Written by a leading authority on William Carlos Williams, this book provides a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to twentieth-century American poetry.
A wide-ranging and stimulating critical guide to twentieth-century American poetry.
Written by a leading authority on the innovative modernist poet, William Carlos Williams.
Explores the material, historical and social contexts in which twentieth-century American poetry was produced.
Includes a biographical dictionary of major writers with extended entries on poets ranging from Robert Frost to Adrienne Rich.
Contains a section on key texts considering major works, such as 'The Waste Land', 'North & South', 'Howl' and 'Ariel'.
The final section draws out key themes, such as American poetry, politics and war, and the process of anthologizing at the end of the century.

"Male Subjectivity and Poetic Form in "New American" Poetry" examines the crucial, yet sometimes fraught connections between poets associated with Donald Allen's groundbreaking 1960 anthology, "The New American Poetry." Focusing in particular on pairings of writers within the larger grouping of poets, including Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and Nathaniel Mackey, this book suggests how literary partnerships became pivotal to the writing, especially at early stages in these poets' careers. Mossin then goes on to examine the role that male friendship, rivalry, and camaraderie play in the production of poetic texts. "No one listens to poetry," Jack Spicer famously wrote. This book shows how a particular group of poets did listen to each other and what they made of what they heard.

In recent years critics of Romantic poetry have divided into two groups that have little to say to one another. One group, as yet the most numerous, insists that to study a poem is to investigate the historical circumstances out of which it was produced; the other retorts that poetry offers pleasures fully available only to readers whose attention is focused on their language. This book attempts to reconcile the two groups by arguing that a poet's most effective political action is the forging of a new language and that the political import of a poem is a function of its style.

Anna Wickham's life is characterized by the turbulent, burgeoning feminism of the early 20th century. A woman whose incisive mind and inquisitive nature sent her husband into jealous rages, she was forcibly committed to a mental hospital at the age of 30. Upon her release, she began a life-long quest for happiness, exhibited first and foremost through her poetry. Anna Wickham became a widely acclaimed writer whose life, at times immersed in scandal, is a story of success and sadness. Eventually leaving her husband and four sons to live in Paris's left bank, she became a confidante of D.H. Lawrence, the long-time lover of millionairess Natalie Clifford Barney, and a strong-willed literary icon, rumored to have once thrown Dylan Thomas into a snowstorm. Despite her fame and achievement, Wickham's struggles with depression and anxiety would eventually lead to her untimely death.

Did 1st century Mediterranean readers of the fourth Gospel have comparable literary examples to inform their comprehension of Moses as a character? In addressing this question, Harstine's study falls into two parts: the first is an analysis of the character Moses as utilized in the text of the fourth Gospel, and the second is an examination of other Hellenistic narrative texts, in which the character of Homer is also considered, as another important legendary figure with whom the readers of the fourth Gospel would have been familiar.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be 'explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology.These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they certainly deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement by the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

Arising from a research project on depression in the eighteenth century, this book discusses the experience of depressive states both in terms of existing modes of thought and expression, and of attempts to describe and live with suffering. It also asks what present-day society can learn about depression from the eighteenth-century experience.

Although modern English and Irish poetry arises from the different cultures, the poets themselves have shared, throughout this century, the same editors and publishers, competed for the same prizes and been judged, ostensibly, by the same standards. This book examines contexts for these exchanges over four decades, tracing the lineage of Yeats and Hardy from their meeting in 1912 through WWI, the 30s, the 60s, and the 90s, to see what influences and ideas are exchanged and how poetic value accrues.

Thomas Hardy in the Literary Lives series relates Hardy's life to his career as a writer, giving particular attention to his determination as a young man to make literature his career, his methodical preparation during the first thirty years of his life for that career, the writing of his fourteen published novels and the fame they brought him, and then, the culmination of his life as writer, his emergence in his remaining thirty years as one of the very greatest of English poets and the writer of The Dynasts.

A breathtaking new collection of translations of poems by Rumi, one of the world's most loved mystical teachers and bestselling poets. Beautifully packaged and illustrated with paintings and Persian calligraphy, this is an ideal gift. Jalal-uddin Rumi was born in what is now Afghanistan in 1207. His poetry has inspired generations of spiritual seekers, both from his own Sufi school and well beyond. His poems speak to the seeker and the lover in all of us. He is one of the world's most revered poets and spiritual teachers, and is currently the bestselling poet in America. Rumi is one of the greatest mystic poets of all time. His unique message of love speaks directly to the heart and transcends the boundaries of language and time. These poems, carefully selected from the Divan of Shams (Rumi's collection of 3,000 poems), speak powerfully to the seeker and lover in all of us. These beautiful, new translations from the original Persian, by the authors of Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved, are arranged thematically and lead us through the intricacies of love, longing and the quest for truth. Each section is accompanied by Persian calligraphy of several of the poems, as well as stunning, evocative paintings by Azima Melita Kolin, reproduced in full colour, which are inspired by the poems and have been specially commissioned for the book.

