking, highly recommendable collection of interviews from the 1990s; presenting indeed 'seven of the most innovative and socially conscious poets writing today'. ... Fittingly, the book opens with Robert Kroetsch, whose great influence on (Western) Canadian writers echoes in some of the interviews. Kroetsch stresses his postcolonial 'dread of systems', the need 'to tell stories for my place or culture', the importance of comedy, postmodern and literary sub-genres for revalidating regional against official history. Six of the seven oncersations in Poets Talk were (co-)conducted by Pauline Butling, with impressive knowledge and subtlety; all interviews 'offer a forum on poetics' in contemporary Canadian poetry, focusing on, and going beyond race, gender, and other (hidden) agendas within a 'multicultural' society. An informative and inspiring read." Markus M. Muller, University of Trier, Germany, British Journal of Canadian Studies, 19.2

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Book SynopsisForms a part of the field of collaborative poetry in North American literature.Trade Review"Edmonton, Alberta poet Douglas Barbour and Phoenix, Arizona poet Sheila E. Murphy have been engaged in an email collaboration, writing alternating six line passages to make up their collaborative work Continuations. A long poem made out of twenty-five sections, the poem encompassed both daily activity, distance of years and thousands of kilometres (or miles, depending) in the form of a sustained long poem..." Thursday, June 22, 2006, www.robmclennan.blogspot.com"Barbour and Murphy...have had a long-standing collaboration. I've seen some collaborations in poetry (meaning ones where the text is jointly composed and merged) fail utterly....But Barbour and Murphy seem to walk the tightrope amazingly well, the merging of their writing seems to sharpen their work instead, as would have been possible, diffusing it..." Simon DeDeo, August 2007. (See full review at http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2006/08/douglas-barbour-shelia-murphy-ix.html)"Continuations is one part Rorschach test, one part word association, other parts dreams, symbols, seasons, colours, mother and father. Nouns are made verbs and words are borrowed from other languages and used as springboards for new words and images..The work is quite remarkable and evokes a response in the reader much like overhearing a conversation between two people who each speak a different language but who nevertheless understand each other perfectly, I often had the sense I was eavesdropping when reading Continuations." Wendy McGrath, the Edmonton Journal, August 27, 2006."It is all the more remarkable that given the distance that separates them, [the two poets] should have connected in such a way as to create a body of work that so masterfully balances each individual poet's prowess with the creation of a third, wholly new, speaking voice. Although Continuations is written in a fixed format of six-line stanzas, that is effectively where the physical structure ends. The language in the poems is allowed to bubble over, to take on an effervescent, joyous quality of its own....It is testament, I believe, to the skill of both writers that the third voice stays strong and true throughout the entire collection. It is a wry and deeply human voice, spurred from subject to subject by Barbour and Murphy's dynamic exchange of ideas, yet touching with unerring clarity on weighty subjects such as art and memory." Jenna Butler (Entire review at: http://poetryreviews.ca/2006/11/07/continuations-by-douglas-barbour-and-sheila-e-murphy/#more-80)The jury awarded the prize to a book with a subtle, innovative cover concept that matched the intertwining texts presented within. The cover design is fresh, contemporary, clean and makes artful use of colour."Continuations is a collaboration between two accomplished poets that began in November 2000 with each poet '[c]omposing alternating six-line passages on a nearly daily basis.' Each of the book's 25 chapters contains between 18 and 23 of these six-line stanzas.. In Continuations, Barbour and Murphy have successfully forged a cohesive style with which to express their diverse interests and perspectives." Lydia Forssander-Song, Canadian Book Review Annual 2007"The fluid tropes and the riffs on fate, choice, and flux go on for several stanzas and provide a nice example of how this quasi-improvisatory collaboration works at its best.... Here, then, the poetic method actually embodies the thematic questioning of fate and choice. The poem takes up many subjects, in fact, though one of the most frequent is the collaborative project itself, its capacity to question the possibility of univocal meaning, grand narratives, its capacity to model a certain ethical stance, a way of opening the self to the other, whether that other be a human interlocutor, the natural environment, a visionary experience, or the sheer materiality of words themselves." University of Toronto Quarterly, Winter 2008

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Book SynopsisHow does the language of poetry conspire with the language of power? This title deals with Indonesia and the Philippines in the early modern and post-1945 periods. It examines the literature and politics of Indonesia and Philippines from the point of view of contemporary thinking.

