Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book SynopsisPresents Samuel Taylor Coleridge - poet, critic, thinker, plagiarist, cultural omnivore, enchanting companion, feckless husband, fabled conversationalist, guilt-ridden opium addict - in his complexity. This biography shows how Coleridge's writings in verse and prose are especially directly expressive of his opinions and emotions.Trade Review"A fine addition to the biographical attempt to catch the complex and elusive figure of Coleridge. The volume is notable for its aliveness, its signal success in giving us a living breathing human being." Professor Thomas McFarland, Princeton University "This book provides the student or general reader with an excellent critical introduction to Coleridge's life and work. Ashton has a gift for elucidating difficult concepts in clear and straightforward language. I can think of no better single volume Coleridge biography." Duncan Wu, University of Glasgow "This is a stimulating study of a man of many obvious talents." Alan Bold, The Herald "Ashton writes lucidly, and the book will be accessible to the layman and student as well as useful to the card-carrying Coleridge scholar; it is good, at last, to have a biography one can recommend so highly." Seamus Perry, Times Literary Supplement "Rosemary Ashton sets store by telling the sheer story. As vitally documented narrative, altogether free from melodrama. The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a deft feat." Christopher Dicks, London Quarterly "Here is a new biography of Coleridge that is likely to become the standard life of the poet. Rosmary Ashton's The Life of Sammuel Taylor Coleridge: A critical Biography offers a comprehensive and judicious survey of the poet's life and writings. John Strachen University of Sunderland " Professor Ashton identifies the tangle of abilities and pursuits that ranged from poetry to criticism philosophy to politics, opium-induced imagination to sparkling conversation."Table of ContentsList of Illustrations. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I:1772-1803:. 1. Inspired Charity Boy 1772-1791. 2. Cambridge and Pantisocracy 1791-1794. 3. Bristol and Marriage 1795-1796. 4. Nether Stowey and 'Kubla Khan' 1796-1797. 5. The Ancient Mariner. 6. To Germany and Back 1798-1800. 7. Greta Hall 1800-1802. Part II: 1803-1834:. 8. In Search of Health: To Malta and Back: 1803-1806. 9. Friendships and The Friend 1807-1810. 10. Life-in-Death: London 1810-1814. 11. Risen Again : Biographia Literaria 1814-1817. 12. Highgate 1818-1821. 13. Coleridge the Sage: Aids to Reflection 1821-1825. 14. Progress and Permanence 1826-1829. 15. Last Years: Church and the State 1830-1834. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of previously published essays acts as a companion to Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375 -1575. It pays particular attention to those critics who have had the most powerful recent impact on our reading of the texts of the period.Table of ContentsPreface. Notes on Contributors. 1. The Humanity of Christ: Reflections on Orthodox Late Medieval Representations and The Humanity of Christ: Representations in Wycliffite Texts and Piers Plowman: David Aers. 2. The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions: Mary Carruthers. 3. Eunuch Hermeneutics: Carolyn Dinshaw. 4. Misogyny and Economic Person in Skelton, Langland, and Chaucer: Elizabeth Fowler. 5. At the Table of the Great: More's Self-Fashioning and Self-Cancellation: Stephen Greenblatt. 6. The Colonial Wyatt: Contexts and Openings: Roland Greene. 7. Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Jill Mann. 8. William Langland's Kynde Name: Authorial Signature and Social Identity in Late Fourteenth-Century England: Anne Middleton. 9. Historical Criticism and the Claims of Humanism: Lee Patterson. 10.'Abject odious': Feminine and Masculine in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid: Felicity Riddy. 11. Prison, Writing, Absence: Representing the Subject in the English Poems of Charles d'Orléans: A. C. Spearing. 12. False Fables and Historical Truth: Paul Strohm. Index.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of previously published essays acts as a companion to Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375 -1575. It pays particular attention to those critics who have had the most powerful recent impact on our reading of the texts of the period.Table of ContentsPreface. Notes on Contributors. 1. The Humanity of Christ: Reflections on Orthodox Late Medieval Representations and The Humanity of Christ: Representations in Wycliffite Texts and Piers Plowman: David Aers. 2. The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions: Mary Carruthers. 3. Eunuch Hermeneutics: Carolyn Dinshaw. 4. Misogyny and Economic Person in Skelton, Langland, and Chaucer: Elizabeth Fowler. 5. At the Table of the Great: More's Self-Fashioning and Self-Cancellation: Stephen Greenblatt. 6. The Colonial Wyatt: Contexts and Openings: Roland Greene. 7. Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Jill Mann. 8. William Langland's Kynde Name: Authorial Signature and Social Identity in Late Fourteenth-Century England: Anne Middleton. 9. Historical Criticism and the Claims of Humanism: Lee Patterson. 10.'Abject odious': Feminine and Masculine in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid: Felicity Riddy. 11. Prison, Writing, Absence: Representing the Subject in the English Poems of Charles d'Orléans: A. C. Spearing. 12. False Fables and Historical Truth: Paul Strohm. Index.

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Book Synopsis* A major account of the life and work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge* Author an authority on Anglo--German cultural connections in the 19th century -- so this book is particularly strong and very accessible too on the German philosophical and literary background. .Trade Review"A fine addition to the biographical attempt to catch the complex and elusive figure of Coleridge. The volume is notable for its aliveness, its signal success in giving us a living breathing human being." Professor Thomas McFarland, Princeton University "This book provides the student or general reader with an excellent critical introduction to Coleridge's life and work. Ashton has a gift for elucidating difficult concepts in clear and straightforward language. I can think of no better single volume Coleridge biography." Duncan Wu, University of Glasgow "This is a stimulating study of a man of many obvious talents." Alan Bold, The Herald "Ashton writes lucidly, and the book will be accessible to the layman and student as well as useful to the card-carrying Coleridge scholar; it is good, at last, to have a biography one can recommend so highly." Seamus Perry, Times Literary Supplement "Rosemary Ashton sets store by telling the sheer story. As vitally documented narrative, altogether free from melodrama. The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a deft feat." Christopher Dicks, London Quarterly "Here is a new biography of Coleridge that is likely to become the standard life of the poet. Rosmary Ashton's The Life of Sammuel Taylor Coleridge: A critical Biography offers a comprehensive and judicious survey of the poet's life and writings. John Strachen University of Sunderland " Professor Ashton identifies the tangle of abilities and pursuits that ranged from poetry to criticism philosophy to politics, opium-induced imagination to sparkling conversation."Table of ContentsList of Illustrations. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I:1772-1803:. 1. Inspired Charity Boy 1772-1791. 2. Cambridge and Pantisocracy 1791-1794. 3. Bristol and Marriage 1795-1796. 4. Nether Stowey and 'Kubla Khan' 1796-1797. 5. The Ancient Mariner. 6. To Germany and Back 1798-1800. 7. Greta Hall 1800-1802. Part II: 1803-1834:. 8. In Search of Health: To Malta and Back: 1803-1806. 9. Friendships and The Friend 1807-1810. 10. Life-in-Death: London 1810-1814. 11. Risen Again : Biographia Literaria 1814-1817. 12. Highgate 1818-1821. 13. Coleridge the Sage: Aids to Reflection 1821-1825. 14. Progress and Permanence 1826-1829. 15. Last Years: Church and the State 1830-1834. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisProvides work by fifty poets in texts freshly credited from contemporary sources. Offers much fuller annotation than customarily available. Includes canonical poets and works as well as works of writers rarely anthologised.Table of ContentsIndex of Topics. Alphabetical List of Authors. Acknowledgements. Preface. Goerg Chapman (1559-1634). Michael Drayton (1563-1631). Thomas Campion (1567-1620). Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645). John Donne (1572-1631). Be3n Jonson (1572-1637). Martha Moulsworth (1578-1646). Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648). William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649). Lady Mry Wroth (1587-c.1653). Robert Herrick (1591-1674). Henry King (1592-1669). Francis Quarles (1592-1633). Thomas Carew (1595-1640). Owen Felltham (1602-1668). Thomas Randolph (1605-1654). Edmund Waller (1606-1687). Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608-1666). John Milton (1608-1674). Sir John Suckling (1609-1642). Richard Crawshaw (1612-1649). Samuel Butler (1613-1680). John Cleveland (1613-1658). Sir John Denham (1615-1669). Richard Lovelace (1618-1658). Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681). Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). Henry Vaughan (1622-1695). Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastel (1624-1674). Charles Cotton (1630-1687). John Dryden (1631-1700). Katherine Philips (1632-1664). Thomas Traherne (1637-1674). Aphra Behn (1640-1689). John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1674-1680). John Oldham (1653-1683). Anne Wharton (1659-1685). Index of Authors Cited. Index of Titles and First Lines.

