Poetry Books

Book Synopsis'The patron saint of poetry' (according to Carol Ann Duffy), Roger McGough was born in Liverpool, the son of a docker, and attended Hull University. In the '60s he had a brief flirtation with the pop world as a member of the Scaffold. He has been one of Britain's most popular poets for over 40 years, and has written many books for children and adults. His Selected Poems, entitled Blazing Fruit, is a bestselling poetry title on the Penguin backlist. He lives in Barnes, south-west London, with his wife and two youngest children.

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Book SynopsisA STUNNING COLLECTION OF POEMS CURATED BY THE NEW POET LAUREATE AND THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FOUR FIELDS___________________________''Some of the most ethereal verse ever written'' Sunday Telegraph ''A glorious collection of works old and new'' Independent on Sunday ''Truly inexhaustible . . . to be read again and again'' Daily Mail ''A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy'' Guardian ''A life-affirming celebration of the commonplace yet enduringly mysterious creatures we share this world with and the poetry they have inspired'' Daily Telegraph Trade ReviewPowerful. A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy * Guardian *Some of the most ethereal verse ever written * Sunday Telegraph *A glorious collection of works old and new * Independent on Sunday *Compendious . . . offers many pleasures * Daily Express *The poems gathered here celebrate our tenuous connection to something timeless and sublime. A truly inexhaustible collection . . . to be read again and again * Daily Mail *Had me entranced * Observer *A wonderful, generous anthology. A life-affirming celebration of the commonplace yet enduringly mysterious creatures we share this world with and the poetry they have inspired * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisFederico García Lorca was born into an educated family of small landowners in Fuente Vaqueros in 1898. A poet, dramatist, musician and artist, he attended the university at Granada, where he acquired a fine knowledge of literature. In 1919 he went to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid and during his long stay there he met all the principal writers, critics and scholars who visited the place, which was then a flourishing centre of cultural liberalism. In 1928 his Gipsy-Ballad Book (Romancero gitano) received much public acclaim. In 1929 he went to New York with Fernando de los Ríos and his volume of poems Poet in New York (Poeta en Nueva York) was published posthumously in 1940. On his return to republican Spain, he devoted himself to the theatre, as co-director of La Barraca, a government-sponsored student theatrical company that toured the country. He now wrote fewer poems, but these include his masterpiece Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejía

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Book SynopsisVictor, a New York cop nearing retirement, moves among furniture in the disused attic of a house marked for demolition. Cabinets, desks, a damaged harp, an overstuffed armchair - the relics of a lost life of affluence he''s finally come to sell. But when his brother Walter, who he hasn''t spoken to in years, arrives, the talk stops being just about whether Victor''s been offered a fair price for the furniture, and turns to the price that one and not the other of them paid when their father lost both his fortune and the will to go on ...Fraught, but cut through with humour, The Price is one of Arthur Miller''s finest plays.

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Book SynopsisQuentin is a successful lawyer in New York, but inside his head he is struggling with his own sense of guilt and the shadows of his past relationships. One of these an ill-fated marriage to the charming and beautiful Maggie, who went from operating a switchboard to become a self-destructive star - a singer everyone wanted a piece of. With tremendous psychological acuity and depth, and a brilliant, dreamlike structure, After the Fall is a literary masterpiece, drawing on Miller''s own life - the story of a man striving to comprehend his feelings for his friends, family and the women he has loved.

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Book SynopsisNow in paperback, a wonderful anthology of wedding poems, filled with surprising, curious, unorthodox and charming poems about love and the public commitment to love.For the many thousands of readers who each year go through the complex mix of thrill and trauma that is the planning of a marriage ceremony, Laura Barber''s anthology is the answer to a prayer, with a wonderfully generous and unusual selection of poems suitable for reading out loud, and which celebrate and encapsulate our deepest feelings in all their bewildering diversity.Including verse by poets ranging from John Keats to Carol Ann Duffy and Walt Whitman to W. H. Auden, as well as many less familiar voices, this anthology offers numerous options for anyone about to read at the wedding of family or friends, or to celebrate their own.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare was born in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.Robert Smallwood was Head of Education at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon and is now an Honorary Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare was born some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

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Book SynopsisThe three plays collected in this volume depict the faults, errors and foibles of ordinary people with exuberant humour, savage satire and acute observations. Volpone portrays a rich Venetian who pretends to be dying so that his despised acquaintances will flock to his bedside with extravagant gifts in hope of an inheritance. The Alchemist also deals with greed and gullibility, as a rascally trio of confidence tricksters, claiming to have the legendary Philosopher's Stone, fool a series of victims who are hoping to make some easy money. And in a wonderfully energetic portrait of Jacobean life, Bartholomew Fair shows a diverse group of Londoners sampling the delights and temptations of the Fair - and the traders, prostitutes and cutpurses who set out to exploit them.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global boo

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Book SynopsisPoetry and music have been associated with each other from the very beginning. The Penguin Book of English Song draws together a great variety of English poetry (including Irish, Scots and Welsh writers) that has reached a wider audience through the magic of music. Richard Stokes''s rich anthology of verse stretches from the fourteenth century to the twentieth, collecting poems that have inspired musical settings by one hundred English poets, along with a treasure trove of illuminating notes and marginalia about their lives, work and, often, their approach to music.Stokes gathers together in a single volume a huge amount of information about English song that will assist musicians in performing these works, and enlighten all those enthusiasts who delight in the fusion of words and music that has produced countless moments of incandescent magic.

