Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book SynopsisResponses from the nineteenth century onwards to the medieval French poet. Medieval Paris' paradigmatic poet, François Villon, has long captured the imaginations of creative writers. Attracted by his beguilingly pseudo-autobiographical literary persona and a body of work that moves seamlessly between bawdy humour, bitterness, devotion, and regret, Villon's heirs have been many and varied. A veritable "poet's poet", his oeuvre has appealed to fellow versifiers in particular, providing a rich source for translation and imitation. This book explores creative responses to Villon by British and North American poets, focusing on translations and imitations of his work by Algernon Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ezra Pound, Basil Bunting, and Robert Lowell. They are presented as exemplary of the greater trend of rendering Villon into English, transporting the reader from the first verse translations of his work in the nineteenth century, to post-modern adaptations and parodies ofVillon in the twentieth. By concentrating on the manner in which individual poets have reacted to Villon, and to one another, the study unravels multiple layers of poetic relations. It argues that the relationships that exist between the translated or imitated texts are collaborative as much as they are competitive, establishing a canon of Villon in English poetry whose allusions are not only to the French source, but to the parallel corpus of English translations and imitations. CLAIRE PASCOLINI-CAMPBELL holds degrees in medieval and comparative literatures from the University of St Andrews and University College London.Trade ReviewBy concentrating on the manner in which individual poets have reacted to Villon, and to one another, the study unravels multiple layers of poetic relations. * CHOICE *François Villon in English Poetry: Translation and Influence is a taut, enticing, and precise study with appeal to readers interested not only in the reception of medieval literature, but also in poetry and poetics, Translation Studies, and Comparative Literature. * TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE *Chapter 4 addresses Pound, and especially his opera, Le Testament de Villon: it is a pleasure, to see attention paid to a work so little known, and Pascolini-Campbell's analysis is illuminating. * FRENCH STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction Then and Now: The Legend of Villon in the Middle Ages and in Modernity Villon and Swinburne: Finding and Singing Villon Villon and Rossetti: Poetics of Strangeness Villon and Pound: Modernity and the 'Mediaeval Dream' Villon and Bunting: Prison-Writing and Parody Villon and Lowell: Imitation and the Visible Translator Conclusion Appendices Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst English translation of an important twelfth-century romance, giving an account of the Trojan war and its consequences. Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, dating to around 1165, is, along with the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d'Eneas, one of the three "romances of antiquity" (romans d'antiquité). These romances launched the plots, themes and structures of the genre, then blossoming in the hands of authors such as Chrétien de Troyes. As an account of the Trojan War, Benoît's work is of necessity a poem about war and its causes, how it was fought and what its consequences were for the combatants. But the author's choice of the octosyllabic rhyming couplet, his fondness for description, his ability to recount the intensity of personal struggles, and above all his fascination with the trials and tribulations of Love, which affect some of the work's most prominent warriors (among them Paris and his love for Helen, and Troilus and his love for Briseida), all combine to fashion this romance - in which events from long ago are presented as a reflection of the poet's own feudal and courtly worlds. This translation, the first into English, aims to bring the poem and the author to a wider audience. It is accompanied by an introduction and notes.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2018 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award * . *[A] clear and accessible translation of Benoît's twelfth-century Roman de Troie that will serve as the standard English-language version of the medieval French text for the foreseeable future. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *The translators, eminent medievalists both, have crafted a compelling narrative that is scrupulously faithful to the original and perhaps even more vivid and powerful . . . The translators' expertise is evident in every component of the book-not only their translation, but also the dense introduction. Essential. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisFirst recent full-length analysis of a major medieval poem. The late fourteenth-century English poem Winner and Waster narrates a debate between the forces of avarice (Winner) and generosity (Waster); it ranges widely over a number of major issues in the political life of England during Edward III's reign. This book sets out to re-date the poem from the 1350s to the 1360s, and in so doing to question whether its principal message really revolves (as so much earlier scholarship has insisted) around the state of public order and the costs of warfare in the 1350s. Instead, it proposes that the poem echoes debates about Edward III's ability to maintain concord between the members of his household, to manage the extravagance in clothing that prompted the sumptuary laws of 1363, and to run his peace-time finances of the 1360s in such a way as to guarantee the solvency of the crown. Drawing extensively on the records of parliament and on contemporary chronicles, this volume sets Winner and Waster within the wider context of other complaint literature of the fourteenth century, and characterizes it as one of the most politically - and socially - engaged works of the period.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Note on Editions List of Abbreviations Introduction Winner and Waster: A Poem on the Times Chivalry and Internationalism: The Garter Feast of 1358 and English Diplomacy during the 1350s and 1360s Treason, Public Order and Dispute Settlement: the Statute of Treasons of 1352 and Royal Arbitration Landed Society, Conspicuous Consumption and the Political Economy: The Sumptuary Laws of 1363 The Private and the Public Spheres: The Royal Household and State Finance under Edward III Satire, Complaint and Authorship: Winner and Waster and the Alliterative Revival of the Fourteenth Century Winner and Waster: Timeliness and Timelessness Appendix 1: Timeline, 1337-1370 Appendix 2: A Modern English Version of Winner and Waster Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the legacy of The Waste Land on the centenary of its original publication, looking at the impact it had had upon criticism and new poetries across one hundred years. T. S. Eliot first published his long poem The Waste Land in 1922. The revolutionary nature of the work was immediately recognised, and it has subsequently been acknowledged as one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century, and as crucial for the understanding of modernism. The essays in this collection variously reflect on The Waste Land one hundred years after its original publication. At this centenary moment, the contributors both celebrate the richness of the work, its sounds and rare use of language, and also consider the poem's legacy in Britain, Ireland, and India. The work here, by an international team of writers from the UK, North America, and India, deploys a range of approaches. Some contributors seek to re-read the poem itself in fresh and original ways; others resist the established drift of previous scholarship on the poem, and present new understandings of the process of its development through its drafts, or as an orchestration on the page. Several contributors question received wisdom about the poem's immediate legacy in the decade after publication, and about the impact that it has had upon criticism and new poetries across the first century of its existence. An Introduction to the volume contextualises the poem itself, and the background to the essays. All pieces set out to review the nature of our understanding of the poem, and to bring fresh eyes to its brilliance, one hundred years on. Contributors: Rebecca Beasley, Rosinka Chaudhuri, William Davies, Hugh Haughton, Marjorie Perloff, Andrew Michael Roberts, Peter Robinson, Michael Wood.Table of ContentsIntroduction - Steven Matthews 1 A 'Dangerous Model': Resisting The Waste Land - Rebecca Beasley 2 Beyond the Sanskrit Words: Decolonizing Eliot in Modernity - Rosinka Chaudhuri 3 'An Icon of Recurrence': The Waste Land's Anniversaries - William Davies 4 'O City, city': Sounding The Waste Land - Hugh Haughton 5 Lost and Found in Translation: Foreign Language Citations in The Waste Land - Marjorie Perloff 6 The Poetic Afterlife of The Waste Land - Andrew Michael Roberts 7 Compositional Process and Critical Product - Peter Robinson 8 Hypocrisy and After: Persons in The Waste Land - Michael Wood Index

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Book SynopsisThis book has three distinctive characteristics: (1) It offers a widely interdisciplinary perspective; (2) It provides a comprehensive view of poetry, with groups of chapters on the Sound Stratum of Poetry (rhyme patterns and gestalt theory; metre and rhythm; expressiveness and musicality of speech sounds); the Units-of-Meaning Stratum (semantic representation and information processing, metaphor, rhyme and meaning, literary synaesthesia); the World Stratum; Regulative Concepts (genre, period style, archetypal patterns); the Poetry of Orientation and Disorientation (experiential and mystic poetry versus poetry of emotional disorientation; and the grotesque); the Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness (hypnotic and ecstatic poetry); Critics and Criticism; and Cognitive Poetics vs. Cognitive Linguistics; (3) It goes into minute details of poetic texts, so as to account for subtle intuitions of readers. Updating from the first edition consists of samples from the author's later instrumental study of the rhythmical performance of poetry and the expressiveness of speech sounds; and in three chapters responding to the later work of three cognitive linguists.Trade Review"In one of the founding studies of cognitive literary criticism, Tsur combines earlier theoretical approaches (such as Russian formalism) with methods from cognitive psychology and other fields within cognitive science, resulting in a capacious and suggestive survey of many aspects of literary form in light of their perceived effects on readers." -- Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide"In one of the founding studies of cognitive literary criticism, Tsur combines earlier theoretical approaches (such as Russian formalism) with methods from cognitive psychology and other fields within cognitive science, resulting in a capacious and suggestive survey of many aspects of literary form in light of their perceived effects on readers." -- Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide.Table of ContentsGeneral Assumptions -- The Nature of Cognitive Poetics; Mental and Vocal Performance in Poetry Reading; Constructing a Stable World; Structure and Perceived Qualities. The Sound Stratum of Poetry -- Rhyme Patterns, Gestalt Theory and Perceptual Forces; Metre and Rhythm; Delivery Style and Listener Response: An Empirical Study; Expressiveness and Musicality of Speech Sounds. The Units-of-Meaning Stratum -- Semantic Representation and Information Processing; Literary Synaesthesia. The World Stratum -- The Representative Anecdote: Human Contingency. Regulative Concepts -- The Versatile Reader: Style as Open Concept; Style as Diagnosis and as Hypothesis: Archetypal Patterns. Poetry of Orientation & Disorientation -- Space Perception and Poetry of Orientation; poetry of Disorientation; The Grotesque as an Aesthetic Mode. Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness -- Poetry and Altered States of Consciousness; Obtrusive Rhythms and Emotive Crescendo; The Divergent Passage and Ecstatic Poetry. Critics and Criticism -- The Implied Critic's Decision Style; The Critic's Mental Dictionary. Cognitive Poetics and Cognitive Linguistics -- Lakoff's Roads Not Taken; Deixis in Literature: What Isn't Cognitive Poetics?; Comparing Approaches to Versification Style in Cyrano de Bergerac; Index.

