Offers a clear analysis of this key concept in literary studies and aesthetics, which is essential to the study of Romanticism and English poetic tradition in general. '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' own poetry, which manifests the evolution of the idea in Keats' 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.

Hero Martyr Poet
The inspiring story of a remarkable life cut short.

I don t think Hannah wanted to die for the sake of having her memory exalted in history or to prove herself equal to a romantic image she conceived for herself. Her purpose wasn t to die. She died for her life s purpose. U.S. Senator John McCain, in "Why Courage Matters"

Hannah Senesh, poet and Israel s national heroine, has come to be seen as a symbol of Jewish heroism. Safe in Palestine during World War II, she volunteered for a mission to help rescue fellow Jews in her native Hungary. She was captured by the Nazis, endured imprisonment and torture, and was finally executed at the age of twenty-three.

Like Anne Frank, she kept a diary from the time she was thirteen. This new edition brings together not only the widely read and cherished diary, but many of Hannah s poems and letters, memoirs written by Hannah s mother, accounts by parachutists who accompanied Hannah on her fateful mission, and insightful material not previously published in English.

Described by a fellow parachutist as a spiritual girl guided almost by mysticism, Hannah s life has something of value to teach everyone. Now the subject of a feature-length documentary, Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh, Hannah s words and actions will inspire people from each generation to follow their own inner voices, just as she followed hers.

Even if Bentham and Coleridge] had had no great influence they would still have been the classical examples they are of two great opposing types of mind. . . . And as we follow Mill's analysis, exposition and evaluation of this pair of opposites we are at the same time, we realize, forming a close acquaintance with a mind different from either. From the introduction

A pioneering critic, educator, and poet, I. A. Richards (1893-1979) helped the English-speaking world decide not only what to read but how to read it. Acknowledged "father" of New Criticism, he produced the most systematic body of critical writing in the English language since Coleridge. His method of close reading dominated the English-speaking classroom for half a century. John Paul Russo draws on close personal acquaintance with Richards as well as on unpublished materials, correspondence, and interviews, to write the first biography (originally published in 1989) of one of last century's most influential and many-sided men of letters.

This work takes a new approach to the evolution of the modern English lyric, emphasizing the way in which several generations of poets, reacting to post-Reformation readers' dislike for invented poetic narratives, competed for the right to commemorate important public occasions and slowly expanded the range of acceptable occasions. The book demonstrates that many fundamental features of a typical modern lyric actually evolved as responses to the limitations of occasional poetry.

Discussing authors as diverse in time and type as Sir Fulke Greville, Christopher Hill, Charles Lamb, Edmund Waller, and Thomas Warton the elder, Richard Hillyer analyzes Sir Philip Sidney's reputation from his own day to the present. More important than how Sidney's works have fared over many centuries' worth of critical fashion, Hillyer argues, is how Sidney's versatility as a "Renaissance man" has elicited varying degrees of wonder, incomprehension, and skepticism. Even when least appreciated as an author, he has remained a cultural icon, a prominent figure on the landscapes of English culture and literature, and an influence that later authors and commentators have continued to address.

What, for a poet, could 'passive making' mean? What does Wordsworth imagine he is doing, in commanding the moon to shine, the wind to blow in 'Tintern Abbey'? Heralded as the age of social contract and the Rights of Man, romanticism-this book argues-instead engages in non-contractual poetics. In the period's burgeoning economics of 'fiat' money, as much as in the natural and supernatural imagination of its poets, the legacy of romanticism involves a series of absolutist gestures of verbal fiat: a rhetoric subject to historical and philosophical pressures, which so far has largely escaped critical attention. Focused on William Wordsworth, but in constant range of his poet-successors and modern critics, Romantic Fiat argues for the dialectical perils of the urge to reach freedom from illusion. The study presents a rich and emphatic new argument for a double romantic signature of 'let there be' and 'let be.'