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Book SynopsisEasily adaptable as both an anthology and an insightful guide to reading and understanding Romantic Poetry, this text discusses the important elements in the works from poets such as Smith, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Barbauld, Byron, Shelley, Hemans, Keats and Landon.Trade Review" ... this anthology's real strength lies in its wide-ranging, brilliant, and erudite annotations, which sometimes occupy as much space as the poetry itself. One could nearly read this volume in lieu of formal instruction. Packed with wonderful readings, excellent references (and recommendations for additional reading), extremely helpful footnotes, and engaging attention to the workings of form, Romantic Poetry: An Annotated Anthology could make a significant contribution to many instructors, students, and general readers." (Keats-Shelley Journal) "The head notes and commentary will prove invaluable, as they expertly identify literary sources and allusions.... The extensive biographies are superb, especially Charles Mahoney's on Keats, and the suggestions for further reading helpful ... Romantic Poetry does what it sets out to do and is a useful new addition to Blackwell's ongoing series of annotated anthologies." (Keats-Shelley Reviews, December 2008) "The editors have a particular commitment to the role that an appreciation of poetic form can play in critical understanding, and it is on account of this formal detail that the anthology is so valuable. Introductory headnotes elucidate the subtleties of each poem's craft, while footnotes comment on line endings, rhyme patterns, and other features of the text. Some comments are so brilliantly incisive as to deserve separate publication, such as the account of the metre of Christabel: 'each line seems like a stealthy event' (p. 207). Without question, this is by far the best way that any reader could be introduced to these poets, and the anthology is careful not to suggest that an attention to poetic detail precludes other types of investigation. Understanding how a poem creates meaning, however, is the vital first step, and for this reason Romantic Poetry: An Annotated Anthology will doubtless be the standard teaching anthology for many years." Year's Work of English Studies (2010) Table of ContentsSelected Contents by Theme. List of Plates. Note on Texts and Editorial Method. Index of Themes. Chronology of Events and Poetic Landmarks. Introduction: Romantic Doubleness. Acknowledgements. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, neé Aikin (1743--1825). The Rights of Woman. Inscription for an Ice-House. To Mr. S. T. Coleridge. Charlotte Smith, neé Turner (1749--1806). Sonnet 1 ['The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours']. Sonnet VII. On the Departure of the Nightingale. Sonnet XII. Written on the Sea Shore. – October, 1784. Sonnet XXX. To the River Arun. Sonnet XXXII. To Melancholy. Sonnet XXXIX. To Night. Sonnet XLIV. Written in the Church-yard at Middleton in Sussex. William Blake (1757--1827). from Songs of Innocence and of Experience. (from Innocence). Introduction. The Ecchoing Green. The Lamb. The Little Black Boy. The Chimney Sweeper. Holy Thursday. Nurse’s Song. (from Experience). Introduction. The Clod and the Pebble. Holy Thursday. The Sick Rose. The Fly. The Tyger. Ah! Sun-flower. London. A Poison Tree. Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The First Book of Urizen. The Mental Traveller. The Crystal Cabinet. William Wordsworth (1770--1850). Lines written at a small distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed. Simon Lee, the old Huntsman, With an incident in which he was concerned. Anecdote for Fathers, Shewing how the practice of Lying may be taught. Lines written in early Spring. The Thorn. The Last of the Flock. The Idiot Boy. Expostulation and Reply. The Tables Turned; An Evening Scene, on the same subject. Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798. The Ruined Cottage. Strange Fits of Passion I have Known. Song: 'She Dwelt among th'untrodden Ways'. A Slumber did my Spirit Seal. The Two April Mornings. The Fountain, A Conversation. Nutting. Michael, A Pastoral Poem. From The Prelude (1805), Book 1. Resolution and Independence. The World is Too Much With Us. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803. Ode (from 1815 entitled ‘Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’). The Solitary Reaper. Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772--1834). The Eolian Harp. Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire. Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement. This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. Kubla Khan. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Christabel. Frost at Midnight. France: An Ode. The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem, April, 1798. The Pains of Sleep. Dejection: An Ode. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788--1824). Stanzas to [Augusta]. [Epistle to Augusta]. Stanzas to the Po. Don Juan. The Dedication. Canto 1. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792--1822). Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Mont Blanc. Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni. Prometheus Unbound, Act I. Ode to the West Wind. Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of ‘Endymion’, ‘Hyperion’, etc. Felicia Hemans, née Browne (1793--1835). Properzia Rossi. The Homes of England. The Spirit’s Mysteries. The Graves of a Household. The Image in Lava. Casabianca. The Lost Pleiad. The Mirror in the Deserted Hall. John Keats (1795--1821). On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. The Eve of St Agnes. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Ode to Psyche. If by dull rhymes our english must be chain’d. Ode to a Nightingale. Ode on a Grecian Urn. Ode on Melancholy. Ode on Indolence. To Autumn. Bright star, Would I Were Stedfast as thou art. Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) (1802--38). Lines Written under a Picture of a Girl Burning a Love-Letter. A Child Screening a Dove from a Hawk. By Stewardson. Lines of Life. Felicia Hemans. Index of Titles and First Lines

