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Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry For Today's World
by Ewan FernieDo poetry and criticism matter in today's world? How can the poetry of the past help us tackle the changing nature of religious faith and national identity? This book explores the creation of Redcrosse, a new poetic liturgy for St George's Day and a unique collaborative work written by the critic Ewan Fernie, the theologian Andrew Shanks and the majorcontemporary poets Jo Shapcott, Michael Symmons Roberts and Andrew Motion. Leading writers - including John Milbank, Salley Vickers and Sarah Apetrei, together with authors of Redcrosse itself - reflect on the creation of the liturgy and its central inspiration, Edmund Spenser's epic Renaissance poem, The Faerie Queene, as well as on its two premieres in St George's Chapel, Windsor and Manchester Cathedral, and its sometimes controversial public reception. Including the full text of Redcrosse, the volume triumphantly shows that a new poetic work really can address some of the most pressing concerns of our time.
Ted Hughes, Class and Violence
by Paul BentleyTed Hughes is now widely regarded as a major figure in twentieth-century poetry. Critical literature has often characterized him primarily as a mythologizer of nature but the impact of Hughes's class background on his poems has received relatively little attention. Ted Hughes, Class and Violence is the first full length study to take the measure of the importance of class in Hughes. Paul Bentley here revisits such crucial topics as the controversy over 'natural' violence in Hughes's early poems, Hughes's relationship with Philip Larkin and with Seamus Heaney, the Laureateship, and Hughes's revisiting of his relationship with Sylvia Plath in Birthday Letters (1998), through the lens of Hughes's cultural background and class bearings. Drawing on discussions of violence by such cultural theorists as Slavoj Žižek and Terry Eagleton, the book presents new political readings of familiar Hughes poems, alongside consideration of posthumously collected poems and letters, to reveal a picture of a complex, fraught, and deeply ambivalent poet.
Ovid's 'Metamorphoses': A Reader's Guide (Reader's Guides)
by Genevieve LiveleyPerhaps no other classical text has proved its versatility so much as Ovid's epic poem. A staple of undergraduate courses in Classical Studies, Latin, English and Comparative Literature, Metamorphoses is arguably one of the most important, canonical Latin texts and certainly among the most widely read and studied.Ovid's 'Metamorphoses': A Reader's Guide is the ideal companion to this epic classical text offering guidance on:• Literary, historical and cultural context• Key themes• Reading the text• Reception and influence• Further reading
Keats and Negative Capability (Continuum Literary Studies)
by Li Ou"Negative capability", the term John Keats used only once in a letter to his brothers, is a well-known but surprisingly unexplored concept in literary criticism and aesthetics. This book is the first book-length study of this central concept in seventy years. As well as clarifying the meaning of the term and giving an anatomy of its key components, the book gives a full account of the history of this idea. It traces the narrative of how the phrase first became known and gradually gained currency, and explores its primary sources in earlier writers, principally Shakespeare and William Hazlitt, and its chief Modernist successors, W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot. Meanwhile, the term is also applied to Keats's own poetry, which manifests the evolution of the idea in Keats's poetic practice. Many of the comparative readings of the relevant texts, including King Lear, illuminate the interconnections between these major writers. The book is an original and significant piece of scholarship on this celebrated concept.
Tennyson Among the Novelists (Continuum Reception Studies)
by John MortonUntil now, the study of literary allusion has focused on allusions made by poets to other poets. In Tennyson Among the Novelists, John Morton presents the first book-length account of the presence of a poet's work in works of prose fiction. As well as shedding new light on the poems of Tennyson and their reception history, Morton covers a wide variety of novelists including Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh, and Andrew O'Hagan, offering a fresh look at their approach to writing. Morton shows how Tennyson's poetry, despite its frequent depreciation by critics, has survived as a vivifying presence in the novel from the Victorian period to the present day.
