Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book SynopsisThis original and enlightening book casts fresh light on Shakespeare by examining the lives of his relatives, friends, fellow-actors, collaborators and patrons both in their own right and in relation to his life. Well-known figures such as Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton are freshly considered; little-known but relevant lives are brought to the fore, and revisionist views are expressed on such matters as Shakespeare''s wealth, his family and personal relationships, and his social status. Written by a distinguished team, including some of the foremost biographers, writers and Shakespeare scholars of today, this enthralling volume forms an original contribution to Shakespearian biography and Elizabethan and Jacobean social history. It will interest anyone looking to learn something new about the dramatist and the times in which he lived. A supplementary website offers imagined first-person audio accounts from the featured subjects.Trade Review'Wonderfully conceived and executed, and drawing on the expertise of some of the finest literary historians at work today, The Shakespeare Circle offers a richly rewarding alternative to the 'cradle to grave' biography, allowing us to see Shakespeare afresh through the lives of his friends, relatives, neighbours, fellow actors and rivals.' James Shapiro, Columbia University, New York'Anyone who reads these collected biographical essays and sketches will come to know Shakespeare himself better.' Dame Margaret Drabble, from the Afterword'Full of fresh and fascinating detail, The Shakespeare Circle zooms out for the long view, linking the life of the playwright to the many different lives that surrounded him. A completely new way of understanding Shakespearian biography.' Andrew Dickson, author of Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe'Stanley Wells [is the] doyen of Shakespeare studies … As the novelist Margaret Drabble observes in her afterword, we should not be surprised that Shakespeare's life still yields surprises - but invariably we are.' Jerry Bruton, Financial Times'… a remarkable collection …' Charles Nicholl, London Review of Books'For readers in search of Shakespeare, this collection holds out the promise of discovery, anticipating more evidence of collaboration, heralding fresh findings which may be gleaned from the ongoing archeologic dig at New Place, and issuing a call for scholars to pursue Shakespeare's missing papers, which might be discovered in the possession of descendants of the Barnard family. Its essays are distinguished by their thought-provoking research and fertile re-examination of the documentary record, creating intersections that generate fresh perspectives and invite the reader to imagine new narratives.' The Shakespeare NewsletterTable of ContentsGeneral introduction Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; Part I. Family: 1. His mother Mary Shakespeare Michael Wood; 2. His father John Shakespeare David Fallow; 3. His siblings Catherine Richardson; 4. His sister's family: the Harts Cathy Shrank; 5. His wife Anne Shakespeare and the Hathaways Katherine Scheil; 6. His daughter Susanna Hall Lachlan Mackinnon; 7. His son-in-law John Hall Greg Wells; 8. His son Hamnet Shakespeare Graham Holderness; 9. His daughter Judith and the Quineys Germaine Greer; 10. His granddaughter Lady Elizabeth Barnard René Weis; 11. His 'cousin': Thomas Greene Tara Hamling; Part II. Friends and Neighbours: 12. A close family connection: the Combes Stanley Wells; 13. Schoolfriend, publisher and printer Richard Field Carol Chillington Rutter; 14. Living with the Mountjoys David Kathman; 15. Ben Jonson David Riggs; 16. Richard Barnfield, John Weever, William Basse and other encomiasts Andrew Hadfield; 17. Last things: Shakespeare's neighbours and beneficiaries Susan Brock; Part III. Colleagues and Patrons: 18. His fellow dramatists and early collaborators Andy Kesson; 19. His theatre friends: the Burbages John H. Astington; 20. His fellow actors Will Kemp, Robert Armin and other members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men Bart Van Es; 21. His literary patrons Alan H. Nelson; 22. His collaborator George Wilkins Duncan Salkeld; 23. His collaborator Thomas Middleton Emma Smith; 24. His collaborator John Fletcher Lucy Munro; 25. His editors John Heminges and Henry Condell Paul Edmondson; Closing remarks Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; Afterword Margaret Drabble; Index.

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Book SynopsisGeoffrey Chaucer is the best-known and most widely read of all medieval British writers, famous for his scurrilous humour and biting satire against the vices and absurdities of his age. Yet he was also a poet of passionate love, sensitive to issues of gender and sexual difference, fascinated by the ideological differences between the pagan past and the Christian present, and a man of science, knowledgeable in astronomy, astrology and alchemy. This concise book is an ideal starting point for study of all his major poems, particularly The Canterbury Tales, to which two chapters are devoted. It offers close readings of individual texts, presenting various possibilities for interpretation, and includes discussion of Chaucer''s life, career, historical context and literary influences. An account of the various ways in which he has been understood over the centuries leads into an up-to-date, annotated guide to further reading.Trade Review'… [this book] conveys a continuing enjoyment and delight in reading and interpreting Chaucer's writings. By mixing the experience of a lengthy teaching career with the authority of his widely admired scholarship, Minnis encourages us to pause, observe, take stock, and share the wonders and conundrums of Chaucer's achievement. We are in the hands of an expert guide who knows his own mind without being overbearing in the manner of Chaucer's overinformed, loquacious eagle in the House of Fame. Instead he is plain-speaking and confident even in acknowledging the limits of his own eagle-eyed interpretations.' Peter Brown, SpeculumTable of ContentsIntroduction: life and historical contexts; 1. Love and lore: the shorter poems; 2. Fictions of antiquity: Troilus and Criseyde and The Legend of Good Women; 3. The Canterbury Tales, I: war, love, laughter; 4. The Canterbury Tales, II: experience and authority; Afterword; Guide to further reading.

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Book SynopsisModern readings of the Roman poet Catullus'' work have always been constrained by doubts about the surviving text. Does the sequence of our corpus reflect the artistically coherent and meaningful arrangement of the poems? Why are the various parts of the collection so jarringly different in content and emotional tone? To what extent, if at all, can we explain these shifts by appealing to Catullus'' famously vivid portrayals of his emotions and life circumstances? Catullus Through his Books argues that we possess three separate books of poems designed by the poet himself; at key moments in these books, the poems dramatise the creative activity of their own composition, embedding apparent autobiographical details and purportedly revealing the poet''s intentions and goals. These dramas of composition direct us through the poems, integrating our understanding of each part and generating a holistic vision of Catullus as poet of self-destroying longing and irreparable loss.Trade Review'… a book with which every expert of Catullus will have to confront himself and that certainly testifies the intelligence, acuity and even the esprit de finesse of its author.' Sergio Audano, Resenas ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction; Prolegomenon to the Catullus problem; 1. Ax (Poems 52-60); 2. A (Poems 1-51); 3. B (Poems 61-64) and C1 (65-68b); 4. C2 (Poems 69-116); Conclusion: two interpretive applications; Bibliography; Index; Index Locorum.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the miscommunications of the prophet Cassandra - cursed to prophesy the truth but never to be understood until too late - in Greek and Latin poetry. Using insights from the field of translation studies, the book focuses on the dialogic interactions that take place between the articulation and the realization of Cassandra''s prophecies in five canonical ancient texts, stretching from Aeschylus'' to Seneca''s Agamemnon. These interactions are dogged by confusion and misunderstanding, but they also show a range of interested parties engaged in creatively ''translating'' meaning for themselves from Cassandra''s ostensibly nonsensical voice. Moreover, as the figure of Cassandra is translated from one literary work into another, including into the Sibyl of Virgil''s Aeneid, her story of tragic communicative disability develops into an optimistic metaphor for literary canon-formation. Cassandra invites us to reconsider the status and value of even the most riddling of female prophets in ancient poetry.Trade Review'… an exceptionally detailed and minutely researched text which explores how the figure of Cassandra is used to effect within the texts it examines … Yet the argument of the study remains clear throughout and will encourage its reader to re-examine all that they know of Cassandra, seeking out texts with which they are unfamiliar; a successful result for any academic study.' Anactoria Clarke, Classics For All'… this rich monograph provides a multifaceted view of Cassandra from Aeschylus to Seneca that stresses again and again Cassandra's own polyvalence as a figure of translation.' Christopher Trinacty, Classical PhilologyTable of ContentsIntroduction: translating Cassandra; 1. Understanding too much: Aeschylus' Agamemnon; 2. Rewriting her-story: Euripides' Trojan Women; 3. A scholarly prophet: Lycophron's Alexandra; 4. Greco-Roman Sibylline scripts: Virgil's Aeneid; 5. Cassandra translated: Seneca's Agamemnon; Conclusion: transposing Cassandra.