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Book SynopsisJohn Betjeman was undoubtedly the most popular Poet Laureate since Tennyson. But beneath the thoroughly modern window on Britain that he opened during his lifetime lay the influence of his nineteenth-century forbears. This book explores his identity through such Victorianism via the verse of that period, but also its architecture, religious faith and -- more importantly -- religious doubt. It was, nevertheless, a process which took time. In the 1930s Betjeman's work was tinted with modernism and traditionalism. He found Victorian buildings 'funny' and wrote much in praise of the Bauhaus style, even though his early poetry was peppered with Victorian references. This leaning was incorporated into a greater sense of purpose during World War 2, when he transformed himself from precious humorist into propagandist. The resulting sense of cohesion grew when the dangers of post-war urban redevelopment heightened the need to critique the present via the poetics of the past, a mood which continued up to and beyond his gaining the Laureateship in 1972. This duty proved to be a millstone, so the 'official' poems are thus explored by the author more fully than hitherto. The conclusion of looks back to Betjeman's 1960 verse-autobiography, 'Summoned by Bells', which is seen as the apogee of his achievement and a snapshot of his identity. Included here is the first critical appreciation of the lyrics embodied within the text, which are taken as a map of the young poet's literary growth. Larkin's 1959 question 'What exactly is Betjeman?' then leads to a final appraisal of his originality, as evidenced by his glances towards postmodernism, feminism, and post-colonialism. The fact is that Betjeman never quite fits in anywhere. He is always a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole -- often for the sheer enjoyment of so being. In a sense, his desire to be as non-conformist as a Quaker meeting house makes him a radical, rather than the reactionary that his interests imply. He was a champion of beauty and the British Isles, and clearly did much to make us see the worth of our Victorian forebears. Greg Morse's book highlights this important facet of his work.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a comprehensive analysis of Northern Irish poetry focusing on the colonial, political, and cultural underpinnings that have shaped artistic expression in a variety of ways. In discussing the rich poetry reflecting the conflict of community, Jon Curley examines what aesthetic choices poets make in order to register, resist, or re-imagine life and thought under particularly tumultuous conditions. The focus is on both the better-known contemporary Northern Irish poets as well as their more obscure but no less significant counterparts. Forms of communal identity generated in Northern Ireland are examined by way of an ethical critique that references the conceptual blockages and innovations that help foster new poetic representations of society. Establishing the complexity and potency of poetic experimentation, Poets and Partitions is a timely commentary for all those interested in the intersection of aesthetics and politics. The exploration of communal identity-formations in Northern Irish poetry or poetry in general has been dismissed by some critics as an unhelpful approach to understanding literature. But, as this study demonstrates, it is a vital area of scholarly examination and Jon Curley's in-depth analysis illuminates understanding of how poets confront their communal, social, and sectarian orders.

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Book SynopsisThis research is an instrumental investigation of a theory of rhythmical performance of poetry, originally propounded speculatively in the author's Perception-Oriented Theory of Metre (1977). "Iambic pentameter" means that there is a verse unit consisting of an unstressed and a stressed syllable (in this order), and that the verse line consists of five such units. In the first 165 verse lines of Paradise Lost there are two such lines. The theory takes up one of the central issues in metrical studies: all criteria for metricality hitherto proposed have been violated by the greatest masters of musicality in English poetry. The question arises, how do we recognise two verse lines that are very different in their structures as instances of the same abstract pattern of, eg: iambic pentameter; and how do we distinguish a metrical from an unmetrical line. One great difference between this theory of metre and others concerns the status of deviation. Most theoreticians deploy a battery of tools to make deviant stress patterns conform with metric pattern. Only when all attempts fail do they speak of "tension". When they succeed, they blur the distinction between, for example, Milton's and Pope's metrical styles. Or else, they have formulated different rules of metricality for Shakespeare and Milton. This theory assumes that when the versification patterns and linguistic patterns conflict, they can be accommodated in a pattern of "Rhythmical Performance" -- namely one in which the conflicting patterns are simultaneously perceptible. There are scales of mounting difficulties of mismatches, on which each poet (and each theorist) draws at different points the boundary of what is acceptable. Reuven Tsur's revised and expanded edition (original publication, Peter Lang, 1986) is essential reading for all scholars and students involved in versification and Cognitive Poetics.Table of ContentsClergy Interest in Innovative Collaboration with Psychologists; Collaborate with Whom? Clergy Responses to Psychologist Characteristics; Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment Programs; Psychology-Church Collaboration: Finding a New Level of Mutual Participation; Using Psychology to Facilitate Christian Living: Description of a First Step in Building a Program of Collaboration; Psychology Collaborating with the Church: a Pastor-Psychologists Perspective and Personal Experience; Psychology and the Church: Collaboration Opportunities; Counsellor-Clergy Collaboration in a Church-Based Counselling Ministry; Psychological Consultation with the Roman Catholic Church: Integrating Who We Are with What We Do; The Evangelical Free Churchs Recovery Ministry: a Collaborative Approach to Restoration and Reconciliation; Healing the Broken-hearted: Cross and Couch Together; Psychologists and Health Care : Chaplains Doing Research Together; Collaboration Through Research: the Multi-method Church-Based Assessment Process; Psychology Serving the Church in the United Kingdom: Church Consultancy and Pastoral Care; Psychology and Marriage Ministry Collaborations; Psychology at Work Inside and Outside the Church: Bridging the Gaps Between Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual Health; Psychological Resources in Faith-Based Community Settings: Applications, Adaptations, and Innovations; A Psychologist-Pastor: a Bridge For Churches at a Christian Community Health Centre; Promoting Change Through the African American Church and Social Activism; God is Active in Human Affairs: a Response to Thom Moore.

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Book SynopsisThis research is an instrumental investigation of a theory of rhythmical performance of poetry, originally propounded speculatively in the author's Perception-Oriented Theory of Metre (1977). "Iambic pentameter" means that there is a verse unit consisting of an unstressed and a stressed syllable (in this order), and that the verse line consists of five such units. In the first 165 verse lines of Paradise Lost there are two such lines. The theory takes up one of the central issues in metrical studies: all criteria for metricality hitherto proposed have been violated by the greatest masters of musicality in English poetry. The question arises, how do we recognise two verse lines that are very different in their structures as instances of the same abstract pattern of, eg: iambic pentameter; and how do we distinguish a metrical from an unmetrical line. One great difference between this theory of metre and others concerns the status of deviation. Most theoreticians deploy a battery of tools to make deviant stress patterns conform with metric pattern. Only when all attempts fail do they speak of "tension". When they succeed, they blur the distinction between, for example, Milton's and Pope's metrical styles. Or else, they have formulated different rules of metricality for Shakespeare and Milton. This theory assumes that when the versification patterns and linguistic patterns conflict, they can be accommodated in a pattern of "Rhythmical Performance" -- namely one in which the conflicting patterns are simultaneously perceptible. There are scales of mounting difficulties of mismatches, on which each poet (and each theorist) draws at different points the boundary of what is acceptable. Reuven Tsur's revised and expanded edition (original publication, Peter Lang, 1986) is essential reading for all scholars and students involved in versification and Cognitive Poetics.Table of ContentsClergy Interest in Innovative Collaboration with Psychologists; Collaborate with Whom? Clergy Responses to Psychologist Characteristics; Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment Programs; Psychology-Church Collaboration: Finding a New Level of Mutual Participation; Using Psychology to Facilitate Christian Living: Description of a First Step in Building a Program of Collaboration; Psychology Collaborating with the Church: a Pastor-Psychologists Perspective and Personal Experience; Psychology and the Church: Collaboration Opportunities; Counsellor-Clergy Collaboration in a Church-Based Counselling Ministry; Psychological Consultation with the Roman Catholic Church: Integrating Who We Are with What We Do; The Evangelical Free Churchs Recovery Ministry: a Collaborative Approach to Restoration and Reconciliation; Healing the Broken-hearted: Cross and Couch Together; Psychologists and Health Care : Chaplains Doing Research Together; Collaboration Through Research: the Multi-method Church-Based Assessment Process; Psychology Serving the Church in the United Kingdom: Church Consultancy and Pastoral Care; Psychology and Marriage Ministry Collaborations; Psychology at Work Inside and Outside the Church: Bridging the Gaps Between Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual Health; Psychological Resources in Faith-Based Community Settings: Applications, Adaptations, and Innovations; A Psychologist-Pastor: a Bridge For Churches at a Christian Community Health Centre; Promoting Change Through the African American Church and Social Activism; God is Active in Human Affairs: a Response to Thom Moore.