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Book SynopsisPoetry New Zealand Yearbook, this country's longest-running poetry magazine, showcases new writing from New Zealand and overseas. It presents the work of talented newcomers as well as that of established voices.This issue features the winning entries of the Poetry New Zealand competition, as well as over 100 new poems by writers including Albert Wendt, David Eggleton, Johanna Emeney and Bob Orr. Issue #52 also features essays by Owen Bullock, Jeanita Cush-Hunter, Ted Jenner, Robert McLean and Reade Moore, and reviews of 33 new poetry collections.Continually in print since 1951, when it was established by leading poet Louis Johnson, this annual collection of new poetry, reviews and poetics discussion is the ideal way to catch up with the latest poetry from established and emerging New Zealand poets.

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Book SynopsisEach year Poetry New Zealand, this country's longest-running poetry magazine, rounds up important new poetry, reviews and essays, making it the ideal way to catch up with the latest poetry from both established and emerging New Zealand poets.The packed issue #55 features 180 new poems including by this year's featured poet, Aimee-Jane Anderson-O'Connor and by John Allison, Stephanie Christie, Michele Leggott, Wes Lee, Elizabeth Morton, David Eggleton, Bob Orr and Kiri Piahana-Wong and essays and extensive reviews of new poetry collections.Poems by the winners of both the Poetry New Zealand Award and the Poetry New Zealand Schools Award are among the line-up.

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Book SynopsisThe publishing history of William Wordsworth's writings is complex and often obscure. These two volumes set out, for the first time, a comprehensive, detailed bibliographic description of every edition of Wordsworth's writings up to 1930. The great variety of forms in which readers encountered both authorized and unauthorized texts by Wordsworth is revealed, not only as produced during his lifetime but also during the years of his largest sales, popularity and influence, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The bibliography provides new information about hundreds of printings and their internal and external designs, processes of production, sales, contents and variant texts and illustrations. More than a record of the transmission and reception of Wordsworth and his writings, it offers invaluable new data for the study of British publishing history and the reception and readership of British Romantic literature.

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Book SynopsisGeoffrey Chaucer is widely acknowledged as the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. His texts are studied extensively but, in order to be fully appreciated, they demand a nuanced understanding of the medieval period. This volume provides freshly illuminated access to Chaucer''s writing through an unrivalled repertoire of contextual information and perspectives designed to enhance the independence and critical capacities of his modern readers. The featured essays are written not only by distinguished literary scholars but also by leading international historians. Geoffrey Chaucer in Context is an essential reference tool for anyone studying Chaucer and will help readers to identify his different voices and engage with the complexity and colour of his times with new awareness.Trade Review'This is a breathtaking collection of essays in terms of scope and content, and one not easy to review in so few words … For anyone teaching Chaucer for the first time, at any level, this collection will be an indispensable resource. Even those who have taught Chaucer before have much to gain from it.' A. L. Kaufman, Choice'… many chapters are insightful and, especially, potentially quite useful for classroom teaching … Each piece contains a wealth of riches, and every Chaucerian will surely find something new to enjoy here, with the volume's myriad offerings allowing, as it were, diverse folk diversely to read.' Leah Schwebel, Studies in the Age of ChaucerTable of ContentsIntroduction: contextualising contexts of Chaucer Ian Johnson; Part I. Chaucer as Context: 1. What was Chaucer like? J. A. Burrow; 2. Chaucer's life and literary 'profession' Andrew Galloway; Part II. Books, Discourse and Traditions: 3. Chaucer's linguistic invention Jeremy J. Smith; 4. Chaucer and London English Jeremy J. Smith; 5. Manuscripts and manuscript culture Rhiannon Purdie; 6. Chaucer's books Wendy Scase; 7. Authority Mishtooni Bose; 8. Literary theory and literary roles Ian Johnson; 9. Metre and versification Ad Putter; 10. Dialogue Sarah James; 11. Romance Stephen H. A. Shepherd; 12. Love Corinne Saunders; 13. Chaucer and the classics Vincent Gillespie; 14. The French context Stephanie Kamath; 15. The Italian tradition K. P. Clarke; 16. The English context Marion Turner; 17. Chaucer's competitors Wendy Scase; 18. Boethius Tim William Machan; Part III. Humans, the World and Beyond: 19. Chaucer's God Ryan Perry; 20. Holiness Marlene Villalobos Hennessy; 21. Secularity Alastair Minnis; 22. The self Valerie Allen; 23. Women Rosalynn Voaden; 24. Sex and lust Bruce Holsinger; 25. Animals in Chaucer Gillian Rudd; Part IV. Culture, Learning and Disciplines: 26. Childhood and education Nicholas Orme; 27. Philosophy Stephen Penn; 28. The medieval universe Seb Falk; 29. Medicine and the mortal body Samantha Katz Seal; 30. The law Richard W. Ireland; 31. Art Julian Luxford; 32. Architecture Richard Fawcett; 33. Heraldry, heralds and Chaucer Katie Stevenson; Part V. Political and Social Contexts: 34. Dissent and orthodoxy John H. Arnold; 35. The Church, religion and culture Rob Lutton; 36. England at home and abroad Anne Curry; 37. Chaucer's borders Anthony Bale; 38. Rank and social orders Chris Given-Wilson; 39. Chivalry Craig Taylor; 40. Chaucer and the polity Gwylim Dodd; 41. The economy Christopher Dyer; 42. Towns, villages and the land Mark Bailey; 43. London's Chaucer: A psychogeography John J. Thompson; 44. Everyday life Wendy Childs; 45. Household and home Peter Fleming; 46. Marriage Sally Dixon-Smith; 47. Dress Laura F. Hodges; Part VI. Chaucer Traditions: 48. The first Chaucerians: reception in the 1400s Robert J. Meyer-Lee; 49. The reception of Chaucer in the Renaissance Alex Davis; 50. The Reception of Chaucer from Dryden to Wordsworth Bruce E. Graver; 51. The reception of Chaucer from the Victorians to the twenty-first century David Matthews; 52. Cyber-Chaucer Stephen Kelly.

