This book situates Louis Zukofsky’s poetics, and the lineage of Objectivist poetics more broadly, within a set of fundamental ethical concerns in American poetic modernism. Tim Woods makes a strong case for Zukofsky as a missing key figure within this ethical matrix, viewing Zukofsky’s poetry through the lens of the work of Theodor Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas. Building an ethical genealogy of American poetics leading from Zukofsky through the contemporary school of L•A•N•G•U•A•G•E poetry, Woods brings together modernism and postmodernism, ethics and aesthetics, to shed new light on our understanding of this neglected strain of modernist poetics.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) is the only Russian poet who has been taken seriously by Russian leaders: Khrushchev sent him to the Gulag (1964), Brezhnev exiled him (1972), Gorbachev paid him a visit in the Library of Congress (1992), and Chernomyrdin demanded that his body be returned to Russia (1996). He is the most important poet Russia has produced in the second part of the twentieth century. Nobody after Pushkin has done as much as Brodsky for Russian poetry, introducing many features of English and American poetics, a new linguistic substratum to Russian poetry, new genres, and a new mentality. He replaced the hot-blooded, hysterical note of Russian poetry with a rational approach to the most profound problems of our time. His tragic perception of the world combines with skilfully camouflaged irony, self-deprecation, and technical virtuosity.Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature Valentina Polukhina, who knew Brodsky well over a long period, has been studying and writing about him for at least 30 years. Her second volume of interviews draws on eye-witness accounts of his friends, publishers, editors, translators, and fellow poets. It is a series of important discussions on the style, ideas, and personality of one of the most brilliant and paradoxical poets of our time. Subtle, incisive, and rigorous in its critical evaluation, each discussion significantly advances our understanding of Brodsky's complex poetic world. All discussions are linked by core questions that are carefully and sometimes provocatively formulated. This collection of 40 interviews illuminates a peculiarly intriguing contemporary phenomenon and affords a fascinating insight into the American literary scene.

The last two decades have seen the business of researching and writing about Percy Bysshe Shelley change in positive and significant ways. Shelleyan characteristics which were once deemed negative are now reviewed as critically engaging qualities. The New Shelley - Later Twentieth Century Views is a collection of essays by some leading scholars of romantic literature which situates Shelley for our own age, not only by contextualizing him within our own scene of critical practice, but also by resituating him within his own scene of poetic production.

A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature

The Latin poet Prudentius, born in Spain in the mid-fourth century AD, rose to high office in the imperial secretariat in Milan. His pride in this achievement was tempered by a powerful Christian vocation to the composition of poetry, a medium largely determined by an education in the Latin classics. He is considered to be one of the greatest Christian poets of the Late Antique period. Written at a turning-point in the history of the Western Empire, his poetry gives expression to the new confidence felt by contemporary Christians. Prudentius accepted many aspects of secular poetry and combined them with the new ideals and forms of expression provided by Christianity and its growing literature. He wrote on many subjects, but it is his fourteen lyrics on martyrs, the Peristephanon, several of whom came from his native Spain, which are the subject of this book. Dr Palmer provides here, for the first time, a comprehensive study of these poems, which are so important to our understanding of the post-Constantinian period in the West. She examines the poet's life and society, investigates the purpose of the poems and their intended audience, and discusses them in relation both to the heritage of Classical literature and to sources in contemporary martyr-literature.

"The International Reception of T. S. Eliot" brings together a wide range of international perspectives on this influential twentieth-century author, who as poet, critic, and editor did much to shape modernist poetics, not only in Europe and North America, but also world-wide. Foregrounding distinct aspects of Eliot's international reception, individual chapters of the book illuminate such topics as Eliot's complex impact on the development of modernist poetics in the post-colonial Caribbean, the emergent state of Israel, and colonial India; the insurgent potential of translated Eliot in Soviet-occupied Romania and post-war Germany; the different ways in which Eliot's work has entered the cultural life of national and emergent national contexts like Iceland, Italy, Spain, China, and Japan; the relationships forged with Eliot's poetry and criticism by such authors as Jorge Borges, Czeslaw Milosz, A.J.M. Smith, and E.R. Curtius; the unique reverberations of Eliot's work in the bi-cultural lives of contemporary scholars; and the challenges of teaching Eliot across boundaries of culture and religion. Importantly broadening the purview of Anglo-American Eliot Studies, the book should prove essential reading for scholars around the world interested in Eliot and modernism, as well as post-colonial theory and modernist translation theory.