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Book SynopsisJohn Betjeman was undoubtedly the most popular Poet Laureate since Tennyson. But beneath the thoroughly modern window on Britain that he opened during his lifetime lay the influence of his nineteenth-century forbears. This book explores his identity through such Victorianism via the verse of that period, but also its architecture, religious faith and -- more importantly -- religious doubt. It was, nevertheless, a process which took time. In the 1930s Betjeman's work was tinted with modernism and traditionalism. He found Victorian buildings 'funny' and wrote much in praise of the Bauhaus style, even though his early poetry was peppered with Victorian references. This leaning was incorporated into a greater sense of purpose during World War 2, when he transformed himself from precious humorist into propagandist. The resulting sense of cohesion grew when the dangers of post-war urban redevelopment heightened the need to critique the present via the poetics of the past, a mood which continued up to and beyond his gaining the Laureateship in 1972. This duty proved to be a millstone, so the 'official' poems are thus explored by the author more fully than hitherto. The conclusion of looks back to Betjeman's 1960 verse-autobiography, 'Summoned by Bells', which is seen as the apogee of his achievement and a snapshot of his identity. Included here is the first critical appreciation of the lyrics embodied within the text, which are taken as a map of the young poet's literary growth. Larkin's 1959 question 'What exactly is Betjeman?' then leads to a final appraisal of his originality, as evidenced by his glances towards postmodernism, feminism, and post-colonialism. The fact is that Betjeman never quite fits in anywhere. He is always a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole -- often for the sheer enjoyment of so being. In a sense, his desire to be as non-conformist as a Quaker meeting house makes him a radical, rather than the reactionary that his interests imply. He was a champion of beauty and the British Isles, and clearly did much to make us see the worth of our Victorian forebears. Greg Morse's book highlights this important facet of his work.Table of ContentsPreface; Introduction; A Review of the literature; The Model; Simulating the Entry of Multinationals without Profit Repatriation; Simulating the Entry of Multinationals with Profit Repatriation; Conclusions; Index.

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Book SynopsisEliot's dictum about the objective correlative has often been quoted but rarely analysed. This book traces the maxim to some of its sources and places it in a contemporary context. Eliot agreed with Locke about the necessity of sensory input, but for a poet to be able to create poetry, the input has to be processed by the poet's intellect. Respect for control of feelings and order of presentation were central to Eliot's conception of literary criticism. The result the objective correlative is not one word, but "a scene" or "a chain of events". Eliot's thinking was also inspired by late 19th century French critics like Gautier and Gourmont, whose terminology he not infrequently borrowed. But he chose the term "objective" out of respect for the prestige that still surrounded the Positivist paradigm. In its break-away from Positivist dogmas, criticism of art in the early 20th century was very much preoccupied with form. In poetry, that meant focus on the use and function of the word. That focus is perceptible everywhere in Eliot's criticism. Even though the idea of the objective correlative was not an original one, Eliot's treatment of it is interesting because he sees a seeming truism ("the right word in the right place") in a new light. He never developed the theory, but the thought is traceable in several of his critical essays. On account of its categorical and rudimentary form, the theory is not unproblematic: whose fault is it if the reader's response does not square with the poet's intention? And indeed, Eliot's own practice belies his theory -- witness the multifarious legitimate interpretations of his poems.Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Disequilibrium of German Identity; An Overview of Holocaust Studies & Its Causes; The Roots: Anti-Semitism or German Theory of Race?; The First Apex: The Problematic Nature of the German National Identity; The Second Apex: Race Theory Re-examined; The Third Apex: German Jewry; The Fateful Triangle: Some Insights for the Future; A Changing Self-Image vis-a-vis the Holocaust; Post-War German Structure, Attitudes & Identity; Conclusion: The Force of Nationality in the Past & in the Future; Index.

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Book SynopsisHölderlin (1770-1843) is the magnificent writer whom Nietzsche called 'my favourite poet'. His writings and poetry have been formative throughout the twentieth century, and as influential as those of Hegel, his friend. At the same time, his madness has made his poetry infinitely complex as it engages with tragedy, and irreconcilable breakdown, both political and personal, with anger and with mourning. This study gives a detailed approach to Hölderlin's writings on Greek tragedy, especially Sophocles, whom he translated into German, and gives close attention to his poetry, which is never far from an engagement with tragedy. Hölderlin's writings, always fascinating, enable a consideration of the various meanings of tragedy, and provide a new reading of Shakespeare, particularly Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth; the work proceeds by opening into discussion of Nietzsche, especially The Birth of Tragedy. Since Hölderlin was such a decisive figure for Modernism, to say nothing of modern Germany, he matters intensely to such differing theorists and philosophers as Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, all of whose views are discussed herein. Drawing upon the insights of Hegelian philosophy and psychoanalysis, this book gives the English-speaking reader ready access to a magnificent body of poetry and to the poet as a theorist of tragedy and of madness. Hölderlin's poetry is quoted freely, with translations and commentary provided. This book is the first major account of Hölderlin in English to offer the student and general reader a critical account of a vital body of work which matters to any study of poetry and to all who are interested in poetry's relationships to madness. It is essential reading in the understanding of how tragedy pervades literature and politics, and how tragedy has been regarded and written about, from Hegel to Walter Benjamin.

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Book SynopsisHölderlin (1770-1843) is the magnificent writer whom Nietzsche called 'my favourite poet'. His writings and poetry have been formative throughout the twentieth century, and as influential as those of Hegel, his friend. At the same time, his madness has made his poetry infinitely complex as it engages with tragedy, and irreconcilable breakdown, both political and personal, with anger and with mourning. This study gives a detailed approach to Hölderlin's writings on Greek tragedy, especially Sophocles, whom he translated into German, and gives close attention to his poetry, which is never far from an engagement with tragedy. Hölderlin's writings, always fascinating, enable a consideration of the various meanings of tragedy, and provide a new reading of Shakespeare, particularly Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth; the work proceeds by opening into discussion of Nietzsche, especially The Birth of Tragedy. Since Hölderlin was such a decisive figure for Modernism, to say nothing of modern Germany, he matters intensely to such differing theorists and philosophers as Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, all of whose views are discussed herein. Drawing upon the insights of Hegelian philosophy and psychoanalysis, this book gives the English-speaking reader ready access to a magnificent body of poetry and to the poet as a theorist of tragedy and of madness. Hölderlin's poetry is quoted freely, with translations and commentary provided. This book is the first major account of Hölderlin in English to offer the student and general reader a critical account of a vital body of work which matters to any study of poetry and to all who are interested in poetry's relationships to madness. It is essential reading in the understanding of how tragedy pervades literature and politics, and how tragedy has been regarded and written about, from Hegel to Walter Benjamin.

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Book SynopsisThe world-renowned Peruvian poet César Vallejo (1892-1938) was also a journalist, essayist, novelist and would-be dramatist. The study of his life and work has encountered problems since the 1950s, stemming from the fact that half of his writing was published posthumously under editorship of doubtful accuracy. The matter is further complicated in that his non-poetic work has been neglected in favour of his verse. A Struggle between Art and Politics reviews the evidence -- literary and historical -- now reliably to hand, and assesses the often conflicting body of opinion his work has generated. Three essential questions are pertinent: Where should Vallejo be placed in the canon of twentieth-century modernism? What effect did his mid-life conversion to Communism have on his writing? How should his prose fiction, journalism and essays be assessed in relation to his poetry? There are few writers whose literary output follows the twists and turns of their lives more closely than César Vallejo's. This new, comparative study maps his career onto the cultural, social, political and historical backdrop to his life in Peru, France, Spain and Russia, and analyses his writings in the light of his life circumstances. Vallejo's journey from Peru, the cultural "periphery", to the "centre" of inter-war Paris, his experience of European capitalism during the Depression, and the confrontation of Communism and Fascism, ultimately played out in the Spanish Civil War, forced him to wage a personal struggle to reconcile art with life and politics. This challenge is fought out in different ways in his various writings, but nowhere more movingly, passionately and humanely than in his posthumous poetry.Trade Review"Bob Brittons book brings Cesar Vallejo fascinatingly to life-illuminating both the key moments and the more intimate details. Britton interweaves the life and the creative drive of this extraordinary poet with such fresh insights that you return to Vallejos work with a renewed thirst." -- Adam Feinstein, Biographer & Translator of Pablo Neruda"Complete with its own excellent translations of all material quoted from Vallejo (an achievement which deserves recognition in its own right: his translation of Trilce I is better than most), plus a judicious, non-partisan survey of scholarship on Vallejo, the book will stand as a fine, accessible guide to one of the twentieth centurys great poets." -- Adam Sharman, University of Nottingham

