First published in 1971. The intention of Milton's Creation is to provide the student with a simple and direct entry into Paradise Lost. The author is not concerned with taking sides in critical controversy. His aim is to elucidate Milton's primary meanings; this is a work of exegesis, not of interpretation. In this new book, on arguably the greatest epic in the English language, the central substance of Milton's 'great Argument' is articulated with great clarity. By keeping in mind the epic status and universality common to Paradise Lost and Ulysses, the author introduces a post-Joycean perspective into his vision of Milton's Creation.

First published in 1980. Paradise Lost was once a favourite text for family reading; today it is confined to the educational system, which treats it as an object to be investigated rather than a subject that demands response. Professor Hunter writes inevitably for an audience of literary students, but he invites them to consider Paradise Lost as a text that must be enjoyed before it can be explained. He understands the need to explain complexities, but is mainly concerned with the onward flow of our engagement with an ancient poem. Milton's narrative technique is explored as a system which both encourages and frustrates our native sense of story. His poetic power is shown to grow from our assent to its brilliant evocation of "as if" fictions. Milton is a master of audience manipulation, of dramatic tension and intellectual paradox. These characteristics are described in the context of the task the poem sets itself to tell the untellable and describe what no man has ever seen. The power of Milton's art is traced through his rehandling of Homer and Virgil and in his daringly individual fidelity to scripture. Professor Hunter does not try to smooth away the contradictions inherent in Milton's ambition to write an English classical Christian epic. He rather stresses the contradictions as cues to a properly alert reading. And this is what the book aims at above all a response to Paradise Lost which is alert to poetry and unintimidated by scholarship.

First published in 1970. Few books on Milton have dealt with his poetry as a whole. The present study, a discussion of Milton's major poetry, seeks to examine each of the poems on its own distinctive grounds and also to delineate the pattern of continuity which the poems enter into and sustain. The author shows how each poem creates its own strategy of insight and demonstrates that together they explore and define a centre of recognition more fully than is possible with any single work. The book makes full use of the results of Milton scholarship and will provide a basis for a fresh appreciation of the complexity and unity of Milton's achievement.

First published in 1894. This Concordance to the Poetical Works of John Milton includes all of Milton's poems, excluding the Psalms and the Translations in the prose works; and all of the words are given with the exception of some of the pronouns, conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions; but any of these used peculiarly are given. It is hoped that the work will be found useful not only by the student of Milton but by the grammarian and the philologist.

"The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a Modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc. Jackson Crawford's modern versions of these poems are authoritative and fluent and often very gripping. With their individual headnotes and complementary general introduction, they supply today's readers with most of what they need to know in order to understand and appreciate the beliefs, motivations, and values of the Vikings." --Dick Ringler, Professor Emeritus of English and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin--Madison

Originally published in 1990, the main purpose of this anthology is to present the vernacular secular lyric of the Middle Ages, although it also includes Latin literature of the Middle Ages and the influence of the hymn.

First published in 1987, The Poet Auden is a personal memoir by A.L. Rowse, who knew Auden from the time he was an undergraduate at Oxford and kept some touch with him all his life until his final return to Oxford. From those early days he had no doubt of Auden's genius, and from his own long periods in America he has been able to place the poet's life and work in the double, perhaps twin, perspective of England and the United States. How far did this dichotomy enrich or disadvantage Auden's work? There are two opinions on this open, much discussed, question. Rowse makes a new contribution to the discussion. There are well known difficulties in both Auden's life and writing, Rowse views these with sympathy and understanding close to the man and seeks to place his work in the perspective of the age in which Auden was a symptomatic and representative figure, along with his idiomatic originality.This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of English literature and poetry.

This book draws attention to the pervasive artistic rivalry between Elizabethan poetry and gardens in order to illustrate the benefits of a trans-media approach to the literary culture of the period. In its blending of textual studies with discussions of specific historical patches of earth, The Poem and the Garden demonstrates how the fashions that drove poetic invention were as likely to be influenced by a popular print convention or a particular garden experience as they were by the formal genres of the classical poets. By moving beyond a strictly verbal approach in its analysis of creative imitation, this volume offers new ways of appreciating the kinds of comparative and competitive methods that shaped early modern poetics. Noting shared patterns-both conceptual and material-in these two areas not only helps explain the persistence of botanical metaphors in sixteenth-century books of poetry but also offers a new perspective on the types of contrastive illusions that distinguish the Elizabethan aesthetic. With its interdisciplinary approach, The Poem and the Garden is of interest to all students and scholars who study early modern poetics, book history, and garden studies.

