Here are Sappho's songs and poems as English poems, all her famous pieces, all the fragments that can make connected sense, and all the discoveries of 2004 and 2014. These translations set out to be good English poetry first and foremost, and succeed well beyond other current versions. They have been made directly from Sappho's Greek, by a poet with three collections to his credit, and are relatively close to the Greek. Each piece has a concise footnote that explains references and allusions, and suggests critical appreciation. A substantial Afterword says much more about Sappho's themes, her art and style, and her historical setting. Sappho is one of the greatest poets of the western world. She lived on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 BCE, near the very beginning of western literature, and composed 300 or so poems and songs. Her poems create a woman-centred world in which women and relationships are highly valued, a world of beauty and grace, love and loss, sandals and hairbands, all sometimes exalted and idealised. She opposes women's values to those of the dominant male society around her, and is the first to do this in the western canon. She was famous in her lifetime and has been deeply admired ever since.

The poetry of Michelangelo offers an insight into one of the greatest artists of all time, and is a notable literary achievement in its own right. This text lays out the broad chronological evolution of the poems and clarifies both their meaning and the verbal artistry that shaped their construction. The poetry is always quoted in Italian and in translation.

Of the spiritual odysseys which dominate the literature of nineteenth-century England, Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest and yet one of the most difficult. Newman wrote the Apologia in 1864, as a reply to Charles Kingsley's attack on his veracity and that of his fellow Roman Catholic clergy; the following year he revised it extensively and thereafter amended new impressions almost until his death in 1890. This fine edition, long unavailable, has been reissued for the centenary; it includes all the variants resulting from Newman's revisions, in both the printed texts and the surviving manuscripts.

Damn Great Empires! offers a new perspective on the works of William James by placing his encounter with American imperialism at the center of his philosophical vision. This book reconstructs James's overlooked political thought by treating his anti-imperialist Nachlass - his speeches, essays, notes, and correspondence on the United States' annexation of the Philippines - as the key to the political significance of his celebrated writings on psychology, religion, and philosophy. It shows how James located a craving for authority at the heart of empire as a way of life, a craving he diagnosed and unsettled through his insistence on a modern world without ultimate foundations. Livingston explores the persistence of political questions in James's major works, from his writings on the self in The Principles of Psychology to the method of Pragmatism, the study of faith and conversion in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and the metaphysical inquiries in A Pluralistic Universe. Against the common view of James as a thinker who remained silent on questions of politics, this book places him in dialogue with champions and critics of American imperialism, from Theodore Roosevelt to W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as a transatlantic critique of modernity, in order to excavate James's anarchistic political vision. Bringing the history of political thought into conversation with contemporary debates in political theory, Damn Great Empires! offers a fresh and original reexamination of the political consequences of pragmatism as a public philosophy.

This revised Student Edition includes an introduction by Bess Rowen, Visiting Assistant Professor at Villanova University, US, which looks in particular at the play's treatment of rape, vulnerable people, mental institutions (especially in connection to Williams's own family), sexuality and sexual desire. A Streetcar Named Desire shows a turbulent confrontation between traditional values in the American South - an old-world graciousness and beauty running decoratively to seed - set against the rough-edged, aggressive materialism of the new world. Through the vividly characterised figures of Southern belle Blanche Dubois, seeking refuge from physical ugliness in decayed gentility, and her brutal brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, Tennessee Williams dramatises his sense of the South's past as still active and often destructive in modern America. METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as the complete text of the play itself, this volume contains: * A chronology of the play and the playwright's life and work * An introductory discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created * A succinct overview of the creation processes followed and subsequent performance history of the piece * An analysis of, and commentary on, some of the major themes and specific issues addressed by the text * A bibliography of suggested primary and secondary materials for further study

