Literary studies: poetry and poets Books
MP-NCA Uni of North Carolina International Poetry Review Latin American
Book Synopsis2019 was a year of protest. Across five continents, millions of people mobilized to march for political and economic justice. International Poetry Review, Volume 43, 2020, honours these protestors' bravery by featuring the work of Latin American and Latinx poets.
£14.36
University of North Carolina Press City of Lyrics
£74.25
University of North Carolina Press The Enclosures of Free Verse
£81.60
University of North Carolina Press The Enclosures of Free Verse
£27.90
University of Texas Press They Tell of Birds
Book SynopsisThis book, a study of birds as they are presented by four great English poets, inquires into the extent and sources of their knowledge of birds and analyzes the methods by which they adapted that knowledge for poetic purposes.Table of Contents Preface I. The Background II. Chaucer III. Spenser IV. Milton V. Drayton VI. Conclusion Index to Birds Named by Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Drayton
£15.19
University of Texas Press Quantum Justice
Book SynopsisHow girls of color from eight global communities strategize on questions of identity, social issues, and political policy through spoken word poetry.Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Putting a Mic in the Margins Chapter 1. Quantum Justice Leaps and Poetic Echoes Chapter 2. “Understand This, and Be Happy in Life”: Contradicting Conditions, Complicating Community Chapter 3. “Always Giving Something Up”: Decision Making and Subjectivity Chapter 4. What Girls Want: Dreams and Desires Chapter 5. “My Shining Makes You Glow”: Motherhood and Girls from the Future Chapter 6. Too Close for Comfort: Motherhood and Girls Revising the Past Chapter 7. Girls Making a Way Afterword Acknowledgments References
£71.10
University of Texas Press Quantum Justice
Book SynopsisHow girls of color from eight global communities strategize on questions of identity, social issues, and political policy through spoken word poetry.Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Putting a Mic in the Margins Chapter 1. Quantum Justice Leaps and Poetic Echoes Chapter 2. “Understand This, and Be Happy in Life”: Contradicting Conditions, Complicating Community Chapter 3. “Always Giving Something Up”: Decision Making and Subjectivity Chapter 4. What Girls Want: Dreams and Desires Chapter 5. “My Shining Makes You Glow”: Motherhood and Girls from the Future Chapter 6. Too Close for Comfort: Motherhood and Girls Revising the Past Chapter 7. Girls Making a Way Afterword Acknowledgments References
£21.59
New York University Press Avidly Reads Poetry
Book SynopsisPoetry has leapt out of its world and into the worldPoetry is everywhere. From Amanda Gorman performing The Hill We Climb before the nation at Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, to poems regularly going viral on Instagram and Twitter, more Americans are reading and interacting with poetry than ever before. Avidly Reads Poetry is an ode to poetry and the worlds that come into play around the different ways it is written and shared. Mixing literary and cultural criticism with the author's personal and often intimate relationship with poetry, Avidly Reads Poetry breathes life into poems of every genrefrom alphabet poems and Shakespeare's sonnets to Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Rupi Kaur's Instapoetryand asks: How do poems come to us? How do they make us feel and think and act when they do? Who and what is poetry for? Who does poetry include and exclude, and what can we learn from it?Each section links a reason why we might read poetry with a type of poem to help us think about how Trade Review"A smart guide ... Ardam is thoughtful in her examination of how poetry infiltrates pop culture, and her love of the genre shines. Readers looking to start a poetry habit will appreciate this earnest consideration." * Publishers Weekly *"What can poems do? How might they capture our desires, comfort us, connect us, or help us carve out space for ourselves in the world? When do they make us wince, and how do they make us weep? When does poetry let us off the hook, and when and how can poetry hold us accountable for systemic and historical injustices? With unflinching honesty, capacious expertise, humor, and heart, Ardam invites us in to her brilliant and multifaceted modes of thinking about poetry. Pedagogical in its essence and political to its core, Avidly Reads Poetry invites well-versed poetry lovers and Intro to Poetry students alike to ask how they see themselves in poetry, and what they find there." * Rachel Feder, author of Birth Chart *
£55.25
New York University Press Avidly Reads Poetry
Book SynopsisPoetry has leapt out of its world and into the worldPoetry is everywhere. From Amanda Gorman performing The Hill We Climb before the nation at Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, to poems regularly going viral on Instagram and Twitter, more Americans are reading and interacting with poetry than ever before. Avidly Reads Poetry is an ode to poetry and the worlds that come into play around the different ways it is written and shared.Mixing literary and cultural criticism with the author's personal and often intimate relationship with poetry, Avidly Reads Poetry breathes life into poems of every genrefrom alphabet poems and Shakespeare's sonnets to Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Rupi Kaur's Instapoetryand asks: How do poems come to us? How do they make us feel and think and act when they do? Who and what is poetry for? Who does poetry include and exclude, and what can we learn from it?Each section links a reason why we mightTrade Review"A smart guide ... Ardam is thoughtful in her examination of how poetry infiltrates pop culture, and her love of the genre shines. Readers looking to start a poetry habit will appreciate this earnest consideration." * Publishers Weekly *"What can poems do? How might they capture our desires, comfort us, connect us, or help us carve out space for ourselves in the world? When do they make us wince, and how do they make us weep? When does poetry let us off the hook, and when and how can poetry hold us accountable for systemic and historical injustices? With unflinching honesty, capacious expertise, humor, and heart, Ardam invites us in to her brilliant and multifaceted modes of thinking about poetry. Pedagogical in its essence and political to its core, Avidly Reads Poetry invites well-versed poetry lovers and Intro to Poetry students alike to ask how they see themselves in poetry, and what they find there." * Rachel Feder, author of Birth Chart *
£12.34
New York University Press Arabian Satire
Book SynopsisSatirical verse on society and its hypocrisiesA master of satire known for his ribald humor, self-deprecation, and invective verse (hija?), the poet ?medan al-Shwe?ir was an acerbic critic of his society and its morals. Living in the Najd region of the Arabian Peninsula, ?medan wrote in an idiom widely referred to as Naba?i, here a mix of Najdi vernacular and archaic vocabulary and images dating to the origins of Arabic poetry. In Arabian Satire, ?medan is mostly concerned with worldly matters and addresses these in different guises: as the patriarch at the helm of the family boat and its unruly crew; as a picaresque anti-hero who revels in taking potshots at the established order, its hypocrisy, and its failings; as a peasant who labors over his palm trees, often to no avail and with no guarantee of success; and as a poet recording in verse how he thinks things ought to be.The poems in Arabian Satire reveal a plucky, headstrong, yet intenselyTrade ReviewColorful contrasts abound. . . . Quite entertaining. * The Complete Review *[Ḥmēdān's] gift for the memorable turn of phrase has ensured that his poetry has never been forgotten… A handsomely produced volume of 'melodic verses that swell and roll / like roaring waves on a pitch-black sea.' * IASA Bulletin *