This volume completes the five-volume Longman Annotated Poets Edition of the poems of John Dryden, the major poet of Restoration England. It provides a modernized text along with full explanatory annotation. The poems include Dryden's spirited translation from Ovid, Homer, Chaucer, and Boccaccio. This volume presents, in newly-edited texts and with a substantial editorial commentary, the complete non-dramatic poetry of John Dryden's later years. It contains the full text of Dryden's final collection, Fables Ancient and Modern, including its prose Dedication and Preface, together with a number of other poems of the late 1690s, and some posthumously published items.

John Dryden was the greatest writer of Restoration England. These volumes are the third and fourth volumes in a five-volume edition of Dryden's poems and result from a complete reappraisal of the canon, text and context of his work. The modernised text has been prepared from a fresh examination of the early printed editions and takes account of the large number of manuscript copies which survived. These volumes cover the poems which Dryden published between 1686-1696. This was a decade which saw the completion of his work of Catholic apologetics, The Hindand the Panther, the major translations from Juvenal and Persius, and his return to the stage after the Revolution of 1688-9 deprived him of the laureateship. Throughout these two new volumes Dryden's language is glossed in unprecedented detail, revealing the poetic precision of his vocabulary. Together with volumes one and two they offer the most informative and accessible edition of Dryden's poetry and provide an invaluable resource for students of Restoratation culture.

These first two volumes in a four-volume edition of Dryden's poems are the result of a complete reappraisal of the canon, text and context of his work. The text has been prepared from a fresh examination of the early printed editions, and takes account of the large number of manuscript copies which survive. Two recently discovered poems are included here for the first time. Headnotes to each poem provide details of the poem's date, publication history, sources and contemporary reception. Detailed explanations are given of the controversies addressed in his political poems, and particular attention is paid to Dryden's translations from classical writers including Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Lucretius. Volume I covers the poems of Dryden from 1649 to 1681.

Thomas Kinsella is regarded by many to be among the most important of his generation of Irish poets. This study of his work begins with his early, formally structured pieces such as Another September and continues to his later, more brooding work including Nightwalker.

Part of the highly successful Complete Critical Guide to English Literature series, this volume offers students the ideal introduction to the work of Robert Browning. Accessibly written throughout, the Guide covers:
* biographical details
* information on the historical and social contexts of Browning's work
* an overview of the full range of his work
* a survey of the major critical debates surrounding him and his work.


Related link: http://www.literature.routledge.com/criti calguides/

This book explores the unedited material contained in the Hawthornden manuscripts of William Fowler, a Scottish poet attached to the court of Queen Anna of Denmark between 1590 and 1612. The material is representative of Fowler's ephemeral and occasional production, largely unknown to modern scholars. Through the lenses of the Hawthornden fragments, this book engages in the exploration of one of the "cultural places of the European Renaissance", represented by the extensive use of emblems and other literary devices, and by the use of manuscript copies to circulate them. The discourse mainly focuses on the Jacobean courtly establishment in the first decade of the seventeenth century, from the point of view of a Scottish insider. By focusing on the intellectual makeup of the court in the newly united Great Britain, this work aims at bridging manuscript scholarship and literary studies with a wider perspective on contemporary society, politics and culture.

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice. Harjo s tale of a hardscrabble youth, young adulthood, and transformation into an award-winning poet and musician is haunting, unique, and visionary."

This comprehensive survey of Spanish poetry includes Iberian and Latin American writing from the Middle Ages to the present. Unlike most literary histories, it offers a non-chronological approach to the subject. It is arranged by genres and forms (epic, ballad, sonnet) and themes and motifs (love, religious and moral poetry, satirical and pure poetry). The wide-ranging selections in this reference make it appropriate for course use.

The Book Provides A Sympathetic Insight Into The Life And Work Of Emily Dickinson. The Author's Analysis Of Dickinson's Poetry Identifies Its Enduring Qualities But Also Candidly Acknowledges Its Weaknesses. Unpublished In Her Lifetime, Dickinson Emerges As One Of The Greatest And Most Singular Voices In Poetry In English. Marnie Pomeroy Is An Author, Poet, Publisher And Teacher. She Lives And Works In Ottawa, Canada.