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Book SynopsisThe world-renowned Peruvian poet César Vallejo (1892-1938) was also a journalist, essayist, novelist and would-be dramatist. The study of his life and work has encountered problems since the 1950s, stemming from the fact that half of his writing was published posthumously under editorship of doubtful accuracy. The matter is further complicated in that his non-poetic work has been neglected in favour of his verse. A Struggle between Art and Politics reviews the evidence -- literary and historical -- now reliably to hand, and assesses the often conflicting body of opinion his work has generated. Three essential questions are pertinent: Where should Vallejo be placed in the canon of twentieth-century modernism? What effect did his mid-life conversion to Communism have on his writing? How should his prose fiction, journalism and essays be assessed in relation to his poetry? There are few writers whose literary output follows the twists and turns of their lives more closely than César Vallejo's. This new, comparative study maps his career onto the cultural, social, political and historical backdrop to his life in Peru, France, Spain and Russia, and analyses his writings in the light of his life circumstances. Vallejo's journey from Peru, the cultural "periphery", to the "centre" of inter-war Paris, his experience of European capitalism during the Depression, and the confrontation of Communism and Fascism, ultimately played out in the Spanish Civil War, forced him to wage a personal struggle to reconcile art with life and politics. This challenge is fought out in different ways in his various writings, but nowhere more movingly, passionately and humanely than in his posthumous poetry.Trade Review"Bob Brittons book brings Cesar Vallejo fascinatingly to life-illuminating both the key moments and the more intimate details. Britton interweaves the life and the creative drive of this extraordinary poet with such fresh insights that you return to Vallejos work with a renewed thirst." -- Adam Feinstein, Biographer & Translator of Pablo Neruda"Complete with its own excellent translations of all material quoted from Vallejo (an achievement which deserves recognition in its own right: his translation of Trilce I is better than most), plus a judicious, non-partisan survey of scholarship on Vallejo, the book will stand as a fine, accessible guide to one of the twentieth centurys great poets." -- Adam Sharman, University of Nottingham

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Book SynopsisJohn Hughes explores Hardys claim that his art sought to intensify the expression of things through three main sections on music, the body, and voice. These offer intersecting and mutually informing discussions of the central drama of inexpression and expressivity in Hardys work, as it affects the various personae of the text, including the reader. Throughout, the book draws on themes in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell to reveal how Hardys fiction and poetry express and represent the affective and physical conditions of mind, and their conflicts with social fictions of identity. The first main section on music incorporates three chapters that examine how Hardys writing stages musical experience as an expression of human desire and individuality at odds with the constraints of rationality, Victorian fiction form, and social convention. Intricate and extensive readings are linked also to larger contextual and theoretical issues in order to show how music as a theme and motif highlights the kinds of creativity and ethical cruxes that characterise Hardys work throughout his career. The second section -- on embodiment and sensation shows how close attention to Hardys writing on the topics of facial and bodily expression (and affectivity) reveal much about the sources of his inspiration, and its philosophical conditions and implications. The third section on voice offers three chapters, each of which centrally employs a close metrical reading of an important Hardy poem within its larger biographical and inter-textual contexts. These readings demonstrate how fundamental were Hardys innovations in meter to the power and originality of his work, and to its expressive treatment of his abiding preoccupations with love, grief, childhood, and the loss of faith.

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Book SynopsisA.E. Housman's poetry (especially A Shropshire Lad) remains well-known, widely read and often quoted. However, Housman did not view himself as a professional poet, always making quite clear that his 'proper job' was as a Professor of Latin. Housman's fame as a poet has often obscured the fact that he was the leading British classical scholar of his generation, and a Cambridge Professor. It has also sometimes been suggested that Housman's two areas of activity are the sign of a flawed or 'divided' personality. A.E. Housman: A Single Life argues that there is no fundamental tension between Housman the poet and Housman the scholar, and his career is presented very much as that of a working academic who also wrote poetry. The book gives a full account of what Housman described as 'the great and real troubles of my early manhood', and in particular his unrequited and life-long love for his undergraduate friend Moses Jackson. It resists the temptation to classify Housman too exclusively as a melancholic, and is sceptical about Housman's reputed rudeness and misanthropy, pointing out that, though Housman was famously aloof in manner, he was notably loyal and generous, courteous in his daily dealings and generally liked by those who knew him. He also possessed a highly developed sense of the absurd and a ready and often disconcerting wit, features which characterised not only his letters and miscellaneous writings, but also, famously, much of his scholarly work.

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Book SynopsisThe book studies the impact of Stevensian and Valeryan poetics, and symbolist poetics more broadly, on a range of Anglo-American poets in untypical fashion. Pairing poets who are not usually studied in their relation to one another reveals mutuality and dissimilitude. Chapter I looks at Stevens and Valery from the vantage point of the senses as opposed to the more usual lens of their similar cerebral or philosophical temperaments. Although critics have largely and justifiably seen Stevens and Eliot in oppositional terms (Stevens proclaims them dead opposites), Lisa Goldfarb asks what happens when we look at them from the vantage point of their mutual interest in creating a musical poetics. Auden is principally known for his distaste for the symbolists and their magical poetics, yet he reserves special praise for Valery and considers him as his poetic mentor; Chapter III studies their poetics side-by-side. With Stevens and Audens mutual appreciation of Valery as a starting point, Chapter IV turns to a closer comparative study of Auden and Stevens, two poets who have traditionally been seen as operating in distinct poetic spheres. While Elizabeth Bishop famously eludes categorization in terms of poetic school or affiliation, a fifth chapter addresses her poetic music in relation to French symbolist poetics, one of the many poetic schools she admired. A sixth and final chapter examines Stevens musical legacy, in large part derived from the symbolists, and addresses the work of a range of modern and contemporary poets, with a final section devoted to the work of contemporary poet, Susan Howe.

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Book SynopsisThe poetry of ideas, a long neglected genre, has now found a vigorous and resourceful champion in Christopher Norris. Hitherto best known as philosopher and literary theorist, he has treated that genre to a full-scale modern revival of singular scope and ambition. His poems combine intellectual agility with a verse-music both keen-eared and frequently haunting. This latest collection sees Norris at the top of his bent as lyric poet, poet-philosopher, verse-essayist, political satirist, social commentator, and skilful re-worker of traditional verse-forms to suit contemporary contexts and concerns. It exhibits all the wit and erudition that readers will have come to expect, along with a marked broadening of purview and heightened stylistic virtuosity. These poems engage with topics ranging from the personal (though never private-confessional) to the deeply enquiring (though never abstruse) and the forcefully political (though never excluding issues that transcend the narrowly partisan). Above all they make the case for viewing rhyme, meter, and prosodic structure as intrinsically a part of verse-practice and a source of everything that is most distinctive and valuable in poetry.Trade ReviewChristopher Norris is one of the most erudite, original and adventurous English-language poets of our time. -- Terry Eagleton, Distinguished Professor of English Literature, University of LancasterChris Norriss revival of the verse-essay and verse-monologue is a rich feast of wit, erudition, and inventiveness, nicely spiced with hard-hitting satire, caustic humour, and touches of lyrical affection. Here is a distinctive poetic voice, comfortable in its medium, unflaggingly readable, offering hours of pleasure and reflection. A true delight! -- Peter Lamarque, Professor of Philosophy, University of York

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Book SynopsisThe book studies the impact of Stevensian and Valeryan poetics, and symbolist poetics more broadly, on a range of Anglo-American poets in untypical fashion. Pairing poets who are not usually studied in their relation to one another reveals mutuality and dissimilitude. Chapter I looks at Stevens and Valery from the vantage point of the senses as opposed to the more usual lens of their similar cerebral or philosophical temperaments. Although critics have largely and justifiably seen Stevens and Eliot in oppositional terms (Stevens proclaims them dead opposites), Lisa Goldfarb asks what happens when we look at them from the vantage point of their mutual interest in creating a musical poetics. Auden is principally known for his distaste for the symbolists and their magical poetics, yet he reserves special praise for Valery and considers him as his poetic mentor; Chapter III studies their poetics side-by-side. With Stevens and Audens mutual appreciation of Valery as a starting point, Chapter IV turns to a closer comparative study of Auden and Stevens, two poets who have traditionally been seen as operating in distinct poetic spheres. While Elizabeth Bishop famously eludes categorization in terms of poetic school or affiliation, a fifth chapter addresses her poetic music in relation to French symbolist poetics, one of the many poetic schools she admired. A sixth and final chapter examines Stevens musical legacy, in large part derived from the symbolists, and addresses the work of a range of modern and contemporary poets, with a final section devoted to the work of contemporary poet, Susan Howe.