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Book SynopsisOther Ways to Leave the Room features the work of three of the most beloved and lauded poets currently at large. Between them, Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson and Nick Laird write lyrical, luminous and often darkly witty poems about the rugged wildness of the Scottish landscape; about fatherhood; about whisky-drinking, alcohol abuse and tenement life; about sex, love and the pursuit of the spiritual; about childhood in the Ireland of the Troubles, and about the strange possibilities of the technological future. What all three have in common is an ability to combine observations of gritty real life with a sense of the mythical proportions always lurking just under the surface of the everyday.The Penguin Modern Poets are succinct guides to the richness and diversity of contemporary poetry. Every volume brings together representative selections from the work of three poets now writing, allowing the curious reader and the seasoned lover of poetry to encounter the most exciting voices of our moment.

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Book SynopsisKathryn Maris is originally from New York and has lived in London since 1999. Her previous collections are The Book of Jobs (Four Way Books, 2006) and God Loves You (Seren, 2013), and a selection of her poetry appeared alongside the work of Frederick Seidel and Sam Riviere in Penguin Modern Poets 5: Occasional Wild Parties (2017). Her poetry has been published widely, including in Granta, The Nation, The New Statesman, Poetry, The Best British Poetry 2015 (Salt) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 (Faber & Faber).Trade ReviewThe funniest book I've read in years. Maris flexes her wit and wisdom to create a litany of nervous characters in a style that's mordant, sarcastic, satiric yet often compassionate . . . a poet of risk, she is dark, deep and often laugh out loud -- Daljit NagraHer dry, droll, clinically deadpan manner is all her own; but her themes - obscure hurts, implacable dissatisfactions, hardwired propensity for victimhood and suffering - reflect the experience of humanity at large -- Christopher ReidIt's like being in a cage with a jaguar - both the car and the animal: one is very fast, the other very hungry. It's highly dangerous, but strangely, you don't mind. Bloody readable anyway -- Hugo Williams

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Book Synopsis''This is surprising, addictive poetry with delicious, seemingly wayward lines . . . McLane is a true Romantic, rooted in tradition while leaping and exulting in her originality'' Irish TimesGathering the best of her first five collections, a ''sexy, cerebral and romantic'' introduction to one of the US''s most singular and charismatic poetsLoose-limbed, freewheeling and conversational yet musically taut, Maureen N. McLane''s poetry has been described as having ''a tonal register somewhere between teenage fangirl and Wordsworth professor'' (London Review of Books). What I''m Looking For gathers selections from her first five books of poetry, from the mixture of love poems and breezy skewerings of Great Literature that characterize her debut, Same Life, to the later collections'' shadowing of a mind roaming wittily through nature, philosophy, music and sex, and the bravura life-story-in-episodes of Mz N: the serial.Trade ReviewI don't recommend Maureen N. McLane as much as proselytize for her. She's my favourite living poet . . . [Her work] bristles with life, feeling, argument -- Parul Sehgal * The New York Times Book Review *Breezy and inviting, but also rich and far-reaching . . . Many of the poems are so lovely that one notices their phrasing and pacing first, and then their deeper layers . . . McLane . . . knows when to dazzle and when to disrupt the reader's expectations with a risqué or cheeky observation -- Elizabeth Lund * Washington Post *These are poems that keep you on your toes . . . McLane renders each phrase with the precise and steady hand of an ice sculptor. Her consummate finesse can be a source of delight -- Jeff Gordinier * The New York Times Book Review *Her mix of the humorous and the cerebral is at once exuberant and rinsed with melancholy . . . It is possible to be carried so far by McLane - by her knowledge, wit, generosity, and musical ear - that one is carried away -- Christine Smallwood * Harper's *The unstoppable, riverish fever of her enjambed, short-lined poems quickly draws one down through her mind, which is as good a prism as any I know of to encounter the external "effects" of nature, beauty, body . . . she makes memory, inside poetry, a downright erotic activity. It's not just the sex of her thought, but the sex of thought itself that breathes through these gorgeous poems -- Adam Fitzgerald * Lithub *

