Drawing from a broad range of contemporary British poets, including Thomas Kinsella, Kathleen Jamie, and Alice Oswald, this study examines the inherently spatial and affective nature of our engagement with poetry. Adding to the expanding field of geocritical studies, Yeung specifically discusses ideas of space and constructions of voice in poetry.

This collection of essays explores certain neglected aspects of this haikai master's literary and philosophical contributions. Haikai is an art that parodies and often subverts its linguistic, generic, and personal predecessors, and its intersections include imaginative links to the rest of Japanese literature and culture, to Chinese prose and poetry, and to the social, intellectual, and everyday realities of seventeenth century Tokugawa life.

The Oxford Handbook of John Donne presents scholars with the history of Donne studies and provides tools to orient scholarship in this field in the twenty-first century and beyond. Though profoundly historical in its orientation, the Handbook is not a summary of existing knowledge but a resource that reveals patterns of literary and historical attention and the new directions that these patterns enable or obstruct.
Part I -- Research resources in Donne Studies and why they they matter -- emphasizes the heuristic and practical orientation of the Handbook, examining prevailing assumptions and reviewing the specialized scholarly tools available. This section provides a brief evaluation and description of the scholarly strengths, shortcomings, and significance of each resource, focusing on a balanced evaluation of the opportunities and the hazards each offers.
Part II -- Donne's genres -- begins with an introduction that explores the significance and differentiation of the numerous genres in which Donne wrote, including discussion of the problems posed by his overlapping and bending of genres. Essays trace the conventions and histories of the genres concered and study the ways in which Donne's works confirm how and why his "fresh invention" illustrates his responses to the literary and non-literary contexts of their composition.
Part III -- Biographical and historical contexts -- creates perspective on what is known about Donne's life; shows how his life and writings epitomized and affected important controversial issues of his day; and brings to bear on Donne studies some of the most stimulating and creative ideas developed in recent decades by historians of early modern England.
Part IV -- Problems of literary interpretation that have been traditionally and generally important in Donne Studies -- introduces students and researchers to major critical debates affecting the reception of Donne from the 17th through to the 21st centuries.

The idea of the gift, in contrast to concepts of commercial exchange or the exercise of self-interest at the expense of social ties, is integral to the ways in which William Blake thought about his art, and the production and dissemination of his work. Sarah Haggarty offers a sophisticated and thorough account of the idea of the gift in Blake's writing and designs, examining both the theoretical implications of the term, and the way it plays out in specific textual and visual contexts within Blake's works. Elegantly written, thoughtful and closely argued, this book explores particular passages with great dexterity and in a style that enables the reader to participate in the experience of discovering the significance of 'the gift' for understanding Blake's work.

This book considers some of the Western interpretations of The Shahnameh - Iran's national epic, and argues that these interpretations are not only methodologically flawed, but are also more revealing of Western concerns and anxieties about Iran than they are about the Shahnameh.

The third-century BC Greek poet Herodas had been all but forgotten until a papyrus of eight of his Mimiambs (plus fragments) turned up in the Egyptian desert at the end of the 19th century. They have since been translated into various modern languages and supplied with scholarly commentaries. This book is the first to attempt to reproduce in English Herodas' 'choliambic' or 'limping' metre (sic) - distinctive for its signatory reversed final foot, a variant on the standard Greek iambic trimeter. The present volume provides an accessible introduction to Herodas and his Mimiambs requiring no knowledge of Greek. The translation steers a judicious course between literal accuracy and fidelity to this linguistically very demanding poet's spirit and intention. The contextual introductions and notes on the poems take into account the most recent scholarship, providing explanation of the context of the Mimiambs and guiding the reader to an appreciation of the poetry itself. The General Introduction places the author in his cultural world and context, namely urban society in the Ptolemaic Empire of the hellenistic period. This he conjures up in his Mimiambs with an often scathing vividness.