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Book SynopsisThis book evaluates twentieth century British and Global Anglophone literature in relation to the growth of ecological thinking in the United Kingdom. Restless modernists such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, and Jean Rhys developed a literary aesthetic of slowness and immediacy to critique the exhausting and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and industrial life. At the same time, environmental groups such as the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves and the Smoke Abatement League moved from economic registers of ''value'' and ''trust'' to more cultural terms of ''recovery'' and ''regeneration'' to position nature as a healing force in the postwar era. Through a variety of literary, scientific, and political texts, an environmental movement emerged alongside the fast, fragmented, and traumatic aspects of modernization in order to sustain place and community in terms of lateral influence and ecological dependence.Trade Review'… a significant contribution to this nascent but rapidly growing body of modernist eco-criticism.' William Kupinse, James Joyce Literary Supplement'In his introduction, Kalaidjian expresses the need for both modernism and ecocriticism to advance each other and not “simply reinterpret one through the other's lens”. Exhausted Ecologies therefore has much to offer to those studying Europe and its empires, environmental historians, modernist literary critics, and ecocritical scholars alike. Kalaidjian's work here overall is timely in light of the increasing threat of climate disaster, as well as a fascinating view into the connections between modernist literature and the beginnings of modern environmentalism.' Leanna Lostoski-Ho, EuropeNowTable of ContentsIntroduction: places of rest; 1. Nature's reserves: rural exhaustion, inertia, and generative aesthetics; 2. Urban environs: James Joyce and the politics of shared atmosphere; 3. Waste lands: dark pastoral in T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and Djuna Barnes; 4. Uprooting empire: Jean Rhys and unrest in imperial centers; 5. Decolonizing ecology: Chinua Achebe's new forms of unease; Conclusion: the limits of modernist regeneration.

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Book SynopsisIt is widely recognised that the epics of Homer are closely related to the earlier mythology and literature of the Ancient Near East, above all the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. But how should this influence our response to the meaning and message of either poem? This book responds to this question through an experiment in intertextual reading. It begins by exploring Gilgamesh as a work of literature in its own right, and uses this interpretation as the springboard for a new reading of the Homeric epic, emphasising the movement within the poem - beginning from a world of heroic action and external violence, but shifting inwards to the thoughts and feelings of Achilles as he responds to the certainty that his own death will follow that of his best friend. The book will be of interest both to specialists and to those coming to ancient literature for the first time.Trade Review'Engaging, up-to-date, and deeply informed across disciplinary lines, this is an important resource for those interested in classics, mythology, and world literature.' P. E. Ojennus, ChoiceTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Divinity, humanity and wisdom; 3. Gilgamesh and glory; 4. Gilgamesh confronts death; 5. Interlude on Homer and the muse; 6. The race of half-gods; 7. The plan of Zeus; 8. The coming of Achilles; 9. The strife of the Iliad; 10. Achilles looks inward; 11. The death of the friend; 12. Achilles responds; 13. From lamentation to vengeance; 14. Achilles like a lion; 15. Mortality and wisdom; 16. The truths of lamentation; Conclusion: the slender-winged fly.

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Book SynopsisGreco-Roman martial epic poetry, from Homer and Virgil to Neronian and Flavian epic, is obsessed with the treatment of dead bodies. This book provides an extensive survey and analysis of corpse mistreatment and funeral violation in Latin epic poetry, thereby enabling a fundamental re-evaluation of violence and warfare.Trade Review'… M.'s thoroughly researched and authoritative study is undoubtedly a very valuable contribution to the field and will be of interest mainly to readers already familiar with the epics of Lucan, Statius, Valerius Flaccus and Silius Italicus.' Giles Gilbert, Classics for All'… energetic and creative … an excellent review of the poets' historical circumstances, which may account for some of the differences in their approach to corpse abuse.' Neil Bernstein, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsPreface; Notes on texts and abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Setting the stage: corpse abuse in Homer and Virgil; 2. Decapitation in Lucan, Statius, and Silius Italicus; 3. Unburied past: Lucan's Bellum ciuile; 4. Argonautic abuses: Valerius Flaccus' (and Apollonius') Argonautica; 5. Funeral 'rights': Statius' Thebaid; 6. Grave encounters: Silius Italicus' Punica; Epilogue: a post mortem; Bibliography; Index locorum; General index.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes through one aspect of its relationship with other texts. The particular intertextual relationship examined is that with the Histories of Herodotus, focusing on the presence of the latter text in the former in terms of the poem''s employment of characteristics and features of historiographical discourse, narrative structures, presentation and description of characters, aetiology and patterns of explanation, portrayal of ethnic groups, depiction of kingship and tyranny; the relationship between particular passages in both texts is also explored. The consequences for the interpretation of the poem are profound: the Argonautica employs Herodotean historiography as a key intertext in order to manipulate and frustrate the reader''s generic expectations for an epic poem and to complicate the relationship between the contemporary Hellenistic Mediterranean (and its kingdoms) and the distant mythological Argonautic past.Trade Review'An excellent resource for those engaged in advanced study of classics.' S. M. Burstein, Choice'… this is a valuable contribution to the study of Herodotus and Apollonius and the ways that historiography in general and Herodotus in particular can influence epic.' Laura Marshall, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Receiving Herodotus; 3. Creating authorities; 4. Explaining the past; 5. Telling stories; 6. Greeks and non-Greeks; 7. Kings and leaders; 8. Conclusions and consequences.

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Book SynopsisA dedicated study of how classical Latin erotic elegy was read in the Renaissance and helped shape the emergence of English love poetry. This book will be of interest to scholars of early modern literature and classical literature, in particular love, gender, sex and the body.Trade Review'… the most enjoyable thing about this volume is the author's delight in the poetry she presents to the reader, which is described within the space of a couple of pages as 'exuberant', 'un-anxious', 'creative' and 'confident, even blasé', with an 'untroubled “pick-and-mix” approach' to reception that is 'programmatically promiscuous'. For G.,[Linda Grant] Renaissance classical reception is a playful and imaginative adventure-and her enthusiasm carries the reader along.' Cora Beth Knowles, Classics for AllTable of ContentsIntroduction: 'All that rout of lascivious poets that wrote epistles and ditties of love'; 1. 'Ovid was there and with him were Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus': transmission, teaching and receptions of Roman love elegy in the Renaissance; 2. 'For truth and faith in her is laid apart': women's words and the construction of masculinity in Catullus' Lesbia poems and Thomas Wyatt; 3. ''Fool', said my muse to me': reading metapoetics in Propertius 2.1 and 4.7, and Astrophil and Stella 1; 4. 'In six numbers let my work rise, and subside in five': authority and impotence in Amores 1.5 and 3.7, Donne's 'To his mistress going to bed', and Nashe's Choice of Valentines; 5. 'My heart … with love did inly burn': female authorship and desire in Sulpicia, Mary Sidney's Antonie and Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 1.