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Book Synopsis''Essential reading'' Roger Robinson''Hateful and hilarious, heartbroke and hellbent'' Mary Karr''Sure, wise and devastating . . . a joy'' Caleb Azumah Nelson''Wanda Coleman is not just wickedly wise, she is transcendent'' Washington PostNobody wrote about police hassle like she did. Nobody wrote about making ends meet, about the history of the slave trade or the comedy of the daily grind, with the same breathtaking originality and brio; and few writers, before or since, have had the courage to write with such honesty about their everyday experience of life - and love - in an unjust world.This is the first ever UK publication of the poetry of Wanda Coleman: a beat-up, broke and Black woman who wrote with defiance, humour and clarity about her life on the margins, and who went overlooked by the establishment for decades - even as she was known colloquially as ''the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles''.Trade ReviewIn this sure, wise and devastating collection, Coleman pushes against the limitations of language ... I cried many times while reading but also laughed enormously. What a joy of a book -- Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of OPEN WATERWanda Coleman is not just wickedly wise, she is transcendent * Washington Post *Wanda Coleman's peerless Wicked Enchantment has words to crack you open and heal you where it counts - hateful and hilarious, heartbroke and hellbent. All honor to her name -- Mary Karr, author of THE LIARS' CLUBWanda Coleman gives literary voice to thoughts on survival, as a Black woman who suffers economic, racist and misogynistic attack. Essential reading for all -- Roger Robinson, author of A PORTABLE PARADISEOne of the greatest poets ever to come out of LA * New Yorker *Coleman is master of telling unvarnished truths - about self, about the world, about personal past and our collective future * Los Angeles Times *Her work pushes us to confront injustice with as much candor as she did * Poetry *Her works crackle with life ... aching and meditative * Booklist *Sassy, funny, and wickedly sharp ... there are more than a dozen poems in Hayes's astute gathering that should be widely anthologized, certainly as much as any poem by Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, or [Frank] O'Hara ... Wicked Enchantment should help set the record straight: Coleman is a great American poet -- John Yau * Hyperallergic *

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Book Synopsis The award-winning poet''s darkly riotous debut, exploring stereotypes of Black male identity and sexuality in a corrupt systemLyrical, loud and radically urgent, Jonah Mixon-Webster''s debut aims its sights at the words and images that shape us and the corrupt forces that stand in the way of our freedom. Stereo(TYPE) is a reckoning and a force. It is a revision of our most sacred mythologies - and a work of documentary poetry reporting from Mixon-Webster''s hometown of Flint, Michigan, where untainted tap water is still not guaranteed and the legacies of racist policies persist. Challenging stereotypes through scenes scattered with satire, violence, and the extreme vagaries of everyday life, Mixon-Webster explores the places where space and body, race and region and sexuality and class meet and intersect. He invents visual/sonic forms, recasts poems as FAQs and transcripts, and dives into dreamscapes and modern tragedies. Interrogating language and tTrade ReviewA master of experimentation . . . This work is alive

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Book SynopsisAn updated edition of Thoreau's most widely read worksSelf-described as a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot, Henry David Thoreau dedicated his life to preserving his freedom as a man and as an artist. Nature was the fountainhead of his inspiration and his refuge from what he considered the follies of society. Heedless of his friends' advice to live in a more orthodox manner, he determinedly pursued his own inner bent-that of a poet-philosopher-in prose and verse. Edited by noted Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer, this edition promises to be the new standard for those interested in discovering the great thinker's influential ideas about everything from environmentalism to limited government.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genr