£26.59
New York University Press Phillis Wheatley Chooses Freedom
Book SynopsisThe dramatic story of Phillis Wheatley, a free, black poet who resisted the pressures of arranged marriage, truly embodying the ideals of the American RevolutionThere is an uncomfortable paradox at the heart of the American Revolution: many of the men leading the war for independence were slave owners, contradicting the ideal of freedom that they claimed to represent. Meanwhile, abolitionist sentiments of the time contained contradictions as well. Abolitionists encouraged freed Christianized slaves to return to Africa. In this way, they hoped to send more missionaries to Africa in order to Christianize the continent and, at the same time, to send free blacks away from America. This tension is revealed through the dramatic story of Phillis Wheatley, an African-American poet who refused to marry a man she had never met and return with him to Africa as a missionary. She was enslaved in Africa as a child and transported to Boston, where she was sold to an evangelical family. Agreeing to thTrade Review"In this meticulous study, Barker-Benfield reanimates an essential transatlantic context for Wheatley’s life and work." -- Choice"In Barker-Benfields imaginative and skillful telling, the full intellectual and historical stature of Phillis Wheatley is revealed for all to see. This acute and cleverly-crafted study confirms Wheatleys trans-Atlantic importance. Here is an African voice, fired by personal anger and deep religious sentiment, speaking the truth of slavery to the educated world of late 18th century. This is a study of major importance for anyone interested in the history of Anglo-American sensibility, the emergence of anti-slavery sentiment and the remarkable networks of Africans scattered throughout the slave diaspora." -- James Walvin,University of York"Phillis Wheatley Chooses Freedom is a new high-water mark in Wheatley scholarship." * Early American Literature *
£30.40
University of Toronto Press The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern
Book SynopsisThe Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry is a complimentary volume to The Legends of the Saints in Old NorseIcelandic Prose (UTP 2013). This volume focuses on Icelandic devotional poetry created during the early modern period.Trade ReviewThe Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry is the first handbook of its kind and therefore extremely welcome, useful, and inspiring. Students and scholars are going to discover unedited material waiting to be researched and published. Hopefully, we shall see more editions, various studies on poetry and saints and, not least, on the manuscript and literary culture in early modern Iceland. -- Marianne Kalinke * Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol 117:01:2018 *"Although some of the poems are not great literature, all are of interest to the scholar. The number of manuscripts indicates their popularity, and it should not be forgotten that poems of this kind were also orally transmitted. They express the ideology and emotions of their poets and their audiences." -- Ásdís Egilsdóttir, University of Iceland * Speculum *Table of ContentsPreface Abbreviations and Symbols Bibliography I. Catalogues and Bibliographies II. Collections and Anthologies III. General Works IV. Individual Saints Index of Manuscripts
£62.90
University of Toronto Press Beowulf as Childrens Literature
Book SynopsisThe single largest category of Beowulf representation and adaptation, outside of direct translation of the poem, is children’s literature. Over the past century and a half, more than 150 new versions of Beowulf directed to child and teen audiences have appeared, in English and in many other languages. In this collection of original essays, Bruce Gilchrist and Britt Mize examine the history and processes of remaking Beowulf for young readers. Inventive in their manipulations of story, tone, and genre, these adaptations require their authors to make countless decisions about what to include, exclude, emphasize, de-emphasize, and adjust. This volume considers the many forms of children’s literature, focusing primarily on picture books, illustrated storybooks, and youth novels, but taking account also of curricular aids, illustrated full translations of the poem, and songs. Contributors address issues of gender, historical context, war and violeTable of ContentsIntroduction: Beowulf in and near Children’s Literature Britt Mize 1. “A Little Shared Homer for England and the North”: The First Beowulf for Young Readers Mark Bradshaw Busbee 2. The Adaptational Character of the Earliest Beowulf for English Children: E.L. Hervey’s “The Fight with the Ogre” Renée Ward 3. Visualizing Femininity in Children’s and Illustrated Versions of Beowulf Bruce Gilchrist 4. Tolkien, Beowulf, and Faërie: Adaptations for Readers Aged “Six to Sixty” Amber Dunai 5. Treatments of Beowulf as a Source in Mid-Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature Carl Edlund Anderson 6. What We See in the Grendel Cave: Focalization in Beowulf for Children Janet Schrunk Ericksen 7. Beowulf, Bèi’àowǔfǔ, and the Social Hero Britt Mize 8. The Monsters and the Animals: Theriocentric Beowulfs Robert Stanton 9. Children’s Beowulfs for the New Tolkien Generation Yvette Kisor 10. The Practice of Adapting Beowulf for Younger Readers: A Conversation with Rebecca Barnhouse and James Rumford Britt Mize 11. Children’s Versions of Beowulf: A Bibliography Bruce Gilchrist
£49.50
University of Toronto Press The Complete Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini
Book SynopsisThis volume presents the first translation in English of the complete poetry of Giacomo da Lentini, the first major lyric poet of the Italian vernacular. He was the leading exponent of the Sicilian School (c.1220-1270) as well as the inventor of the sonnet. Featuring illustrations and new English translations of some forty lyrics, Richard Lansing revives the work of a pioneer of Italian literature, a poet who helped pave the way for later writers such as Dante and Petrarch. Giacomo da Lentini is hailed as the earliest poet to import the Occitan tradition of love poetry into the Italian vernacular. This edition of Giacomo fills a gap in the canon of translations of Italian literature in English and serves as a vital reference source for students as well as scholars and teachers interested in the literature of the romance languages.Trade Review"This volume deserves to be commended as an elegant, comprehensive, and well- contextualized edition of Giacomo’s poetry. Thanks to Lansing and Kumar’s efforts here, a much broader readership will now be able to evaluate the innovative poetry of Giacomo on its own terms and