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Book SynopsisA Poetry Journal to Poem Your Days Away! Don't wait for inspiration to strike! Whether you're an aspiring or published poet, this book will help you get in a frame of mind to make creative writing a consistent part of your life. With prompts from Robert Lee Brewer's popular Writer's Digest blog, Poetic Asides, you'll find 125 ideas for writing poems along with the journaling space you need to respond to the prompt.   • 125 unexpected poetry prompts such as from the perspective of an insect, about a struggle, or including the word change   • Plenty of blank space to compose your own poems   • Tips on unique poetic forms and other poetry resourcesPerfectly sized to carry in a backpack or purse, you can jot down ideas for poems as you're waiting in line for a morning coffee or take it to the park for a breezy afternoon writing session. Wherever y

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Book SynopsisA charming new collection of previously unpublished and uncollected poems by Sir John Betjeman.John Betjeman's unforgettable poems on landscape and suburbia, desire and death, faith and doubt, helped to establish him as the beloved voice of a nation. Yet the ten books of poetry he published individually, later assembled in the Collected Poems, were an incomplete representation of his poetic oeuvre. Many poems published in journals or magazines were excluded from Betjeman's books by him or his editors and a substantial number of finished poems were never printed at all, remaining unknown to readers until now.In this exquisite new edition of Betjeman's verse editor Kevin Gardner promises new treasures for Betj's' admirers the world over. Betjeman wrote many of these poems in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when he was still developing his unique poetic voice. They reveal a young poet experimenting with both Modernism and post-Romanticism, yet influenced by Shelley and PopeTrade ReviewKevin J Gardner has dug up 80 or so lost or neglected poems from the archives, which show the full range of Betjeman’s oeuvre over half a century. * The Sunday Times *A marvellous gathering of hitherto hidden Betjeman, varied and surprising. -- Anthony Thwaite, poet and editor of Philip Larkin’s 'Collected Poems'The Betjeman music, but satire, fear and dissonance are its vivid companions. -- Peter Scupham, poetTable of ContentsPreface Introduction Notes HARVEST BELLS: NEW AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS A.D. 1980 Ye Olde Cottage (Quite Near a Town) The Song of a Cold Wind A Sentimental Poem Sweets and Cake Dentist's Dining Room Sezincote Pastoral Incident A Squib on Norman Cameron Blisland, Bodmin Home Thoughts from Exile Work Popular Song Nine O'Clock Emily Wren The Tamarisks Sonnet Wisteria Branches A Poem by My Old Bear Archibald Harvest Bells Country Silence Channel Crossing Eighteenth-Century Pint Lerici 1930 Evangelistic Hymn Sudden Conversion Zion The Outer Suburbs St Aloysius Church, Oxford Charterhouse School Song London Spreading Satires of Circumstance The Heartless Heart's Ease: A Lament by Tom Moore The Most Popular Girl in School The Electrification of Lambourne End Edgware The Wykehamist at Home Tea with the Poets A Poet's Prayer On Miss E. Badger, 9 Beverley Gardens, Wembley Park, Middlesex, Who Sat Opposite to Me on the GWR, Ascension Day 1939 Big Business Chestnut Hair Clifton 1940 Order Reigns in Warsaw Prologue Specially Written for the 70th Anniversary Gaiety Theatre, Dublin To Uffington Ringers Rosemary Hall The Tailwaggers' Friend Margate, 1946 A Memory of 1940 Aberdeen In Overcliffe October Bells The Corporation Architect The Weary Journalist The Death of the University Reader of Spanish A Curate for Great Kirkby Clay and Spirit Not Necessarily Leeds The St Paul's Appeal The Divine Society Village Wedding John Edward Bowle 1962 Prologue Spoken by Peggy Ashcroft at the Opening of Peggy Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon, 5 November 1962 A Good Investment St Mary's Chapel of Ease The Finest Work in England: I.K. Brunel La Cometa Moraira A Lament for Middlesex Castle Howard Lines Read at the Wing Airport Resistance Movement Protest Meeting, June 1970 Sonnet Revenge St Mary-le-Strand My Landlady's Dog Guyhirn Chapel of Ease St Bartholomew's Hospital Who Took Away... Lines on the Unmasking of the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Dawlish Notes on the poems Appendix A: A Portuguese Translation Appendix B: A Possible Attribution

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Book Synopsis'A remarkable book...wise and arresting' Sarah Winman'Exquisite... a deeply insightful memoir which charts our fundamental longings for place and identity, and ultimately our yearnings for love.' Helena KennedySingle, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, a realisation comes to Peggy quietly, and clearly: she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny intense. There are questions about past lives, about capability and expectations.Asking big questions about identity and belonging, as well as about what makes a mother - and a home - this is a beautiful meditation on how the legacies of childhood might be overcome by a mother's determination to love.'Extremely moving...an unusually thoughtful take on becoming a mother, enabled by removing babyhood and biology.' GuardianTrade ReviewExquisite. Beautifully written, The Wild Track is a deeply insightful memoir which charts displacement and our fundamental longings for place and identity and ultimately our yearnings for love. -- Helena KennedyThis memoir is a triumph; an extraordinarily wise and rich analysis of what it means to belong, to a place and to beloved others. Deeply moving, richly allusive, surprising and thought-provoking, The Wild Track deserves to be one of the great successes of 2021. -- Bel MooneyA remarkable book. Wise and arresting in its candour. -- Sarah WinmanEnlightening...The Wild Track is a passionate, heartfelt exploration of a woman who wants to be a mother. I found it utterly compelling. -- Alex WheatleExtremely moving...an unusually thoughtful take on becoming a mother, enabled by removing babyhood and biology. A testament to the joy of finding home and belonging...the precariousness of the care system is painfully felt and it's this that makes Reynolds's book such a necessary contribution to the literature on motherhood. * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis'Making Darkness Light is an illumination' Adam Phillips'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' SpectatorFor most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being.Revolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more.Making Darkness Light shows how these complexities and contradictions played out in Milton's fascination with oppositions - Heaven and Hell, light and dark, self and other - most famously in his epic poem Paradise Lost. It explores the way such brutal contrasts define us and obscure who we really are, as the author grapples with his own sense of identity and complex relationship with Milton. Retracing Milton's footsteps through seventeenth century London, Tuscany and the Marches, he vividly brings Milton's world to life and takes a fresh look at his key works and ideas around the nature of creativity, time and freedom of expression. He also illustrates the profound influence of Milton's work on writers from William Blake to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges.This is a book about Milton, that also speaks to why we read and what happens when we choose over time to let another's life and words enter our own. It will change the way you think about Milton forever.Trade ReviewMaking Darkness Light is elegant, nuanced, and comprehensive. Moshenska gives us a fresh and vivid account of Milton as an individual and a poet while pushing beyond the boundaries of conventional biography. Blending the personal with the historical and the literary, the results are compelling' -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out GirlJoe Moshenska's superb new biography of Milton is, like the poetry of his subject, a miracle of form, moving from moments of arresting detail to vast contemplations of time, history, and art, all set within an intimate narrative that is at once deeply embedded in its historical moment and aware of how that history connects through other moments to the present. The result is a stirring and compelling account of how great poetry gets written and gets read -- Edward Wilson-Lee, author of The Catalogue of Shipwrecked BooksMoshenska has written a new kind of literary biography. At once glancingly a memoir, a rivetingly informative biography, and a fascinating reading of Milton as poet, scholar and ordinary man in his everyday life, Making Darkness Light is an illumination. Milton and everything and everybody around him are seen in a quite different, intriguing light. -- Adam Phillips, author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored and Becoming FreudJoe Moshenska is professionally committed to creating a readership for Milton among those for whom Genesis, Virgil, Homer and Tasso are closed books . . . A great imaginative exercise . . . His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs -- A.N. Wilson, SpectatorStrikingly original . . . a poetic tour of 17th-century England . . . Literature lovers of all sorts will find something to savor here -- Publishers WeeklyOxford literature professor Moshenska takes a fresh perspective on John Milton (1608-1674), the art of biography, and the experience of reading . . . An inspired biographical and autobiographical journey -- KirkusMaking Darkness Light is unlike any book on Milton I have ever read. It is often densely erudite, but also richly inventive . . . [its] avoidance of easy certainties is typical of this subtle, challenging book -- John Carey, The Sunday TimesJoe Moshenska . . . is astute in placing music, especially rhythm (a word neither Milton nor Shakespeare used) and its visceral relationship to the body, at the root of this original, penetrating, cleverly constructed and occasionally frustrating biography -- Paul Lay, The TimesTantalisingly different and new...an extraordinary, seductive work of intellectual imagination -- Financial TimesMoshenska . . . brings his own experiences into this searching creative portrait of the visionary English poet. The book . . . comes alive in its alert close readings -- New York TimesMaking Darkness Light is not a conventional biography . . . despite the ambitious and demanding nature of his project, Moshenska writes with humility and agility -- Literary ReviewOf course, anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the facts of Milton's life and the context for his poetry will certainly find what they're looking for here. Making Darkness Light includes not only moments in Milton's life and the landscape of 17th century England as well as close readings of his work. But it's the exploration of what the author describes as one of Milton's deepest occupations, "the place of literature in a life," that sets the book apart. Moshenska has no aspirations to separate the biographer from the biography, and Making Darkness Light is richer for his presence throughout the book -- Jessie Gaynor, Lit Hub Senior EditorMoshenska knows his way around Milton's world... Making Darkness Light privileges us with a peek inside its author's mind in contemplation of such a life and makes a compelling case that it could be told in no other way -- Boston Globe