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Book SynopsisThe first modern critical edition of A Mirror for Magistrates - a collection of tragic verse narratives compiled by William Baldwin in 1559. This volume is aimed at scholars and advanced students of early modern English literature and history, and undergraduates researching the Mirror's influence on early modern English authors.Table of ContentsIntroduction;, The 1559 Mirror for Magistrates; Appendices.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of interdisciplinary essays by a team of international scholars focuses new attention on Lord Rochester's writings; on their political force and social identity, on the worlds from which they emerged and which they disclose, and not least on their unsettling aesthetic power.Table of Contents1. Lord Rochester in the Restoration world: introduction Matthew C. Augustine and Steven N. Zwicker; 2. John Wilmot and the writing of 'Rochester' Jonathan Sawday; 3. From script to print: marketing Rochester Paul Davis; 4. Trading places: Lord Rochester, the Laureate, and the making of literary reputation Matthew C. Augustine; 5. Lord Rochester: a life in gossip Steven N. Zwicker; 6. Rochester and the satiric underground Nicholas von Maltzahn; 7. Rochester, the theatre, and restoration theatricality David Francis Taylor; 8. Rochester and the play of values Christopher Tilmouth; 9. Sexual and religious libertinism in Restoration England Tim Harris; 10. Sex and sovereignty in Rochester's writing Melissa E. Sanchez; 11. Rochester, Behn, and Enlightenment liberty Ros Ballaster; 12. Unfit to print: Rochester and the poetics of obscenity Tom Jones; 13. The perspective of Rochester's letters Nicholas Fisher; 14. Rochester and rhyme Tom Lockwood.