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Book SynopsisPresents a comprehensive selection of the key views of Chaucer in the twentieth century. This volume addresses the growth of Chaucer criticism over the centuries. It reflects the three major divisions of Chaucer's writing: The Dream Vision poetry, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Canterbury Tales.Trade Review"The acuteness of Corinne Saunders's analyses makes this volume considerably more than a collection of critical extracts; it manages to be at once illuminating about Chaucer, Chaucerian criticism, and twentieth-century criticism in general, its range, its concerns, its disagreements, and its radical insights." Medium Aevum LXXI/2002 "Saunders's Chaucer is a thought-inspiring and highly recommended coursebook to use beside The Riverside Chaucer." English StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction. Part I: The Development of Chaucer Criticism:. Chaucer's Reading and Audience: Critical Extracts. 'The English and European Literary Traditions': Derek Brewer:. Introduction. Reading. From 'Chaucer: The Teller and the Tale': Gabriel Joipovici:. Introduction. Reading. From 'Audience': Paul Strohm:. Introduction. Reading. PArt II: Dream Vision Poetry:. Dream Vision Poetry: Critical Extracts. 'The Lady White and the White Tablet: The Book of the Duchess': Judith Ferster:. Introduction. Reading. ' "The Dido Episode," in The House of Fame': Wolfgang Clemen. Introduction. Reading. 'Chaucer's Fame and Her World: The Poem': Piero Boitani:. Introduction. Reading. 'Park of Paradise and Garden of Love': J. A. W. Bennett:. Introduction. Reading. 'The Parliament of Fowls': A. C. Spearing:. Introduction. Reading. 'The Narrator as Translator': Donald W. Rowe:. Introduction. Reading. 'Chaucer's Classical Legendary': Lisa J. Kiser:. Introduction. Reading. Part III: Troilus and Criseyde:. Troilus and Criseyde: Critical Extracts. From 'The Ending of Troilus': E. Talbot Donaldson:. Introduction. Reading. From 'The Heart and the Chain': John Leyerle:. Introduction. Reading. From 'Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society': David Aers:. Introduction. Reading. 'Coda: The Narrator': B David Benson:. Introduction. Reading. 'History versus Romance': Lee Patterson. PArt IV: The Canterbury Tales:. The Canterbury Tales: Critical Extracts. From 'The Unity of the Canterbury Tales': Robert M. Jordan:. Introduction. Reading. 'The Esthetics of this Form': Donald R. Howard:. Introduction. Reading. 'An Encyclopedia of Kinds': Helen Cooper:. Introduction. Reading. From ' The Night's Tale and Its Settings': V. A. Kolve:. Introduction. Reading. 'Fabliau, Confession, Satire': W. A. Davenport:. Introduction. Reading. 'Gems of Chastity': Ian Bishop:. Introduction. Reading. From 'Antifeminism': Jill Mann:. Introduction. Reading. From 'The Franklin's Tale': Angela Jane Weisl:. Introduction. Reading. From 'Glose/Bele Chose: The Wife of Bath and Her Glossators' and 'Eunuch Hermeneutics': Carolyn Dinshaw:. Introduction. Reading. Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisOrder and Disorder, the first epic poem by an Englishwoman, has never before been available in its entirety. David Norbrook has attributed the work to the republican, Lucy Hutchinson. In this volume, he provides a wealth of editorial matter, along with the full version of Order and Disorder.Trade Review"This eagerly awaited volume largely meets the high expectations readers have of Norbrook. Norbrook's edition belongs in the library of all colleges that grant a degree in English - not only because new scholarly topics include comparisons of Hutchinson and John Milton but because Hutchinson's "meditations" reveal a writer of considerable gifts. For that revelation readers are all deeply in Norbrook's debt." Choice "Norbrook's presentation of Order and Disorder is exemplary: finely judged, meticulous, and alert to textual resonance." Notes and QueriesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations. Abbreviations and References. Chronology. Order and Disorder: The Poem and its Contexts:. Lucy Hutchinson. Reading the Bible. Biblical Verse. The Divine Narrative. Politics and Religion. Eve's Version? Genesis, Women and the Woman Writer. Note on the Text and Editing. Acknowledgements. Order and Disorder. Appendix: 'Elegies', no. 3. Further Reading. Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisOrder and Disorder, the first epic poem by an Englishwoman, has never before been available in its entirety. The first five cantos were printed anonymously in 1679, but fifteen further cantos remained in manuscript, probably because they were so politically sensitive.Trade Review"This eagerly awaited volume largely meets the high expectations readers have of Norbrook. Norbrook's edition belongs in the library of all colleges that grant a degree in English - not only because new scholarly topics include comparisons of Hutchinson and John Milton but because Hutchinson's "meditations" reveal a writer of considerable gifts. For that revelation readers are all deeply in Norbrook's debt." Choice "Norbrook's presentation of Order and Disorder is exemplary: finely judged, meticulous, and alert to textual resonance." Notes and QueriesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations. Abbreviations and References. Chronology. Order and Disorder: The Poem and its Contexts:. Lucy Hutchinson. Reading the Bible. Biblical Verse. The Divine Narrative. Politics and Religion. Eve's Version? Genesis, Women and the Woman Writer. Note on the Text and Editing. Acknowledgements. Order and Disorder. Appendix: 'Elegies', no. 3. Further Reading. Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisThis concise and lively survey introduces students with no prior knowledge to Chaucer, and particularly to The Canterbury Tales. Provides essential facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote. Provides essential facts about Chaucer, as well as a framework for thinking about his poetry. Encourages an engaged reading of The Canterbury Tales. Introduces students to the historical and religious background needed to understand the contexts in which Chaucer wrote. Trade Review"This book is a lively, useful guide to beginning readers of the Canterbury Tales. It strikes a good balance between the cultural topics and historical interests that have shaped much contemporary scholarship and the poetic features – character, theme, structure, and linguistic play – that have always attracted Chaucer's readers." Robert Edwards, Pennsylvania State University "Hirsch releases the pleasure, vitality, and complexity of the Canterbury Tales by familiarizing us with the fascinating otherness of Chaucer's world, and key interpretations by modern scholars. For anyone studying or teaching the Canterbury Tales, this informative and readable book will save much labour, and stimulate much thought." Peter Brown, University of Kent at Canterbury "John Hirsh offers persuasive and vivid evocations of Chaucer's life and times, and his thought world, which provide useful contexts for his writings. An excellent and original introduction." Corinne Saunders, Durham University "Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales includes a great range of accurate information in its few pages; even more important, Hirsh's writing is clear and welcoming and his learning and critical judgments as undogmatic as they are stimulating. [...] Although always sensitive to what a novice reader might need to know, Hirsh is never condescending. [...] Hirsh involves us in the delight of the material and the questions it raises in such a way that we hardly realize how well we are being instructed...." SpeculumTable of ContentsNotes on Illustrations. Preface. Who Was Geoffrey Chaucer?. Gender and Religion, Race and Class. Others. Love. God. Visions of Chaucer. Death. Conclusion. Which Tale Was That? A Summary of theCanterbury Tales. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. List of Authors, Compilers, Editors, and Translators Referred to in the Select Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisFeaturing the work of the six great Romantic Poets - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats - this concise collection illustrates the new way of thinking voiced by the Romantic poets in an age of rebellion and revolution.Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface. Introduction. Part I: William Blake (1757-1827):. 1. Songs of Innocence:. Introduction. The Shepherd. The Echoing Green. The Lamb. The Little Black Boy. The Blossom. The Chimney Sweeper. The Little Boy Lost. The Little Boy Found. Laughing Song. A Cradle Song. The Divine Image. Holy Thursday. Night. Spring. Nurse's Song. Infant Joy. A Dream. On Another's Sorrow. 2. Songs of Experience:. Introduction. Earth's Answer. The Clod and the Pebble. Holy Thursday. The Little Girl Lost. The Little Girl Found. The Chimney Sweeper. Nurse's Song. The Sick Rose. The Fly. The Angel. The Tyger. My Pretty Rose-Tree. Ah, Sunflower!. The Lily. The Garden of Love. The Little Vagabond. London. The Human Abstract. Infant Sorrow. A Poison Tree. A Little Boy Lost. A Little Girl Lost. To Tirzah. The Schoolboy. The Voice of the Ancient Bard. A Divine Image. Part II: William Wordsworth (1770-1850):. Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey. The Two-Part Prelude (Part I only). Strange fits of passion I have known. Song (‘She dwelt among the 'untrodden ways'). A slumber did my spirit seal. Three years she grew in sun and shower. I travelled among unknown men. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, 3 September 1802. Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Daffodils. Stepping Westward. The Solitary Reaper. The River Duddon: Conclusion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Of the Fragment of ‘Kubla Khan'. Kubla Khan. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In seven parts. Frost at Midnight. Christabel (Part I and conclusion only). George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824). From Don Juan: Canto II (extracts). Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). To Wordsworth. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Mont Blanc. Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni. Ozymandias. The Mask of Anarchy. Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester. Ode to the West Wind. England in 1819. Sonnet (‘Lift not the painted veil'). To a Skylark. John Keats (1795-1821). On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Addressed to Haydon. On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again. Sonnet (‘When I have fears that I may cease to be'). The Eve of St Agnes. La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad. Ode to Psyche. Ode to a Nightingale. Ode on a Grecian Urn. Ode on Melancholy. Ode on Indolence. To Autumn. Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art. Index of titles and first lines.

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Book SynopsisOpening with extracts from Chaucer''s Canterbury Tales and closing with Spenser''s Shepherd''s Calendar, this concise collection introduces readers to some of the most influential poetry produced between the mid-fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries. Provides a concise selection of the most important late medieval poetry. Ideal for general readers, or for students needing a digest of the poetry of the period. Introduces readers to the lives of the poets, their major works, and the historical context in which they were written. Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface. Introduction. 1. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400):. From The Canterbury Tales:. The General Prologue. The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale. 2. William Langland (fl.1375-80):. The Vision of Piers Plowman (C-Text) (extracts). Prologue. Passus III. Passus V. Passus VI. 3. The Gawain-Poet (fl. 1390):. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Fit 3. 4. Robert Henryson (c. 1430-c. 1505):. The Testament of Cresseid. The Fables. The Fox and the Wolf. The Wolf and the Wether. 5. William Dunbar (c. 1456-c. 1515):. Meditation in Winter. Christ in Triumph. The Golden Targe (extracts). The Treatise of the Two Married Women and the Widow (extracts). ‘Timor Mortis Conturbat Me'. 6. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42):. ‘The longe love, that in my thought doeth harbor'. ‘Who-so list to hunt, I knowe where is an hynde'. ‘Farewell, Love, and all thy lawes for ever'. ‘My galy charged with forgetfulnes'. ‘Madame, withouten many wordes';. ‘They fle from me that sometyme did me seke'. ‘What no, perdy, ye may be sure!'. ‘Marvaill no more all-tho'. ‘Tho I cannot your crueltie constrain'. ‘To wish and want and not obtain'. ‘Some-tyme I fled the fyre that me brent'. ‘The furyous gonne is his rajing yre'. ‘My lute, awake! perfourme the last'. ‘In eternum I was ons determed'. ‘Hevyn and erth and all that here me plain'. ‘To cause accord or to agre'. ‘You that in love finde lucke and habundaunce'. ‘What rage is this? what furour of what kynd?'. ‘Is it possible?'. ‘Forget not yet the tryde entent'. ‘Blame not my lute for he must sownde'. ‘What shulde I saye'. ‘Spight hath no powre to make me sadde'. ‘I abide and abide and better abide'. ‘Stond who-so list upon the slipper toppe'. ‘Throughout the world, if it wer sought'. ‘In court to serve decked with freshe aray'. 7. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47):. ‘When raging love with extreme payne'. ‘The soote season, that bud and blome furth bringes'. ‘Set me wheras the sonne doth perche the grene'. ‘Love, that doth raine and live within my thought'. ‘Alas, so all thinges nowe do holde their peace'. ‘Geve place, ye lovers, here before'. Epitaph for Wyatt. 8. Edmund Spenser (1552-99):. From The Shepherd's Calender. January. Index of titles and first lines.