in light of its own specific cultural and intellectual context." -- Tristan Kay, University of Bristol * Speculum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Bibliography Lyrics Canzoni and Discordo 1. Madonna, dir vo voglio (My lady, I wish to tell you) 2. Meravigliosa-mente (Extraordinarily) 3. Guiderdone aspetto avere (I hope for recompense) 4. Amor non vole ch’io clami (Love will not let me seek) 5. Dal core mi vene (From my heart comes) 6. La ’namoranza disïosa (The love full of desire) 7. Ben m’è venuto prima cordoglienza (Indeed I felt deep grief at once, my fair) 8. Donna, eo languisco (My Love, I suffer and don’t know what hope) 9. Troppo son dimorato (Too long have I resided) 10. Non so se ’n gioia mi sia (I do not know if thoughts of love) 11. Uno disïo d’amore sovente (So frequently an amorous desire) 12. Amando lungiamente (In loving for so long) 13. Madonna mia, a voi mando (My lady fair, I send to you) 14. S’io doglio no è meraviglia (It’s no surprise I grieve) 15. Amore, paura m’incalcia (O Love, fear presses me) 16. Poi no mi val merzé né ben servire (Since neither mercy nor performing deeds) 17. Dolce coninzamento (I sing a sweet preamble) Tenzone with the Abbot of Tivoli 18a. Ai deo d’amore (O god of Love, I pray you see) 18b. Feruto sono isvarïatamente (I have been wounded differently) 18c. Qual om riprende altrui (One who rebukes another frequently) 18d. Cotale gioco rnai non fue veduto (A game like this has not been seen) 18e. Con vostro onore facciovi uno ’nvito (I honor you and send you this appeal) Tenzone with Jacopo Mostacci and Pier della Vigna 19a. Solicitando un poco meo savere (To stimulate my intellect) 19b. Però ch’Amore non si pò vedere (Because Love is not visible) 19c. Amore è uno disio che ven da core (Love’s a desire that issues from the heart) Sonnets 20. Lo giglio quand’è colto tost’è passo (The lily fades as soon as it is picked) 21. Sì come il sol che manda la sua spera (Just like the sun that sends its rays) 22. Or come pote sì gran donna entrare (How can so great a lady pass) 23. Molti amadori la lor malatia (Many lovers bear their malady) 24. Donna, vostri sembianti mi mostraro (My lady, your expressions raised in me) 25. Ogn’omo ch’ama de’ amar so ’nore (A lover must protect his name) 26. A l’aire claro ò vista ploggia dare (On clear days I have seen it rain) 27. Io m’aggio posto in core a Dio (I’ve set my heart on serving God) 28. Lo viso mi fa andare alegramente (Her face creates my happiness) 29. Eo viso e son diviso da lo viso (I see, but only from afar, her face) 30. Sì alta amanza à pres’a lo me’ core (A love so noble seized my heart) 31. Per sofrenza si vince gran vetoria (Through patience victories are won) 32. Certo me par che far dea bon signore (It seems quite clear a noble lord should base) 33. Sì como ’l parpaglion ch’a tal natura (Just as the butterfly in nature’s grasp) 34. Chi non avesse mai veduto foco (If one had never seen a flame of fire) 35. Diamante, né smiraldo, né zafino (No diamond, sapphire, emerald) 36. Madonna à ’n se vertute con valore (The virtue of my lady is) 37. Angelica figura e comprobata (Angelic figure manifest) 38. Quand’om à un bon amico leiale (When someone has a good and loyal friend) Lyrics of dubious attribution D.1. Membrando l’amoroso dipartire (Remembering my loving fond farewell) D.2. Lo badalisco a lo specchio lucente (Before a shiny mirror the basilisk) D.3. Guardando basalisco velenoso (Looking at the deadly basilisk) Notes Illustrations Index of First Lines
£45.00
University of Toronto Press Pushkins Monument and Allusion
Book SynopsisPushkin's Monument and Allusion is the first aesthetic analysis of Russia's most famous monument to its greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.Trade Review"Pushkin’s Monument and Allusion is a valuable cultural history rooted in extensive research animated by creative thinking. A boon to the specialist, it promises to benefit students, and to engage the general reader." -- Olga Peters Hasty, Princeton University * Russian Review *"Dement’s monograph showcases a range of scholarly competencies, weaving traditional textual scholarship with approaches to theology, visual art, and urban design -- Melvin Thomas, Princeton University * Slavic and East European Journal *"Dement provides a fascinating guide to the history and cultural resonances of the Pushkin monument from its planning stages in the nineteenth century to the present day. It is well-worth reading." -- Gary Rosenshield, University of Wisconsin * Slavic Review *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Dimensions of the Pushkin Monument 1. Pushkin’s Poem: Monument and Allusion (1811–1836) 2. Opekushin’s Pushkin Monument: Statue and Performance (1836–1880) 3. Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita: Crisis of the Future Poet (1880–1937) 4. Toporov’s Petersburg Text: Rejecting the Statue (1937–2003) 5. Tolstaia’s Slynx: Disfiguring the Monument (1986–2000) Conclusion: Allusion and the Naive Reader Appendix Notes Bibliography Index
£47.60
University of Toronto Press A Poetry of Things
Book SynopsisA Poetry of Things examines the works of four poets whose use of visual and material culture contributed to the remarkable artistic and literary production during the reign of Philip III (15981621). Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Juan de Arguijo, and Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza cast cultural objects ranging from books and tombstones to urban ruins, sculptures, and portraits as participants in lively interactions with their readers and viewers across time and space. Mary E. Barnard argues that in their dialogic performance, these objects serve as sites of inquiry for exploring contemporary political, social, and religious issues, such as the preservation of humanist learning in an age of print, the collapse of empires and the rebirth of the city, and the visual culture of the Counter-Reformation. Her inspired readings explain how the performance of cultural objects, whether they remain in situ or are displayed in a library, museum, or convent, is the Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Preface 1. Objects as Mediators 2. Material Rome 3. Producing Pastoral Spaces 4. Staging Myth 5. A Mystic and Her Objects Notes Works Cited Index
£29.70
University of Toronto Press Eugenio Montale the Fascist Storm and the Jewish Sunflower
Book SynopsisEugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm, and the Jewish Sunflower uncovers one of the great hidden sagas of modern literature. During Italy’s fascist period, Eugenio Montale – winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the greatest modern poets in any language – fell in love with Irma Brandeis, a glamorous and beautiful Dante scholar and an American Jew. While their romance would fall apart, it would have literary repercussions that extended throughout the poet’s career: Montale’s works abound with secret codes that speak to a lost lover and muse.This study is the first to completely unlock the cryptic thematic link that connects many of Montale’s most important poems, which, taken together, form the most significant hidden poetic cycle of modernism. David Michael Hertz explores the intersecting poetic myth and background biography, with precision made possible through recently published archival materials. Bringing the reaTrade Review'Hertz succeeds admirably in revealing the rich and complex tapestry hidden behind the Clizia Cycle.' -- Rossella Riccobono Modern Language Review vol 111:02:2016Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduzione: The Clizia Myth and the Secret Cycle 2. Murder, Manifestoes, and the Poems of the Cinque Terre 3. Love in Fascist Florence 4. The Woman of The Occasions 5. Hitler and Mussolini at the Opera 6. The Storm and the Sun Goddess 7. The Poet and the Modern Beatrice Spread Their Myth around the World 8. Clizia Becomes a Woman Again Coda: Montale, Brandeis, the "I" and the "You" The Italian Notes Works Cited and Additional Bibliography Index of Poems and Translations from the Cycle General Index