Sensation, Contemporary Poetry and Deleuze: Transformative Intensities (Continuum Literary Studies)
by Jon ClayFocussing on the significance of sensation, this study develops a Deleuzian poetics of reading, through an examination of contemporary innovative poetry.
Victorian Poetry in Context (Texts and Contexts)
by Rosie MilesVictorian Poetry in Context offers a lively and accessible introduction to the diverse range of poetry written in the Victorian period. Considering such issues as reform and protest, gender, science and belief this book sets out the social and cultural contexts for the poetry of a fast-changing era. Sections on Victorian poetics, form and Victorian voices introduce the key literary contexts of poetry's production, and poetic innovations of the period such as the dramatic monologue are highlighted . At the heart of the book is a focus on the importance of attentive close reading, with original readings offered of well-known texts alongside those that have recently received renewed attention within scholarship. The book also offers an overview of critical approaches to several key texts and discussion of how Victorian poetry has remained influential in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Introducing texts, contexts and criticism, this is a lively and up-to-date resource for anyone studying Victorian poetry.
Keats's Places
by Richard Marggraf TurleyAs the essays in this volume reveal, Keats’s places could be comforting, familiar, grounding sites, but they were also shifting, uncanny, paradoxical spaces where the geographical comes into tension with the familial, the touristic with the medical, the metropolitan with the archipelagic. Collectively, the chapters in Keats’s Places range from the claustrophobic stands of Guy’s Hospital operating theatre to the boneshaking interior of the Southampton mail coach; from Highland crags to Hampstead Heath; from crowded city interiors to leafy suburban lanes. Offering new insights into the complex registrations of place and the poetic imagination, the contributors to this book explore how the significant places in John Keats’s life helped to shape an authorial identity.
Keats's Places
by Richard Marggraf TurleyAs the essays in this volume reveal, Keats’s places could be comforting, familiar, grounding sites, but they were also shifting, uncanny, paradoxical spaces where the geographical comes into tension with the familial, the touristic with the medical, the metropolitan with the archipelagic. Collectively, the chapters in Keats’s Places range from the claustrophobic stands of Guy’s Hospital operating theatre to the boneshaking interior of the Southampton mail coach; from Highland crags to Hampstead Heath; from crowded city interiors to leafy suburban lanes. Offering new insights into the complex registrations of place and the poetic imagination, the contributors to this book explore how the significant places in John Keats’s life helped to shape an authorial identity.
Ezra Pound's Adams Cantos (Historicizing Modernism)
by David Ten EyckEzra Pound transformed his style of poetry when he wrote The Adams Cantos in the 1920s. But what caused him to rethink his earlier writing techniques? Grounded in archival material, this study explores the extent to which Pound's poetry changed in response to his reading of 17th-century American History and the social climate of the pre-war period.Drawing on the Ezra Pound papers, David Ten Eyck documents the changes to Pound's documentary techniques, establishing a chronology of the composition of The Cantos. His close readings of specific passages, set against the interwar years, allow Ten Eyck to gain insights into Pound's 1930s political and social criticism. Through references to the annotated copy of The Works of John Adams, he explores Pound's engagement with Adams at the expense of Thomas Jefferson: a figure formally at the heart of his previous work. Ultimately, this contextual and archival study uses John Adams and America to unlock the fascist beliefs and the later poetry of Ezra Pound.
Homer: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed #257)
by Ahuvia KahaneShortlisted for the Runciman Award 2013Homer's poetry is widely recognized as the beginning of the literary tradition of the West and among its most influential canonical texts. Outlining a series of key themes, ideas, and values associated with Homer and Homeric poetry, Homer: A Guide for the Perplexed explores the question of the formation of the Iliad and the Odyssey - the so-called 'Homeric Problem'. Among the main Homeric themes which the book considers are origin and form, orality and composition, heroic values, social structure, and social bias, gender roles and gendered interpretation, ethnicity, representations of religion, mortality, and the divine, memory, poetry, and poetics, and canonicity and tradition, and the history of Homeric receptions. Drawing upon his extensive knowledge of scholarship on Homer and early epic, Ahuvia Kahane explores contemporary critical and philosophical questions relating to Homer and the Homeric tradition, and examines his wider cultural impact, contexts and significance. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential poet, providing readers with some basic suggestions for further pursuing their interests in Homer.