Teachers and librarians will find this one-volume reference guide an indispensable tool for identifying anthologies and poem collections that have particular appeal to young adult readers. Comprised of two main components, this resource features an annotated bibliography of 198 poetry volumes, and a thematic guide to over 6,000 individual poems. The carefully chosen anthologies and collections span reading levels from sixth to twelfth grade, and a tremendous breath of interest areas. Poets whose works are cited range from the classic to the contemporary, cover a broad ethnic and geographic spectrum, and range in style from humorous to tragic, rap to blues, free verse to rhymes, and limericks to haiku.

This survey of young adult poetry represents a careful selection and evaluation process undertaken by the authors in consultation with classroom teachers. The annotations help users identify themes in the works, grade level appropriateness, as well as format and content in the poetry collections and anthologies. The authors offer helpful suggestions for ways that these poetry works may be used in the English classroom and beyond; for igniting creative sparks with young writers, for science and social studies discussion, counseling sessions, and for sheer enjoyment. Librarians will value this well-organized resource as both a collection development tool, and--with its index of writers and titles and extensive theme guide--as a way of connecting young readers to wonderful poetry.

This book reads Milton's "Paradise Lost" as a poem that seeks to educate its readers by narrating the education of its main characters. Many of Milton's characters enter the action in late adolescence, newly independent and eager to test themselves, to discover who they are and their place in the world. The poem charts their progress into moral adulthood. Taking as its premise that attention to the moral development of the poem's main characters will open the poem to most undergraduate readers, this book explores both the pedagogical activity within "Paradise Lost" and the pedagogical activity that the poem encourages.

A wonderfully readable anthology of our greatest poetry, chosen by the author of A Little History of Poetry "Does anyone know more about poetry than John Carey? Almost certainly not."-The Times A poem seems a fragile thing. Change a word and it is broken. But poems outlive empires and survive the devastation of conquests. Celebrated author John Carey here presents a uniquely valuable anthology of verse based on a simple principle: select the one-hundred greatest poets from across the centuries, and then choose their finest poems. Ranging from Homer and Sappho to Donne and Milton, Plath and Angelou, this is a delightful and accessible introduction to the very best that poetry can offer. Familiar favorites are nestled alongside marvelous new discoveries-all woven together with Carey's expert commentary. Particular attention is given to the works of female poets, like Christina Rossetti and Charlotte Mew. This is a personal guide to the poetry that shines brightest through the ages. Within its pages, readers will find treasured poems that remain with you for life.

Juan Ruiz's "Libro de Buen Amor" (1330/1343) is a lively and challenging medieval classic that ranks alongside the works of Dante and Chaucer. This volume is the first to systematically approach the role of humor in the "Libro de Buen Amor "through the treatment of the body, the visual, and the representation of first-person protagonist as lover. Haywood examines the place of the bawdy and the grotesque in the "Libro de Buen Amor" in relation to secular and sacred culture. This innovative study will be of interest to scholars and students interested in humor, cultural domains, medieval studies, and Spanish studies.

This critical study explores the relationship between Hopkins' poetic art and his philosophy and shows why Hopkins' poetry has endured. Sean Sheehan is the author of a study of anarchism and of a guide to Wittgenstein.

Richard Bradford's new introduction to poetry begins with and answers the slippery question, 'what is poetry?'. The book provides a compact history of English poetry from the 16th century to the present day and surveys the major critical and theoretical approaches to verse. It tackles the important issues of gender, race and nationality and concludes with a lengthy account of how to recognise good poetry. This engaging and readable book is accessible to all readers, from those who simply enjoy poetry through university first years to graduate students. Poetry: The Ultimate Guide provides the technical and critical tools you need to approach and evaluate poetry, and to articulate your own views.

This book situates John Clare's long, prolific but often badly neglected literary life within the wider cultural histories of the Regency and earlier Victorian periods. The first half considers the construction of the Regency peasant-poet and how Clare performed this role on stages such as the London Magazine. It also looks at the way in which it went out of fashion as Regency mentalities were replaced by early Victorian ones. The second half recreates asylum culture and places Clare's performances as Regency boxers and Lord Byron within this bleak new world.