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed translator Dick Davis breathes new life into the timeless works of three masters of 14th-century Persian literature Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered “our finest translator of Persian poetry” (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.“Davis [is] widely acknowledged as the leading translator of Persian literaturTrade ReviewDavis [is] widely acknowledged as the leading translator of Persian literature in our time...Faces of Love has made the Persian originals into real and moving English poems * Washington Post *Davis has done something I'd thought impossible: given us an Englished Hafez whose verses retain an intimation of what all the fuss is about...this anthology is a revelation * The Chicago Tribune *Radiant...Davis expertly elucidates the conventions these poets worked within and played against -- A. E. Stallings * The Times Literary Supplement - Books of the Year *Dick Davis's love affair with Persian literature has resulted in another marvelous offspring. Faces of Love reveals to us the mysterious connections between three vastly different fourteenth-century Persian poets. Through their eyes, Davis brings us that other Iran of poetry, lyrical beauty, diversity, and sensuality; only a lover and a poet could so passionately and meticulously capture the true spirit of these magnificent poems that transcend the boundaries of space and time -- Azar Nafisi, author of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran'For me, the most remarkable poetic translation project in the last twenty years has been Dick Davis' ambitious recreations of classical Persian literature. In book after book, Davis has memorably translated one of the world's great literatures into real English-language poetry. Finally, Davis has brought us new versions of Hafez and the great Shiraz poets. What can I say about this new book except: Yes! at last we meet one of the greatest lyric poets in history fully alive in English -- Dana Gioia, former chairman of the NEA and author of 'Pity the Beautiful: Poems'In this heady volume of wine, roses, nightingales, and forbidden trysts, Dick Davis shows us three faces of medieval Persian love poetry: the elusively mystical, the searingly personal, and the gleefully profane. For those of us unfamiliar with this world, the excitement is something akin to stumbling across a new Pindar, Sappho, and Catullus in a single volume - that is, if they were contemporaries and flourished in the same small town. This book is equally valuable for its wide-ranging introduction and pellucid and musical translations (quotable as English poems in their own right) - it would be worthwhile for either, but is a gem for both. Perhaps the most thrilling surprise contained here, however, is the debut in English (if not the West) of Jahan Malek Khatun, an intellectual princess whose bold and moving poems of heartbreak (often daring in their exploration of gender roles) and exile are a revelation. Her pen name means 'the world' and indeed we feel that, in bringing these poems into our language, scholar, poet, and translator Dick Davis has opened a new world for us. One couldn't write a better description of this volume than one of her own epigrams: Shiraz when spring is here - what pleasure equals this? With streams to sit by, wine to drink, and lips to kiss, With mingled sounds of drums and lutes and harps and flutes; Then, with a nice young lover near, Shiraz is bliss -- A.E. Stallings, MacArthur Fellow and author of 'Olives'Probably the most difficult task of all for a Persianist is translating 14th-century poet Hafez. Poet, translator, scholar of Persian literature, Davis has succeeded in this challenge admirably. The most admired of all Persian poets, Hafez is a wizard with words, always alluring, seldom quite within reach. Here Davis also provides translations of poems of Jahan Malek Khatun, a less-known female poet, and of Obayd-e Zakani, a scandalous 'lavatorial' poet (both also 14th century). The translations of all three poets are superb, and they open up a new world even for those who know Persian well. Davis has supplied a long introduction in which he explains how Persian lyric poems (ghazals) work, both in formal terms and in terms of what ghazals speak of and why. The formal structure of a ghazal is not easily reproduced in English, but Davis has managed, better than anyone else so far, to give a rendering that makes these translations come alive and sing. He has also translated Obeyd-e Zakani's "Mush-o-gurbeh" ("Mouse and Cat"), a well-known narrative poem with clear political undertones, in a charming fashion. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. -- W. L. Hanaway, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, CHOICE

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Book SynopsisThe acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series, now repackaged in award-winning modern covers to inspire Shakespearians of all ages.

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Book Synopsis A tragic epic love story by one of the greatest medieval Persian romance poets, in a modern-verse English translationBased on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court and written 850 years ago, the narrative poem about Khosrow and Shirin shares a shelf with the most intensely romantic classic stories, from Tristan and Isolde to Layla and Majnun to Romeo and Juliet.The love between an Iranian prince (Khosrow) and an Armenian princess (Shirin) is at the centre of this tumultuous tale in which the powers of politics and warfare intertwine with no less powerful forces of erotic desire and the quest for personal and spiritual fulfilment.Dick Davis''s translation has captured the energy and poetry of Nezami's original in modern verse. Khosrow and Shirin will enchant both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new audience for Nezami's masterpiece.

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

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Book SynopsisWhat do we mean by ''tragedy'' in present-day usage? When we turn on the news, does a report of the latest atrocity have any connection with the masterpieces of Sophocles, Shakespeare and Racine? What has tragedy been made to mean by dramatists, story-tellers, critics, philosophers, politicians and journalists over the last two and a half millennia? Why do we still read, re-write, and stage these old plays? This book argues for the continuities between ''then'' and ''now''. Addressing questions about belief, blame, mourning, revenge, pain, witnessing, timing and ending, Adrian Poole demonstrates the age-old significance of our attempts to make sense of terrible suffering.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade Review'Oxford's always stimulating Very Short Introductions series.' * Independent on Sunday *Table of Contents1. Who needs it? ; 2. Once upon a time ; 3. The living dead ; 4. Who's to blame? ; 5. Big ideas ; 6. No laughing matter ; 7. Words, words, words ; 8. Good timing ; 9. Pain and gain

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Book SynopsisThis single-volume edition of the complete works of Sirhe Thomas Malory retains his 15th-century English while providing an introduction, glossary, and fifty pages of explanatory notes on each romance.Trade Review` ... the general introduction and introductions to the tales in the commentary, although sometimes controversial and outdated, are basically Vinaver's. This is appropriate for this monumental work of scholarship that bears his name. ... students of Malory will welcome having a more accurate version of Vinaver's edition in print and will be grateful to Field for an impressive contribution to scholarship.' Edward Donald Kennedy, Speculum - A Journal of Medieval Studies

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Book SynopsisFrom the gritty realism and resentment of Du Bellay to the lyric grace and frank eroticism of Ronsard, the poems of this volume testify to the many-faceted achievement of the two poets who, as leaders of the famous 'Pléiade' group, were crucial to the creation of a new national literature.Trade ReviewThis is an essential poetry collection for all humans' home libraries, as well as public and university libraries. This collection is also a great choice for French or world literature classes. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Texts Select Bibliography A Chronology of Joachim Du Bellay A Chronology of Pierre de Ronsard Selected Poems Manifestos Explanatory Notes Glossary of Names and Places Index of French First Lines