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Book SynopsisIt has been variously labelled ‘Language Poetry’, ‘Language Writing’, ‘L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing’ (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981), and ‘language-centred writing’. It has been placed according to its geographical positions, on East or West coasts; its venues in small magazines, independent presses and performance spaces, and its descent from historical precursors, be they the Objectivists, the composers-by-field of the Black Mountain School, the Russian Constructivists or American modernism à la William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein. Indeed, one of the few statements that can be made about it with little qualification is that ‘it’ has both fostered and endured a crisis in representation more or less since it first became visible in the 1970s. In Poetry & Language Writing David Arnold grasps the nettle of Language poetry, reassessing its relationship with surrealism and providing a scholarly, intelligent way of understanding the movement. Poets discussed include Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer and Barrett Watten.Trade ReviewAn important study with an original thesis that is tightly argued…it has much to offer the study of contemporary American poetry. Robert Sheppard -- Robert SheppardTable of Contents Acknowledgements List of permissions 1. The Scholarly Life of Language Writing 2. Surrealism: An Excommunicated Vessel? 3. Under the Sign of Negation: William Carlos Williams and Surrealism 4. The Surreal-O-bjectivist Nexus 5. Michael Palmer’s Poetics of Witness 6. Scorch and Scan: The Writing of Susan Howe 7. ‘Just Rehashed Surrealism’? The Writing of Barrett Watten Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.Twilight of the Avant-Garde: Spanish Poetry 1980-2000 addresses the central problem of contemporary Spanish poetry: the attempt to preserve the scope and ambitiousness of modernist poetry at the end of the twentieth century. Jonathan Mayhew first offers a critical analysis of the called 'poetry of experience' of Luis García Montero, a tendency that is based on the supposed obsolescence of the modernist poetics of the first half of the century. While the 'poetry of experience' presents itself as a progressive attempt to 'normalise' poetry, to make it accessible to the common reader, Mayhew views it as a reactionary move that ultimately reduces poetry to the status of a minor genre. The author then turns his attention to the poetry of José Angel Valente and Antonio Gamoneda, whose poetry embodies the continuation of modernism, and to the work of younger women poets of the last two decades of the twentieth century. Throughout this controversial and provocative book, Mayhew challenges received notions about the value of poetic language in relation to the larger culture and society. It turns out that the cultural ambition of modernist poetics is still highly relevant even in an age in which more cynical views of literature seem prevalent. Ultimately, Mayhew writes as an advocate for the survival of more challenging and ambitious modes of poetic writing in the postmodern age.Trade ReviewMayhew is a critic who is at the top of his game; he combines a breadth of knowledge of the field with acute analysis. John C. WilcoxThe new book by Jonathan Mayhew brings together a joint trials stimulant, both about poets that have marked the evolution of the last poetry in Spain as on figures still little addressed by critics. His rigorous approach, although not without controversy, as shaky grounds as of the last Spanish poetry, is worthy of consideration in an area where still scarce studies that offer a comparative perspective on the different poetic in force. Mario Martin Gijon, Revista de Literature, July-December, Vol. LXXIII, No. 146Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Part One: The Avant-Garde and its Discontents: The Place of Poetry in Contemporary Spanish Culture 1. Aesthetic Conservatism in Recent Spanish Poetry 2. Three Apologies for Poetry 3. Poetry, Politics, and Power Part Two: Valente, Gamoneda, and the “Generation of the 1950s” 4. In Search of Ordinary Language: Revisiting the “Generation of the 1950s” 5. José Ángel Valente’s Lectura de Paul Celan: Translation and the Heideggerian Tradition in Spain 6. Antonio Gamoneda’s Libro de los venenos: The Limits of Genre Part Three: Women Poets of the 1980s and 1990s 7. Gender Under Erasure (Amparo Amorós, Luisa Castro) 8. Desire Deferred: Ana Rossetti’s Punto umbrío 9. Concha García: The End of Epiphany 10. Lola Velasco’s El movimiento de las flores and the Limits of Criticism Afterword Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAnne Home Hunter (1741-1821) was one of the most successful song writers of the second half of the eighteenth century, most famously as the poet who wrote the lyrics of many of Haydn’s songs. However her work, which included many more serious, lyrical and romantic poems has been largely forgotten. This book contains over 200 poems, some published in her life-time under her married name ‘Mrs John Hunter’, some attributed only to ‘a Lady’, and most importantly many transcribed from her manuscripts, housed in various archives and in a private collection, which are now collected for the first time. Hitherto Anne Hunter has been known almost entirely through her ‘Poems’ published in 1802, in her Introduction Isobel Armstrong argues that she saw this book as a definitive representation of her poetry. Besides her consummately skilful lyrics and songs it contains serious political odes and reflective poems. The unpublished material amplifies and extends the work of 1802. The introduction is followed by a long biographical essay by Caroline Grigson. The daughter of Robert Home, an impoverished Scottish Army surgeon, Anne Hunter spent her adult life in London where she married the famous anatomist John Hunter, with whom she lived in great style, latterly as a bluestocking hostess, until his death in 1793. The book includes many new details of her long life, her friendship with Angelica Kaufman (who painted her portrait - see cover) and the bluestocking, Elizabeth Carter. The account of Anne’s life as a widow describes her relationships with her family, her niece the playwright Joanna Baillie, and her friends, especially those of the famous Minto family, as well as the Scottish impresario George Thomson. Of especial interest is the discovery of a previously unrecorded visit that Haydn made to her during his second London visit when she was living in Blackheath. Expertly researched which Grigson’s book sets Anne Hunter’s oeuvre in the political and social context of the time and will be required reading to scholars of literature and music alike.Trade ReviewA fine act of recovery and assembling. * Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. 50.3 *In collecting Anne Hunter's verse, scattered through anthologies and archives, Caroline Grigson has taken a significant step towards restoring the reputation of this unfairly neglected poet. * TLS *Table of Contents 1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction by Isobel Armstrong 3. Chronology 4. Anne Hunter’s Life by Caroline Grigson – parents, childhood, the young woman, Angelica, Mrs John Hunter, the anonymous song-writer, Leicester Square, Dr Haydn, disaster, Isabella, rescue, publication, the Creation, George Thomson, ‘I am but a shabbi person’ 5. Anne Hunter’s Poetry 5.1. The sources 5.2. Earliest poems, published and manuscript 5.3. Broadsheets 5.4 ‘Nine Canzonets and Six Airs’ 5.5. Haydn and Salomon 5.6. Poems known only in manuscript 5.7. ‘Poems’ by Mrs John Hunter 1802 5.8. ‘Sports of the Genii’ by Mrs John Hunter 1804 5.9. Welsh Airs 5.10. Late published poems 5.11. Index of titles and first lines 6. Bibliography 7. Index

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity, and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. This study considers the full range of his oeuvre, in poetry, prose, and translations, and discusses the major themes to which he returns, including: memory and history, narrative, language and translation, mapping, violence, and power. It argues that the singularity of Carson’s writing is to be found in his radical imaginative engagements with ideas of space and place. The city of Belfast, in particular, occupies a crucially important place in his texts, serving as an imaginative focal point around which his many other concerns are constellated. The city, in all its volatile mutability, is an abiding frame of reference and a reservoir of creative impetus for Carson’s imagination. Accordingly, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon geography, urbanism, and cultural theory as well as literary criticism. It provides both a stimulating and thorough introduction to Carson’s work, and a flexible critical framework for exploring literary representations of space.Trade Review'This book will be of interest to scholars of Irish literature and politics, as well those interested in the growing field of the interactions between literature and geography. It is, furthermore, a book that marks the continuing relevance of the spatial turn in literary theory and the theoretical turn in Irish studies.'Review of English Studies'Through its comprehensive coverage of Carson’s proliferating oeuvre, its meticulous research and carefully nuanced argumentation, Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing makes a significant contribution to the consolidation and development of theoretical and critical thinking about Carson in particular, and contemporary Northern Ireland poetry more generally.' Elmer Kennedy-Andrews'The introduction offers a great deal of useful background information that will be beneficial for those new to Carson. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' Choice'Alexander’s book, judiciously focused, thoroughly researched and finely produced, has set an agenda for future critical discussion of Carson.' Peter Denman, Irish Studies Review, 20.2Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: Imaginative Geographies: The Politics and Poetics of Space Chapter 2: Mapping Belfast: Urban Cartographies Chapter 3: Deviations from the Known Route: Reading, Writing, Walking Chapter 4: Revised Versions: Place and Memory Chapter 5: Spatial Stories: Narrative and Representation Chapter 6: Babel-babble: Language and Translation Bibliography General Index Index of Works

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Book SynopsisOver the last thirty years, more and more critics and scholars have come to recognize the importance of science to literature. 'Science in Modern Poetry: New Directions' is the first collection of essays to focus specifically on what poets in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have made of the scientific developments going on around them. In a collection of twelve essays, leading experts on modern poetry and on literature and science explore how poets have used scientific language in their poems, how poetry can offer new perspectives on science, and how the 'Two Cultures' can and have come together in the work of poets from Britain and Ireland, America and Australia. What does the poetry of a leading immunologist and a Nobel-Prize-winning chemist tell us about how poetry can engage with science? Scientific experiments aim to yield knowledge, but what do the linguistic and formal experiments of contemporary American poets suggest about knowledge in their turn? How can universities help to bring these different experimental cultures and practices together? What questions do literary critics need to ask themselves when looking at poems that respond to science? How did developments in biology between the wars shape modernist poetry? What did William Empson make of science fiction, Ezra Pound of the fourth dimension, Thomas Hardy of anthropology? How did modern poets from W. B. Yeats to Elizabeth Bishop and Judith Wright respond to the legacy of Charles Darwin? This book aims to answer these questions and more, in the process setting out the state of the field and suggesting new directions and approaches for research by students and scholars working on the fertile relationship between science and poetry today.Trade ReviewThis collection of essays genuinely offers new directions for the study of science in modern poetry. It is coherently organised, full of matter, often fascinating, and always thought-provoking. Dame Gillian Beer, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsList of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction - John Holmes Part I. Science and Contemporary Poetry: Cross-Cultural Soundings 1. The Function of Antagonism: Miroslav Holub and Roald Hoffmann - Helen Smal 2. Cutting and Pasting: Language Writing and Molecular Biology - Peter Middleton 3. The Poetics of Consilience: Edward O. Wilson and A. R. Ammons - John Barnie 4. Poetry, Science and the Contemporary University - Robert Crawford Part II. Science in Modernist Poetry: Appropriations and Interrogations 5. 'Strange Synthetic Perfumes': Investigating Scientific Diction in Twentieth-Century Poetry - Michael H. Whitworth 6. The Human Animal: Biological Tropes in Interwar Poetry - Tim Armstrong 7. William Empson, Ants and Aliens - Katy Price 8. Ezra Pound and the Materiality of the Fourth Dimension - Ian F. A. Bell Part III. Darwinian Dialogues: Four Modern Poets 9. 'Accidental Variations': Darwinian Traces in Yeats's Poetry - Roman McDonald 10. Making the Past Wake: Anthropological Survivals in Hardy's Poetry - Andrew Radford 11. Reading Bishop Reading Darwim - Jonathan Ellis 12. From Bergson to Darwin: Evolutionary Biology in the Poetry of Judith Wright - John Holmes Afterword - Bruce Clarke Bibliography Index 1. Poets 2. Scientists and Scientific disciplines 3. Other references