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Book SynopsisThere are numerous introductions to poetry and prosody available, but none at once so comprehensive and so accessible as this. With the increasing emphasis on free verse, the past generation has developed a widespread impression that the study of poetic meter is old fashioned—or even that form ‘doesn’t matter’ in poetry. It is an impression that has not been dispelled by the emphasis of some of the existing texts in the area on forms that are now rare or outmoded. The irony is that simultaneously in the past decade interest in formal matters among many poets and literary scholars has been on the increase; the reality is that prosody is today on the cutting edge of literary studies.Stephen Adams’ text provides a full treatment of traditional topics, from the iambic pentameter through other accentual-syllabic rhythms (trochaic, dactylic and so on) and covering as well other metrical types, stanza structure, the sonnet and other standard forms. Adams also includes a variety of topics not covered in most other introductions to the topic; perhaps most significantly, he provides a full chapter on form in free verse. Moreover, he treats rhyme extensively and includes a comprehensive chapter on literary figures. Poetic Designs is thus much more that an introduction to prosody; it is a concise but comprehensive introduction to the nature of poetry in English. It is a book for the general reader and the aspiring writer as well as for the student, a book intended (in the words of the author) to help ‘heighten the experience of poetry.’Trade ReviewOne of the book's most salient strengths is how gracefully the author handles some of the knottiest problems a teacher of prosody will encounter. This is a very strong book." - Annie Finch, Miami University, Ohio."One of the most impressive features is Adams' mastery at introducing various intricacies as they surface in his examples instead of giving lists of rules and the like. Adams' writing style is impeccable, lucid and tightly controlled. He manages to get through a great deal of material quite quickly, without ever sacrificing accuracy and thoroughness." - Demetres Tryphonopoulos, University of New Brunswick"A very good guide to the subject, full of erudition, but also full of pedagogical savvy. There is a fine and informal ear evident throughout." - Don McKay, winner of the Governor General's Award for Poetry"Adams offers help to students and teachers of poetry with his lively, accessible guide to the mechanics of verse. [His] clear and measured examination of the elements of poetry and straight-ahead style make Poetic Designs a valuable resource" - Quill and QuireTable of ContentsAcknowledgements1. Meter and RhythmTHE IMPORTANCE OF PROSODY / The Sound of Meter / Different Metrical Systems and Their Histories / The Meaning of Meter / THE ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC SYSTEM / The Regular Iambic Pentamenter Line / Variation 1: The Reversal of Accent (Trochaic Substitution) / Variation 2: The Principle of Relative Accent (Spondaic and Pyrrhic Substitution) / Variation 3: Added Syllables (Anapestic and Dactylic Subsitution) / Variation 4: Omitted Syllables / SYNTACTIC RHYTHM AND THE LINE UNIT / Rhyme, Alliteration, Assonance and Onomatopoeia / Facility2. Beyond Iambic PentameterACCENTUAL METERS AND THE BALLAD STANZA / The Accentual Meters / THE LONGER AND SHORTER IAMBIC METERS / The Trochaic Meters / The Triple Meters: Anapestic and Dactylic / SYLLABIC AND QUANTITATIVE SYSTEMS3. Stanza and FormTHE DYNAMICS OF STANZA AND FORM: RHYME, LINE AND CLOSURE / Some Standard English Stanzas / Beyond the Single Stanza / Some Virtuoso Pieces / SOME STANDARD VERSE FORMS: FIXED AND NOT SO FIXED: The Sonnet / The French Forms / The Ode4. Figures of SpeechRHETORIC AND FIGURE / THE SCHEMES: Figures of Balance and Parallelism / Figures of Repetition / Figures of Amplification and Omission / Figures of Address / Figures of Syntactic Deviation / Figures of Verbal Play / THE TROPES / Metaphor and Simile / Metonymy and Synecdoche / Personification / Irony and Paradox5. Form in Free VerseLines: The Master Convention of Free Verse / Numbers: Metrical Presences in Free Verse / Figures: Syntactic Patterning in Free Verse / THE MARGINS OF GENRE: Shaped Poetry, Concrete Poetry, Sound Poetry / The Prose PoemAppendix 1: The Terminology of RhymingAppendix 2: Sample Scansions, with CommentaryIndex of SourcesIndex of Names and Terms

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Book SynopsisWalter of Châtillon’s Latin epic on the life of Alexander the Great was a twelfth- and thirteenth-century “best-seller:” scribes produced over two hundred manuscripts. The poem follows Alexander from his first successes in Asia Minor, through his conquest of Persia and India, to his progressive moral degeneration and his poisoning by a disaffected lieutenant. The Alexandreis exemplifies twelfth-century discourses of world domination and the exoticism of the East. But at the same time it calls such dreams of mastery into question, repeatedly undercutting as it does Alexander’s claims to heroism and virtue and by extension, similar claims by the great men of Walter’s own generation. This extraordinarily layered and subtle poem stands as a high-water mark of the medieval tradition of Latin narrative literature.Along with David Townsend’s revised translation, this edition provides a rich selection of historical documents, including other writings by Walter of Châtillon, excerpts from other medieval Latin epics, and contemporary accounts of the foreign and “exotic.”Trade Review“In 1996, David Townsend published a very free but also very good verse translation of the Alexandreis by Walter of Châtillon, one of the most influential poems of the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance.’ This new volume improves upon the earlier translation; it also provides additional materials to shed light on Walter’s other writings, the twelfth-century Latin epic tradition in general, and the medieval Alexander tradition. Townsends elegant and readable English could be used with other translations in a course on medieval epic and romance. It could provide a focal point for students and general readers in understanding the image of Alexander the Great across time. The possibilities are legion.” — Jan. M. Ziolkowski, Harvard University“While the Alexandreis did much to shape the medieval attitude to history, this translation helps to define it.” — The Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionA Note on the TextThe AlexandreisAppendix A: Other Works by Walter of Châtillon Satirical and Moral Poems A Treatise Against the Jews (Tractatus contra Judaeos) The Rhythmical Life of Thomas Becket Appendix B: Latin Epic of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Bernard Silvestris, Cosmographia Alan of Lille, The Plaint of Nature (De planctu Naturae) John of Hauville, The Arch-Lamenter (Architrenius) Joseph of Exeter, The Ylias of Dares Phrygius Henry of Avranches, The Metrical Life of St. Francis (Vita sancti Francisci) Appendix C: The Medieval Alexander Tradition Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander the Great (Historiae Alexandri Magni) The History of Alexander’s Battles (Historia de preliis) The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle Anecdotes of Alexander from John of Salisbury’s Policraticus Appendix D: Twelfth-Century Images of the Foreign, Strange, and Exotic William of Tyre, A History of Things Done in the Territories across the Sea (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum) Gerald of Wales, The Description of Wales (Descriptio Cambriae) From Wonders of the East (De rebus in Oriente mirabilibus) Select BibliographyIndex of Proper Names