£30.60
University of Toronto Press Latin Poets and Italian Gods
Book SynopsisBased on Elaine Fantham's 2004 Robson lectures, Latin Poets and Italian Gods reconstructs the response of Roman poets in the late republic and Augustan age to the rural cults of central Italy. Study of Roman gods is often limited to the grand equivalents of the Olympian Greek deities such as Jupiter, Mars, and Juno. However, real-life Italians gave a lot of their affection and loyalty to humbler gods with no Greek equivalent: local nymphs who supplied healing waters, the great Tiber river and other lesser rivers, the lusty garden god Priapus, and more.Latin Poets and Italian Gods surveys the representation of these old country gods in poets from Plautus to Statius. Fantham offers historical and epigraphic evidence of worship offered to these colourful lesser spirits and reveals the emotional importance of local Italian deities to the sophisticated poets of the Augustan age.
£22.49
University of Toronto Press The Structures of Sidneys Arcadia
Book SynopsisThe argument of this study is that the Arcadia, like the High Renaissance painting analysed by Heinrich Wolfflin, is characterized by what may be called 'multiple unity.' The complexity of its organization, whether examined rhetorically in terms of language and thought or tonally through its sequence of events, or narratively through the relation of episode to main plot, is an expression of Sidney's need to control and arrange experience for aesthetic and moral purposes without giving up his perception of its chaos or unmanageability. The nature of Sidney's complex vision, in spite of the apparently pastoral title of Arcadia, is not pastoral but epic. Like much important Renaissance writing, the work is a paedeia, an education of princes, in which the narrative seeks what Sidney considered the paramount object of learning: 'the knowledge of a man's self, in the ethnic and politic consideration.' Professor Lindheim finds that the key to the greater stylistic and narrative complexity
£21.59
University of Toronto Press George Chapman
Book SynopsisGeorge Campman (1559-1634) is one of the most important literary figures of the English Renaissance. A powerful personality, melancholy and witty, his style by turns obscure and elegant, he attempted almost every genre of poetry practised in his day: mythological narrative, philosophical poem, panegyric, elegy, comedy, tragedy, masque, and translation from the classics. This book is the first full-length critical study in English of all his works, poems, plays, and translations, considered in detail in relation to their genres, and in terms of Chapman's intellectual and aesthetic development. The major non-dramatic poems, the tragedies (which have often been the subject of critical comment) and "Chapman's Homer" receive the largest share of attention, but the comedies, in which Chapman was a stylish innovator, and the minor translations are also discussed at length, and an attempt is made to place Chapman among his great contemporaries.In tracing the relationship betwe
£25.19
University of Toronto Press The Text of Paradise Lost
Book SynopsisParadise Lost, possibly the 'most read, most criticized, and most exalted' poem in the English language, has been published more often perhaps in the three hundred years of its existence than any other work of English literature. In the eighteenth century alone, when the English nation went Milton mad, more than a hundred editions were made available to the English reading public. This study traces the transmission history of the poem from its first appearance in 1667, through the eighteenth century with its emphasis on conjectural criticism, to the present century when it was subjected to unwarranted 'restoration.' For the editor of Paradise Lost, who must seek the know 'everything there is to know' about the authoritative texts, that history is a complex one; it includes a first edition with internal variants in five distinct issues, a revised second edition redevised into twelve books, with more than a thousand variants between the two, and subsequent edi
£21.59
University of Toronto Press The Nibelungenlied
Book SynopsisSince the rediscovery of the Nibelungenlied in the mid-eighteenth century, this medieval German poem has exercised a remarkable fascination, but very little work has been devoted to interpretation according to the methods of modern criticism. Until very recently Nibelungenlied scholarship has concentrated on establishing the texts and on tracing the sources of the poems. Relatively few articles and books examine and analyse the work itself. In the study, emphasis is on the literary value of the Nibelungenlied rather than on philological questions surrounding it: it offers a close, detailed examination of the text itself. The commentary form used by the authors enables them to pursue individual observations and interpretations: their readings are often novel, frequently challenge more conservative approaches, and stimulate the reader to take his own stand. An extensive introduction accompanies the line-by-line commentary and includes a summary of the plot, discussions of in
£17.99
University of Toronto Press Many Glancing Colours
Book Synopsis‘Poetry,’ wrote Tennyson ‘is like shot-silk with many glancing colours.’ Taking this statement as a key to Tennyson’s art and meaning, Kenneth McKay explores in detail the maturing poems from Tennyson’s earliest efforts as a boy under his father’s eye at Somersby, through ‘Timbuctoo’ and ‘The Lover’s Tale,’ through the great poems published between 1830 and 1847, to their culmination in ‘In Memoriam,’ that complex, various, and subtle expression of Tennyson’s achieved maturity. Rooted in close analyses of individual poems, Many Glancing Colours becomes a study of the development and character of Tennyson’s liberal artistic imagination.Though closely aligned with Coleridge’s idea of ‘multeity in unity,’ Tennyson’s sense of poetry as shot-silk is different, MacKay suggests, chiefly by its resistance to and subversion of a faith in
£27.90
University of Toronto Press Tennyson and Swinburne as Romantic Naturalists
Book SynopsisThe central importance of naturalistic vision – of a sense of man’s life as part of nature – is emphasized in this study of the poetry of Tennyson and Swinburne. In tracing this vision, Professor McSweeney makes a series of qualitative distinctions leading to a revaluation of the achievements of both poets. McSweeney begins with an examination of Swinburne’s critical and creative response to Tennyson, revealing Swinburne’s perception of the effect that Tennyson’s suppression of naturalistic vision and his consequent overemphasis on morality and metaphysical speculation had on his poetry. A brief discussion of Tennyson’s response to Swinburne is followed by an analysis of the literary climate of the 1820s and 1830s, necessary for an understanding of the central feature of Tennyson’s artistic development: the complex mutation which transformed him from a wholly Romantic poet into a largely Victorian one.Tracing the