This collection of essays represents twenty-five years of work by a leading critic of Romanticism in general and Byron in particular. It demonstrates McGann's evolution as a scholar, editor, critic, theorist, and historian, and his engagement with the main schools of literary criticism since the advent of structuralism in the 1960s. Many of these essays have previously been available only in specialist scholarly journals. Now for the first time McGann's important and influential work on Byron can be appreciated by new generations of students and scholars.

The focus of this study is the perception of nature in the language of poetry and the languages of natural philosophy, technology, theology, and global exploration, primarily in seventeenth-century England. Its premise is that language and the perception of nature vitally affect each other and that seventeenth-century poets, primarily John Milton, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan, but also Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Traherne, Anne Finch, and others, responded to experimental proto-science and new technology in ways that we now call 'ecological' - concerned with watersheds and habitats and the lives of all creatures. It provides close readings of works by these poets in the contexts of natural history, philosophy, and theology as well as technology and land use, showing how they responded to what are currently considered ecological issues: deforestation, mining, air pollution, drainage of wetlands, destruction of habitats, the sentience and intelligence of animals, overbuilding, global commerce, the politics of land use, and relations between social justice and justice towards the other-than-human world. In this important book, Diane McColley demonstrates the language of poetry, the language of responsible science, and the language of moral and political philosophy all to be necessary parts of public discourse.

How to Read (and Write About) Poetry invites students and others curious about poetry to join the critical conversation about a genre many find a little mystifying, even intimidating. In an accessible, engaging manner, this book introduces the productive questions, reading strategies, literary terms, and secondary research tips that will empower readers to participate in literary analysis. Holbrook explicates a number of poems, initiating readers into critical discourse while highlighting key poetic terms. These useful terms are fully defined in a glossary at the back of the book. The explications are followed by selections of related works, so the book thus offers what amounts to a brief anthology, ideal for a poetry unit or introductory class on poetry and poetics. Readers can bring some of the new skills they've acquired to these selections, which range across periods and styles. A chapter on meter illuminates the rhythmic dimension of poetry and guides readers through methods of scansion. The second edition includes a fresh selection of poems, including works by Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton, Valerie Martinez, and others, and updated MLA citation guidance for 2021.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Lorca in English examines the evolution of translations of Federico Garcia Lorca into English as a case of rewriting and manipulation through politically and ideologically motivated translation. As new translations of Federico Garcia Lorca continue to appear in the English-speaking world and his literary reputation continues to be rewritten through these successive re-translations, this book explores the reasons for this constant desire to rewrite Lorca since the time of his murder right into the 21st century. From his representation as the quintessential Spanish Republican martyr, to his adoption through translation by the Beat Generation, to his elevation to iconic status within the Queer Studies movement, this volume analyzes the reasons for this evolution and examines the current direction into which this canonical author is heading in the English-speaking world.

In the 1780s and 90s, theater critics described the stage as a state in political tumult, while politicians invoked theater as a model for politics both good and bad. In this study, Betsy Bolton examines the ways Romantic women performers and playwrights used theatrical conventions to intervene in politics. This well illustrated study draws on canonical poetry and personal memoirs, popular drama and parliamentary debates, political caricatures and theatrical reviews to extend current understandings of Romantic theater, the public sphere, and Romantic gender relations.

Boldrini's study examines how the literary and linguistic theories of Dante's Divine Comedy helped shape the radical narrative techniques of Joyce's last novel Finnegans Wake. Through detailed parallel readings, she explores a range of connections: issues such as the question of Babel, literary creation as excrement, the complex relations among literary, geometrical and female forms. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Joyce, Dante, and questions of literary relations.

In this study, Mark Parker argues that magazines such as the London Magazine and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine offered an innovative and collaborative space for writers and their work--indeed, magazines became one of the preeminent literary forms of the 1820s and 1830s. Examining the dynamic relationship between literature and culture that evolved within this context, Literary Magazines and British Romanticism claims that writing in such a setting enters into a variety of alliances with other contributions and with ongoing institutional concerns that give subtle inflection to its meaning.