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Book SynopsisEdgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems are among the most haunting and indelible in American literature, but critics for decades persisted in seeing Poe as an anomaly, or even an anachronism. His works, with their bizarrely motivated characters and mysterious settings, did not seem to be a part of the literature of early nineteenth-century America. Critics realize now, though, that Poe was even more a part of the contemporary American literary scene than many of his more “nationalistic” peers, and that in much of his work Poe was making commentaries on slavery and Southern social attitudes, technology, the urban landscape, political economy, and other subjects.This Broadview Edition includes a selection of Poe’s poems, tales, and sketches in such diverse modes of writing as tales of the supernatural and psychic conflict, satires and hoaxes, science fiction and detective fiction, and nonfiction essays on literary and social topics. These are supplemented by a selection of contextual documents—newspaper and magazine articles, treatises, and other historical texts—that will help readers understand the social, literary, and intellectual milieus in which Poe wrote.Trade Review“Carefully selected, expertly edited, and judiciously annotated, James M. Hutchisson’s Broadview Edition makes an excellent introduction to Poe’s imaginative and critical writings. Though intended for classroom use, this exciting new edition will appeal to all readers who wish to deepen their appreciation of Edgar Allan Poe, the ‘bad boy’ of American literature.” — Kevin Hayes, University of Central Oklahoma“Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poetry and Tales brilliantly represents the best scholarly material on Poe, delivered in an accessible, conversational tone that will appeal to students. The contents run the gamut from Poe’s notorious and imaginative horror tales to his literary criticism. Moreover, James M. Hutchisson has included examples of Poe’s science fiction stories, detective tales, and the oft-overlooked satires. Instructors and students alike will benefit from this edition’s introduction, timeline, footnotes, and appendices, which help to place Poe within his literary and social timeframe, a consideration too often neglected.” — Amy Branam, Frostburg State UniversityTable of Contents Acknowlegements Introduction Edgar Allan Poe: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Texts Poetry Tales Appendix A: Social and Historical Contexts Appendix B: Literary Contexts Appendix C: Poe on Writers and Writing Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Old French Lancelot-Graal is an important but massive work, providing a place for King Arthur not only in the history of Britain but also in Christian history. This new translation of one section, the Quest of the Holy Grail, will be a flexible addition to courses on medieval literature or romance. The notes and guides are designed to help readers enjoy the text while appreciating its relationship to social and literary history. Appendices include translations of material from two of Chrétien de Troyes’s romances (Perceval and Yvain); translations from other parts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle (the early history of the Grail and the conception of Galahad); and excerpts from apocryphal works (from French versions written at about the same time as the Quest).Trade Review“The Quest of the Holy Grail is a seminal work of medieval literature and still a constant source for allusion, quasi-proverbial citation, and even parody. The canonical version of the story is an early-thirteenth-century Old French prose romance, and Judith Shoaf provides a lucid and readable translation accompanied by an excellent learned introduction in which she situates the Quest in the history of medieval Arthurian romance and explains some of the key concepts of the romance for readers unfamiliar with medieval Arthurian romance and medieval Christian thought. This translation and introduction are clearly the best available for anglophone teachers of undergraduate (or high-school) courses in medieval romance, and scholars of Arthurian romance can learn much from both the introduction and the annotations to the text. This is a brilliant achievement that students and more advanced scholars alike can celebrate.” — Thomas D. Hill, Professor of English and Medieval Studies, Cornell University“Judith Shoaf’s new translation of the Quest of the Holy Grail is essential for anyone encountering the Quest either for the first time or after repeated study. Shoaf’s text surpasses earlier translations in accuracy and readability. Its explanatory notes, always illuminating, are helpfully placed at the bottom of the page rather than at the back of the book. Shoaf’s is the first English translation to include alternative conclusions found in manuscripts of the Quest. Her Introduction is as accessible as it is scholarly, guiding the reader expertly through the Quest, the chivalric and religious culture it portrays, and its place in the Vulgate Cycle and the Grail legend. The translation is richly supplemented with manuscript illustrations, an identification list of proper names, a genealogy of Galahad, and appendices featuring relevant passages from the Quest’s contexts in Arthurian legend and biblical apocrypha.” — Michael Twomey, Professor Emeritus, Ithaca CollegeTable of Contents The Round Table at Pentecost Galahad’s First Adventures Lancelot’s First Adventures Perceval’s Adventures Lancelot’s Adventures, Continued Lord Gawain’s Adventures Bors’s Adventures Galahad’s Adventures, Continued King Solomon’s Ship Galahad, Perceval, Bors, and Perceval’s Sister Lancelot Completes His Quest Galahad Completes His Quest Sarras Alternate Ending Appendix A: Chrétien de Troyes Perceval, or the Story of the Graal: The Three Grail Excerpts The Graal at the Fisher King’s Castle The Quest Is Declared Perceval and the Hermit Yvain, or the Knight of the Lion: Two Episodes Repurposed in the Quest The Serpent and the Lion The Two Daughters of the Lord of the Black Thorn Appendix B: Apocryphal Bible Stories From André de Coutances, The “Gospel of Nicodemus” Joseph of Arimathea after the Crucifixion The Harrowing of Hell The Tree of Mercy The History of the Holy Rood-Tree Jean Beleth’s Summary of the Legend of the Holy Cross Appendix C: Excerpts from the Lancelot-Grail Cycle History of the Holy Grail: The Nature of the Grail Object Joseph of Arimathea The Priesthood of Josephus Nascien and the Grail The Book of Lancelot du Lac: The Grail Procession and the Conception of Galahad Works Cited

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Book SynopsisPaul Revere''s daring midnight ride made him an instant celebrity, right? Wrong! At first, no one in Boston even wanted to mention it. Jeff Lantos pulls apart Longfellow''s famous poem "Paul Revere''s Ride" to unravel how and why he twisted historical facts.Do you know how historically inaccurate "Paul Revere''s Ride" is? And do you know why? Author Jeff Lantos pulls apart Longfellow''s poem, tells the real story about Paul Revere''s historic ride, and sets the record right. Not only that, he lays out when and why Longfellow wrote his poem and explains how without it, many of us wouldn''t know much about Revere at all. This is Steve Sheinkin for the younger set, complete with an American mystery and a look at two important moments in the history of our country.A 2022 ILA Children''s and Young Adults'' Book Awards Honor recipient

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Book SynopsisDrawing on the methods of textual and reception studies, book history, print culture research, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary study of James Thomson’s The Seasons (1730) understands the text as marketable commodity and symbolic capital which throughout its extended affective presence in the marketplace for printed literary editions shaped reading habits. At the same time, through the addition of paratexts such as memoirs of Thomson, notes, and illustrations, it was recast by changing readerships, consumer fashions, and ideologies of culture. The book investigates the poem’s cultural afterlife by charting the prominent place it occupied in the visual cultures of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. While the emphasis of the chapters is on printed visual culture in the form of book illustrations, the book also features discussions of paintings and other visual media such as furniture prints. Reading illustrations of iconographic moments from The Seasons as paratextual, interpretive commentaries that reflect multifarious reading practices as well as mentalities, the chapters contextualise the editions in light of their production and interpretive inscription. They introduce these editions’ publishers and designers who conceived visual translations of the text, as well as the engravers who rendered these designs in the form of the engraving plate from which the illustration could then be printed. Where relevant, the chapters introduce non-British illustrated editions to demonstrate in which ways foreign booksellers were conscious of British editions of The Seasons and negotiated their illustrative models in the sets of engraved plates they commissioned for their volumes.Trade ReviewRanging widely without sacrificing what is an exhaustive analysis of single images, the book wears its encyclopedic knowledge lightly.... What distinguishes James Thomson’s The Seasons, Print Culture, and Visual Interpretation,1730–1842 and what will win it a broad audience is Jung’s salutary commitment to “reconnecting” book-historical inquiries to art-critical discussions of illustration or iconotext... This focus on both the technological and cultural contexts for book illustration will attract a broad, interdisciplinary audience... Fusing book history with art criticism toinvestigate the intersections of technology, marketing, and eighteenth-century poetic reception, Jung’s study promises to reshape the field of book illustration studies. * ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews *More than 100 reproductions, many from the author's own collection, make this book impressive as a labor of love as well as of scholarship.... Jung has made a significant contribution to Thomson scholarship and the history of eighteenth century book illustration. * New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century *Sandro Jung’s study of The Seasons is a fresh and stimulating history of the publishing and marketing of one of the most popular texts of the eighteenth century. But it is also far more than that. This book radically extends our understanding of the cultural and economic value of Thomson’s poem by investigating its visual readings and its complex cultural afterlife within and far beyond Britain as the poem’s imagery morphed across an astonishing range of visual arts, including engravings in books, prints, cartoons, ceramics, furniture, and music. The result is a persuasive demonstration of the intersections between technology, aesthetics, commerce, market, and reception. -- James Raven, University of Essex and Magdalene College, University of CambridgeHere is the writing of a fresh new chapter in the scholarship of The Seasons. Consideration of print, paratexts, pictures, price, and pocket diaries all make for the richest contextualisation yet of the production and consumption of James Thomson's poetic masterpiece from its first appearance to the early decades of the nineteenth century. -- Gerard Carruthers, Francis Hutcheson Professor of Scottish Literature, University of GlasgowTable of ContentsList of FiguresAcknowledgments Reading the Visual Paratext Editions of The Seasons: 1730–1798 Paintings and Prints Subscription Ventures, Pocket Diaries, and Up-Market Prints Editions of The Seasons: 1802–1842 Epilogue