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Book SynopsisPublished in anticipation of the centenary of the poet’s birth, The Poetry of Dylan Thomas is the first study of the poet to show how his work may be read in terms of contemporary critical concerns, using theories of modernism, the body, gender, the carnivalesque, language, hybridity and the pastoral in order to view it in an original light. Moreover, in presenting a Dylan Thomas who has real significance for twenty-first century readers, it shows that such a reappraisal also requires us to re-think some of the ways in which all post-Waste Land British poetry has been read in the last few decades.Trade ReviewReviews 'Written with élan, dexterity and wit, and with an immersion in both critical theory and the history of twentieth century poetry, Under the Spelling Wall has a natural authority, as well as a decisive narrative drive. The range of works proposed for inclusion, and the way in which they are interrelated represents something magnificent in contemporary criticism, a lauding of complexity not in the abstract but in the minutiae of what was published, and how that occurred. The reading of ‘Altarwise by Owl-light’ is sublimely good and the work on ‘Fern Hill’ is the most impressive I have ever seen on this poem. It is a model of the single author studies that are formative to a (renewed) critical direction.' Leo Mellor'In many ways this is a brilliant book. Not only does it offer cogent advocacy of Thomas’s strength and interest as a poet, it also does so in terms of a many-aspected, adroit and illuminating deployment of the theoretical discourses which have emerged over the last forty years. These two endeavours are, as they should be, mutually reinforcing: the theories really do prove themselves to be illuminating about Thomas, and as a result we feel that Thomas can speak to our contemporary condition and understanding. The argument is passionate, and makes no pretence at any aim other than reasserting the greatness of Thomas’s work.' Ed Larrissey, Queen's University Belfast'The definitive modern reappraisal of Thomas's poetry ... Goodby's arguments are compelling and draw upon his experience both as a critic and as a practising (and prize-winning) poet. ...This is a welcome and overdue book which will do much to stimulate interest in Dylan Thomas as we approach the centenary of his birth.' Brian Roper'A great book ... Dylan Thomas for our generation, alive and entire.' James Keery'This superbly researched book deserves to be widely read and discussed.' David Caddy, Tears in the Fence * Tears in the Fence *'This is a fascinating example of how profoundly enlivening and intellectually challenging the single-author study can be. That this is only the beginning – one hopes – of a serious reconsideration of Thomas’ poetry suddenly makes the present a great place to be.'Amy McCauley, New Welsh ReviewTable of Contents Acknowledgements Preface Abbreviations Introduction: The critical fates of Dylan Thomas 1. ‘Eggs laid by tigers’: process and the politics of mannerist modernism 2. ‘Under the spelling wall’: language and style 3. ‘Libidinous betrayal’: body-mind, sex and gender 4. ‘My jack of Christ’: hybridity, the gothic-grotesque and surregionalism 5. ‘Near and fire neighbours’: war, apocalypse and elegy 6. ‘That country kind’: Cold War pastoral, carnival and the late style Conclusion: ‘The liquid choirs of his tribes’: Dylan Thomas as icon, influence and intertext Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisByron is rarely thought of as a spiritual writer. However, as this bold new collection shows, this is the result of an impoverished notion of the ‘spiritual’ and a reflection of biased priorities in Romantic studies. Reflecting on the poet’s claim that ‘immaterialism’s a serious matter’, this interdisciplinary collection of essays, from British and American scholars, calls into question the prevailing ‘materialist’ consensus, and offers a fresh and theoretically inflected reading of Byron’s poetry. Byron’s Ghosts is the first book-length examination of spectrality in Byron’s work. It is on the one hand concerned with what Mary Shelley in her essay ‘On Ghosts’ refers to as ‘the true old-fashioned, foretelling, flitting, gliding ghost’, though it is also a postmodern response to the ‘spectral turn’ in critical theory, which brings into view a range of phantom effects and ‘non-Gothic’ spectres. Focusing attention on these diverse modalities of the ghostly, the specially assembled essays complicate the popular image of Byron as a sceptical or ‘anti-Romantic’ poet and reveal a great deal about his work that could not be uncovered in any other way.Trade Review'This is a strong collection of essays on an excellent, and original, topic. Byron's Ghosts manifestly enhances and modifies our understanding of Byron.' Alan RawesTable of Contents Acknowledgements Texts and Abbreviations Introduction: The Re-Enchantment of Romanticism Chapter 1: Determining Unknown Modes of Being: A Map of Byron’s Ghosts and Spirits BERNARD BEATTY Chapter 2: S hades of Being: Byron and the Trespassing of Ontology GAVIN HOPPS Chapter 3: Byron and the Noonday Demons MARY HURST Chapter 4: Conjuration and Exorcism: Byron’s Spectral Rhetoric DALE TOWNSHEND Chapter 5: Byron avec Sade: Material and Spectral Violence in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Canto PIYA PAL-LAPINSKI Chapter 6: ‘’Twixt Life and Death’: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan and the Sublime PHILIP SHAW Chapter 7: Byron, Ann Radcliffe and the Religious Implications of the Explained Supernatural in Don Juan ALISON MILBANK Chapter 8: The Haunting of Don Juan PETER W. GRAHAM Chapter 9: Being neither Here nor There: Byron and the Art of Flirtation CORIN THROSBY Afterword: Blowing on a Dead Man’s Embers: Byron’s Biographical Ghosts PETER ALLENDER Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisHenry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, England (c 1088–c 1154) has been admired for centuries as the author of the monumental Historia Anglorum. The recent discovery of the Anglicanus ortus opens a new window onto this important English author as well as onto the uses of poetry and the knowledge of medicine in medieval England. Written entirely in Latin verse, the Anglicanus ortus describes the medicinal uses of 160 different herbs, spices and vegetables. Henry drew on centuries of learned medicine to compose this work, employing the medical knowledge of ancient authors like Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides and of medieval scholars like Walahfrid Strabo, Macer Floridus and Constantine the African. This critical edition is based on the five extant manuscripts and includes a complete English translation on facing pages and a commentary on every poem. An extensive introduction describes the manuscript witnesses in detail, examines Henry’s poetic skill and use of sources, and establishes the place of the Anglicanus ortus in a pivotal era in the history of medicine and natural philosophy.

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Book SynopsisA study of the work of the Spanish poet Luis Cernuda (1902-1963). The works of the twentieth-century Spanish poet Luis Cernuda (1902-1963) are characterised by their fragmentary and disunified nature, with a wide range of complexities and contradictions. Concentrating on the well-known La realidad y el deseo, Dr McKinlay considers the poems from the perspective of the widespread loss of faith in God, exploring the tension between Cernuda's perception of chaos and desire for order, which co-exist in dialectical opposition. NEIL C. MCKINLAY is college lecturer in Spanish at New College, Oxford.Trade ReviewTo be welcomed... engaging monograph. Will be useful to students of all levels... A close reading of the text with a whole school of critics - Harruis, Bruton and Silver in particular - which provides an insightful overview of the verse as a whole. JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES Stimulating argument and insightful close reading... to be recommended to all serious studiens of 20th-century Spanish poetry. * MLR *Table of ContentsPart 1 The crisis of faith. 2 Order into chaos - the loss of the absolute: Luis Cernuda - poet of "Eros", ethics or crisis of faith?; the age of loss; the loss of order; the consequences of the loss of order. Part 3 Search for absolute order: the reasons for searching; the goal of the search; the process of searching; the result of the search. Part 4 Search for order in the material world I - "love": the sexual awakening; the experience of "love"; the purpose of "love". Part 5 Search for order in the material world II - art: the theory of art; the practice of art - the disintegration of meaning, the reintegration of meaning, synthesis.