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Book SynopsisJohn Keats (17951821) continues to delight and challenge readers both within and beyond the academic community through his poems and letters. This volume provides frameworks for enhanced analysis and appreciation of Keats and his work, with each chapter supplying a succinct, informed, and accessible account of a particular topic. Leading scholars examine the life and work of Keats against the backdrop of his influences, contemporaries, and reception, and explore the interaction of poet and world. The essays consider his enduring but ever-altering appeal, engage with critical discussion and debate, and offer revisionary close reading of the poems and letters. Students and specialists will find their knowledge of Keats''s life and work enriched by chapters that survey subjects ranging from education, relationships, and religion to art, genre, and film.Trade Review'For new readers of Keats, the problem is staying abreast of 200 fertile years of reviews, criticism and biographies. John Keats in Context works as a curative. The final four essays on reception and Keats scholarship from 1821 to the present (by Kelvin Everest, Francis O'Gorman, Matthew Scott and Richard Marggraf Turley) are essential reading … In O'Neill's volume, Keats is prevented from settling into a single mode - medical student, cultural observer, reader, philosopher, liberal, friend, nurse, lover - but rather given space to exhibit these fluctuations. The strongest essays follow Keats through critical dicta into less settled territory.' Christy Edwall, The Times Literary Supplement'Michael O'Neill's edited collection of essays presents very succinct statements on different aspects of Keats's life and writings … The need for brevity enforces on the writers a compressed succinctness, and the length of each essay is perfect for reading on a half-hour bus journey (I speak from experience). … The diversity and depth of Keats's involvement in the many contexts represented in O'Neill's excellent collection stimulate reflections on the multi-faceted poet's other interests and influences … Michael O'Neill and his team in this handsome and well-conceived volume … have done Keats proud by giving him the contexts which well and truly position him where he wished to be, 'among the English Poets'.' R. S. White, European Romantic Review'This collection of scholarly reassessments in the interests of 'a full-scale reconsideration of Keats's achievement and its enabling contexts' … comprises thirty-four short chapters of around ten pages each, organized into six parts: 'Life, Letters, Texts'; 'Cultural Contexts'; 'Ideas and Poetics'; 'Poetic Contexts'; 'Influence'; and 'Critical Reception'.' William Christie, The Review of English StudiesTable of ContentsPart I. Life, Letters, Texts: 1. Biographies and film Sarah Wootton; 2. Formative years and medical training Nicholas Roe and Hrileena Ghosh; 3. Surgery, science and suffering Nicholas Roe; 4. Fanny Brawne and other women Heidi Thomson; 5. Mortality Shahidha Bari; 6. Travel Jeffrey C. Robinson; 7. Letters Madeleine Callaghan; 8. Manuscripts and publishing history John Barnard; Part II. Cultural Contexts: 9. The Hunt circle and the Cockney School Gregory Leadbetter; 10. London Timothy Webb; 11. Politics Richard Cronin; 12. Sociability Grant F. Scott; 13. The visual and plastic arts Nancy Moore Goslee; 14. Religion and myth Anthony John Harding; Part III. Ideas and Poetics: 15. The Enlightenment and history Porscha Fermanis; 16. Keats and Hazlitt Duncan Wu; 17. Imagination, beauty and truth Charles W. Mahoney; 18. The poetical character Seamus Perry; 19. The senses and sensation Stacey McDowell; 20. Prosody and versification in the Odes Michael O'Neill; Part IV. Poetic Contexts: 21. Poetic precursors (1): Dante and Shakespeare Chris Murray; 22. Poetic precursors (2): Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope Beth Lau; 23. Contemporaries (1) (and immediate predecessors): Tighe, Radcliffe, Southey, Burns, Chatterton, Hunt, Wordsworth Michael O'Neill; 24. Contemporaries (2): Coleridge, Byron, Shelley Jane Stabler; 25. Ballad, romance and narrative Andrew Bennett; 26. Epic and tragedy Susan J. Wolfson; 27. Lyrical genres Christopher R. Miller; Part V. Influence: 28. Tennyson to Wilde Herbert F. Tucker; 29. Hardy, Edward Thomas, Stevens, Bishop, Heaney Michael O'Neill; 30. American writing Mark Sandy; Part VI. Critical Reception: 31. Contemporary reviews Kelvin Everest; 32 Critical reception, 1821–1900 Francis O'Gorman; 33. Keats criticism, 1900–63 Matthew Scott; 34. Keats criticism, post-1963 Richard Marggraf Turley.

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Book SynopsisA History of Nineteenth-Century American Women''s Poetry is the first book to construct a coherent history of the field and focus entirely on women''s poetry of the period. With contributions from some of the most prominent scholars of nineteenth-century American literature, it explores a wide variety of authors, texts, and methodological approaches. Organized into three chronological sections, the essays examine multiple genres of poetry, consider poems circulated in various manuscript and print venues, and propose alternative ways of narrating literary history. From these essays, a rich story emerges about a diverse poetics that was once immensely popular but has since been forgotten. This History confirms that the field has advanced far beyond the recovery of select individual poets. It will be an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and critics of both the literature and the history of this era.Table of ContentsIntroduction: making history: thinking about nineteenth-century American women's poetry Jennifer Putzi and Alexandra Socarides; Part I. 1800–40, American Poesis and the National Imaginary: 1. Claiming Lucy Terry Prince: literary history and the problem of early African-American women poets Mary Louise Kete; 2. Before the poetess: women's poetry in the early republic Tamara Harvey; 3. The passion for poetry in Lydia Sigourney and Elizabeth Oakes Smith Kerry Larson; 4. Album verse and the poetics of scribal circulation Michael C. Cohen; 5. Presents of mind: Lydia Sigourney, gift book culture, and the commodification of poetry Elizabeth A. Petrino; 6. The friendship elegy Desirée Henderson; 7. Gendered Atlantic: Lydia Sigourney and Felicia Hemans Gary Kelly; Part II. 1840–65, Unions and Disunion: 8. Women, Transcendentalism, and The Dial: poetry and poetics Michelle Kohler; 9. Poets of the loom, spinners of verse: working-class women's poetry and The Lowell Offering Jennifer Putzi; 10. Women's transatlantic poetic network Páraic Finnerty; 11. Making and unmaking a canon: American women's poetry and the nineteenth-century anthology Alexandra Socarides; 12. 'What witty sally': Phoebe Cary's poetics of parody Faith Barrett; 13. Nineteenth-century American women's poetry of slavery and abolition Eric Gardner; 14. Fever-dreams: antebellum Southern women poets and the Gothic Paula Bennett; 15. The Civil War language of flowers Eliza Richards; 16. Poetry and bohemianism Joanna Levin and Edward Whitley; Part III. 1865–1900, Experiment and Expansion: 17. Women poets and American literary realism Elizabeth Renker; 18. Verse forms Cristanne Miller; 19. Braided relations: towards a history of nineteenth-century American Indian women's poetry Robert Dale Parker; 20. Frances Harper and the poetry of reconstruction Monique-Adelle Callahan; 21. (Hear the bird): Sarah Piatt and the dramatic monologue Jess Roberts; 22. Women writers and the hymn Claudia Stokes; 23. Women poets, child readers Angela Sorby; 24. Emma Lazarus transnational Shira Wolosky; 25. The creation of Emily Dickinson and the study of nineteenth-century American women's poetry Mary Loeffelholz.