The Life in the Sonnets (Shakespeare Now!)
by David FullerA passionately argued account of the value of experience and emotion in reading Shakespeare's sonnets and of the importance of reading poetry aloud.
The Roman Poetry of Love: Elegy and Politics in a Time of Revolution (Classical World)
by Efrossini SpentzouThe Roman Poetry of Love explores the formation of a key literary genre in a troubled historical and political setting. The short-lived genre of Latin love elegy produced spectacular, multi-faceted and often difficult poetry. Its proponents Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid remain to this day some of the most influential poetic voices of Western civilisation. This accessible introduction combines aesthetic analysis with socio-political context to provide a concise but comprehensive portrait of the Roman elegy, its main participants and its cultural and political milieu. Focusing on a series of specific poems, the title portrays the development of the genre in the context of the Emperor Augustus' ascent to power, following recognizable threads through the texts to build an understanding of the relationship between this poetry and the increasingly totalising regime.Highlighting and examining the intense affectation of love in these poems, The Roman Poetry of Love explores the works not simply as an expression of a troubled male psychology, but also as a reflection of the overwhelming changes that swept through Rome and Italy in the transition from the late Republic to the Augustan Age.
Ovid and His Love Poetry
by Rebecca ArmstrongOvid devoted about half of his poetic career to the production of several collections of amatory verse, all composed in elegiac couplets. Indeed, his irrepressible interest in love, sex and elegiac poetry is one of the defining features of his entire output. Here Rebecca Armstrong offers a thematic examination of some important aspects of the Amores, Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris. Starting from an investigation of the narrator's self-creation and presentation of other characters within his amatory verse, she assesses the importance of mythical and contemporary reference, as well as the influence of the erotic on Ovid's later works. By looking at the Ars and Remedia alongside the Amores, the continuities and contradictions in the poet's elegiac outlook are revealed, and a complex picture is formed of the Ovidian world of love. Ovid's erotic works present the reader with a glimpse inside the minds of both poets and lovers, mediated through eyes which are frequently inclined to comedy and even cynicism, but always sharp, perceptive and above all fascinated by human behaviour.
Neo-Latin Poetry in the British Isles
by Luke HoughtonInvestigation of the Latin poetry produced by British poets from the sixteenth century onwards affords an indispensible insight into a dominant strand in the intellectual, cultural and educational life of the British Isles during this period. At this time, the composition of Latin poetry was a regular feature of school curricula and a popular leisure-time activity of the educated elite. Such examination also sheds light on the poetic principles and practice of major British poets (such as Campion, Cowley, Herbert and Milton) who penned a large quantity of neo-Latin verse in addition to their better-known vernacular works.
The Lives of the Greek Poets
by Mary R. LefkowitzMary R. Lefkowitz has extensively revised and rewritten her classic study to introduce a new generation of students to the lives of the Greek poets. Thoroughly updated with references to the most recent scholarship, this second edition includes new material and fresh analysis of the ancient biographies of Greece's most famous poets.With little or no independent historical information to draw on, ancient writers searched for biographical data in the poets' own works and in comic poetry about them. Lefkowitz describes how biographical mythology was created and offers a sympathetic account of how individual biographers reconstructed the poets' lives. She argues that the life stories of Greek poets, even though primarily fictional, still merit close consideration, as they provide modern readers with insight into ancient notions about the creative process and the purpose of poetic composition.