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Book SynopsisTo Be the Poet is Kingston's manifesto, the avowal and declaration of a writer who has devoted a good part of her sixty years to writing prose, and who, over the course of this spirited and inspiring book, works out what the rest of her life will be, in poetry.Trade ReviewOn the opening page of this slim volume, Kingston declares that after decades of writing acclaimed memoirs and fiction...she has decided to devote herself to writing poetry. This work...explores this new dimension of her life, mostly written in verse. Kingston relays her past, how she looks at herself, and how she works to take on the life of a poet. What results is a multilayered book that is irreverent, serious, and playful but always instructive. She gives her readers the opportunity to see an accomplished artist at work in the creative process--a new one for her. This book should appeal to all who have had the urge to put pen to paper. -- Ron Ratliff * Library Journal *A handsome, sub-sized book, To Be the Poet includes drawings by the author and journal jottings of lunches, telephone calls, trips and conversations with friends. It's fast and interesting, and useful as a blueprint on how to get a poem. -- Chris Watson * Santa Cruz Sentinel *Maxine Hong Kingston's To Be the Poet reads like a documentary on the daily life of a writer, and it has the potential to become a classic...Her new book...is not simply about being a writer; it's also a memoir with suggestions for coping with life...A lifelong writer of prose transforming herself into a poet--becomes the central image of the book, establishing the structure for its collage of reflections and notes...She takes the reader with her as she rededicates herself to poetry...Every writer should have a copy of this book, along with more copies in storage, to pass out to friends and family who look askance at the writing life...[Kingston's] lyrical prose uses the specifics of one woman's life to make a universal statement about how writers live and work. -- A. Van Jordan * Washington Post *The poems themselves are not only good writing, but a kind of personal prescription for the development of wisdom. Poetry, Kingston said, has become an antidote and companion to the hard work of prose writing. I especially enjoyed how she moves from mundane tasks like selling her house to the loftiness of imagining peace in her poetry. Somehow, in the masterful hands of this writer, these disparate activities become whole. This first book of poetry by the author is also a sort of workbook of instructions for the creative, and I would highly recommend it to other writers and artists as well as those who love words. -- Ann-Marie Stillion * Northwest Asian Weekly *Kingston has written some mighty serious books over the years, and now, at 60, she's kicking up her heels and enjoying the fun of wordsmithing. To Be the Poet is her "manifesto"...Kingston pillages her past and plunders the future, assembling a slim volume that's deeply observational and disarmingly witty. -- Burl Burlingame * Honolulu Star-Bulletin *A suitably brief, lucid and intriguing invitation to the process of poetry, in which [Kingston] shares her own path after she "choose the poet's life"...Once again, she blazes her own trail. * Honolulu Advertiser *

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the overall testimony of Plato as an expert about the cultural legacy of these Homeric performances. Plato's fine ear for language--in this case the technical language of high-class artisans like rhapsodes--picks up on a variety of authentic expressions that echo the talk of rhapsodes as they once practiced their art.

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Book SynopsisPoetry has often been considered an irrational genre, yet Vendler argues that all poets of value are thinkers. The four poets taken up in this volume—Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, and Yeats—come from three centuries and three nations, and their styles of thinking are characteristically idiosyncratic.Trade ReviewPoetry is often regarded as the product of inspiration rather than intellect. Vendler seeks to emphasize the importance of thought in poetry...She shows poetic thought as reflected in poetic voice, structure, and prosody in four poets: Alexander Pope, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and W. B. Yeats...Vendler's convincing and illuminating arguments make this book highly recommended. -- Amy K. Weiss * Library Journal *[Vendler's] thoughtful and insightful readings of poems by Alexander Pope, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and William Butler Yeats demonstrate the central and indeed essential role of sophisticated thinking in the poetic enterprise...To navigate the intricacies of thought that a poem contains, it is hard to imagine a better guide than Vendler herself. Her most admirable achievement is perhaps her ability to illuminate the connection between what a poem says and the formally oriented issue of how it says it. One might have expected a book explicitly on poetic thinking to neglect form, and focus only on content. But Vendler considers this approach a serious mistake, and her insights regarding form constitute the strongest argument for this position. -- Troy Jollimore * San Francisco Chronicle *Some people seem surprised by the idea that poets do any thinking at all. There is a popular image of the poet as a wild, inspired, untutored and half-mad figure striding across the heath. Helen Vendler's new book, Poet's Thinking, if it is read as widely as it ought to be, will help considerably to correct this misperception. * San Francisco Chronicle *In her challenging and entertaining new book, Poets Thinking, Helen Vendler argues that poetry in all its manifestations, however ostensibly irrational, is a mode of thinking that commands not just our aesthetic appreciation but also our intellectual respect...Vendler is a wonderful elucidator of individual poems. Nobody writes more insightfully about a poem's stylistic armature, and the emotional and intellectual purposes that armature serves. And by examining the distinctive strategies of thinking in the work of such radically different poets as Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, and Yeats, Vendler makes visible aspects of style and language that other critics simply haven't seen. -- Alan Shapiro * Harvard Magazine *One of the most distinguished critics of poetry in the English-speaking world...Vendler engages in close reading to find a poem's distinctiveness of language and literary form...Vendler is really trying to enlarge our idea of what poetry can be...In reminding us to look at and listen to the actual words on the page, and not to leap too soon to some hackneyed idea that they recall, Vendler invites us to expand our own response to experience. -- Christopher Benfey * New York Review of Books *Vendler's close readings lay bare the process of poetic reflection: Poets Thinking is about how rather than what poets think, about the act of the mind rather than any 'embalmed thought' that readers might want to extract from verse...Vendler is exceptionally skilled at demonstrating that poetry offers us pictures of the mind at work rather than settled axioms to take away...[Poets Thinking] has a good deal to offer in the way of thought-provoking and sometimes dazzling readings of British and American poetry. -- Fiona Green * Times Literary Supplement *Helen Vendler's Poets Thinking is lucid, accessible, and inspired...Vendler's own voice is that rare academic combination of expertise and accommodation...Her arguments provide ample explanation and exempla for the lay reader while provoking the academic to revisit old assumptions. She is at ease with the broad sweep of American and English poetry and with the critical methods of the last half-century. Her conclusions seem remarkably self-evident, a voice of trustworthiness and reason that encourages us to lean closer, to listen carefully. -- Lynnell Edwards * Georgia Review *

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Book SynopsisThe vision of poetic competence evolved for over a millennium from calculated performances of inherited words to sincere passionate outbursts to displays of verbal wit combining calculation with the appearance of spontaneity. This book tells the story of the development of poetic competence to uncover the complexity of the concept.

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Book SynopsisAs descendants of the great courtier-poets Fujiwara no Shunzei (11141204) and his son Teika (11621244), the heirs of the Reizei house can claim an unbroken literary lineage spanning over eight centuries. Carter combines family history, literary criticism, and historical research in a coherent narrative tracking the evolution of the Reizei Way.

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Book SynopsisCristoforo Landino (14241498) was one of the great scholar-poets of the Renaissance. His most substantial work of poetry was his Three Books on Xandra. Also included in this volume is the Carmina Varia, a collection whose centerpiece is a group of elegies directed to the Venetian humanist Bernardo Bembo.