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Book SynopsisWithin classical music, much writing on the Western song tradition since 1800 has assumed a direct link between musical cultures and national literatures, and song has typically been interpreted as one of the means by which constructions of nationalism and nationhood have been pursued in the cultural sphere. Yet song can also be a mobile and cosmopolitan genre and form of cultural practice, able - through performance, publication, and translation - to cross boundaries between cultures and languages. This volume brings together musicologists, literary scholars, linguists, and cultural historians to examine the ways in which song creation, practice, and interpretation has been defined by, and in turn defines, conceptions of nationalism and the transnational. It focuses on four key poets - the Persian Hafiz, German Heine, American Whitman, and French Verlaine - and examines how their poems have been ''translated'' into song, and how music can challenge the seemingly organic relationship bTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION Philip Ross Bullock and Laura Tunbridge: 'L'invitation au voyage' HAFIZ 1: Natasha Loges: Hafiz between Nations: Song Settings by Daumer/Brahms and Peacock/Beamish 2: Stephen Downes: Szymanowski, a Hafiz 'Grablied', and the 'translation' of Nietzsche 3: Philip Ross Bullock: The German Roots of Russian Orientalism: Hafiz's Poetry in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Song HEINE 4: Suzannah Clark: Traces of Tourism and Transnationalism in Liszt's Heine Settings 5: Benjamin Binder: Performance Matters in Heine: The Case of Pauline Viardot's 'Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter' 6: Laura Tunbridge: 'Once again...speaking of' Heine, in Song VERLAINE 7: Peter Dayan: Why song in Verlaine's Verse is Always Already Beyond the Nation 8: David Evans: French Impressions: The Transnational Afterlives of Verlaine's 'La Lune blanche' in Song 9: Carlo Caballero: Paul Verlaine in Parallel: Loeffler, Fauré, Debussy 10: Helen Abbott: Song Just Beyond the Nation, or Debussy via Verlaine WHITMAN 11: Jennifer Ronyak: Johanna Müller-Hermann's Lied der Erinnerung: Austria, America, and Beyond 12: Lawrence Kramer: The Émigré Walt Whitman: Songs of Mourning, 1943-48 13: Elizabeth Helsinger: A Song, the Sea, and a Listening Boy: Whitman - Swinburne - Delius 14: Emma Sutton: Whitman and Stevenson: Singing the Nation from Scotland to Samoa via Ohio and Hawai'i AfterwordTerence Cave:

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Book SynopsisThe Hsu-Tang Library presents authoritative and eminently readable translations of classical Chinese literature, in bilingual editions, ranging across three millennia and the entire Sinitic world.This anthology opens up new religious and poetic worlds for readers. It consists of translations of poems written by Buddhist nuns from China''s late imperial period (1368-1911). Appreciation of these poems is enhanced by individual biographical accounts for each of the sixty-five nun-poets and an Introduction to the historical, religious, and literary context of these poems, including a concise discussion of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Buddhist poetry.The nuns in this anthology come from a range of backgrounds: some were placed in convents when very young; others were former palace ladies or courtesans who found refuge in the religious life; others were women left widowed or destitute in the wake of the various political and social upheavals of the times, especially the violent transition beTable of ContentsIntroduction The Poems Wulian After the Rain An Autumn Night: Written in the Moment Jieshi Early Morning Qingming Miaoni Spring Night The Girl Nun from Yan Gatha Xingkong Reflecting on Myself Mojing Going by Way of Tiger Hill Jueqing Poem Inscribed on a Convent Wall Wuwei Deathbed Gatha Jiyin Dharma Hall Gatha Deyin Early Autumn: A Distant Evening View Song of Planting Bamboo Lady Huang Jieling Came to Stay at My Mountain Boudoir, Written in the Moment Derong Pitying the Caged Bird Who is Just Like Me Plum Blossom Jingming Improvised Dharma Instructions to My Disciples Jingyin Going to See Huang Yuanjie but Not Finding Her In Dumu Jin'gang Gatha Gatha Deathbed Gatha Xiang'an Yinhui Gatha: Eating Bamboo Shoots Deshan Carries His Bowl Miaohui Passing By the Tomb of Tenth Daughter Ma Drinking on Flower-Raining Terrace, I Was Assigned "Falling Leaves" as the Topic for a Poem Daoyuan Seated Meditation: Reflections Sengjian Early Summer The Autumn Flowering Crabapple Tree Shenyi A Dream Journey to Mount Tiantai Crossing Again the Hengyun Mountain, Thinking of Jingwei Zaisheng Composed in Early Spring Winter's Day Narrating My Feelings on a Winter's Night Jingwei The Emerald Sea Random Thoughts on Living in the Country Facing the Moon on an Autumn Night Sitting at Night Shangjian Huizong Village Life Thoughts on Living in Seclusion A Friend from the Inner Chambers Comes to Visit: Remembering Old Times Heartfelt Recollections Wugou Writing of My Feelings (Version 1) Writing of My Feelings (Version 2) Climbing the Mountain after the Snow Chaoyi Deathbed Gatha Mingxuan Wuzhen Autumn Night Falling Leaves Inscribed on a Ying Stone Weiji Xingzhi Ode to the Honeybees Living in the Mountains Listening to the Geese Jingnuo Chaoyue Song of the Ancient Plum Trees Passing by Yongqing Monastery, I Came Upon Its Peonies and Wrote These For Lady Yang A Celebration in Verse of the Autumn Orchid Chaoyan Miyin Self-Encomium Yizhen Mid-Autumn Younger Sister Yuying and I Planned to Meet on the Ninth Day, But She Didn't Arrive Living in the Mountains Among Falling Leaves Matching the Rhymes of "Cloud Hermitage" Shangxin Ice Yuanduan Yufu My Study: An Impromptu Verse Miaohui Dawn Sitting at Bo're Convent Shiyan Recalling a Dream Swallows Rising at Dawn: An Expression of Feelings A Reply to Sixth Elder Sister Ruixian Wanxian Inside the Convent: Reflections Lianhua Kedu Gatha Yinyue Xinglin In the MountainsThe Three Blows Gatha When Sansheng Saw People He Came Out, When Xinghua Saw People He Did Not Ansheng Ode to the Silkworm Mourning Zhanna Zhuanzheng Deathbed Gatha Zhisheng Ode to the Snow The Chrysanthemum Deri Early Autumn Feelings by a Rainy Window Deyue On an Autumn Night Listening to the Crickets Zhiyuan A Lament for Peng E Qiyuan Xinggang The First Month of Summer Retreat: A Song of Leisure Dharma Instructions for Mingyuan Dharma Instructions for Person of the Way Xu Chaogu Addressing the Congregation on My Birthday Matching Jiang Yundu's "Autumn Pavilion Song" Ode to the Plum Blossom Yigong Chaoke Grieving for My Master Climbing up to a Thatched Hut on Lingyin and Gazing at Feilai Peak: An Impromptu Poem Yikui Chaochen Five Gathas: Sitting in Meditation (To a Previous Tune) To a Previous Tune Just Before Parting from My Elder Brothers Bidding Farewell to the Lay Dharma-Protectors of Meixi Of My Feelings after Visiting the Nun Weiji from Xiongsheng and Not Finding Her In Hymn: The Honeycomb In Praise of the Venerable Bamboo (To a Previous Tune) On the Fifteenth of the Twelfth Lunar Month After the Snow, Returning Home by Boat I Improvised This Poem Presented to Chan Master Zhuying Inside my Boat on My Return Home to Dongting: An Impromptu Poem Deathbed Gatha Zukui Xuanfu An Ode to Honeybees An Ode to Fireworks Breaking off a Plum Branch to Offer to the Buddha To Myself A Leisurely Visit to an Ancient Temple Returning to the Mountain, I Cross the Lake Returning to the Mountains, I Laugh at Myself A Leisurely Stroll on a Moonlit Night Traveling by Boat on a Winter Day In Search of Plum Blossoms Dharma Instructions for Practitioner Keren Taking up Residence in a Hermitage Living in the Mountains: An Impromptu Poem Reading the Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang Leaving My Old Retreat on Dongting The Moon in the Water: A Gatha My Aspirations Dharma Instructions for Person of the Way Xunji To Layman Zhao Fengchu (second of two verses) The Road is Hard (To the Tune "Immortals by the River") Summer Rest on East Mountain Song of the Twelve Hours of the Day Living in the Mountains: Miscellaneous Gathas Thoughts Baochi Xuanzong Matching the Ten Verses of Chan Master Cishou Huaiyin's "Cloud Dispelling Terrace" Silk-embroidered Peonies Harmonizing with Temple Manager Teacher Shao's "Mastering Yangqi's Primary Strategy": Four Verses Watching the Snow from Nanzhou's Phoenix Rising Tower Dharma Instructions for Person of the Way Liyan Jizong Xingche Living the Nanyue Mountains: Miscellaneous Verses Mist and Clouds Peak Gods and Immortals Grotto Heavenly Terrace Temple Mount Zhong's Great Illumination Temple The Great Yang Spring The Second Month of Autumn: A Parting Poem Enjoying the Snow on New Year's Day My Aspirations Written to Rhymes by the Layman of Zhoukui Hermitage Visiting the Monk of Nanyue on His Sickbed: Two Poems To Chan Elder Dharma Brother Zaisheng on Her Fiftieth Birthday At the Zhixi Cloister on Hidden Lake, Presented to Chan Master Daoming Presented to Layman Xu Jingke Having Borrowed a Meditation Hut from Chan Practitioner Zhubing, I Wrote a Poem to Present to Her A Farewell Poem for Person of the Way Yan Duoli New Year's Eve of the Year Wuxu (1658) Composed for Layman Gu Mengdiao on His Sixtieth Birthday On an Autumn Day, Thinking of My Mother Dharma Instructions to the Lay Assembly: Four Gathas Ziyong Chengru A Bell Shattered After Being Struck and I Was Moved to Compose a Gatha Upon Hearing the Sound of Wood Being Chopped Ode to the Snow Two Verses: Living in the Mountains Thoughts in the Bingzi Year (1696) An Excursion to the Western Hills Gatha: Boarding My Boat Early Autumn Sentiments To My Elder Dharma Brother Ruru Asking Questions of the Masters: Four Gathas A Miscellaneous Chant Walking Through the Rice Paddies, I Casually Composed This Gatha Eight Miscellaneous Gathas (selection of three) Entrusting Head Student Zhi with Robes and Whisk, I Composed This Gatha Mingxiu Seeing Off Relatives, Bowing to My Master, and Taking the Vows My Inscription for a Painting of West Lake Requested While Staying at My Convent in Jingzhou Shuxia In Deep Autumn, Returning to My Hometown; in Sixth Uncle's Garden Pavilion, Standing in Front of the Chrysanthemums To the Tune "Immortal by the River" Composed While on a Boat To the Tune "Bodhisattva Barbarian": A Parting Poem Wuqing Feelings Huiji Reply to Lady Gioro Heseri Lianghai Ru'de Poems of the Pure Land Untitled Verses Written in Imitation of an Ancient Style: The Filial Girl Lu of Pinghu Buddha-Recitation (Selections from a Series of Forty-Eight Poems) Abbreviations Bibliography Index of Sources