£21.59
University of Toronto Press Wordsworth as Critic
Book SynopsisThis book is the first full-scale account of the growth of Wordsworth’s thinking about the theory of poetry. It draws mainly on his formal critical essays but also on unpublished material and personal statements about poetics and the growth and constitution of the poet’s mind in The Prelude, in other verse, and in letters. The foundation of the discussion is an account of the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, based on Professor Owen’s edition of that text published in 1957. The chapters on the Essays upon Epitaphs, the Preface or 1815, and the Essay, Supplementary to the Preface, trace a process of development in which the critic silently abandons the more embarrassingly controversial elements of his earliest argument (such as his advocacy of the language of rustics and the language of prose), confirms its more satisfactory features, and progresses to a subtle, intricate, and rewarding account of his psychology of literary creation and of the audience’s reaction t
£25.19
University of Toronto Press The Prison and the Pinnacle
Book SynopsisThis volume brings together five papers read at the University of Western Ontario in 1971 to mark the tercentenary of the publication of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. It commemorates what tradition has regarded as Milton’s final poetic communication.In the first essay, Arthur Barker describes Milton’s progress towards his last two poems, placing his ideas and ideals within a seventeenth-century context. Closely argued, the essay relates Paradise Lost to Samson Agonistes, and both works to Milton’s earlier poetry and prose. Barbara Lewalski, in a seminal essay, explores the complex ways in which the ideas of time and history contribute to Paradise Lost: to develop its thematic subtleties, advance its dramatic action, and assist in the characterization of the principal personages. The editor’s essay reveals how in Samson Agonistes Milton dramatized his idea that an ethic of self-reliance must be made to join hands with a theology of depende
£17.99
University of Toronto Press Prosody and Poetics in the Early Middle Ages
Book SynopsisThe well-known reference works and analyses of Old English literature show little agreement about the definition and exemplification of style in the poetry of the period. Medieval poetry, particularly its style, is often described as ‘complex,’ ‘sophisticated,’ ‘extraordinarily compressed,’ or simply ‘as dense and difficult.’ This collection of papers, dedicated to medievalist Constance B. Hieatt, considers the prosody and poetics of Old and early Middle English. The contributors concern themselves with the details of how poems and their metre work and employ a variety of approaches, including traditional text analysis, historiographical consideration of the works and responses to them, linguistics-based analysis, application of pragmatic theory, computer analysis, and a comparative-literature perspective. The writers suggest both implicitly and explicitly that whatever cultural constructions are relevant to the poetry of Anglo
£21.59
University of Toronto Press Brownings Voices in the Ring and the Book
Book SynopsisToo often the vastness of The Ring and the Book has discouraged modern readers, yet it has become increasingly clear that the meaning of this monumental poem rests on its whole design. In this work the author deals with the poem in its entirety to show the culmination of both Browning’s artistic skill and his moral and aesthetic philosophy. Approaching the whole poem from the point of view of the poet’s role (rather than the “what-happens” approach) this study examines the complex method by which Browning demonstrates how a poet goes about making his audience share his gift of judging human guilt and innocence.The author discusses some of the main questions that have concerned critics for so long – the problem of Browning’s attitude toward “fact,” the real meaning of his “doctrine of commitment,” and the connection between his optimistic philosophy and his fascination with the role of evil in human a
£21.59
University of Toronto Press Beyond the Family Romance
Book SynopsisGiovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) is one of Italy’s most canonical and beloved poets. In Beyond the Family Romance, Maria Truglio offers fresh insight into the uncanny qualities of Pascoli’s domestic verse. As suggested by the Freudian title, this study opens a dialogue between Pascoli’s literature and Freud’s theories, with a particular focus on each author’s interrogation of origins. Through close readings and historical contextualization, themes of regression, memory, and other manifestations of ‘origins’ are analyzed, moving Pascoli’s poetry beyond the biographical strictures that have hitherto confined it.Truglio’s post-structuralist readings question the dichotomy between ‘safety within the home’ and the ‘threatening outside world,’ revealing the ambivalences with which images of the home are fraught in Pascoli’s poetry. In addition to the sustained comparison w
£26.99
University of Toronto Press Robert Copland
Book SynopsisRobert Copland (fl. 1505-1546) had a long career as a poet, translator, and printer, and his achievements were substantial. As a printer, he worked for and with Wynkyn de Worde, and his editions look back to the work of Caxton, de Worde's master, and forward, through the work of his successor William Copland, to the Elizabethan period. As a translator, he worked at a time when foreign languages were becoming increasingly necessary to the average Englishman. John Berdan calls Copland one of the main channels of French influence in England during this period.This book makes available the lively poetry of a pre-Renaissance world. In includes lyl of Braintfords Testament, a bequest of farts poem indebted to Chaucer's Summoner's Tale; The Seuen Sorowes That Women Haue When Theyr Husbandes Be Deade, in which conventional misogynist satire moves into psychological complexity; and Copland's most important work, The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous, an
£24.29
University of Toronto Press Brownings Experiments with Genre
Book SynopsisOne of the chief characteristics of nineteenth-century poetics was a tendency to test the conventions and techniques of literary genres by shifting, modifying, and combining various styles and forms. Browning fully exploited these changes, because his interests and purposes as a poet seemed to demand more of the lyric, the dramatic, and the narrative than these kinds had traditionally been able to perform. His fascination was with the development of the individual soul and he was determined to evoke in his readers his own insights into the complexity of human concerns; thus he became a constant experimenter with genre. Browning never felt that any experiment, however unsatisfactory the result, was wasted effort; each direction tried made him better prepared to attempt another.This book explores the kinds and modes with which he worked and describes the nature of the experiments he made, concentrating on the earlier poetry and in particular on The Ring and the Book. P