Dr. Brett brings joy into the hearts of many as they experience her collections of poems and proses. She expresses the labyrinth of life as a maze, difficult, challenging, joyous, spiritual and fulfilling with angels.

The Fasti is a poetical calendar of the Roman year, written by Ovid between AD 4-16. Dr Herbert-Brown's new research illuminates the poem as a unique contemporary source for our understanding of the politics and culture of the Augustan period, including the revival of religion. Ovid himself - who was banished in AD 8 - is revealed as a fascinating and ambivalent commentator.

This interdisciplinary collection explores the ability of Old French fabliaux to disrupt the literal and figurative bodies with which they come into contact. Essays in this volume address theoretical issues including fragmentation and multiplication, social anxiety and excessive circulation, performative productions and creative formations, to trace the competing consequences that result from this literary body's unsettling capacity. Resisting the impulse to see the fabliaux as either liberatory or restrictive, comic or satiric, didactic or immoral, contributors assess the ways in which Old French fabliaux expose bodily relations that elude binary classifications. As a gathering of scholars in French, English, and History, this volume suggests that the Old French fabliaux form a corpus that is provocative across medieval studies.

To have a clear understanding of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the reader needs to know about the vocations of the pilgrims. For some 600 years, this information has been difficult to locate. This reference provides a detailed historical description of the occupations of Chaucer's pilgrims. An entry is devoted to each traveler, and the entries have similar formats to foster comparison. Each entry discusses the historical daily routine of the pilgrim's occupation, the portrayal of the profession in Chaucer's poem, and the relationship between the tale and Chaucer's General Prologue. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of the oldest and most widely studied works of English literature. The tales provide a glimpse of medieval life, and the professions of the pilgrims figure prominently in the poetry. To have a clear understanding of Chaucer's work, the reader needs to know about the vocations of the pilgrims. For some 600 years, this information has been difficult to locate. This reference work conveniently synthesizes and discusses information about the occupation of each of Chaucer's pilgrims and provides an historical context. The volume contains individual entries for each of Chaucer's pilgrims, and the entries share a similar format to foster comparison. Each entry includes three parts. First, the pilgrim's profession is discussed in terms of the daily routine of the medieval occupation. Second, the vocation is examined in terms of its reflection in the tale told by the pilgrim. Third, the vocation and the tale are discussed, when possible, in relation to the descriptions of the characters provided in the General Prologue. Each entry includes a bibliography, and the volume concludes with a list of works for further reading.

In Imagining the Text, James Brown examines ekphrasis - the verbal representation of a visual representation - in Wirnt von Gravenberg's thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Wigalois, one of the most popular and enduring stories in the Middle High German literary tradition. Through close reading of the text and examining illustrated Wigalois manuscripts, early print editions, and frescoes, Brown explores how ekphrasis structures the narrative, harmonizes potential conflicts in the text, and contributes to the construction of courtly identity. Imagining the Text demonstrates that the vibrant symbiosis of word and image is crucial to the poem's sustained popularity for more than six hundred years, and contributes to the history of the book and to the study of medieval and modern modes of perception.

This volume introduces students to the most important figures, movements and trends in post-war British and Irish poetry. An historical overview and critical introduction to the poetry published in Britain and Ireland over the last half-century Introduces students to figures including Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, and Andrew Motion Takes an integrative approach, emphasizing the complex negotiations between the British and Irish poetic traditions, and pulling together competing tendencies and positions Written by critics from Britain, Ireland, and the United States Includes suggestions for further reading and a chronology, detailing the most important writers, volumes and events

Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 and mysteriously disappeared in 1914. During his lifetime, he was a controversial and prolific writer, and there is growing interest in his works. As a Union soldier during the Civil War, he witnessed bloodshed and the atrocities of battle. After the war, he began a career as a journalist in San Francisco, where many of his newspaper columns were filled with venom and daring. In addition, he wrote war stories and tales of the supernatural, along with an assortment of poems. Today, he is probably best remembered as the author of "The Devil's Dictionary, " originally published as "The Cynic's Dictionary" in 1906. This reference is a guide to his life and writings.