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Book SynopsisThis stirring new version of the great Babylonian epic includes material from the recently discovered "monkey tablet" as well as an Introduction, timeline, glossary, and correspondences between lines of the translation and those of the original texts. "A comprehensive Introduction with a light touch (Beckman), a poetic rendering with verve and moxie (Lombardo): This edition of the colossal Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic should satisfy all readers who seek to plumb its wealth and depth without stumbling over its many inconvenient gaps and cruxes. A fine gift to all lovers of great literature."—Jack M. Sasson, Emeritus Professor, Vanderbilt University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel HillTrade Review"Stanley Lombardo’s new Gilgamesh weighs in at a slim 91 pages, including useful front and back matter as well as newly discovered segments from the middle of the story, the so-called Monkey Tablet. . . . Similar to other books produced by Hackett to serve study in liberal arts and humanities, Lombardo’s work is attractive without being ornate and is easily affordable for the college market. It is furnished with auxiliary materials to enhance the ability of a student (or a nonspecialist instructor) to contextualize and navigate an ancient and non-Western primary text. Gary Beckman's introduction is an excellent overview of the five-millennia-old literary tradition about Gilgamesh, legendary king of the historical ancient city of Uruk, and provides an account of the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform that is remarkably concise and comprehensible. . . . Additional material includes an 'About This Edition' section, a timeline, a glossary of proper names, suggestions for further reading, and a table showing how pages in Lombardo’s version correspond with lines of the original text. . . . Lombardo's contribution to the Gilgamesh tradition offers English-language readers a pleasurable, companionable, and rewarding entryway to a very long and ancient humanistic legacy." —Kathryn Slanski, Yale University, in Review of Biblical Literature

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Book SynopsisThis stirring new version of the great Babylonian epic includes material from the recently discovered "monkey tablet" as well as an Introduction, timeline, glossary, and correspondences between lines of the translation and those of the original texts. "A comprehensive Introduction with a light touch (Beckman), a poetic rendering with verve and moxie (Lombardo): This edition of the colossal Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic should satisfy all readers who seek to plumb its wealth and depth without stumbling over its many inconvenient gaps and cruxes. A fine gift to all lovers of great literature."—Jack M. Sasson, Emeritus Professor, Vanderbilt University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Book Synopsis"He wants to sit and visit at the kitchen table, and he can hardly wait to get on the road again." —From Chapter 1 Robert Kroetsch, one of Canada's most important writers, was a fierce regionalist with a porous yet resilient sense of "home." Although his criticism and fiction have received extensive attention, his poetry remains underexplored. This exuberantly polyvocal text, insightfully written by dennis cooley—who knew Kroetsch and worked with him for decades—seeks to correct that imbalance. The Home Place offers a dazzling, playful, and intellectually complex conversation drawing together personal recollections, Kroetsch's archival materials, and the international body of Kroetsch scholarship. For literary scholars and anyone who appreciates Canadian literature, The Home Place will represent the standard critical evaluation of Kroetsch's poetry for years to come.Trade Review"Cooley makes important use of the evolution of some of the major poems by reference to the manuscripts and typescripts of drafts and makes an especially fruitful case for Seed Catalogue." -- Anne Burke * Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature *"...[The Home Place] builds a magnificent bridge across the coulee between writer and reader... Comprehensive and intense, The Home Place unpacks Kroetsch's long poems The Ledger, Seed Catalogue and The Sad Phoenician. It dives into the very marrow of those works and accomplishes brilliant and suggestive explorations of the feints and allusions that make them great... Cooley and Kroetsch partner one another, dance with the words they both love and respect." -- Aritha van Herk * Alberta Views *'"Dennis Cooley has written a remarkable monograph on Robert Kroetsch that focuses primarily on a handful of his books of long poems.Cooley weaves an astute criticism of Kroetsch’s writing with details of Kroetsch’s private life, with an enquiry into being a writer, and with covering (and responding to) a great deal of previous Kroetsch scholarship....making for an acute study that covers an enormous critical range." [Full review at http://www.prairiefire.ca/the-home-place-essays-on-robert-kroetschs-poetry/] -- Nicole Markotić * Prairie Fire *"Cooley paints Kroetsch (1927–2011) as a Canadian Weldon Kees, as a man well known in certain circles as a celebrated writer, effuse in his friendships yet wandering much of his life and, like Odysseus, never quite sure of home.... Kroetsch had a passion for lists, for cataloging, his language catapulting emotion like the language of Gertrude Stein. One can read into his work the influence of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, language without sentiment, crisp lines without meandering. Kroetsch’s language pulls readers into his world, where the heroes spend their time alone, repeating words, creating new meanings. Cooley’s collection reflects on the enigma of Kroetsch and the life of a poet in the 20th century. Recommended." -- K. Gale * Choice Magazine *"Cooley reads with a scrupulous, tactful, alert sense of his own vocabulary, of his subject’s languaging... [P]age after page I found Cooley riddling nuance and gap to surprise me with a meaning I’d never contemplated, a measured un-meaning. He embraces Kroetsch’s 'grammatical twiddling' with affectionate care. He patiently engages Kroetsch’s lingo and its talky syntax... The poet-critic makes for good reading. His vocabulary provokes and amuses... Reading The Home Place, we believe we know more about writer and writing—and about the home place." [Full review at https://canlit.ca/article/irrepressible/] -- Laurie Ricou * Canadian Literature *"[Cooley's] critical approach rests somewhere in that con-fusion of poetry and criticism. Cooley reads with a scrupulous, tactful, alert sense of his own vocabulary, of his subject’s languaging.... Just such a collision of verbs—rhyming and alliterating and doubling as nouns—typifies the irrepressible flurry of Kroetsch writing to Cooley writing to Kroetsch.... The poet-critic makes for good reading. His vocabulary provokes and amuses.... Lest this tribute imply The Home Place is all wordplay with poet playing poet, I want to recognize how adeptly, if obliquely and subtly, Cooley sets his subject in resonant contexts.... Reading The Home Place, we believe we know more about writer and writing—and about the home place." Canadian Literature 232 (Spring 2017) [Full review at https://canlit.ca/article/irrepressible] -- Laurence (Laurie) RicouTable of ContentsAcknowledgements ONE Getting There / The Long Road Home TWO Or So It Has Been Alleged / The Ledger THREE Hearing Voices / Seed Catalogue FOUR What It Was / Seed Catalogue FIVE It’s a Lover’s Question / Staging Romance in The Sad Phoenician SIX Noted & Quoted / Kroetsch in Conversation and at the Podium Notes Bibliography Permissions Index

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Book SynopsisCanadian literary legend George Bowering lays bare his process as reader and lover of poetry in this curated collection of poems to be read in the morning.In a series of deeply astute and conversational essays, two-time Governor General''s Award winner and inaugural Parlimentary Poet Laureate of Canada George Bowering travels through five hundred years, give or take, of English-language literature, adding historical, political, feminist, socio-economic, anecdotal, and literary context to each poem and poet. His selection of poems ranges from the best known to the barely known, each piece treated with depth and reverence, while demonstrating his razor-sharp wit and skill as writer, critic, and reader.Recalling the work of George Saunders and Sina Queyras, in their interactions with established literature, George''s insight in the poetic mind is invaluable, making this is must-read collection for anyone interested in reading or writing poetry.

