Search results for ""author michael livingston""

With an introduction by Harriet McDougal, Origins of The Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston explores the inspirations behind the acclaimed series The Wheel of Time, including a biography of Robert Jordan for the first time.‘Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal’ – New York Times on The Wheel of Time seriesExplore never-before-seen insights into The Wheel of Time, including:- A brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan’s unpublished notes- An alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the WorldThis companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was (including a chapter that is the very first published biography of the author), how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature.The second part of the book is a glossary to the ‘real world’ in The Wheel of Time. King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so is Alexander the Great and the Apollo Space Program, the Norse gods and Napoleon’s greatest defeat – and so much more.Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and longtime fans looking either to expand their understanding of the series or unearth the real-life influences that Jordan utilized in his world-building – all in one accessible text.

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This casebook fills a major gap in our cultural knowledge of the Middle Ages. It gathers together for the first time the key historical and literary primary sources for the study of the Battle of Brunanburh (AD 937); a key moment in the history of the British Isles. Produced by an international team of experts, the volume offers the sources in their language of origin - Old English, Old Norse, Welsh, Irish, Latin, Anglo-Norman, Middle English, Early Modern English - with facing-page translations and explanatory notes. Many of the sources are translated here for the first time. In addition, the volume includes a substantial introduction from Michael Livingston and ten wide-ranging essays that provide cultural contexts and lay to rest many of the most controversial questions about the conflict - including the key matter of where the battle likely took place, identified here . The essays show the lasting significance of this nation-defining battle - both in terms of history and in terms of its impact across more than a thousand years of literature.

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The fourteenth-century Siege of Jerusalem has been called by Ralph Hanna "the chocolate-covered tarantula of the alliterative movement" for its apparent anti-Semitism and is, as Livingston notes in his introduction, "simply difficult for twenty-first-century readers to like." The poem, which describes the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman forces in AD 70, is graphic in detail and unpleasant in its relish of the suffering of the Jews. But as Livingston points out, "Like the gritty violence of Alliterative Morte Arthure, the gore in Siege is perhaps best read as a grim awareness of the terrible realities of war, not as a bloodthirsty and berserk cry for further bloodshed. The poem chronicles a historical war, and it is this historical quality that must stand out: the poem not only has resonances of the bloodshed that battle inevitably brings, but it also is, in a very literal sense, history. This is to say, the war is over. The vengeance of Jesus has been accomplished. The Siege-poet's answer to the social-political-religious question of whether there is such a thing as a just war is that there was one: Titus and Vespasian's vengeance for the death of Christ. . . . Further efforts to avenge Christ were unnecessary. . . . That the poem is a call to action and to crusade, then, seems to be a claim that is far less sustainable than its opposite: a call to peace and to remembrance."

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NOW WITH EXCLUSIVE BONUS MATERIALFrom author and scholar Michael Livingston, Origins of The Wheel of Time is an authorised exploration of the inspirations behind the acclaimed series, including the first biography of its creator, Robert Jordan. With an introduction by Jordan's editor and widow, Harriet McDougal. Explore never-before-seen insights into The Wheel of Time, including:- A brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan’s unpublished notes- An alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World- An exclusive interview with the authorThis companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was (including a chapter that is the very first published biography of the author), how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature.The second part of the book is a glossary to the ‘real world’ in The Wheel of Time. King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so is Alexander the Great and the Apollo Space Program, the Norse gods and Napoleon’s greatest defeat – and so much more.Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and long-time fans looking either to expand their understanding of the series or unearth the real-life influences that Jordan utilized in his world-building – all in one accessible text.‘Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal’ – The New York Times on The Wheel of Time series

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Like the Bible upon which it is based, the metrical paraphrase is unlikely to be a text read cover-to-cover by the faint-hearted. The Paraphrase is, in several ways, a remarkable artifact of the Chaucerian period, one that can reveal a great deal about vernacular biblical literature in Middle English, about readership and lay understandings of the Bible, about the relationship between Christians and Jews in late medieval England, about the environment in which the Lollards and other reformers worked, about perceived roles of women in history and in society, and even about the composition of medieval drama. The Paraphrase-poet's proclamation that he intends to write stories "for sympyll men" (line 19) to understand the Scriptures and be engaged by them—"That men may lyghtly leyre / to tell and undertake yt" (lines 23–24)—thus combines the profit of sacred literature with the pleasure of the secular. This is Horace's utile et dulce ("both useful and pleasing") principle at its clearest, a singular example of the didacticism that characterizes so much of medieval literature, an aesthetic of pedagogic efficacy that is inseparably linked to the essential component of true pleasure in the text.