Augustan Poetic Diction (Bloomsbury Academic Collections: English Literary Criticism)
by Geoffrey TillotsonThis volume makes conveniently available to students and others the group of chapters in Professor Geoffrey Tillotson's Augustan Studies in which he deals with the poetic theory and practice of the Augustan age as a whole, rather than with particular works. Augustan poetry as defined by Professor Tillotson is the 'poetry written by most poets from Elizabethan times into the nineteenth century' and though this may appear at first sight an inconveniently wide definition it enables the author to show that the great eighteenth-century masters who are his chief concern here are in the main course of English poetry.
Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry
by Robert C. EvansIntroducing students to the full range of approaches to the study of Renaissance poetry that they are likely to encounter in their course of study, Perspectives on Renaissance Poetry is an authoritative and accessible guide to the verse of the Early Modern period. Each chapter covers a major figure in Early Modern poetry and explores two different poems from a full range of theoretical perspectives, including: - Classical - Formalist - Psychoanalytic - Marxist - Structuralist - Reader-response - New Historicist - Ecocritical - Multicultural Poets covered include: Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Anne Vaughan Lock, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Aemilia Lanyer, Martha Moulsworth, Lady Mary Wroth, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, John Milton and Katherine Philips.
Suggestion and Statement in Poetry (Bloomsbury Academic Collections: English Literary Criticism)
by Krishna RayanUnstated meaning has always been a feature of poetry, but it is in our own century that it has established itself not only as the prevailing mode of expression but also as the central concern of analytic criticism. Although a variety of terms, such as Ambiguity, Irony and Gesture, have been employed to discuss this aspect of poetry and have gained popularity, Professor Rayan shows that 'Suggestion', occurring as far back as in Edgar Allan Poe's writings and later in Symbolist theorizing, is a concept of much longer standing and of equal serviceability. In examining Suggestion, particularly as the only mode of presentation of emotion, he makes fruitful use of some central ideas from ninth-century Sanskrit aesthetics. The contrasted techniques of Suggestion and Statement are studied in relation to each other and with reference to many poetic examples, past and present.
Metamorphoses III: An Extract 511-733 (Latin Texts)
by Ovid John GodwinMetamorphoses is an epic poem but is very different from what we expect in an epic. Original, inventive and charming, the poem tells the stories of myths featuring transformations, from the creation of the universe to the death and deification of Julius Caesar. Book III concentrates on the House of Thebes, and this selection details the story of Pentheus and his tragic end after refusing to acknowledge the god Bacchus.This edition contains the Latin text as well as in-depth commentary notes which provide language support, explanation of difficult words and phrases, and analysis of literary features as well as information on the background to the story. The introduction presents an overview of Ovid in his historical and literary context, as well as a plot synopsis and a discussion of the literary genre and metre. All words in the text are given in a full vocabulary at the end and there are also suggestions for further reading. This is the prescribed edition of the verse set text for OCR's AS GCE Classics Latin qualification, for examination from 2015 to 2017 inclusive.
A Critical History of English Poetry (Bloomsbury Academic Collections: English Literary Criticism)
by Herbert Grierson J. C. SmithThis famous work was the result of the wartime collaboration of two Scottish scholars. Their tracing of the course of English poetry has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as a 'volume of masterly compression'. They deliberately spend most time on the greatest poets, believing that, significant as traditions and influences are, the great poet himself affects the spirit of his age and moulds the tradition he has inherited. At the same time, enough attention is paid to minor poets to make the book historically complete, and to fill in the most important links in the chain of poetic development. Thus Gower is here, as well as Chaucer; Patmore, as well as Browning. Both in scope and in detail A Critical History of English Poetry is a distinguished and valuable work.