£20.69
University of Toronto Press Domestic and Heroic in Tennysons Poetry
Book SynopsisTennyson shared the assumptions of his age concerning the value of family life, and treated the domestic as the source of the heroic in both action and character.This book provides a critical examination of these major Victorian themes as they appear in Tennyson's poetry and demonstrates how the poet's assumptions illuminate his use of elegy, idyl, and epyllion and his treatment of romance.Professor Hair analyses In Memoriam, the English Idylls, The Princess, and Idyls of the King; he examines Tennyson's view of the family as the model of social order, a civilizing influence on the nation, and a place where the greater man, or hero, is nurtured; and he reveals how much of Tennyson's poetry explores the link between domestic and heroic.He also discusses the patterns into which these pervasive domestic concerns fall, with emphasis on the most significant: separation and reunions. The myth of Demeter and Persephone, the Biblical
£23.39
University of Toronto Press The Court of Sapience
Book SynopsisThe medieval English allegorical poem, The Court of Sapience, was written in the middle of the fifteenth century by an unknown author. It is best described as an encyclopaedia: in the allegory the poet describes the nature and activities of wisdom in all its aspects. He includes a moving account of the fall of a man and his restoration by divine wisdom; then he leads his dreamer through a landscape where all the traditional beauties of nature are catalogued and assigned their properties. The visit to the castle of Sapience, inhabited by all the branches of learning and the seven restorative virtues, completes the poem as we have it.The first edition was an early production of Caxton's press, and it was reprinted by his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. This is a new edition of Caxton's text of the poem. Variant readings from the extant manuscripts have investigated in detail and are discussed in the lengthy introduction and extensive commentary.The poem is an attrac
£19.79
University of Toronto Press The Poetry of Francisco de la Torre
Book SynopsisFrancisco de la Torre has long been praised as an outstanding poet in the mould of Garcilaso de la Vega and his simplicity of style and soft, gentle, Arcadian environment of his poetry have been emphasized. In this volume Professor Hughes attempts to define more accurately the position of Francisco de la Torre's verse in the evolution of Spanish poetry in the sixteenth century, revealing that Torre's vision of the pastoral world and his poetic language show him to be a transitional poet of considerable quality and substance and not merely an imitator of Garcilaso.Hughes demonstrates that while some of Torre's poetry follows a general pastoral pattern, his descriptions are characterized by a sense of movement through a shifting perspective and that even in poems with a traditional pastoral setting, the descriptions sometimes negate the pastoral qualities. The author also shows that Torre, rather than looking back towards Garcilaso and his contemporaries, is already anti
£17.09
University of Toronto Press The Owl and the Nightingale
Book SynopsisThe Owl and the Nightingale is clearly one of the few major Middle English poems. Despite the clarity and simplicity of its text, however, the poem has occasioned bitter and still unresolved interpretative controversy. Is the key to its meaning to be found in bird lore? the debate form? Is the poem a political or religious allegory? Despite the radical contradictions in the conclusions of previous critics, most of them have implicitly claimed a unique and exclusive validity. Kathryn Hume's purpose in writing this book is to offer a new account of the poem, one based on a systematic attempt to assess the validity and usefulness of various possible approaches to the work. She shows saneness, balance, and humour both in her criticism of previous interpretations and in her own conclusions. We need, she insists, to understand the nature of the poem before we erect elaborate theories about its meaning.The contradictoriness of the relevant avian traditions, the birds
£17.09
University of Toronto Press Wordsworths Metaphysical Verse
Book SynopsisIn his philosophic verse, Woodsworth identifies the history of poetry and geometrical thought as the two chief treasures of the mind and as main sources of his poetic inspiration. He assigns transcendental value to geometry and indicates that he attempts to apply its proportions to the laws of nature. In this book, Professor Johnson demonstrates how Wordsworth also employed geometrical patterns in the metrical construction of his verse and how the character of those patterns can be related to the poet's major philosophical values.Johnson shows how Wordsworth, when writing about the nature and significance of geometrical thought in The Prelude and The Excursion, designs his verse paragraphs in accordance with simple geometrical proportions which are thereby associated with the metaphysical value he attributes to geometry. Wordsworth finds geometrical forms to be hidden in the natural landscape and inherent in the structures of perception itself.This bo
£23.39
University of Toronto Press That Invincible Samson
Book SynopsisThis work examines the more than one hundred analogues of Samson Agonistes, about half of them written earlier than Milton's drama. The author has gone back in every instance to primary sources, and examined all treatments of Milton's theme, in all languages, for their intrinsic interest and merit. While he has not entirely omitted a discussion of source relationships, his concern here has been chiefly with analogues.In Part I of the book the author compares five pre-Miltonic works, which he has translated, in whole or in part, from the original Latin, Dutch, and Italian. In Part II, a descriptive catalogue, he comments on the significance, to Miltonists and to the general reader, of the analogues. He traces the purposes beyond mere theatre in the different versions of the play: versions prior to 1670 contain many overtones of personal, national, or theological significance, while, after 1671, there is a rapid shift away from religious or moral presentation to a more
£19.79
University of Toronto Press The Nature of Early Greek Lyric
Book SynopsisThree important literary questions in early Greek lyrics are addressed in this study. First, Fowler attempts to determine the extent that Homer and epic poetry generally influenced the lyric poets, with respect to both the style of compositions and their content. Identifying the certain examples of influence – which are far fewer than often thought – he analyses the technique of imitation, tracing a development from simpler to more complex as the archaic period proceeds. Throughout this and the following chapter, he often finds occasion to take issue with the famous and influential view of the early Greek mind championed by Bruno Snell and Hermann Fränkel.In the second chapter Fowler studies the organization of individual poems, identifying compositional principles that may be used to solve literary and textual problems. Some of these principles, like ring-composition, are old familiars; others are not. All are found to be more pervasive than is often realized,