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Book SynopsisA scholarly edition of poetical works by Christopher Smart. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

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Book SynopsisHomer Vol. IV. Odyssey (Books XIII-XXIV)

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Book SynopsisOxford Student Texts offer an accessible route into the study of texts for A Level including line-by-line notes, and detailed sections covering key themes, issues and contexts. This edition focuses on The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

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Book SynopsisThere can be no area of human experience that has generated a wider range of powerful feelings than war. Jon Stallworthy''s classic and celebrated anthology spans centuries of human experience of war, from Homer''s Iliad, through the First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the wars fought since. This new edition, published to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, includes a new introduction additonal poems from David Harsent and Peter Wyton amongst others. The new selection provides improved coverage of the two World Wars and the Vietnam War, and new coverage of the wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition Review from previous edition quite simply the most rewardingly catholic anthology of battle verse I know. Homer, Byron, Macauley, Hardy - and more recently, Keyes, Reed, Lewis, Douglas and Prince - they're all here, plus an excellent brief essay of introduction. * Times Educational Supplement *a marvellous collection of old favourites and many surprises. * The Star *This collection is of exceptionally high quality. * Washington Post *full of good things...many old favourites and quite a few genuine surprises. * Vernon Scannell, The Guardian *This is an anthology that works in a way that the work of no single poet could. * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisJames Joyce's only surviving play has divided Joyceans for a century. Illuminating the themes of performance that are so prominent throughout Joyce's fiction, Exiles sees Joyce staking his claim definitively within the European theatrical tradition.Trade ReviewThe book is complete with Walsh's useful notes and a well-established text and can safely be recommended to students. * Valérie Bénéjam, James Joyce Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction Composition and Publication History Select Bibliography A Chronology of James Joyce EXILES Appendix A: 'Ibsen's New Drama' Appendix B: 'The Day of the Rabblement' Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisFeaturing 218 poems and songs in Scots, English, and Gaelic, this collection places Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and other major writers of the period alongside lesser known or even entirely forgotten figures. A significant number of important long poems are given in full, and many of the shorter works feature for the first time in a modern edition.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Note on the Texts Select Bibliography Chronology Poems List of Poets Explanatory notes

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Book SynopsisMrs Warren's Profession, Candida, and You Never Can Tell are plays which give a clear sense of the range of Shaw's first forays into playwriting. Together they showcase his early negotiations between his political and social concerns and the constraints and possibilities of the British stage at the fin de siècle.Table of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography Chronology Mrs Warren's Profession Candida You Never Can Tell Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisMan and Superman, John Bull's Other Island, and Major Barbara are widely considered to be three of the most important in the canon of modern British theatre.Table of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography Chronology Man and Superman John Bull's Other Island Major Barbara Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisGeorge Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity. This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw''s life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw''s committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw''s long career. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of ContentsIntroduction "Shavian" 1: "GBS" 2: "Unpleasant" 3: "Pleasant" 4: "Puritan" 5: "Political" 6: "Extravagant" 7: "Farfetched"