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Book SynopsisBefore she published her distinguished novels, Muriel Spark first made her name as a critic and poet. Her discerning study of the poet and novelist John Masfield will therefore be doubly welcome, as an example of her earlier work, and as one of the best introductions to Masefield. With characteristic insight, Spark shows Masfield's development as a storyteller, through his early lyrics to his long narrative poems and finally his prose, together with his gift for observation of the life around him. John Masefield (1878-1967) lived a life as varied as his work. At the age of fifteen he went to sea as an apprentice in a windjammer and made the voyage round Cape Horn. The next three years he spent in New York, in a bakery, a livery stable, a saloon and a carpet factory. Back in England, he wrote for the Guardian and in the First World War served with the Red Cross. Throughout these years he had been writing poetry, and when in 1923 his Collected Poems appeared they sold over 200,000 copies. In 1930 he succeeded Robert Bridges as Poet Laureate.He was a prodigious novelist, essayist and poet; among his best known works are The Everlasting Mercy, Dauber, Reynard the Fox, Sard Marker and The Midnight Folk. 'I feel a large amount of my writing on him can be applied generally', wrote Spark in 1992: 'It is in many ways a statement of my position as a literary critic and I hope some readers will recognise it as such.'Trade Review'Spark shows herself to be as fearless and original a biographer as she was a novelist.' - Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisJane Draycott's translation of Pearl reissued as a Carcanet Classic. A Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. In a dream landscape radiant with jewels, a father sees his lost daughter on the far bank of a river: `my pearl, my girl’. One of the great treasures of the British Library, the fourteenth-century poem Pearl is a work of poetic brilliance; its account of loss and consolation has retained its force across six centuries. Jane Draycott in her new translation remakes the imaginative intensity of the original. This is, Bernard O’Donoghue says in his introduction, `an event of great significance and excitement’, an encounter between medieval tradition and an acclaimed modern poet.Trade Review'When Jane Draycott read, for the first time, sections of her exquisitely modulated translation of the 'Pearl' poem, its echoing character seemed to transport me from one cultural space to another... I came as close to hearing the 'Pearl' poet's voice as I am ever likely to be.' - Stella Halkyard, PN Review

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Book SynopsisA Book of the Year 2019 in The Morning Star. This is a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a small, ambitious press over a period of radical transformation in publishing. Each of Carcanet's fifty years is marked by an exchange of letters - handwritten, typed, and now emailed - between an author and the editor. Beginning in 1969 with the response to an invitation to subscribe to Carcanet for two guineas, the book traces Carcanet's progress and offers insight into the nature of literary editing. At its heart is the personal relationship of author and editor/publisher, the conflicts, friendships and vicissitudes that occur at the nexus between the work, its creator, publisher and reader. Poets are central, but fiction writers, translators, biographers and critics also contribute to the Carcanet ferment and firmament. Fifty Fifty celebrates the writers', readers' and editor's risks, passions and pleasures.Trade Review'A great publishing house!' - Harold Pinter; 'Carcanet's role in our literary culture is both vital and vibrant. The press's seriousness of purpose, eclecticism and internationalism deserve the highest praise and in the world of poetry its status and import are unchallengeable - impossible to imagine literary life in Britain without it.' - William Boyd

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Book SynopsisRenowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London … until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but also for a “devil’s dictionary” of timeless aphorisms and for the enduring brilliance of plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde's life resembles his early short story, "The Remarkable Rocket", which, rising from nowhere in a shower of sparks, explodes and falls to earth, exclaiming as it goes out, "I knew I should create a great sensation." Merlin Holland expertly traces the arc of his illustrious ancestor's life, from his birth in Dublin in 1854 as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, to a brilliant career at Oxford University where his reputation for dandyish wit was first honed, through to his conquest of the drawing rooms and theatres of fashionable London, culminating in disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of the Marquess of Queensberry in the most notorious libel trial in English history. Wilde died in penury and obscurity in 1900, yet his reputation today has never been greater. This engaging and innovative short book features a concise biographical essay on Wilde's meteoric career, followed by a Q&A interview based on Wilde's own words and Merlin Holland's unrivalled knowledge of his grandfather's life, work and puckish observations. This sparkling biography does full justice to Oscar Wilde's writerly genius and irrepressible humanity. It offers readers a renewed appreciation for a man who at times scandalised his era as much as he delights our own.

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Book SynopsisAn edition of "The Politics of Olympus", first published in the USA in 1989.Trade Review"'This important and ground-breaking book provides for the first time systematic and convincing reading of these four fascinating poems as a group, and in relation to the epics of Homer and the Theogony of Hesiod. Clay's expert and highly original analysis of the poems' narrative and thematic patterns succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating not only the unexpected subtlety and coherence of each Hymn, but also the ways in which they work in combination to provide an overarching Greek world-view. The contested nature of divine authority, the close yet problematic relations between gods and humans, and the multiple processes of conflict and resolution among competing factions within the cosmic order, are all explored and skilfully interconnected in this highly acclaimed study - already a classic in the field. This is by far the best book that has been written on this important body of poetry.' - Mark Griffith, University of California, Berkeley 'Though controversial in many places, this book is of great value to classicists. Its assumption that the poems have an intellectual and "theological" coherence... is welcome and will benefit those who teach the Hymns.' - Charles Platter, Classical Outlook"

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Book SynopsisThe Communicado Theatre's production of this verse rendering won the Edinburgh Fringe First award at the 1992 Festival, and has gone on to tour Scotland and England in 1992-3. Edwin Morgan provides an introduction, which sets the play in its time and discusses the style of his translation; it aims to provide insight and stimulation to a new generation of readers and playgoers.

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Book SynopsisThis text collects: all that Helen Thomas wrote about the poet Edward Thomas; the volumes "As It Was" and "World Without End"; her letters to Edward; and separate memoirs of her meetings with W.H. Davies, D.H. Lawrence, Ivor Gurney, Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost and W.H. Hudson. The book has been assembled by Myfanwy, Edward's and Helen's youngest daughter. She includes her own account of childhood with her father, and his death at the Battle of Arras in 1917. She adds an appendix of six letters from Robert Frost to Edward Thomas. Helen wrote "As It Was", the story of her courtship and early marriage, shortly after Edward's death, and "World Without End" a few years later. In the original editions and later reprints fictitious names were used for the protagonists. In this edition the actual names are restored.

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Book SynopsisSir Walter Scott is the great poet of the Scottish people, their history and land, yet he wrote at a time when Scottish culture and landscapes were changing rapidly under English pressure. Introducing this selection, James Reed, an authority on ballads and the Border tradition, sets Scott in context as both a European Romantic and a Scottish folk poet. He also illuminates the political and cultural context of his work. This selection, which includes early love poems, songs from the novels, landscape poems from "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" and "The Lady of the Lake", and the complete narrative poems "William and Helen" and "Marmion", reveals Scott as a poet who speaks for a people. The selection contains notes on the text, suggestions for further reading and a glossary.

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Book SynopsisHugh MacDiarmid hailed William Dunbar (1461?-1520?) as "in many ways the most modern, as he is the most varied, of Scottish poets". His verve, wit, metrical skill, malice and elegiac power made him one of the great poets of the 15th century, and a defining Scottish poet of all time. Although he was a priest for most of his adult life, Dunbar saw himself as a professional writer and took an outspoken pride in his craft, never failing to remind the king, his employer, of the unwisdom of neglecting to reward poets. Close to the European traditions of Francois Villon and troubadour lyrics, and inheriting the vigorous rhythms of Piers Plowman, Dunbar revitalised the conventions of medieval poetry, excelling in his mastery of the short satirical and lyrical poem. He can be bawdy, savage and romantic. Above all, more than any other poet of his time, Dunbar speaks directly in a voice that is vivid and challenging. This fully annotated edition makes the richness of Dunbar's language accessible to the modern reader.