£15.19
University of Toronto Press Representative French Poetry Second Edition
Book SynopsisThe making of a reasonably comprehensive anthology which is intended to do more than reflect the personal literary tastes of the anthologists is not an easy task, but is certainly an exciting and challenging one. It is important, of course, if it is to have coherence and validity, that its audience be reasonably well defined and kept in mind as the selection proceeds. The anthology offered by Professor Graham has been prepared carefully to meet the needs of students reading French poetry while in the early years of their university course. It does not attempt to be a bulky sample of the whole field of French poetry but rather to be a judicious selection of the works of poets who may be described as typical of the best in their age. From each of them have been included some well-known selections which students must always meet and also some less well known which are nevertheless equal in quality and whose relative unfamiliarity may give them a special appeal to instructors. A particular
£13.29
University of Nebraska Press Writing Anthropologists Sounding Primitives
Book SynopsisWriting Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives re-examines the poetry and scholarship of three of the foremost figures in the twentieth-century history of U.S.-American anthropology: Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict. While they are widely renowned for their contributions to Franz Boas’s early twentieth-century school of cultural relativism, what is far less known is their shared interest in probing the representational potential of different media and forms of writing. This dimension of their work is manifest in Sapir’s critical writing on music and literature and Mead’s groundbreaking work with photography and film. Sapir, Mead, and Benedict together also wrote more than one thousand poems, which in turn negotiate their own media status and rivalry with other forms of representation. A. Elisabeth Reichel presents the first sustained study of the published and unpublished poetry of Sapir, Mead, and Benedict, charting this largely unexTrade Review"This book greatly expands the literary canons of the early 20th century by extensively excavating previously unpublished archival and unexamined published material. Steeping the text in sophisticated theory and detailed history, Reichel demonstrates how these anthropologists' science challenged social Darwinian theories of evolution."—L. D. Baker, Choice"So many of our visions of ourselves, and our images of what constitutes culture, alight on the written. Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives interrupts this narrative with a thoughtful intervention."—James Dowthwaite, American Literary History"Reichel has made a signal contribution both to the history of anthropology and to anthropology today."—Richard Handler, Anthropological Quarterly“The only scholarly work with access to the complete archive, Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives offers the first sustained literary study of the published and unpublished poetry written by three of the iconic figures of twentieth-century cultural anthropology. A. Elisabeth Reichel’s nuanced readings of individual poems and her persuasive explanation of their transdisciplinary relevance are certain to promote further scholarly engagement with the remarkably variegated array of creative projects that these anthropologists produced.”—Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism“Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives is the definitive study of the often-noted but rarely examined poetry of three important and complexly interrelated Boasian anthropologists. In this innovative analysis, A. Elisabeth Reichel focuses on the broader perspectives of inter-media relations and anthropological notions of Primitivism.”—Ira Jacknis, research anthropologist at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley“Harnessing intermediality and sound studies theories, A. Elisabeth Reichel explores Sapir’s, Mead’s, and Benedict’s poetry alongside their multi-media anthropological research. This timely interdisciplinary American studies monograph astutely elucidates highly problematic practices and politics of sound production and listening when imagining ‘Others.’”—Nassim W. Balestrini, professor of American studies and intermediality at the University of Graz, Austria“The poet-anthropologist cuts a dashing figure in the pages of this book. . . . A. Elisabeth Reichel’s close readings through a critical lens of the published and unpublished poems and correspondence of the Benedict-Sapir-Mead trio bring out the underlying currents connecting their poetry to their anthropology, and vice versa. Given the recent vogue for ‘multimodal anthropologies,’ Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives represents a groundbreaking contribution to the ‘archaeology’ of the current conjuncture by exploring the first, tentative forays of these three illustrious figures across cultures via multiple media and genres.”—David Howes, professor of anthropology and co-director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, Montreal“A groundbreaking transdisciplinary work. Uncovering and collecting an invaluable archive, A. Elisabeth Reichel provides the first extensive literary analyses of these key anthropologists-artists’ poems and their relation to cultural theory and modernist aesthetics. Setting this work in the context of their broader multimedia experiments Reichel further illuminates, with complexity and nuance, larger debates over media alterity and cultural alterity.”—Eric Aronoff, author of Composing Cultures: Modernism, American Literary Studies and the Problem of Culture“Thoughtfully argued and painstakingly researched, Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives shows why three of the twentieth century’s most influential anthropologists turned to poetry to express their ideas about cultural difference. A. Elisabeth Reichel’s work gives new meaning to the truism that ethnography is a form of writing worthy of literary analysis. . . . A compelling, informative read.”—Brian Hochman, author of Savage Preservation: The Ethnographic Origins of Modern Media TechnologyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Series Editors’ Introduction Acknowledgments Editorial Note on Archival Sources Introduction: Poets, Anthropologists, Primitives 1. Of Mumbling Melody, Soft Singing, and Slow Speech: Constructions of Sonic Otherness in the Poetry of Edward Sapir 2. On Alternating Sounds: Musical Alterities in Sapir’s Poetry and Critical Writings Interlude: French Canadian Folk Songs in Translation 3. “For You Have Given Me Speech!”: Gifted Literates, Illiterate Primitives, and Margaret Mead 4. Toward Unnerving the Us: The Poetry and Scholarship of Ruth Benedict Conclusion: Cultural and Media Evolutionism in Boasian Anthropology and Beyond Appendix: The Complete Poetry of Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead The Poetry of Edward Sapir The Poetry of Ruth Benedict The Poetry of Margaret Mead Notes Bibliography Index
£52.70