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Composed for King Henry VI in the middle of the Wars of the Roses, Of Knyghthode and Bataile adapts the most widely used military manual in the Middle Ages into English verse. That work is here edited by Michael Livingston and Trevor Russell Smith from all four surviving manuscripts, and presented with a contextualizing introduction and copious notes and glosses. Responding to both the evolution of warfare and the historical background of his own time, its anonymous poet produced what one critic has called "one of the most brilliant military poems of the fifteenth century."

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Composed for King Henry VI in the middle of the Wars of the Roses, Of Knyghthode and Bataile adapts the most widely used military manual in the Middle Ages into English verse. That work is here edited by Michael Livingston and Trevor Russell Smith from all four surviving manuscripts, and presented with a contextualizing introduction and copious notes and glosses. Responding to both the evolution of warfare and the historical background of his own time, its anonymous poet produced what one critic has called "one of the most brilliant military poems of the fifteenth century."

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Medieval Warfare: A Reader examines how armed conflict was experienced in the Middle Ages both on the field of battle and at home. This comprehensive collection of more than 130 primary-source materials—some translated here for the first time—traces over one thousand years of military developments, including the fall of Rome, the fight for Jerusalem, the building of castles and other fortifications, the rise of gunpowder, and the negotiation of treaties. Developed by two of the leading experts in medieval military history, the readings tell stories of terrors and tragedies, triumphs and technologies in the Middle Ages. By reclaiming the voices of victims and veterans that have previously been ignored, the editors stake out a powerful new perspective on the long history of military conflict and suffering.

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This book presents the original text and English translations of the medieval and post-medieval records, documents, poems and chronicles relating to Owain Glyndŵr (1357?-1415, revolutionary and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales), his career and his legacy. In addition, textual notes and essays on the historical, social and literary context of these documents will provide up-to-date perspectives and commentary on the man and his times. For the first time, historians, literary scholars, students and the general reader will be able to view a wide range of materials collected in a single volume and will be able to assess for themselves the significance of Glyndŵr in Welsh, English and European history from the late Middle Ages into the Renaissance – and to redress the imbalance of historical accounts past and present. The high profile international contributors include: John K. Bollard, Independent Scholar of Welsh Kelly DeVries, Loyola University, Maryland Helen Fulton, University of York Rhidian Griffiths, Independent Scholar Elissa R. Henken, University of Georgia Michael Livingston, The Citadel Alicia Marchant, University of Western Australia Scott Lucas, The Citadel William Oram, Smith College Gruffydd Aled Williams, Aberystwyth University

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Gower's achievement in writing substantially in all three primary languages of his time-Anglo-French, English, and Latin-was a source of pride to others and, undoubtedly, to him too: into the final years of his life he continued to produce poetry in all three languages. Certainly there is reason to know these poems for the light they shed on the intense partisanship and events of great moment surrounding the usurpation 1399-1400. It was during these parlous times that Gower composed most of the poems included here. All are important documents historically; but they are also poems admirable equally for their skill and craft. In Praise of Peace is in the same position as the shorter Latin works edited and translated in this volume: ignored, neglected, reduced, or relegated to the dusty realm of footnotes. But there is far more at work in this complex poem, as Gower's verse deftly weaves in and out of the historical, political, social, and religious contexts and controversies of its day. In tone, In Praise of Peace is, if not triumphant, determinedly optimistic. In this light, we might view the poem as a coda to Gower's long career, restating and reinvigorating his famously moral principles about just rule of self and society.

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