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Book Synopsis'Author of paradoxes as clear as water and, as water, dizzying ...mysterious man who does not cultivate mystery, mysterious as the mid-day moon, taciturn phantom of the Portuguese mid-day - who is Pessoa?' asks Octavio Paz. This collection of the work of Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) answers that question. It is an essential introduction to the work of one of the most original European poets of the twentieth century. It includes translations of a broad selection of his poems and his extraordinary prose, and some of his original English writings. A major introductory essay by Octavio Paz, a critical anthology, two posthumous 'interviews' and illustrations from the Pessoa archive are also included, to reveal the world of Pessoa in all its richness.Trade Review`Pessoa's amazing personality is as beguiling and mysterious as his unique poetic output. We cannot learn too much about him.' - William Boyd.

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Book SynopsisDonald Davie's first two prose books (1952, 1955), available now in one volume with a new foreword, set the agenda for 'The Movement' and shaped the critical approach of two generations of readers and teachers of poetry. They have also proven of value to poets finding their way. Intended as 'two stages in one investigation', they provide a brilliantly detailed analysis of the workings of English poetry and remain, with books such as I.A. Richards's "Practical Criticism" and William Empson's "Seven Types of Ambiguity", primary critical texts, reviving attention to poetry at a technical level and, in the process, stirring awake for many readers major (and minor) writers of the late eighteenth century who require special qualities of attention. Davie remains a particularist, proving in insight after insight the deep rewards of close attention. For him poetry is a responsible art; it is not an end in itself but must always 'reek of the human'.

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Book SynopsisA critical scrapbook collected from fifteen years of writing. Contains essays, reviews, interviews, journals, notes, and poetic improvisations on contemporary poetry and identity.

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Book SynopsisPacific Rim Letters is a never-before-seen collection of letters Roy Kiyooka wrote between 1975 and 1985. It presents a fascinating and highly valuable picture of the artistic and literary communities Kiyooka was actively involved with, as well as Kiyooka as a man with an extraordinary intellect and passion for life and the arts. Kiyooka takes the epistolary form into new and radical directions. At once tenderly estranged and confessional, attentive as much to the minutiae of daily life as to the complexities of artistic and literary creation, and embedded in the politics of culture-making and those of racialized identities, these letters are a literary achievement in their own right.

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Book SynopsisWere the Bees is an innovative collection of poetry from a fresh Canadian voice. In it, Andy Weaver explores the boundaries of the poetic form to create a playful yet sincere examination of that language means to us.

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Book SynopsisThis collection travels many paths and by-ways, beside some of which lie burning cars, or a young man speechless on a forest floor, or girls lost far from home. And there is a lighthouse...Travellers pass along these ways, in the darkness, in transit, hoping for safe passage through unknown territory. All are imagined with what Sean O'Brien describes as Draycott's 'quizzical, exultant, exact music'. The Night Tree is Jane Draycott's second book of poems, following Prince Rupert's Drop, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation short listed for the Forward Prize in 1999, and two smaller collections, Tideway (Two Rivers Press, 2002, illustrated by Peter Hay) and No Theatre (Smith/Doorstop) short listed for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 1997.

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Book SynopsisA personal journey that describes a mechanism to find certainty through relaxation, enabling the reader to relax deeper, feel better and enjoy life more. A highly personal yet universally resonant retelling of the therapeutic process that''ll help you find greater clarity and certainty of the self. What is offered in this book is another way to look at the precise mechanism behind the journey to transcend the monkey mind and help you find what it is you want. It is not the font of all knowledge that is true, but it will go some way to reveal exactly what is stopping you.After a career as a Naval Officer, engineering graduate and chartered accountant Andrew Harry continued his journey travelling to South America and the Antipodes, to return to the UK to live on an eco barge called Prydwen. He is now a Reiki Master, Master NLP Practitioner and Registered Polarity Therapy Practitioner and Trainer in the UK. He is a father of three and in recent years has played his part in developing a whole new modality that incorporates bodywork, mindfulness and meditative disciplines into the re-emerging art of relaxation. Andrew has returned to his Cornish roots and has settled in the vibrant seaside town of Penzance with his wife Joy to further his interests in developing and administering his therapeutic skills to assist others in their self-development and improving their well-being.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an accessible account of the poet and politician Andrew Marvell’s life (1621-1678) and of the great events which found reflection in his work and in which he and his writings eventually played a part. At the same time, considerable space is afforded to reflecting deeply on the modes and meanings of Marvell’s art, redressing the balance of recent biography and criticism which has tended to dwell on the public and political aspects of this literary life at the expense of lyric invention and lyric possibility. Moving beyond the familiar terms of imitation and influence, the book aims at reconstructing an embodied history of reading and writing, acts undertaken within a series of complex physical and social environments, from the Hull Charterhouse to the coffee houses and print shops of Restoration London. Care has been taken to cover the whole of Marvell’s career, in verse and prose, even as the book places the lyric achievement at the centre of its vision. Table of Contents1 Introduction: A Literary Life?2 Andreae Filiae: East Riding, Yorkshire, 1621–1633 3 In loco parentis: Cambridge, 1633–1641 4 ‘Our wits have drawn th’infection of our times’: London and the Continent, 1641–1650 5 ‘Some great prelate of the grove’: London and Nun Appleton, Yorkshire, 1650–1652 6 ‘With my most humble service’: England and the Continent, 1652–1659 7 ‘His anger reached that rage which passed his art’: England, the Netherlands, and the Baltic, 1659–1667 8 ‘The interest and happiness of the king and kingdom’: London, 1667–1678

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Book SynopsisWalt Whitman: A Literary Life highlights two major influences on Whitman’s poetry and life: the American Civil War and his economic condition. Linda Wagner-Martin performs a close reading of many of Whitman’s poems, particularly his Civil War work (in Drum-Taps) and those poems written during the last twenty years of his life. Wagner-Martin’s study also emphasizes the near-poverty that Whitman experienced. Starting with his early career as a printer and journalist, the book moves to the publication of Leaves of Grass, and his cultivation of the persona of the “working-class” writer. In addition to establishing Whitman’s attention to the Civil War through journalism and memoirs, the book takes the approach of following Whitman’s life through his poems. Utilizing contemporary perspectives on class, Wagner-Martin provides a new reading of Whitman’s economic situation. This is an accessibly written synthesis of Whitman’s publication history bringing attention to under-studied aspects of his writing.Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Chapter One: The Pride of Family.- Chapter Two: Whitman’s Romance with Work.- Chapter Three: To Travel.- Chapter Four: Leaves of Grass, 1855.- Chapter Five: Whitman’s Life as “Poet”.- Chapter Six: Family and The Civil War.- Chapter Seven: The Horrors of American War.- Chapter Eight: Still More War.- Chapter Nine: Whitman and Lincoln.- Chapter Ten: The Wages of Class.- Chapter Eleven: Afterwar.- Chapter Twelve: Reconstruction.- Chapter Thirteen: Suggestions of Success.- Chapter Fourteen: The Hardiness of Fame.- Chapter Fifteen: To Travel, II.- Chapter Sixteen: The Last Years.

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Book SynopsisThis study examines three main aspects of Jorge Luis Borges's reading of Dante Alighieri, namely, poetic language, ethics and love. It attempts to reveal the ways in which Borges's interests in these issues manifested themselves in his appropriation of Dante and gained prominence within his work as a whole, paying particular attention to the years c.1920-c.1960. By developing each aspect in a comparative sequence the work illustrates the way in which these issues developed in Borges's work and, at the same time, provides a general perspective from which the reader can gauge their significance in Dante's thought. By establishing Borges as an ethical writer this book ventures into new and potentially controversial territory. However, even in the better-explored areas of poetic language and love, it presents new aspects of Borges's conception of literary activity and of his treatment of the erotic theme.

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