An opening essay overviews Bierce's contribution to literature and journalism, and a chronology summarizes the most important events in his life. The bulk of the Companion comprises alphabetically arranged entries on Bierce's major works and characters and on historical persons and writers who figured prominently in his life and career. Thus the volume provides coverage of Bierce's contemporaries, many of whom he satirized in his scathing newspaper columns. Many of the entries list works for further reading, and the book closes with a selected, general bibliography. Because of Bierce's concern with so many issues of his day, the volume offers a valuable perspective on American culture during the time in which he lived.

In David Cope's strikingly intense new collection, Fragments for the Stars, we see the continued development of a highly original art. Rising directly out of Williams' graphic American measure, Cope's voice is everywhere infused with a characteristic stark lyricism-producing the powerful work that Carl Rakosi has called his "compassionate realism".

This book reads the work of Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillen, Juan Larrea, Gerardo Diego, Rafael Alberti, Concha Mendez, and Federico Garcia Lorca in analogical relation with Cubism and the revolutionary discoveries of modern physics. Candelas Gala advances traditional criticism by considering these artists in the broader cultural context of Spain, Europe, and European Modernism.

Modernist poet H.D. had many visionary and paranormal experiences throughout her life. Although Sigmund Freud worried that they might be 'symptoms,' she rebelled, educating herself in the alternative world of the occult and spiritualism in order to transform the raw material into a mythical autobiography woven throughout her poetry, prose, and life-writing. The Astral H.D. narrates the fascinating story of how she used the occult to transform herself, and provides surprising revelations about her friendships and conflicts with famous figures-such as Sigmund Freud and the Battle of Britain War Hero Hugh Dowding-along the way.

The book series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie, founded by Gustav Groeber in 1905, is among the most renowned publications in Romance Studies. It covers the entire field of Romance linguistics, including the national languages as well as the lesser studied Romance languages. The editors welcome submissions of high-quality monographs and collected volumes on all areas of linguistic research, on medieval literature and on textual criticism. The publication languages of the series are French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian as well as German and English. Each collected volume should be as uniform as possible in its contents and in the choice of languages.

Combining encyclopedic information as well as a critical guide to the poetry of Robert Burns, this work attempts to show the complex nature of this supposedly uncomplicated poet. Born a farmer's son in 1759, Burns lived through many of the most important events of his century. The work is divided into six sections. Part I places Burns in context with a chronology, "The Burns Circle" and a topography. Part 2 looks at the Burnsian issues of religion, politics, philosophy, drink, drama and sex. Part 3, an essay on Burns as a poetic phenomenon, is sure to provoke debate about the relevance of Burns to his time and ours. The fourth and longest section of the book examines 25 poems, 18 verse epistles and 26 songs as well as commenting on the letters, political ballads and Common Place Books. A select bibliography and four appendices are followed by a glossary of Scots words and indices of poems and names.

Seamus Heaney: Poet, Critic, Translator collects twelve new essays and aims to comprehensively represent the abundance and variety of both Heaney's writing and scholarship on Heaney's writing. Attention is given not only to Heaney's poetry - something previous collections have tended to privilege - but also to his translations and his prose. The essays foreground Heaney's internationalism and the complementary international interest in his writing. Contributors include critics and poets from America, Britain, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