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to this volume draw upon Homeric scholarship as inspiration for pursuing new ways of looking at texts, both within the Homeric tradition and outside it. The seven original essays here consider topics that transcend traditional generic distinctions between epic and lyric, choral and individual, performed and literary.

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Book SynopsisWells argues that the victory song is a traditional art form that appealed to a popular audience and served exclusive elite interests through the inclusive appeal of entertainment, popular instruction, and laughter. Wells offers a new take on old Pindaric questions: genre, unity of the victory song, tradition, and epinician performance.

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Book SynopsisThis book argues that oracular utterance, dramatic acting, and rhetorical delivery powerfully elucidate the practice of epic rhapsodes in Homeric performance. Attention to these domains reveals a shifting dynamic of competition and emulation among rhapsodes, actors, and orators that shaped their texts and their crafts.

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Book SynopsisOlga M. Davidson applies comparative literary approaches to classical Persian traditions of composing and performing poetry and song. She focuses on the eleventh-century CE epic Shahnama and its relationship to other genres embedded in it, including forms of verbal art originally composed without the aid of writing, such as women's laments.Trade ReviewMany have forgotten the role of the gosan in oral epic literature. To believe that Persian poetics is only retelling what they learned in a book is to hold that old accentual meter is really newly borrowed from Arabic, which is hardly right. Dr. Davidson has well explained this in her revised book. -- Richard N. Frye, Harvard University

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Book SynopsisOne of the central literary texts of the Heian period (7941185), Tales of Ise has inspired extensive commentary. Offering a comprehensive history of the work's reception, Jamie Newhard reveals the ideological and aesthetic issues shaping criticism over the centuries as the audience for classical Japanese literature expanded beyond the aristocracy.

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Book SynopsisThe first book of its kind in any Western language, Wang Anshi and Song Poetic Culture brings into focus a cluster of issues that are central to the understanding of both the poet and his cultural milieu. Together, the chapters form a varied mosaic of Wang Anshi's work and its critical reception in the larger context of Song poetic culture.

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Book SynopsisAmidst conflicting information and personal experiences, how can someone distinguish between truth and falsehood? Criteria of Truth: Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry tackles this fundamental question through a study of five Hellenistic poems by Aratus, Nicander, Callimachus, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Lycophron.

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Book SynopsisThe Iliad reveals a traditional oral poetic style, but many believe that the poem cannot be treated as solely a product of oral tradition. In The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, Karol Zielinski argues that neither Homer's unique artistry nor references to events known from other songs necessarily indicate the use of writing in its composition.

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Book SynopsisIn this bold defense of so-called confessional poetry, Alan Williamson shows us that much of the best writing of the past twenty-five years is about the sense of being or having a self, a knowable personal identity. The difficulties posed by this subject help explain the fertility of contemporary poetic experimentfrom the jaggedness of the later work of Robert Lowell to the montagelike methods of John Ashbery, from the visual surrealism of James Wright and W. S. Merwin to the radical plainness of Frank Bidart. Williamson examines these and other poets from a psychological perspective, giving an especially striking reading of Sylvia Plath.Table of Contents* Introduction *"I Am That I Am": The Ethics and Aesthetics of Personal Poetry * Real and Numinous Selves: A Reading of Plath * Language Against Itself: The Middle Generation of Contemporary Poets *"Surrealism" and the Absent Self * The Diffracting Diamond: Ashbery, Romanticism, and Anti-Art * The Future of Personal Poetry * Notes * Credits * Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsEditor's Introduction The Living Hand of Keats: An Essay on the Manuscripts, by Helen Vendler Facsimiles of the Holographs 1. On Receiving a Curious Shell, and a Copy of Verses, from the Same Ladies (fair copy) 2. Happy is England! I could be content (fair copy) 3. To My Brother George (pencil draft) 4. To My Brother George (flair copy) 5. On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (draft or early fair copy) 6. To My Brothers (pencil draft) 1-8 7. To My Brothers (fair copy) 8. To My Brothers (fair copy) 9. Addressed to the Same [B. R. Haydon] (fair copy) 10. To G. A. W (fair copy) 11. I stood tip-toe upon a little hill (parts of the draft) 12. I stood tip-toe upon a little hill (fair copy) 13. Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition (draft) 14. On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt (fair copy) 15. To the Ladies Who Saw Me Crown'd (fair copy) 16. To Haydon with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles (fair copy) 17. On Seeing the Elgin Marbles (fair copy) 18. God of the golden bow (draft) 19. On a Leander Which Miss Reynolds, My Kind Friend, Gave Me (draft) 20. O grant that like to Peter I (draft and revision) 21. Apollo to the Graces (draft?) 22. Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair (draft) 23. Lines on the Mermaid Tavern (fair copy) 24. To. J. R. (draft?) 25. Isabella (parts of the draft) 26. There is a joy in footing slow across a silent plain (draft?) 27. Hush, hush, tread softly, hush, hush, my dear (draft?) 28. The Eve of St. Agnes (draft) 29. Song of Four Fairies (fair copy) 30. Shed no tear-O shed no tear (fair copy?) 31. Otho the Great (parts of the draft) 32. Lamia (parts of the draft) 33. Lamia (fair copy) 34. To Autumn (draft) 35. To Fanny (draft) 36. King Stephen (parts of the draft) 37. The Jealousies (parts of the draft) 38. This living hand, now warm and capable (draft) 39. Notes to the Manuscripts