University of Nebraska Press The Beauty Hunters
Book SynopsisNamed a Notable African Book of 2023 byBrittle Paper The Beauty Hunters offers a rare insight into Sudanese Bedouin poetry, its evolution, aesthetics, and impact. Through an in-depth profile of al-?ardallo, the doyen of this art form, Adil Babikir explores the attributes that established him as a poet of international stature. The life of al-?ardallo was a series of journeys in pursuit of beauty. From wandering across the Bu?ana wilderness to his adventures with women, he documented the ups and downs of his life using superb verse. In addition to its aesthetic value, al-?ardallo’s poetry offers rich material for Sudanese studies as it carries glimpses of the sociopolitical developments in Sudan during his lifetime, having lived through three distinct eras: Turco-Egyptian rule (1820–1885), Mahdist rule (1885–1898), and part of the Anglo-Egyptian era (1898–1956). Reading Bedouin poetry in a hybrid context, as a major contributor to what Babikir Trade Review“The clouds of neglect have parted, and an enchanting book of classical African poetry has come forth shining. The Bedouin poetry of Sudan, a descendant perhaps of the pre-Islamic poetry of Arabia, can also sit alongside the Chinese Book of Songs and Hāla’s Sattasaī of India, pure poetry bearing the scent of the land and woven with silk-fine imagery and exquisite lyricism. The Beauty Hunters is a tour de force, proving once again that Africa is the heart of the world’s beauty and light. Thank you, Adil Babikir, for this wonder of a book.”—Khaled Mattawa, author of Fugitive Atlas“Here the legacy and enduring appeal of al-Ḥārdallo, Sudan’s preeminent nineteenth-century poet, is showcased with thoroughness and panache. Oryxes, heavy rains, and dancing women blaze through a vivid pastoral landscape of nomadic tribes and journeys guided by the stars. Adil Babikir’s moving and vibrant translations capture the exuberance and pathos of this Afro-Arab poet, caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. The Beauty Hunters bears witness to the richness and range of Arabic as it mingles with the local Beja and Nubian languages of Africa.”—Leila Aboulela, author of Minaret and The TranslatorTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Notes on Transliteration Introduction: A Life’s Journey in Search of Beauty 1. Al-Ḥārdallo’s Time 2. Romance 3. The Nature Lover 4. Al-Ḥārdallo’s Style 5. The Musdār: A Historical Context 6. Musdār al-Nijūm: A Journey across the Stars 7. Musdār Rufāʾa: A Terrestrial Journey across the Buṭāna 8. The Role of Bedouin Poetry in Shaping Sudan’s Aesthetic Taste 9. The Bedouin Poem: A Living Legacy 10. The Musdār and the Ḥaqība 11. Contemporary Musdārs 12. Al-Ḥārdallo’s Poems Musdār al-Ṣayd Miscellaneous Quatrains Nostalgia Romance Heartbreak The Ordeal Farewell Arabic Glossary of Local Terms Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Donald Hall
Book SynopsisOffers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Donald Hall's evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years.
£81.75
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Donald Hall
Book SynopsisConversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall''s evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928-2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of Ox Cart Man to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon''s death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful colle
£22.50
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with John Berryman
Book SynopsisThe poetry of John Berryman (1914-1972) is primarily concerned with the self in response to the rapid social, political, sexual, racial, and technological transformations of the twentieth century. Collected in here are all of Berryman's major interviews, personality pieces, profiles, and local interest items.
£81.75
University Press of Mississippi The African American Sonnet
Book SynopsisSome of the best known African American poems are sonnets: Claude McKay's 'If We Must Die,' Countee Cullen's 'Yet Do I Marvel,' Gwendolyn Brooks's 'First fight. Then fiddle.' Yet few readers realize that these poems are part of a rich tradition that formed after the Civil War and comprises more than a thousand sonnets by African American poets. Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, and Rita Dove all wrote sonnets.Based on extensive archival research, The African American Sonnet: A Literary History traces this forgotten tradition from the nineteenth century to the present. Timo Müller uses sonnets to open up fresh perspectives on African American literary history. He examines the struggle over the legacy of the Civil War, the trajectories of Harlem Renaissance protest, the tensions between folk art and transnational perspectives in the thirties, the vernacular modernism of the postwar period, the cultural nationalism of the Black
£26.10
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Diane di Prima
Book SynopsisDiane di Prima was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century, and her career is distinguished by strong contributions to both literature and social justice. This volume presents twenty interviews ranging from 1972 to 2010 that chart di Prima’s intellectual, spiritual, and political evolution.
£81.75
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Start a Riot Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement
Book SynopsisAnalyses riot iconography and its usefulness as a political strategy of protestation. Through a mixed-methods approach of literary close-reading, historical, and sociological analysis, Casarae Lavada Abdul-Ghani considers how BAM artist-writers challenge misconceptions regarding Black protest through experimental explorations in their writings.
£26.06
Cornell University Press Heroic Poets Poetic Heroes
Book SynopsisAn astonishingly rich oral epic that chronicles the early history of a Bedouin tribe, the Sirat Bani Hilal has been performed for almost a thousand years. In this ethnography of a contemporary community of professional poet-singers, Dwight F. Reynolds reveals how the epic tradition continues to provide a context for social interaction and commentary. Reynolds's account is based on performances in the northern Egyptian village in which he studied as an apprentice to a master epic-singer. Reynolds explains in detail the narrative structure of the Sirat Bani Hilal as well as the tradition of epic singing. He sees both living epic poets and fictional epic heroes as figures engaged in an ongoing dialogue with audiences concerning such vital issues as ethnicity, religious orientation, codes of behavior, gender roles, and social hierarchies.Trade ReviewThe richness of Reynolds’s text and his scholarly accomplishment serve as poignant reminders of how little we know about Arab folk performances and how difficult it is to teach these great traditions to our students. -- Virginia Danielson * Middle East Studies Association Bulletin *Reynolds’s book both complements the works of his predecessors and surpasses them in the area on which he focuses. With it, we have a full and methodologically sophisticated treatment of the social poetics of Sirat Bani Hilal performance that is a model of how such research should be conducted. -- Peter Heath * International Journal of Middle East Studies *
£16.13