This book offers an integrated reading of the poems and translations published by five prominent Northern Irish poets - Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon and Ciaran Carson - demonstrating that their 'original' writing and their versions of other authors are manifestations of their particular and consistently pursued poetics.

African-American expressive arts draw upon multiple traditions of formal experimentation in the service of social change. Within these traditions, Jennifer D. Ryan demonstrates that black women have created literature, music, and political statements signifying some of the most incisive and complex elements of modern American culture. "Post-Jazz Poetics: A Social History" examines the jazz-influenced work of five twentieth-century African-American women poets: Sherley Anne Williams, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Wanda Coleman, and Harryette Mullen. These writers' engagements with jazz-based compositional devices represent a new strand of radical black poetics, while their renditions of local-to-global social critique sketch the outlines of a transnational feminism.

York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

When Roy Fisher told Gael Turnbull in 1960 that he had 'started writing like mad' and produced 'a sententious prose book, about the length of a short novel, called the Citizen' he was registering a sea change in his work, finding a mode to express his almost visceral connection with Birmingham in a way that drew on his sensibility and a wealth of materials that could last a lifetime. Much later in his career he would say that 'Birmingham is what I think with.' This 'melange of evocation, maundering, imagining, fiction and autobiography,' as he called it, was written 'so as to be able to have a look at myself & see what I think.' All that was known of this work before Fisher's death in 2017 is that fragments from it had been used as the prose sections in City and that - never otherwise published - it was thought not to have survived. This proved not to be the case, and in The Citizen and the Making of City, Peter Robinson, the poet's literary executor, has edited the breakthrough fragment and placed it in conjunction with the first 1961 published version of Fisher's signature collage of poetry and prose, along with a never published longer manuscript of it found among the poet's archive at the University of Sheffield, and some previously unpublished poems that were considered for inclusion during the complex evolution of the work that Robinson tracks in his introduction. By offering in a single publication the definitive 1969 text, two variant versions of City, its prose origins in The Citizen and continuation in Then Hallucinations, as well as some of the poetry left behind, this landmark publication offers a unique insight into Roy Fisher's most emblematic work. It is supplemented with an anthology of Fisher's own comments on City and a secondary bibliography of criticism on his profound response to changes wrought upon England's industrial cities in the middle of the 20th century.

Favorite Sons explores Sir Philip Sidney's extraordinary poetic legacy, which is closely linked to the development of the early modern family in England, both by-products of new forms of affection and secrecy, both shaped equally by pride and projection. The reasons for such connections are writ small and large by the Sidney family of writers. If family history is driven by and experienced through the logic of culture, all families are poetic projects, too, as the work of Sidney, Robert Sidney, Mary Sidney Herbert, and Mary Wroth attests.

In this chronology Gordon Campbell brings his unique command of manuscripts associated with John Milton to the first synthesis of the Milton documents attempted in forty years. Many manuscripts that have been lost to view have been rediscovered, and some manuscripts that have never been seen by students of Milton are recorded here for the first time. These new discoveries, together with many unrecorded printed allusions that have never been integrated into biographical studies of Milton, make this chronology an essential research and reference tool that creates a new context for many of Milton's poems and prose writings.

This book is the first to argue that the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets is the well-known young Elizabethan writer Richard Barnfield (1574-1620), long suspected to have been one of Shakespeare's "private friends" (as they were termed by Francis Meres in 1598), with whom (as Meres also tells us) Shakespeare shared some of his sonnets. This is also the first book to argue that William Stanley (1561-1642), sixth earl of Derby, is the young man to whom they addressed their respective sonnets and other love poems in the period c. 1592-1595. In making these identifications, this is the first book to examine in detail the dialogue between Shakespeare's Sonnets and three of Barnfield's books of poetry (all published within a little more than one year)--a dialogue only known to be discussed in a conference paper and one other book.William Shakespeare, Richard Barnfield, and the Sixth Earl of Derby will likely appeal to all readers interested in Shakespeare's life and love poetry, both specialist scholars and non-specialist enthusiasts alike.