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Book SynopsisThe national folk epic of Finland is presented in an English translation. Magoun has used prose, printed line for line as in the original so that repetitions, parallelisms, and variations are apparent. The lyrical passages and poetic images, wry humor, tall-tale extravagance, and homely realism of the Kalevala come through with great effectiveness.Trade ReviewThanks to a…clear, accurate version by Francis Magoun, Kalevala is accessible to interested readers everywhere… The kaleidoscopic Kalevala opens with the creation of the world and the birth of the ancient hero, Väinämöinen, a being of supernatural origins. The work then turns to the relations between two communities: Kalevala (‘Land of the Kaleva’—the poetic name for Finland), led by Väinämöinen, and Pohjola (‘Land of the North’), ruled by Louhi, and old woman who can change into an avenging dragon… This…version, expertly…translated by Francis Magoun and recently issued by Harvard University Press, is probably the best translation readily available in English today. -- Donald V. Mehus and Thomas J. Martin * Western Viking *Into the shifting of tone from lyrically tragic poems to those about warfare, from wedding lays to sheer horseplay, Magoun has infused the unmistakable speech rhythm and diction of our own language… The Kalevala is a monumental work. -- John Godfrey * Christian Science Monitor *The original sense [of the Kalevala] breaks through in a refreshing new way… The philologist and folklorist will welcome the new precision of thought and expression. For English students of Kalevala…this is an indispensable book… Dr. Magoun’s re-appraisal of this museum piece from Finland brushes off some of the dust and helps us to see anew something of its originality and distinction. -- W. R. Mead * Folklore *This authoritative new translation of the Kalevala, together with the materials the volume contains relating the poetic style of the Finnish songs to the style of other orally composed poetry, is especially significant to students of European folklore… Both Professor Magoun and the Harvard University Press have placed many generations of folklorists in their debt. -- Robert Kellogg * Journal of American Folklore *What distinguishes this work from other Kalevala translations is the fact that Professor Magoun presents a prose translation of the national folk epic of Finland, a translation which is accurate and scholarly in every detail… The translator makes his translation agree line for line with the original; the result is that this translation makes readily apparent the parallelisms, the poetic images, and the wry humor as well as the homely realism of the Finnish original. * The Scandinavian-American Bulletin *Table of ContentsTranslator's Foreword The Kalevala Poem 1. Lonnrot's prologue; the creation of the world and the birth of Vainamoinen 2. Vainamoinen's sowing of the primeval wilderness; a sower's charm 3. Vainamoinen's defeat of Joukahainen in a contest of wisdom; the pledging of Aino; maxims 4. Vainamoinen's ill-fated wooing of Aino; Aino's drowning 5. Vainamoinen's unsuccessful fishing for Aino; his mother's advice to woo the maiden of North Farm 6. Joukahainen fells Vainamoinen's horse 7. Vainamoinen and Louhi of North Farm; his promise of a Sampo 8. Vainamoinen and the maiden of North Farm; his wounded knee 9. The origin of iron; blood-stanching charms; the healing of Vainamoinen 's knee 10. Ilmarinen forges the Sampo 11. The marriage of Lemminkainen and Kyllikki of the Island 12. Lemminkainen bewitches North Farm; protective charms 13. Lemminkainen woos the maiden of North Farm; he fails to catch the Demon's elk, assigned as a qualifying task 14. Huntsmen's charms; a ransom charm; Lemminkainen captures the Demon's elk and bridles the Demon's gelding; while going to shoot the swan of Death's Domain he is shot dead by Soppy Hat 15. At home blood on his brush reveals Lemminkainen 's death; his mother finds and reassembles the pieces of his body and restores him to life; vein, bee, and cowbane charms 16. Vainamoinen's boat-building and his visit to Death's Domain 17. Vainamoinen exacts charms from tortured Antero Vipunen; banishment charms and charms against disease and misadventure 18. Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen sue for the maiden of North Farm 19. The maiden of North Farm accepts Ilmarinen; IImarinen's three qualifying tasks; a snake charm, a huntsman's charm 20. The slaughtering of the big Karelian steer; preparations for the wedding feast at North Farm; the origin of beer 21. The wedding feast at North Farm; wedding lays 22. Wedding lay: Tormenting and consoling a bride 23. Wedding lays: The government of a bride; The lay of an abused daughter-in-law 24. Wedding lays: The government of a groom; Lay of a bride's going away; Ilmarinen and the maiden of North Farm set out for home 25. At home Ilmarinen and his bride are ceremoniously received 26. Lemminkainen intrudes upon the wedding at North Farm; snake charms; the origin of snakes 27. The duel at North Farm 28. Lemminkainen's hasty return from North Farm 29. Lemminkainen's self-exile on an island 30. Lemminkainen's and Snowfoot's wild goose chase and the big freeze; charms against Jack Frost and wizards 31. The feud between Untamo and Kalervo; Kullervo's unfortunate upbringing; an antifertility charm 32. Kullervo as a herdsman; cattle, milk, and bear charms 33. The death of Ilmarinen's lady 34. Kullervo's homecoming 3. The unhappy meeting of Kullervo and his sister 36. Kullervo's revenge on Untamo; his suicide 37. Ilmarinen's gold and silver bride 38. Ilmarinen's new bride from North Farm; a report on the Sampo 39. The expedition of Vainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkainen to North Farm to steal the Sampo 40. Vainamoinen's pikebone harp; rapids charms 41. Vainamoinen plays the pikebone harp 42. The theft of the Sampo from North Farm 43. The sea and air battle for the Sampo; the lucky preservation in the Kaleva District of some fragments of the Sampo; a soldier's protective charm 44. Vainamoinen 's new birchwood harp 45. Magically induced diseases in the Kaleva District; the origin of pestilences; charms against pain 46. The slaying of the bear at North Farm and the great feast in the Kaleva District; a bear-hunter's charm; the origin of bears 47. The mistress of North Farm steals the sun and the moon; the disappearance of Ukko's fire 48. The difficult recovery of Ukko's fire; a fisherman's charm; a charm against burns 49. Ilmarinen's silver sun and golden moon; Vainamoinen's duel at North Farm; the mistress of North Farm releases the true sun and moon; divining charms 50. The virgin Marjatta's immaculate conception; her son is designated King of Karelia; Vainamoinen 's discomfiture and flight; Lonnrot's epilogue Appendices I. Materials For The Study of The Kalevala A. "Elias Lonnrot," by Aarne A. Anttila B. "The Kalevala," by Vaino W. Salminen and Viljo Tarkiainen C. Concordances: Old and New Kalevala D. Lonnrot 's Prefaces to the Kalevala E. Henrik Gabriel Porthan on Ceremonial Peasant Singing II. Translator's Appendix A. On the Translation of Certain Words B. Glossary of Proper Names C. Reference List of Finnish Names D. List of Charms, in Order of Occurrence F. Corrigenda

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Book SynopsisScience has transformed understandings of the mind, supplying physiological explanations for what once seemed transcendental. Nikki Skillman shows how lyric poets—caught between a reductive scientific view and naïve literary metaphors—struggled to articulate a vision of consciousness that was both scientifically informed and poetically truthful.Trade ReviewNikki Skillman’s clear and eloquent book reshapes the landscape of modern American poetry. It explores the distinctiveness of poets’ engagement with the experience of mind, whether as embattled defenders of human mystery or shrewd explorers of synapses. -- Jonathan Culler, Cornell UniversityThis important book argues that advances in brain science have made for significant changes in American poetry since the 1960s. Skillman’s writing is eloquent, often beautiful, meticulously alert to detail, and her judgments are sound and sensitive. -- Jahan Ramazani, University of Virginia

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Book SynopsisThis analysis of the literary art of recapturing the past as the artist perceives it examines such questions as how a fictional narrative differs from other ways of seeing a past time; to what extent literature is nontemporal and to what extent it is tied to the institutions and traditions of its era; and how given works conjure up a sense of time.Table of ContentsIntroduction I. MODELS OF HISTORICAL RETRIEVAL 1. The Wayward Temporality of Literature 2. Recurrence, Institution, and Literary Kind II. REVIVALS AND CONTINUITY 3. Poetic Recollection and the Phantomized Past 4. Ancestral Gloom and Glory III. DISCONTINUITY 5. Milton's Siege of Contraries: Universal Waste and Redemption 6. Questers in an Icy Elysee: Moderns without Ancestry IV. LITERARY HISTORY? 7 Ceres and the Librarians of Babel Notes Index

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Book SynopsisAs Judith Shklar has pointed out, Emerson built Representative Men around the principle of ‘rotation,’ which had become a political axiom in Jacksonian America—the idea that no man, no matter how imposing, should be accorded permanent authority. Representative Men honors the language of democracy in its very title.Table of ContentsHistorical Introduction Statement of Editorial Principles Textual Introduction REPRESENTATIVE MEN: SEVEN LECTURES 1. Uses of Great Men 2. Plato, or the Philosopher Plato: New Readings 3. Swedenborg, or the Mystic 4. Montaigne, or the Skeptic 5. Shakspeare, or the Poet 6. Napoleon, or the Man of the World 7. Goethe, or the Writer Notes Textual Apparatus Annex A: The Manuscript Appendix 1: The 1850 Compositors Appendix 2: Revisions in the Manuscript Annex B: Parallel Passages Index

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Book SynopsisShelley has long been viewed as a dreamer isolated from reality, a beautiful and ineffectual angel, in Arnold's words. In contrast, Sperry's book emphasizes the life forces originating in the poet's childhood that impelled and shaped his career, and reasserts Shelley's relevance to the social and cultural dilemmas of contemporary life.Trade ReviewTo trace the life force of his poetry and its transformation and efflorescence in the course of his development, Sperry has taken Shelley’s eight major poetic works—Queen Mab, Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound Acts I–IV, The Cenci, The Witch of Atlas, Epipsychidion, and The Triumph of Love—and examined them chronologically within the context of the poet’s life. Supported by impeccable scholarship, Sperry’s incisive analyses illuminate for modern readers not only Shelley the poet but Shelley the man. -- Sharon Wong * Library Journal *One of the finest books on Shelley to appear in recent years. Its special strength lies in its elucidation of Shelley’s extreme idealism. Sperry finds in the major poetry life-values that are not only defensible but even prophetic for both individuals and societies. -- Donald H. ReimanTable of ContentsPreface 1. Our Proper Destiny: Queen Mab 2. Broodings in Solitude: Alastor 3. The Triumph of Love: The Revolt of Islam 4. The Human Situation: Prometheus Unbound, Act I 5. Hope and Necessity: Prometheus Unbound, Act II 6. The Transforming Harmony: Prometheus Unbound, Acts III and IV 7. Sad Reality: The Cenci 8. Romantic Irony: The Witch of Atlas 9. Love's Universe: Epipsychidion 10. Tragic Irony: The Triumph of Lift Notes Index

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Book SynopsisAs a didactic explanation of pagan ancient Greek culture to Orthodox Christians, John Tzetzes’s Allegories of the Iliad is deeply rooted in the mid-twelfth-century circumstances of the cosmopolitan Comnenian court. As a critical reworking of the Iliad, it is part of the millennia-long global tradition of Homeric adaptation.Trade ReviewGoldwyn and Kokkini have provided English-speakers with a wonderful edition of Ioannes (John) Tzetzes’s Allegories of the Iliad… The poem itself is beautiful and can be appreciated on its own. Scholars, however, will take a special interest in the translators’ faithful yet fluid rendering of the Greek… Many thanks are due the translators and Harvard University Press for making this less-known, fascinating work available to modern audiences. The elegant presentation is a bonus. -- F. A. Grabowski * Choice *

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Book SynopsisBrian Steininger revisits Japan’s mid-Heian court of the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book, where literary Chinese was not only the basis of official administration, but also a medium for political protest, sermons of mourning, and poems of celebration.