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Book SynopsisLush Diodorus sets the lads on fire,But now another has him in his net -Timarion, the boy with wanton eyes . . . Meleager, AP 12.109Encompassing four thousand short poems and more, the ramshackle classic we call the Greek Anthology gathers up a millennium of snapshots from ancient daily life. Its influence echoes not merely in the classic tradition of the English epigram (Pope, Dryden) but in Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, Virgina Woolf, T. S. Eliot, H.D., and the poets of the First World War. Its variety is almost infinite. Victorious armies, ruined cities, and Olympic champions share space with lovers'' quarrels and laments for the untimely dead - but also with jokes and riddles, art appreciation, potted biographies of authors, and scenes from country life and the workplace.This selection of more than 600 epigrams in verse is the first major translation from the Greek Anthology in nearly a century. Each of the Anthology''s books of epigrams is represented here, in manuscript order, anTrade ReviewThis new edition of Greek epigrams, translated by Gideon Nisbet ... must be counted as a service to society as well as a significant literary achievement. * Robert S. Erickson, The New Criterion *The verse translations are elegant, often witty, and amazingly faithful, and all the explanatory material helpful. * Professor Simon Hornblower, University of Oxford *This lively, learned, witty, yet sometimes melancholy, translation is a thing of great beauty. Dipping in and out of it has been a joy. * Professor Llloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Cardiff University *My quibbles with Nisbet often concern the Greek text being translated. He accepts that of W.R. Paton, The Greek Anthology, Loeb Classical Library, 5 vols (Cambridge MA 1916-1918), but a look at subsequent textual work might have repaid the effort: for example, Tueller's revision of Paton for the difficult texts of book 3. Nisbet wisely avoids burdening his book with scholarly detail, although the endnotes are helpful on mythical and historical matters, and sometimes on stylistic points hard to convey in translation. He provides further guidance in the introduction and index. Especially for those new to the subject, the introduction (vii-xlii) outlines the history of Greek epigram and the Anthology, reviews its content, sketches modern reception and offers a helpful bibliography. * Joseph W. Day, JHS *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Christian epigrams Epigrams at Cyzicus Erotic epigrams by various poets The dedicatory epigrams Epigrams on tombs Epigrams of Saint Gregory the Theologian Rhetorical epigrams Advisory epigrams Sympotic and scoptic epigrams Strato's Boyish Muse Epigrams in assorted metres Arithmetical problems, riddles, and oracles Miscellaneous epigrams The Planudean Appendix Explantory Notes

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Book SynopsisThis is one of the best-known plays by Africa's major dramatist, Wole Soyinka.It is set in the Yoruba village of Ilunjinle. The main characters are Sidi (the Jewel), 'a true village belle' and Baroka (the Lion), the crafty and powerful Bale of the village, Lakunle, the young teacher, influenced by western ways, and Sadiku, the eldest of Baroka's wives. How the Lion hunts the Jewel is the theme of this ribald comedy.

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Book SynopsisThe second Oxford edition of Shakespeare''s Complete Works reconsiders every detail of their text and presentation in the light of modern scholarship. The nature and authority of the early documents are re-examined, and the canon and chronological order of composition freshly established. Spelling and punctuation are modernized, and there is a brief introduction to each work, as well as an illuminating and informative General Introduction. Included here for the first time is the play The Reign of King Edward the Third as well as the full text of Sir Thomas More. This new edition also features an essay on Shakespeare''s language by David Crystal, and a bibliography of foundational works.Trade Reviewremains the most distinctive, and in many ways the best, one-volume Shakespeare currently available and will not be easily replaced. * Forum for Modern Languages *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Contemporary Allusions to Shakespeare ; Commendatory Poems and Prefaces (1599-1640) ; 1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona ; 2. The Taming of the Shrew ; 3. The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI) ; 4. The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and the Good King Henry the Sixth (3 Henry VI) ; 5. The First Part of Henry the Sixth ; 6. The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus ; 7. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third ; 8. Venus and Adonis ; 9. The Rape of Lucrece ; 10. The Reign of King Edward the Third ; 11. The Comedy of Errors ; 12. Love's Labour's Lost ; 13. Love's Labour's Won: A Brief Account ; 14. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second ; 15. The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet ; 16. A Midsummer Night's Dream ; 17. The Life and Death of King John ; 18. The Comical History of The Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice ; 19. The History of Henry the Fourth (1 Henry IV) ; 20. The Merry Wives of Windsor ; 21. The Second Part of Henry the Fourth (2 Henry IV) ; 22. Much Ado About Nothing ; 23. The Life of Henry the Fifth ; 24. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar ; 25. As You Like It ; 26. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark ; 27. Twelfth Night, or What You Will ; 28. Troilus and Cressida ; 29. Sonnets and 'A Lover's Complaint' ; 30. Various Poems ; 31. Sir Thomas More ; 32. Measure for Measure ; 33. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice ; 34. The Life of Timon of Athens ; 35. The History of King Lear: The Quarto Text ; 36. The Tragedy of Macbeth ; 37. The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra ; 38. All's Well That Ends Well ; 39. Pericles, Prince of Tyre: A Reconstructed Text ; 40. The Tragedy of Coriolanus ; 41. The Winter's Tale ; 42. The Tragedy of King Lear: The Folio Text ; 43. Cymbeline, King of Britain ; 44. The Tempest ; 45. Cardenio: A Brief Account ; 46. All Is True (Henry VIII) ; 47. The Two Noble Kinsmen ; Select Glossary

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