No Japanese writer was more obsessed with desire than Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965). Over a career that spanned half a century, he explored, with both joyful fascination and ruthless insight, the dazzling varieties of sexuality, the complementary attractions of exoticism and nostalgia, the human yearning for mastery over others, and the tense relationship between fantasy and the exterior world. His fiction is filled with portrayals of desire in all its violence, irony, pathos, and comedy.
In one of Tanizaki's novels, a young engineer fascinated with the West sets out to transform a Japanese bar girl into his very own version of Mary Pickford. He succeeds to such an extent that the girl, growing tired of his immutable Japaneseness, begins to take foreign lovers. Cuckolded and humiliated though his is, the engineer is unable to leave his fantasy-come-to-life and resigns himself to enslavement.
In another novel, a Westernized Japanese finds himself gradually drawn to the past. Specifically, he is attracted to his father-in-law's companion, a young woman who has been trained and costumed to play the part of an old-fashioned mistress. Though this woman is no more a flesh-and-blood embodiment of tradition than a bunraku doll, the protagonist contemplates a life with someone like her, a life defined by the pursuit of abstract, dehumanized cultural ideals.
Visions of Desire locates such novels in the shifting discourse on cultural identity and cultural aspiration that permeates Japanese life. Ito argues that Tanizaki's novels do not merely end in the reification and contemplation of cultural ideals but rather problematize the desire behind such ideals. He finds in the writer's fiction a subtle understanding of cultural aspiration as a process riddled with subversions, influenced by patterns of mediation, and circumscribed by the lonely efforts of individual subjectivity. He discovers in Tanizaki's fables about the male effort to transform women into cultural icons a clear awareness of the sexual and class hierarchies that make such transformation possible.
Visions of Desire is the first book in English on a writer who is possibly modern Japan's greatest novelist. Ito has written for both the specialist and the general reader, setting his argument in a discussion both of Tanizaki's times and of the life of a writer who believed in living out the fantasies that fueled his fictions.

This new volume demonstrates the extent and diversity of Coleridge's writings on the sublime. It highlights the development of his aesthetic of transcendence from an initial emphasis on the infinite progressiveness of humanity, through a fascination with landscape as half-revealing the infinite forces underlying it, and with literature as producing a similar feeling of the inexpressible, to an increasing emphasis on contemplating the ineffable nature of God, as well as the transcendent power of Reason or spiritual insight.

Why are material objects so prominent in European Romantic literature, both as symbol and organizing device? This collection of essays maintains that European Romantic culture and its aesthetic artifacts were fundamentally shaped by "object aesthetics," an artistic idiom of acknowledging, through a profound and often disruptive use of objects, the movement of Western aesthetic practice into Romantic self-projection and imagination. Of course Romanticism, in all its dissonance and anxiety, is marked by a number of new artistic practices, all of which make up a new aesthetics, accounting for the dialectical and symbolistic view of literature that began in the late eighteenth century. "Romanticism and the Object" adds to our understanding of that aesthetics by reexamining a wide range of texts in order to discover how the use of objects works in the literature of the time.

"Yeats Annual" is an established research-level publication for current thought and documentation upon the life and work of "the greatest poet in the English tongue of this century" (Dame Helen Gardner). The focus in this sixth number is on Yeats at work on various manuscripts and on his tours of America.;Almost every contributor draws on unpublished material and the items contained in this work included the complete surviving archive of letters to Yeats from Olivia Shakespear published for the first time, the earliest surviving manuscripts of "Cathleen ni Houlihan" by Lady Gregory and Yeats, an examination of the manuscripts of "Deirdre" and Yeats' interest in Arthurianism, plus an account of his first tour of California in 1904 and a re-examination of several of Yeats' works such as "Responsiblities". The volume also includes a number of reviews on works written about Yeats.

The book arose from several years of research on Akhmatova. Her career falls into two distinct periods, an 'earlier' and a 'later', the dividing line being her period of relative silence between 1925 and 1940. As is often observed, her return to poetry brings with it a sudden and dramatic shift away from a relatively homogenous body of early lyric miniatures to a more diverse and complex style. One of the major unresolved problems in Akhmatova scholarship is that of how the poetics of the two phases are related. Previous attempts to plot her creative trajectory contain internal inconsistencies and are in conflict with one another, often serving to confuse rather than clarify the debate. This book outlines a fresh and coherent framework for the apprehension of Akhmatova's oeuvre in its totality, seeing her as a poet who moves beyond modernism in her later period.