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Book SynopsisAscanius is the most prominent child hero in Virgil''s Aeneid. He accompanies his father from Troy to Italy and is present from the first book of the epic to the last; he is destined to found the city of Alba Longa and the Julian family to which Caesar and Augustus both belonged; and he hunts, fights, makes speeches, and even makes a joke. In this first book-length study of Virgil''s Ascanius, Anne Rogerson demonstrates the importance of this character not just to the Augustan family tree but to the texture and the meaning of the Aeneid. As a figure of prophecy and a symbol both of hopes for the future and of present uncertainties, Ascanius is a fusion of epic and dynastic desires. Compelling close readings of the representation and reception of this understudied character throughout the Aeneid expose the unexpectedly childish qualities of Virgil''s heroic epic.Trade Review'This fine and stimulating book discusses multivalent and slippery prophecies, significant names and their etymologies, and especially the importance of variant and inconsistent versions of myth.' James J. O'Hara, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. The heir and the spare; 3. Old names and new; 4. Andromache and Dido; 5. Trojan games; 6. Trojan fire; 7. Protecting Ascanius; 8. Growing up; 9. Relegating Ascanius; 10. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an innovative approach to the Hispano-Roman Christian poet Prudentius and his poetry. It is a breakthrough in Prudentian scholarship which unifies the differing disciplines of history, archaeology, literature and art history in arguing that Prudentius and his envisaged Spanish audience cannot be fully understood in isolation from their environment in late fourth- and early fifth-century Spain. Paula Hershkowitz focuses on Prudentius'' Peristephanon, his collection of verses celebrating the deaths of martyrs, and places these poems within the context of Prudentius'' world, uniquely employing material, visual and textual remains as evidence for its religious, social and cultural affiliations. It also draws on this material evidence to contextualise Prudentius'' awareness of the significance of the visual as a means of promoting beliefs against the background of this crucial formative period in religious history when many of his Spanish audience were not yet fully commiTrade Review'Hershkowitz's book is a solid contribution to knowledge on Prudentius and his historical context. Understanding how the poet related to his contemporary audience and material culture in fourth-century Hispania sheds new light on his Peristephanon and refutes a number of tautological assertions found in previous scholarship. This book will definitely be very useful for those interested in Late Antiquity and late Latin poetry, as well as early Christian art, history and society.' Rosario Moreno Soldevila, Bryn Mawr Classical Review'… welcome scholarly monography by Paula Hershkowitz … has a firm grasp of the archaeological literature in Spanish and English and introduces English-speaking readers to a range of materials that they would otherwise be unlikely to know. The Spanish bibliography is extraordinarily rich and extensive, and Hershkowitz elegantly negotiates the two different scholarly worlds. Her work merits a place next to the useful volumes of Michael Kulikowski and Kim Bowes that will be well known to readers.' PlekosTable of Contents1. An introduction to Prudentius: a Spanish poet for the martyrs; 2. Prudentius' audience: society and religious belief in late antique Hispania; 3. The Peristephanon and the martyr cults in Roman Spain; 4. Visual culture and martyrs: Prudentius, painter of pictures in words; 5. Prudentius' poetry in the context of the late antique culture of Hispania; 6. An epilogue for a Christian poet.

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