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Book SynopsisThis study by Hélène Monsacré shows how Western ideals of inexpressive manhood run contrary to the poetic vision of Achilles and his warrior companions presented in the Homeric epics. Pursuing the paradox of the tearful fighter, Monsacré examines the interactions between men and women in the Homeric poems.

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Book SynopsisMughal rulers were legendary connoisseurs of the arts, whose patronage attracted poets, artists, and scholars from all parts of the world. Sunil Sharma explores the rise and decline of Persian court poetry in India and the invention of an enduring idea of a literary paradise, perfectly exemplified by the valley of Kashmir.Trade ReviewSunil Sharma’s Mughal Arcadia draws on Persian poetry produced in India to evoke a world that is now as lost and strange as Atlantis or Shangri-La. The Persian poets presented India as a land of wonders and riches, a pastoral paradise. As I read on, an impossible longing came over me—to visit seventeenth century Kashmir and see for myself what the poets described and the miniaturists painted: the spring festivals, harem processions, falcon hunts, well-watered gardens with their fruit trees, Sufis, nightingales, wild dogs, and cities devoted to love and poetry… This exploration of a hitherto largely neglected subject is based on remarkably wide reading and is a credit to scholarship. -- Robert Irwin, author of The Arabian Nights: A Companion and Wonders Will Never CeaseIt is the fragrance of pure Mughal sophistication which wafts through this erudite book. In elegant and eloquent detail, Sharma tells of the Mughal imperial family’s love for nature… Mughal Arcadia’s singularity is that, calling on [Sharma’s] ample scholarly knowledge of Indo-Persian poetry and culture, it offers an account of Mughal history for the non-specialist, including the Mughal love for tended and unspoiled bountiful nature. -- Christine van Ruymbeke * Times Literary Supplement *A celebration and deeply learned account of Persian poetry in Mughal India, this book traces how the idea of Hindustan in the Iranian imagination encountered the actuality of the place and ultimately transformed the literary and aesthetic landscape of the subcontinent. Mughal Arcadia is attractively written, with enthusiasm and erudition, and will delight anyone interested in the magnificent Indo-Persian culture it commemorates. -- Dick Davis, translator of Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of ShirazPersian poets have historically referred to the valley of Kashmir as a ‘second paradise.’ Thanks to Sunil Sharma’s fascinating account of the Mughal court’s love of Persian poets and poetry and its openness to artistic multiculturalism, we understand the full breadth of that paradise. -- Sholeh Wolpé, poet and translator of The Conference of the Birds by AttarSharma…takes us on a whirlwind tour of a hefty slice of the nearly forgotten universe of Mughal Persian poetry. The book is a delight. One emerges from it impressed by the beauty and complexity of Mughal poetry and even more impressed by Sharma’s deft reading skills and ability to translate this tradition for 21st century readers. -- Audrey Truschke * The Wire *

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Book SynopsisRenowned scholar Susan J. Wolfson assembles seventy-eight selections—some beloved, others less well known—that illuminate the brief, extraordinary career of John Keats. Lively commentaries showcase the poems’ form, style, layers of meaning, and relevant contexts, offering a chronicle of Keats’s artistic evolution.Trade ReviewWolfson’s commentaries offer ‘tutorials’…in how to savour Keats’s poetry, arousing the sort of intense appetite that Keats felt for Homer. Each commentary is an immersion in language and effect, thickened by attention to a web of references…As a ‘series of close encounters’, A Greeting of the Spirit lends itself to browsing; the reader can drop in on her commentaries, skip and re-read them with pleasure. -- Christy Edwall * Times Literary Supplement *Destined to become required reading for all Keats lovers, students, and scholars…Wolfson writes beautifully and with infectious delight for her subject. -- Robert White * Review 19 *Wolfson serves a tempting selection of Keats’s poetry…Nothing—no sound, no pun, no pattern, no definition, no idiom, no punctuation mark, no part of speech, no poetic genre, no etymological possibility—is beyond probing and parsing, nuancing and scrutinizing; word roots are rooted out, marginalia is never marginal; the intertextual is necessarily contextualized; and variants are never unconsidered. Literary histories mesh with deep, formalistic insights and are easefully worked into and then through biographical observations—whatever it takes to get the most out of a poem. -- G. Kim Blank * European Romantic Review *Susan Wolfson offers a series of superb commentaries on Keats’s poems, opening up the verbal energies, complexities, peculiarities, and imaginative capacities of his writing. This book is an invitation for us all to read and reread Keats, accompanied by one of his most brilliant modern critics, who reveals him as a poet for everyone ready to be enchanted by genius. -- Nicholas Roe, author of John Keats: A New LifeA generous, expertly chosen selection of Keats's greatest poems, accompanied by commentaries which are learned and lithe, brilliantly perceptive, extraordinarily informative, and infectiously full of delight. Really, you could not imagine a better companion to guide you through these endlessly marvelous poems. -- Seamus Perry, editor of Coleridge's NotebooksWolfson’s is the book on Keats: a stirring feat of participatory stylistic insight and creative empathy. The rare idiomatic flair of her prose brings back Keats, man and craftsman, in his historical and mortal moment, tracked through impeccably re-estimated verses. With no stone left unturned, even settled gems are rubbed more brilliant by context. Metaphor, metrics, textual history, notes in Keats’s margins and letters, his inexhaustible word play, his philosophical ruminations on the horizons of poetry: all the varied facets of genius and aspiration are seen together in their glinting refraction as never before. -- Garrett Stewart, author of The Ways of the WordA fine selection of Keats’s work, richly analyzed and contextualized by a scholar whose formal attention to detail brings poetry to life on the page. Wolfson guides the reader step by step through both the best-loved and least-known of Keats’s poems, in an anthology that also becomes an enjoyable and thought-provoking tutorial. -- Angela Leighton, author of Hearing Things: The Work of Sound in LiteratureSusan Wolfson’s A Greeting of the Spirit generously tracks Keats’s ‘experiments with words,’ exercising the depth and breadth of her expertise to make his verses newly available to readers. Her commentaries, fresh and incisive, invite us to participate in the poet’s heady way of concentrating the resources of language. -- Frances Ferguson, author of Solitude and the Sublime

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Book SynopsisMichael A. Fuller's innovative textbook for learning classical Chinese poetry moves beyond the traditional anthology of poems translated into English and instead brings readers including those with no knowledge of Chinese as close as possible to the texture of the poems in their original language.

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Book SynopsisRobert Stilling shows how aestheticism’s decadence became a key idea in postcolonial thought, describing the failures of revolutionary nationalism and asserting cosmopolitanism in poetry and art. Breaking down the boundaries around decadent literature, he takes it outside Europe and emphasizes the global reach of its imaginative transgressions.Trade ReviewGives new and global life to decadence…This is a deeply learned and original work that shows the necessity of bringing modernist and postcolonial studies together. -- Citation for First Book Prize, Modernist Studies AssociationIn a series of brilliant readings, Robert Stilling offers a new understanding of anticolonial anglophone cultural production, one in which liberatory aims are best served, counterintuitively, not by the nationalist arts of social realism but rather by a cosmopolitan modernist poetics of decadence: arts and literatures that celebrate the aesthetic for its own sake. -- Citation for Honorable Mention, First Book Prize, Modern Language AssociationA dazzling confluence of fin-de-siècle aesthetics and postcolonial thought. -- Robert Volpicelli * Modernism/modernity *One of the joys of Beginning at the End is its provision of fresh and surprising perspectives on canonical figures of literary decadence by embedding their writing in the material contexts of colonialism and postcolonial criticism. -- Conor Linnie * Irish Studies Review *This book presents a highly timely contribution to our understanding of modernism, decadence, and postcolonial literary history. Ranging impressively over a global frame of reference, and joining the wrongly divorced sensibilities of modernism and decadence, Stilling shows how a modernist poetics of decadence may serve equally to record a process of decline in history and a register of critique of those developments. This is a major work of literary history. -- Vincent Sherry, Washington University in St. LouisStilling argues that late-nineteenth-century ‘decadent’ writing—its styles, governing tropes, and ways of imagining the past—have proven crucial to poets, playwrights, and visual artists whom we now call postcolonial. These are artists whose subjects include new nations, immigrants, people of color, the new global economy, and new international relations, and decadence has helped them to address these topics without illusions and after the failure of simplist or ill-fated realist or revolutionary programs. This is a book that scholars across the discipline are going to have to read. -- Stephanie Burt, Harvard UniversityRobert Stilling is at the forefront of a group of scholars exploring the powerful legacy of fin-de-siècle culture in twentieth-century art and literature. Beginning at the End convincingly demonstrates that decadent texts and imagery were central to the project of postcolonial writing, and carried a political charge that few others have noticed. It will figure in discussions of both decadence and global modernism for many years to come. -- Matthew Potolsky, University of Utah