In this innovative study of Apollonius Rhodius' influential epic poem from the Hellenistic period, the author aims both to offer fresh insights into popular critical issues and consider it from new perspectives. The principal, unifying concern is the poet's measured and complex use of language and the manipulation of meaning generated therewith. The first part presents a detailed analysis of the poem's constantly shifting commentary on the voyage of the Argo as articulated throughout all four books of the poem, and the conflicting strategies according to which the epic journey of the Argonauts is presented for interpretation. The second part of the book identifies hitherto unexplored descriptive, thematic and image-related rhythms within the narrative, which serve both to bind the poem together and to generate further complexities of meaning. Accessible to non-specialists, with all Greek quotations accompanied by an English translation.

This interdisciplinary collection explores the divergence or convergence of freedom and terror in a range of Byron's works. Challenging the binary opposition of historicism and critical theory, it combines topical debates in a manner that is sensitive both to the circumstances of their emergence and to their relevance for the twenty-first century.

These essays are lectures, mostly revised or expanded, given to the Tennyson Society by leading Victorianists, including one of the doyens of Tennyson studies, Jerome H. Buckley. In Memoriam and Maud are central texts, but many other poems are discussed - lyrics, dramatic monologues, narratives, ballads - and such recurrent topics as loss, the numinous and distance in space and time. The poems are related to their intellectual context and to other poets such as Wordsworth and Edward Fitzgerald. The author also wrote Dickens and Crime.

Taking as its starting point Delmore Schwartz's self-appointment as both a 'poet of the Hudson River' and 'laureate of the Atlantic, ' this book comprehensively reassesses the poetic achievement of a critically neglected writer. Runchman reads Schwartz's poetry in relation to its national and international perspectives

Occasioned by the spirit of celebrating Keats's 200th birthday (31 October 1995), Jeffrey C. Robinson's Reception and Poetics in Keats offers at once a history and readings of the many praise and commemorative poems to or about Keats (collected in an appendix) from the time of his early death up to the present day and a consequent rethinking of Keats's own poems and poetics. Keats emerges as a poet uniquely available and useful to the experimental poets of our own time.

This is the first full-length psychoanalytic study of Shelley's poetry, approaching it from the viewpoint of contemporary Jungian analytical psychology that incorporates the theories of Melanie Klein and D.W.Winnicott. The author uses materials that relate to the earliest stages of the ego's development, going back beyond the Oedipal to pre-Oedipal situation. The book is designed to be of interest to lovers of Shelley as well as feminist readers who want to know how pre-Oedipal images of the mother can profoundly affect literature. Christine Gallant is editor of "Coleridge's Theory of Imagination Today" (AMS Press 1988) and "Blake and the Assimilation of Chaos" (Princeton UP, 1978).

This book is an attempt to explore Shakespearean drama from the vantage point of the oppressed, invisible, and silent individuals and collectivities constructed in the plays. It examines the ideological apparatuses which produce and naturalise oppression and the political structures through which that oppression is sustained. Derek Cohen is concerned to demonstrate the many ways in which political and personal life, always interdependent, intersect. contradict, and disrupt one another often in the interests of and to the advantage of the dominant social ideology.

The author explores the impact on poetic practice in the 1970s and 1980s of recent theoretical developments, offering a criticism of the latest work of Seamus Heaney and of younger poets including Michael Hofmann and James Fenton, reassessing life on Mars and providing retrospective surveys of Fleur Adcock, Douglas Dunn, Geoffrey Hill, Tom Paulin and Anne Stevenson.

Destabilizing Milton challenges the widely accepted view of Milton as a poet of absolute, unquestioning certainty. In Paradise Lost , Milton confronts the failure of the Revolution by creating a poem that refuses to grant the reader any interpretive stability or certainty. Doubts can no longer be contained and concepts once marked by a 'fundamental immobility' now seem unstable at best. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes equally reflect Milton's deep ambivalences after the collapse of the Republic. Far from confirming his earlier ideals, in his later poetry, Milton subjects his culture's most cherished beliefs, such as the goodness of God, to withering scrutiny, while refusing the comfort of orthodox answers.