This volume of Robert Burns's Commonplace Books, Tours Journals and Miscellaneous Prose Works is a major contribution to our understanding of the life and writings of one of the major Scottish, and British, poets of all times. To the extent that the Commonplace Books and other prose writings offer a glimpse into Burns's creative workshop, they record the self-conscious poetic development of a man who was endowed with none of the advantages of birth and education enjoyed by many other writers. Spanning nearly two decades of his sadly foreshortened life, they permit a new understanding of his unique relationship to the literary and social culture of late eighteenth-century Scotland, and help explain how and why this humbly-born Ayrshire farmer became a poet of world renown. The items included here have never before been published complete in one volume (some are published for the first time), and they are arranged chronologically in order to highlight the major creative stages of his life. In contrast to the poems and songs, most of the material included was unpublished during the poet's lifetime, so this new edition is largely based on fresh transcriptions of manuscripts in Burns's hand, or in the hands of his various amanuenses. It offers diplomatic transcriptions that adhere as closely as possible to RB's original manuscript page, retaining his eccentric spellings, capitalisation, long and short dashes, punctuation, and use of ampersands, as well as marking revisions and elisions. The edition features a general introduction, and each item is preceded by full headnote, assessing its importance in relation to Burns's life and poetic corpus. Notes explicate names, cultural, historical and literary references, providing full cross-references these with the poetry and correspondence.

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Poetry and Public Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America explores nineteenth-century poetry as it addresses and engages in the major concerns of American cultural life. Focusing on gender, biblical politics, Revolutionary discourses and racial, sectional, and religious identities, this book reveals how these issues contended and negotiated with each other in the shaping of a pluralist democratic polity. Nineteenth-century American poetry, far from being the self-reflective art object of twentieth-century aesthetic theory, offered a rhetorical arena in which civic, economic, and religious trends intersected with each other in mutual definition and investigation. With a deft hand, Shira Wolosky demonstrates the ways in which poetry was a core impulse in the formation of American identity and cultural definition.

W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H. D., and David Jones, major poets of the early twentieth century, were fully involved in the historic conflict between religion and science. Jacob Korg's study illuminates the manner in which they attempted to overcome the division between the two cultures - by incorporating elements of religious ritual as well as scientific experiment in their poems. Known primarily as innovators who devised new methods of artistic expression, these poets also employed ritual, a form even more ancient than myth, side by side with their experimental ventures. Through close study of their major poems, Korg shows that the interplay between these apparently contradictory principles was a persistent theme of modern poetry that played an important part in the poetic revolution of the time.

First published in 1965, this reissue of the second edition of T. R. Henn's seminal study offers an impressive breadth and depth of meditations on the poetry of W. B. Yeats. His life and influences are discussed at length, from the impact of the Irish Rebellion upon his youth, to his training as a painter, to the influence of folklore, occultism and Indian philosophy on his work. Henn seeks out the many elements of Yeats' famously complex personality, as well as analysing the dominant symbols of his work, and their ramifications.

As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, this timely reissue, first published in 1991, evaluates the function of poetry in wartime Europe, arguing that war poetry must be understood as a social as well as a literary phenomenon. As well as locating the work of well-known French, English and German war poets in a European context, Elizabeth Marsland discusses lesser-known poetry of the war years, including poems by women and the neglected tradition of civilian protest through poetry. Identifying shared characteristics as well as the unique features of each nation's poetry, The Nation's Cause affords new insight into the relationship between nationalism and the social attitudes that determined the conduct of war.

Overviews the background, plot, themes, and language of Beowulf Perhaps the most important work written in Old English, Beowulf tells of a world very different from our own. While the history and culture behind the poem make it challenging for modern audiences, its story of war, violence, and heroism remains relevant to today's readers. Though largely neglected until the 20th century, Beowulf is now widely studied by school students and undergraduates. In addition, it continues to shape contemporary popular culture. This companion overviews the poem and its legacy. The first part of the book provides information of interest to a wide range of readers, while the second covers more specialized topics. Thus the initial chapters review the merits of different translations and offer a detailed plot summary, while later chapters discuss the poem's language and style, its treatment of religion, its relation to Anglo-Saxon culture, and its legacy in popular culture. One of the greatest Beowulf scholars was J.R.R. Tolkien, and the book gives special attention to his use of the poem in his own fiction. valuable guide to one of the most challenging yet enduring works of English literature.; Accessible to school students and general readers; Provides a detailed plot summary; Discusses the poem's background, style, and language; Discusses the poem's lasting influence on contemporary popular culture, including its influence on Tolkien

This book re-examines cultural, social, geographical and philosophical representations of Victorian London by looking at the transformations in urban life produced by the rise and development of urban mass-transport. It also radically re-addresses the questions of epistemology and gender in the Victorian metropolis by mapping the epistemology of the passenger. Vadillo focuses on the lyric urban writings of Amy Levy, Alice Meynell, 'Graham R. Tomson' (Rosamund Marriott Watson) and 'Michael Field' (Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper). Shortlisted for the ESSE Book Prize

Les Murray is amongst the most gifted poets writing today, his multi-faceted talents have received high praise both in his native Australia and beyond. But he has also proved a controversial figure, whose poetry strays across the boundaries of political and cultural debate. The only full critical study of Murray's work available, Steven Matthews provides a complete picture of his career to date, from its early parables of national emergence to the working man's epic encounter with the major events of the twentieth century, Fredy Neptune. Provides detailed readings of key poems, as well as literary and cultural contexts for the rapid shifts in style and subject matter Murray has made from collection to collection. Gives an overview of Murray's place within Australian literature and national thought. -- .

Romantic Visualities offers a culturally informed understanding of the literary significance of landscape in the Romantic period. Labbe argues that the Romantic period associated the prospect view with the masculine ideal, simultaneously fashioning the detailed point of view as feminised. An interdisciplinary study, it discusses the cultural construction of gender as defined through landscape viewing, and investigates property law, aesthetic tracts, conduct books, travel narratives, artistic theory, and the work of Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Charlotte Smith, Ann Francis, Dorothy Wordsworth and others.