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Book SynopsisThe description for this book, Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse: Commentary, will be forthcoming.Trade Review"Nabokov's translation and commentary, taken together, can best be considered as a sui generis work of art--perhaps his ultimate masterpiece."--J. Thomas Shaw, Slavic and East European Journal

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Book SynopsisExamines how Hellenistic poetic culture adapted, reinterpreted, and transformed Archaic Greek lyric through a complex process of textual, cultural, and creative reception. This book looks at the ways in which the poetry of Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, and Simonides was preserved, edited, and read by Hellenistic scholars and poets.Trade Review"[T]his is a very important contribution to both Hellenistic poetry and archaic lyric. It offers copious material for further discussion on textual problems and interpretative approaches."--Flora P. Manakidou, European LegacyTable of ContentsPreface xi Abbreviations xv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Preserving Her Aeolic Song: Traces of Alexandrian Sappho 12 Chapter 2: Lyric into Elegy: Sappho Again 62 Chapter 3: Alcaeus: Voice and Metaphor of the Symposium 105 Chapter 4: From Samos to Alexandria: Earlier Court Poets and Their Legacies 141 Chapter 5: Simonides Recalled: Imitations of a Poikilos Original 171 Epilogue: Lyric Transformed 214 References Cited 221 Index Locorum 239 Subject Index 247

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Book SynopsisIntroduces the Rasa Lila, a dramatic love poem of exquisite poetry and profound theology to the Western world. This book explores the historical context and literary genre of the work and elucidates the aesthetic and emotional richness of the composition, highlighting poignant details of this drama of divine love.Trade Review"This is the most complete presentation of the Rasa Lila, focusing on the text and story itself and looking at it, as it requires, from each of its many viewpoints. The scholarship and teaching quality are first-rate... Schweig's approach is inclusive, consciously reaching out to all levels of reader/devotee/connoisseur and clearly wishing not to leave anyone behind... [E]veryone interested in Hinduism, literature, and religion should consider buying this book."--James D. Redington, S.J., Journal of Vaishnava Studies "A fascinating study and eloquent translation of the beloved story of the all-attractive god Krishna's nocturnal dalliances with the cowherder women of Vraja as described in the Bhagavata Purana... Schweig render[s] this Sanskrit classic into elegant English."--Joel Bordeaux, Altar Magazine This book is an event-for Vaishnavas and everyone else. Long awaited by insiders, it will be a grace to outsiders, too... [E]veryone interested in Hinduism, literature, and religion should consider buying this boo--especially those who incline to mystical love religion and its literature."--James D. Redington, Jr., Yoga and Vaishnavism "Scholars of Vaisnavism will be pleased by this volume and its singular focus."--Frederick M. Smith, Religious Studies ReviewTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables ix Foreword by Norvin Hein xi Acknowledgments xvii Pronunciation xxi Abbreviations xxv Introduction: The Sacred Love Story 1 A Drama of Love 1 Sacred Love Stories 6 India's Song of Songs 8 Bh gavata as the Ultimate Scripture 11 Sacred Context of the Rasa Lila 16 Part I: Poems from the Bhagavata Purana Dance of Divine Love: Rasa Lila 23 Act One. Krishna Attracts the Gop s and Disappears 25 Act Two. The Gop s Search for Krishna 39 Act Three. The Song of the Gopis: Gopi Gita 51 Act Four. Krishna Reappears and Speaks of Love 58 Act Five. The Rasa Dance 65 Song of the Flute: Venu Gita 78 Song of the Black Bee: Bhramara Gita 86 Part II: Textual Illuminations Chapter 1: Background of the Text 97 Devotional Love as "Rasa" 97 Ancient Sources of Devotional Love 101 Devotional Love as the Path to God 105 Forms of the Deity Vishnu 108 Chapter 2: Aspects of the Story 111 Framing Passages of the Rasa Lila 111 Poetic and Dramatic Dimensions 114 Krishna: Lord of Love and Beauty 117 Vraja: Pastoral Paradise 125 Yogamaya :Potency for Intimacy 130 The Gopis: Beloveds of Krishna 137 The Special Gopi :Radha 147 Chapter 3: Messages of the Text 152 Devotional Yoga Transcends Death 152 Ethical Boundaries and Boundless Love 158 The Vision of Devotional Love 166 Symbolism in the Rasa Lila 172 Part III: Notes and Comments Introduction 187 Act One 189 Act Two 222 Act Three 237 Act Four 250 Act Five 263 Part IV: The Sanskrit Text Introduction 291 Act One 293 Act Two 304 Act Three 313 Act Four 318 Act Five 322 Appendix 1: Note on Translation 331 Appendix 2: Poetic Meters in Sanskrit Text 336 Accent and Syllable Length: Emphasis and Rhythm in Sanskrit Verse 337 Sanskrit Meters Used in R sa L l Te x t 337 Story Line and Poetic Meter Analysis 339 Verse Number Variations and Actual Verse Count 342 Appendix 3: Synoptic Analysis of the Rasa Lila 344 Glossary 347 Bibliography 355 Index 367

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Book SynopsisOffers an understanding of the development of criticism, demonstrating that its roots stretch back long before the sophists to public commentary on the performance of songs and poems in the preliterary era of ancient Greece.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003 "Andrew Ford has written lively and sophisticated account of the evolution of criticism as an autonomous activity, and illuminated the origins of the modern-day equivalent of those antique experts in literature--the professional academic... [W]hat distinguishes Ford's work from previous studies is the breadth of his scholarship, the detail of his analysis, and above all his historicist approach."--Penelope Murray, Times Literary Supplement "Andrew Ford has taken on the enormous task of tracing the historical background of critical language and the establishment of criticism as a distinct discilpine. He has executed this task with precision, poignancy, and insightful erudition... [T]his eloquent book will be an instant complement to any study of the history of criticism."--Eustratios Papaioannou, Bryn Mawr Classical Review "Ford collects in this volume much useful information about classica literary criticism from Homer to Aristotle... [An] important volume."--ChoiceTable of ContentsPREFACE ix ABBREVIATIONS xiii INTRODUCTION Defining Criticism from Homer to Aristotle 1 PART I ARCHAIC ROOTS OF CLASSICAL AESTHETICS 23 ONE Table Talkand Symposium 25 TWO Xenophanes and the "Ancient Quarrel" 46 THREE Allegory and the Traditions of Epic Interpretation 67 PART II: THE INVENTION OF POETRY 91 FOUR Song and Artifact: Simonidean Monuments 93 FIVE Singer and Craftsman in Pindar and Bacchylides 113 SIX The Origin of the Word "Poet" 131 PART III: TOWARD A THEORY OF POETRY 159 SEVEN Materialist Poetics: Democritus and Gorgias 161 EIGHT Literary Culture and Democracy: Poets and Teachers in Classical Athens 188 NINE Literary Culture in Plato's Republic :The Sound of Ideology 209 PART IV LITERARY THEORY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 227 TEN The Invention of Literature: Theories of Prose and the Theory of Poetry 229 ELEVEN Laws of Poetry: Genre and the Literary System 250 TWELVE The Rise of the Critic: Poetic Contests from Homer to Aristotle 272 EPILOGUE 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 INDEX OF PASSAGES ISCUSSED 331

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