Essays from a Native American grandfather to help navigate life's difficult experiences. Offered in the oral traditions of the Nez Perce, Native American writer W. S. Penn records the conversations he held with his granddaughter, lovingly referred to as ""Bean,"" as he guided her toward adulthood while confronting society's interest in possessions, fairness, and status. Drawing on his own family history and Native mythology, Penn charts a way through life where each endeavor is a journey-an opportunity to love, to learn, or to interact-rather than the means to a prize at the end. Divided into five parts, Penn addresses topics such as the power of words, race and identity, school, and how to be. In the essay "In the Nick of Names," Penn takes an amused look at the words we use for people and how their power, real or imagined, can alter our perception of an entire group. To Have and On Hold is an essay about wanting to assimilate into a group but at the risk of losing a good bit of yourself. "A Harvest Moon" is a humorous anecdote about a Native grandfather visiting his granddaughter's classroom and the absurdities of being a professional Indian. "Not Nobody" uses "Be All that You Can Be Week" at Bean's school to reveal the lessons and advantages of being a "nobody." In "From Paper to Person," Penn imagines the joy that may come to Bean when she spends time with her Paper People-three-foot-tall drawings, mounted on stiff cardboard-and as she grows into a young woman like her mom, able to say she is a person who is happy with what she has and not sorry for what she doesn't. Comical and engaging, the essays in Raising Bean will appeal to readers of all backgrounds and interests, especially those with a curiosity in language, perception, humor, and the ways in which Native people guide their families and friends with stories.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself, a brave warrior, is fatally impelled by supernatural forces, by his proud wife, and by his own burgeoning ambition. As he embarks on his murderous course to gain and retain the crown of Scotland, we see the appalling emotional and psychological effects on both Lady Macbeth and himself. The cruel ironies of their destiny are conveyed in poetry of unsurpassed power. In the theatre, this tragedy remains perennially engrossing.

A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. 'I would like to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently...' What does "feminism" mean today? In this personal, eloquently argued essay - adapted from her much-admired Tedx talk of the same name - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now - an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

The diary of Antera Duke is one of the earliest and most extensive surviving documents written by an African residing in coastal West Africa predating the arrival of British missionaries and officials in the mid-19th century. Antera Duke (ca.1735-ca.1809) was a leader and merchant in late eighteenth-century Old Calabar, a cluster of Efik-speaking communities in the Cross River region. He resided in Duke Town, forty miles from the Atlantic Ocean in modern-day southeast Nigeria. His diary, written in trade English from 18 January 1785 to 31 January 1788, is a candid account of daily life in an African community during a period of great historical interest. Written by a major African merchant at the height of Calabar's overseas commerce, it provides valuable information on Old Calabar's economic activity both with other African businessmen and with European ship captains who arrived to trade for slaves, produce and provisions. It is also unique in chronicling the day-to-day social and cultural life of a vibrant African community. Antera Duke's diary is much more than a historical curiosity; it is the voice of a leading African-Atlantic merchant who lived during an age of expanding cross-cultural trade. The book reproduces the original diary of Antera Duke, as transcribed by a Scottish missionary, Arthur W. Wilkie, ca. 1907 and published by OUP in 1956. A new rendering of the diary into standard English appears on facing pages, and the editors have advanced the annotation completed by anthropologist Donald Simmons in 1954 by editing 71 and adding 158 footnotes. The updated reference information incorporates new primary and secondary source material on Old Calabar, and notes where their editorial decisions differ from those made by Wilkie and Simmons. Chapters 1 and 2 detail the eighteenth-century Calabar slave and produce trades, emphasizing how personal relationships between British and Efik merchants formed the nexus of trade at Old Calabar. To build a picture of Old Calabar's regional trading networks, Chapter 3 draws upon information contained in Antera Duke's diary, other contemporary sources, and shipping records from the 1820s. Chapter 4 places information in Antera Duke's diary in the context of eighteenth-century Old Calabar political, social and religious history, charting how Duke Town eclipsed Old Town and Creek Town through military power, lineage strength and commercial acumen.