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Book SynopsisThe making of a great Chilean poet. Pablo Neruda was without doubt one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century but his work is extremely uneven. There is a view that there are two Nerudas, an early Romantic visionary and a later Marxist populist, who denied his earlier poetic self. By focussing on the poet's apprenticeship, and by looking closely at how Neruda created his poetic persona within his poems, this Companion tries to establish what should survive of his massive output. By seeing his early work as self exploration through metaphor and sound, as well as through varieties of love and direct experience, the Companion outlines a unity behind all the work, based on voice and a public self. Neruda's debt to reading and books is studied in depth and the change in poetics re-examined by concentrating on the early work up to Residencia en la tierra I and II and why he wanted to become a poet. Debate about quality and representativity is grounded in his Romantic thinking, sensibility and sincerity. Unlike a Borges or a Paz who accompanied their creative work with analytical essays, Neruda distilled all his experiences into his poems, which remainhis true biography. Jason Wilson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, University College London.Trade Review[T]his book is a welcome and important addition to the Neruda bibliography. * BULLETIN OF SPANISH STUDIES *[I]t is indeed a great book to trace Neruda's production and should be read by all who are interested in this great Chilean poet and Latin American literary production in general. * SOUTH ATLANTIC REVIEW *A vade mecum of tremendous value. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction The 1920s: from Crepusculario to Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, 1924 The 1920s: from El hondero entusiasta to El habitante y su esperanza The 1920s and 1930s: Residencia en la tierra I The 1930s: Residencia en la tierra II and III The 1940s: from Alturas de Macchu Picchu to Canto general The 1950s: from Los versos del capitán to Cien sonetos de Amor Post 1960s' poetry: from Plenos poderes to La rosa separada

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Book SynopsisLorca, icon and polymath in all his manifestations. A Companion to Federico García Lorca provides a clear, critical appraisal of the issues and debates surrounding the work of Spain's most celebrated poet and dramatist. It considers past and current approaches to the study of Lorca, and also suggests new directions for further investigation. An introduction on the often contentious subject of Lorca's biography is followed by five chapters - poetry, theatre, music, drawing and cinema - which togetheracknowledge the polymath in Lorca. A further three chapters - religion, gender and sexuality, and politics - complete the volume by covering important thematic concerns across a number of texts, concerns which must be considered in the context of the iconic status that Lorca has acquired and against the background of the cultural shifts affecting his readership. The Companion is a testament to Lorca's enduring appeal and, through its explication oftexts and investigation of the man, demonstrates just why he continues, and should continue, to attract scholarly interest. FEDERICO BONADDIO lectures in Modern Spanish Studies at King's College London. CONTRIBUTORS: FEDERICO BONADDIO, JACQUELINE COCKBURN, NIGEL DENNIS, CHRISTOPHER MAURER, ALBERTO MIRA, ANTONIO MONEGAL, CHRIS PERRIAM, XON DE ROS, ERIC SOUTHWORTH, D. GARETH WALTERS, SARAH WRIGHTTable of ContentsIntroduction: Biography and Interpretation - Federico Bonaddio Poetry - Christopher Maurer Theatre - Sarah Wright Music - D. Gareth Walters Drawing - Jaqueline Cockburn Cinema - Antonio Monegal Religion - Eric Southworth Gender and Sexuality - Chris Perriam Politics - Nigel Dennis Suggested Further Reading Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe making of a great Chilean poet. Pablo Neruda was without doubt one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. However, his work is extremely uneven, and long. The companion examines the view that there are two Nerudas, an early Romantic visionary and a later Marxist populist, who denied his earlier poetic self. By focussing on the poet's apprenticeship, his struggle to read and incorporate French poetry and travel abroad and by looking closely at how Neruda created his poetic persona within his poems, this companion tries to establish what should survive of his massive output. By seeing his early work as self exploration through metaphor and sound, as well as through varieties of love and direct experience,the companion outlines a unity behind all the work, based on voice and a public self. This companion studies Neruda's debt to reading and books in depth and re-examines his change in poetics by concentrating on the early work up to Residencia en la tierra I and II and why he wanted to become a poet. Many critics have argued that some kind of critical assessment must be made in order for Neruda's later work to be read. This companion grounds this debate about quality and representativity in his Romantic thinking, sensibility and sincerity. Unlike a Borges or a Paz who accompanied their creative work with analytical essays, Neruda distilled all his experiences into hispoems, which remain his true biography. Jason Wilson is Professor Emeritus at University College London.Trade Review[T]his book is a welcome and important addition to the Neruda bibliography. * BULLETIN OF SPANISH STUDIES *[I]t is indeed a great book to trace Neruda's production and should be read by all who are interested in this great Chilean poet and Latin American literary production in general. * SOUTH ATLANTIC REVIEW *A vade mecum of tremendous value. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction The 1920s: from Crepusculario to Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, 1924 The 1920s: from El hondero entusiasta to El habitante y su esperanza The 1920s and 1930s: Residencia en la tierra The 1940s: from Alturas de Macchu Picchu to Canto general The 1950s: from Los versos del capitán to Cien sonetos de amor Post 1960s Poetry: from Plenos poderes to La rosa separada

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Book SynopsisTraces the processes and paradoxes at work in the late parodic poetry of Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega, illuminating correlations and connections. Co-Winner of the 2014 Publication Prize awarded by the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland Kerr traces the processes and paradoxes at work in the late parodic poetry of Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega, illuminating the correlations and connections between two poets who have more often than not been presented as enemies.The analysis follows the parallel development of the complex parodic genre through Góngora's late mythological parody, from his 1589 Hero and Leander romance through to his culminating parody, La fábula de Píramo y Tisbe (1618) and Lope de Vega's alter ego Tomé de Burguillos, whose anthology, Rimas humanas y divinas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos, was published a year before Lope's death, in 1634. Working from the premise that parody provides a Derridean supplément to exhausted, dominant genres (e.g. pastoral, lyric, epic), this study asks: what do these texts achieve by their supplementarity, and how do they achieve it?, and, the overarching question, why do these erudite poets turn to parody in an age of decline? Lindsay Kerr received her PhDin Spanish at Queen's University Belfast.Trade ReviewProfoundly post-Derridean, militant with a love for critical theory, beautifully researched and carefully and elegantly written, this book delivers much more than what it promises to prove. * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *Table of ContentsIntroduction Parodic Beginnings La fábula de Píramo y Tisbe Las Rimas de Tomé de Burguillos La Gatomaquia Last Laughs Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn 'Shakespearean Variations', Ralph McInerny takes the first lines of the sonnets and their end rhymes, and composes sonnets of his own. The formal structure of the sonnet has always provided a salutary discipline for the poet-iambic pentameter, te delicate symmetry of octet and sextet, the losing couplet which epitomizes the poem. The stamp that Shakespeare put upon the form, the themes of love and death, age and youth, loyalty and betrayal, have come to seem to adhere to the very form. The pleasure to be had form reading 'Shakespearean Variations' will vary with one's acquaintance with the originals buth should always turn one to the bard himself.Trade Review"It's not fair that Ralph McInerny get to have so much fun. Borrowing the opening line of each of Shakespeare's sonnets, he runs off - in accurate Shakespearian form - a froth of parody, literary interpretation, comedy, and wisdom. All of McInerny is here: the philosopher from Notre Dame, the social commentator, the inveterate punster, the storyteller whose famous mystery novel proved his sharp eye for human foibles. Others abide our question - so how come Ralph McInerny alone get to be so free?" - J. Bottum, Books & Arts Editor, 'The Weekly Standard'Table of Contentspreface, index

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Book SynopsisThis revisionary study of Wallace Stevens queries the dominant interpretations of the poet's career.

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Book SynopsisSamuel Beckett's Self-Referential Drama - The Sensitive Chaos, 2nd EditionTrade Review"... the book's principal value lies in Levy's penetrating observations about the ontology of the plays in performance, the reflexive, prism-like conundrums in them that fascinate and frustrate intelligent and attentive spectators and theater practitioners alike... Among the main virtues of this revised and enlarged edition is the addition of production anecdotes and performer-interviews that set Levy's critical ideas in newly illuminating practical context..." -- Journal of Beckett Studies."An intelligent, often fascinating analysis of Beckett's work." -- Choice."This current collection of essays is divided almost equally between theory and performance, but as often Shimon Levy treats the two as a single field as he explores the possibilities of chaos theory as a model for the theatrical experience, where 'even the tiniest detail may influence the presentation,' and moves on to explore the implications of Logical Positivism and Existentialism, all under the umbrella of the Cartesian Cogito. The essay on 'The Poetics of Offstage' is exemplary and should be required reading for theater directors." -- S. E. Gontarski, Sarah Herndon Professor of English, Florida State University; Editor, Journal of Beckett Studies.Table of ContentsContents: Preface; Introduction: Self-Organisation in the Middle of Chaos; Philosophical Notions; The Message of the Medium -- Theatrical Techniques; The Poetics of Offstage; The Radioplays; "Spirit Made Light" -- Film and TV Plays; Godot -- Resolution or Revolution?; I's and Eyes: A Hermeneutical Circle; Epilogue: Six She's and other Not I Proxies; Index.