The Advantage of Lyric: Essays on Feeling in Poetry (Bloomsbury Academic Collections: English Literary Criticism)
by Barbara HardyIn the title essay, Professor Hardy argues for the special advantage of lyric over other other literary genres in conveying intense private feelings publicly. She then gives detailed consideraton to the lyric poetry of John Donne, Arthur Hugh Clough, and a group of poets central to the modernist canon: Hopkins, Yeats, Aden, Dylan Thomas, and Sylvia Plath. Those interested in W.H. Auden will find the book of particular value, since Auden occupies a central place in it. W.H. Auden has frequently been held up as the modern example par excellence of a 'public poet' whose works betray relatively little in the way of personal emotion. In the cahpters entitled 'The Reticence of W.H. Auden, Thirties to Sixties: A Face and a Map' barbara Hardy shows the inadequacy of that characterization and opens the way for a fresh appreciation of Auden's achievement as a poet. Readers interested in modern poetry genearlly and all readers acquainted with Barara Hardy's previous books will the book of importance.
John Kasper and Ezra Pound: Saving the Republic (Historicizing Modernism)
by Alec MarshJohn Kasper was a militant far-right activist who first came to prominence with his violent campaigns against desegregation in the Civil Rights era. Ezra Pound was the seminal figure in Anglo-American modernist literature and one of the most important poets of the 20th century. This is the first book to comprehensively explore the extensive correspondence - lasting over a decade and numbering hundreds of letters - between the two men. John Kasper and Ezra Pound examines the mutual influence the two men exerted on each other in Pound's later life: how John Kasper developed from a devotee of Pound's poetry to an active right-wing agitator; how Pound's own ideas about race and American politics developed in his discussions with Kasper and how this informed his later poetry. Shedding a disturbing new light on Ezra Pound's committed engagement with extreme right-wing politics in Civil Rights-era America, this is an essential read for students of 20th-century literature.
Ovid Unseens: Practice Passages for Latin Verse Translation and Comprehension
by Mathew OwenOvid Unseens provides a bank of 80 practice passages of Latin verse, half elegiac and half hexameter.Taken from across Ovid's works, including the Metamorphoses, Fasti, Heroides, Amores and Tristia, the passages help build students' knowledge and confidence in a notoriously difficult element of Latin language learning. Every passage begins with an introduction, outlining the basic story and theme of the passage, followed by a 'lead-in' sentence, paraphrasing the few lines before the passage begins. The first set of passages are translation exercises of 12-16 lines, each accompanied by a Discendum box which highlights a key feature of poetic Latin, equipping students further with the skills to tackle ever more difficult verse passages at first sight. These are followed by longer passages with scansion exercises and questions on comprehension and stylistic analysis, replicating unseen verse exam questions in full. The comprehensive introduction provides an overview of Ovid's life and work, an account of some of the stylistic features of his poetry, and practical help in the form of tips on how to approach the more challenging lines of Latin verse and produce a fluent translation. A step-by-step guide to scansion, with practice exercises and answers, covers the essential principles for scanning lines of Latin verse, from the basics of understanding syllables, feet and types of metres, to coping with elision and caesurae. A guideline verse vocabulary list is provided which covers words particularly common in Ovid's works. Broken down into small 'checklists', each corresponding to a group of four passages, the vocabulary is learnt cumulatively and as it is encountered.
The Coleridge Legacy: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Intellectual Legacy in Britain and America, 1834–1934
by Philip AherneThis book examines the development of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s intellectual legacy in Britain and America from 1834 to 1934 by focusing on his late role as the Sage of Highgate and his programme of educating young minds who were destined for the higher professions (particularly preaching and teaching). Chapters assess his pedagogy and his late publications, his posthumous reputation, and his influence on aesthetics, theology, philosophy, politics and social reform. The book discusses a wide range of British and American intellectuals, including Thomas and Matthew Arnold, F. D. Maurice, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Shadworth Hodgson, T. H. Green, James Marsh, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, William James and John Dewey. It demonstrates how Coleridgean ideas were developed and distorted into something he would never have recognized as his own and emphasizes his significance as a catalyst who played a vital role in shaping the intellectual vocation of the long nineteenth century.