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Book SynopsisIn recent decades, international research on Virgil has been marked, if not dominated, by the ideas of the 'Harvard school' and similar trends, according to which the poet was engaged in an elaborate work of subtle subversion, directed against the new ruler of the Roman world, Octavian-Augustus. Much of Virgil's oeuvre consists prima facie of eulogy of the ruler, and of emphatic prediction of his enduring success: this is explained by numerous modern critics as generic convention, or as studied ambiguity, or as irony.This paradoxical position, which runs against ancient - as well as much modern - interpretation of the poet, continues to create widespread unease. Stahl's new monograph is the most thorough study so far to question modern Virgilian criticism on philological grounds. He bases himself on the internal logic and rhetoric of the Aeneid, and considers also political, historical, archaeological and philosophical subjects addressed by the poem. He finds that the poet has so presented the morality of his central figure, Augustus' supposed ancestor Aeneas, and of those who (eventually) clash with him, Turnus and Dido, as to make it certain that Roman readers and hearers of the poem were meant to conclude in Aeneas' favour. Virgil's intention emerges from Stahl's thorough, ingenious and original argumentation as decisively pro-Augustan. Stahl's work, in short, will not only enliven debate on current critical hypotheses but for many will enduringly affect their credibility.

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Book SynopsisHere a team of young, established scholars offers new perspectives on poetic texts of wisdom, learning and teaching related to the great line of Greek and Latin poems descended from Hesiod. In previous scholarship, a drive to classify Greek and Latin didactic poetry has engaged with the near-total absence in ancient literary criticism of explicit discussion of didactic as a discrete genre. The present volume approaches didactic poetry from different perspectives: the diachronic, mapping the development of didactic through changing social and political landscapes (from Homer and Hesiod to Neo-Latin didactic); and the comparative, setting the Graeco-Roman tradition against a wider backdrop (including ancient near-eastern and contemporary African traditions). The issues raised include knowledge in its relation to power; the cognitive strategies of the didactic text; ethics and poetics; the interplay of obscurity and clarity, playfulness and solemnity; the authority of the teacher.Trade ReviewThis valuable volume offers new avenues to an ancient genre that is notoriously hard to define. * Latomus *

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Book SynopsisThe Ciris is a small scale epic poem which relates the myth of Scylla, daughter of king Nisus of Megara, who betrayed her homeland for love, and was transformed into a sea-bird. It is one of the poems in the Appendix Vergiliana, a collection that has been ascribed to Virgil as his carmina minora. Earlier scholarship has mostly been concerned to prove that the Ciris is not by Virgil, and then to demonstrate that it is a late and derivative composition of little intrinsic merit. The present book argues that Ciris was composed by a contemporary of Virgil, a product of the golden age of Latin poetry. It aims to bring the poem to the attention of modern readers and to rescue it from ill-deserved neglect. The introduction presents detailed linguistic, literary and historical arguments in support of this early composition date and offers a state-of-the-art account of the textual witnesses and the manuscript tradition. The critical text and apparatus are based on a systematic, first-hand analysis of manuscript evidence as well as the rigorous application of text-critical methods. The new text, as close to the original Ciris as can be achieved, includes over one-hundred and fifty changes from previous editions. By engaging with textual scholarship on the poem from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century, the line-by-line commentary provides a comprehensive guide to the numerous textual problems, and is an important contribution to the stylistic and linguistic analysis of golden-age Latin poetry.

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Book SynopsisA vibrant revival of a neglected witty and daring medieval gem, and a foundational work for English romance and translation studies. Essential reading for students of medieval literature and manuscript culture.In the late thirteenth century, as English began to assert itself against Anglo-Norman and French literary traditions, Sir Tristrem emerged as one of the earliest and most inventive Middle English romances. Uniquely preserved in the Auchinleck Manuscript, this poem reimagines the Tristan legend with a bold comic tone, distinctive stanza form, and a sharp awareness of its audience's expectations. Both a translation and a transformation of Thomas of Britain's Tristran (c.1170), it stands alongside the more courtly German and Norwegian retellings by Gottfried von Strassburg and Brother Robert of Norway-yet diverges from both in its brevity, tonal shifts, and performative agility.This edition pairs a lively modern English verse translation with the complete Middle English text-offering, for the first time, a dual-language format that remains sensitive to the poem's performance-driven origins. The accompanying study reconsiders Sir Tristrem not only as literature, but as a document of transmission: oral, scribal, and manuscript. It explores its triangulated relationship with other Tristan traditions, its place within a manuscript collection of romances shaped by translation, and the formal innovations through which it reshapes a familiar narrative.Resisting the reductive labels of its critical past, Sir Tristrem, as presented here, reclaims its role as a serious, playful, and quintessentially English contribution to medieval narrative tradition.

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Book SynopsisHoy en día los textos de Piglia integran programas académicos y figuran en las listas de best-sellers. Los artículos que componen esta obra, coinciden en la coherencia y fidelidad del proyecto literario de Piglia a la vez que rechaza imposiciones genéricas, fusiona el pensamiento crítico con la trama ficcional, desconoce jerarquías literarias y junta tradiciones muy diversas. Cada sección de este libro se organiza de acuerdo con un eje que resume algún aspecto del universo conceptual e imaginario de Piglia. La primera sección titulada Crítica literaria y literatura crítica, imagina la crítica como una forma de autobiografía donde el narrador, el crítico y el autobiógrafo son inseparables. La segunda sección Narrar en/contra el género agrupa varios autores que analizan el trato de Piglia hacia los códigos establecidos del género. En la sección Experiencia, historia y relato se destaca cómo la escritura de Piglia se confundía con la propia experiencia de vivir. Para Piglia escribir era una intensa pasión y como tal reflejaba la estructura de la vida misma. En Tradiciones y genealogías dispersas se investiga una poética a través de los libros que se encuentran en la biblioteca imaginaria de un autor, se desmenuzan las permanencias y cambios en la producción textual de Piglia. La última sección Lectura y relecturas aborda interpretaciones tanto propias como ajenas de su obra, habiendo estas últimas oscilado a lo largo de los años entre el elogio fácil y el exabrupto crítico. ~ Today Piglia's texts are part of academic programs and appear on best-seller lists. The articles that make up this work agree on the coherence and fidelity of Piglia's literary project while rejecting generic impositions, fusing critical thinking with the fictional plot, ignoring literary hierarchies and bringing together very diverse traditions. Each section of this book is organized according to an axis that summarizes some aspect of Piglia's conceptual and imaginary universe. The first section, titled Literary Criticism and Critical Literature, imagines criticism as a form of autobiography where the narrator, critic, and autobiographer are inseparable. The second section Narrating in/against the genre brings together various authors who analyze Piglia's treatment of the established codes of the genre. The section Experience, history and story, highlights how Piglia's writing merges with the experience of living. For Piglia writing was an intense passion and as such it reflected the structure of life itself. In Dispersed Traditions and Genealogies, Piglia’s work is approached through the books found in an author's imaginary library, the permanent and changing elements in Piglia's textual production are broken down. The last section Reading and Re-readings deals both with his own and others' interpretations of his work, the latter having swung over the years between easy praise and critical outburst.

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Book SynopsisFusing lyric meditation and narrative perceptions, the poems in Cynthia Hogue's new collection 'Flux' track the natural world and the self in it -- from the Sonoran Desert of the Southwest to the far north of Iceland. In the tradition of the distilled and lyrically abstract poetry of Dickinson and H.D., Flux opens into visionary language and the search for transcendence.

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Book SynopsisSarah Mangold's brilliant and eccentric 'Household Mechanics' is about the attempt at telling the story. And the impossibility of telling the story. Never fully narrated but introduced and re-introduced, a continuous attempts at a telling. Overheard conversation, family stories, literary theory, music, and even TV become part of history -- what you repeat and share -- the story you retell. What is the story? It is an attempt at communication -- the reattempt -- with different words. It is an attempt at telling it right -- that there is no right -- no ultimate story.

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Book SynopsisThese strong and vital poems are a tribute to water, the source of water and the expression of water in the forms of rivers, bloodstreams and pools of mystery. This extraordinary collection is poetry with teeth that both nibbles and bites hard. It is full of the things of this world scarcely notices even by most poets, and shared with a marvellous sense of grace and wit.

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Book SynopsisThis delicate, beautiful yet often heartbreaking collection peels back the layers of daily social convention and hardened family mythologies to reveal the viscous and resonant sorrows beneath. It houses the mind and heart harmoniously and detonates the family romance to remind us how home an be both schoolhouse and ground zero.

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Book SynopsisReynolds tests delineations between the interior and exterior worlds, between self and world. The poems address these distinctions, often wrestling with the blur that results from their mingling. Revelations in these poems are small and quiet and open to questioning-both delimiting and mirroring our human business.

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Book SynopsisAt the beginning of Rodney Torreson's fascinating second book, everything is in its place -- ordinary, time-honoured, known. Then quite without warning, the familiar becomes new, alien, strangely awful or strangely dazzling. In subversive ways, this book takes the human figure out of his seat in the foreground, strips him of all privileges and asks him to understand himself as nature understands him.

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Book SynopsisSir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late fourteenth-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In this poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious green warrior. In a struggle to uphold his oath along this quest, Gawain demonstrates chivalry, loyalty, and honor. This new verse translation of the most popular and enduring fourteenth century romance to survive to the present offers students an accessible way of approaching the literature of medieval England without losing the flavor of the original writing. The language of Sir Gawain presents considerable problems to present-day readers as it is written in the West Midlands dialect before English became standardized. With a foreword by David Donoghue, the close verse translation includes facing pages of the original fourteenth-century text and its modern translation.

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