This edited collection explores the work of highly awarded and twice American Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin. Spanning Merwin's early career, his mid-career success, his Hawaiian epic, his eco-poetry, his lesser-known later poetry and the influence of Buddhism on his work, the volume offers new perspectives on Merwin as a major poet. Exploring his works across the twentieth and twenty-first century, this collection presents Merwin as a necessary and contemporary poet. It emphasizes contemporary readings of Merwin as an environmental advocate, showing how his poetry seeks to help each reader re-establish an intimate relationship with the natural world. It also highlights how Merwin's work presents our place in history as a pivotal moment of transition into a new era of international cooperation. This volume both celebrates his life and writing and takes scholarship on his work forward into the new century.

This timely book traces ideas of pacifism through English literature, particularly poetry. Four wide-ranging chapters, drawing on both religious and secular texts, provide intellectual and historical contexts. There follows a chronological analysis of poetry which rejects war and celebrates peace, from the middle ages to the present day. The book provides inspiration for all readers who seriously believe that conflict and war do not solve problems, and for students it provides a new kind of thematic history of literature.

A fascinating and exhilarating look at the many ways we love, and are loved. Following on from his bestselling The History of Wales in Twelve Poems, M. Wynn Thomas turns his attention in A Map of Love to poems from Wales and reflects on what they have to say on the age-old subject of love in its many and varied forms. Featuring twelve pieces dating from the fourteenth century to the present, this absorbing collection deliberately veers far from cliched verses with its poems of regret and of mourning; straight love and gay love; bawdy verses of passion and desire, and gentle meditations on motherhood and marriage. It features anonymous and lesser-known writers as well as household names such as Gillian Clarke and R. S. Thomas, and it includes a previously unpublished poem by Emyr Humphreys. With original illustrations by Ruth Jen Evans throughout, this short but powerful collection will appeal to anyone interested in people and their complex relationships.

Employing psychoanalysis, trauma theory, and materialist perspectives, this book examines Shakespeare's appropriations of Ovid's poetry in his Roman poems and plays. It argues that Shakespeare uses Ovid to explore violence, trauma, and virtus - the traumatic effects of aggression, sadomasochism, and the shifting notions of selfhood and masculinity.

Introduces Skelton and his work to readers unfamiliar with the poet, gathers together the vibrant strands of existing research, and opens up new avenues for future studies. John Skelton is a central literary figure and the leading poet during the first thirty years of Tudor rule. Nevertheless, he remains challenging and even contradictory for modern audiences. This book aims to provide an authoritative guide to this complex poet and his works, setting him in his historical, religious, and social contexts. Beginning with an exploration of his life and career, it goes on to cover all the major aspects of his poetry, from the literary traditions in which he wrote and the form of his compositions to the manuscript contexts and later reception. SEBASTIAN SOBECKI is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture at the University of Groningen; JOHN SCATTERGOOD is Professor (Emeritus) of Medieval and Renaissance English at Trinity College, Dublin. Contributors: Tom Betteridge, Julia Boffey, John Burrow, David Carlson, Helen Cooper, Elisabeth Dutton,A.S.G. Edwards, Jane Griffiths, Nadine Kuipers, Carol Meale, John Scattergood, Sebastian Sobecki, Greg Waite

Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (December 8, 1767-March 25, 1825) was a French author, poet, and composer whose biblical and philosophical hermeneutics in?uenced many occultists, such as Eliphas Lvi and Gerard Encausse (Papus), and Ren Gunon. D'Olivet spent his life pursuing the esoteric wisdom concealed in the Hebrew scriptures, Greek philosophy, and the symbolism of many ancient cultures as far back as ancient India, Persia, and Egypt. His writings are considered classics of the Hermetic tradition. His best known works today are his research on the Hebrew language (The Hebraic Tongue Restored), his translation and interpretation of the writings of Pythagoras (The Golden Verses of Pythagoras), and his writings on the sacred art of music. In addition to the above works, Hermetica has published in consistent facsimile format for its Collected Works of Fabre d'Olivet series Cain and The Healing of Rodolphe Grivel, as well as Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man and the Destiny of the Adamic Race. D'Olivet's mastery of many ancient languages and their literatures enabled him to write (in the time of Napoleon) this extraordinary text which remains a landmark investigation of the deeper esoteric undercurrents at work in the history of culture. The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, so remarkable for their moral elevation, and standing as the most beautiful monument of antiquity raised in honor of Wisdom, were originally transcribed by Lysis, though it is to Hierocles that we owe the version that has come down to us. Fabre d'Olivet has translated them into French verse of special form (eumolpique), and in his Discourse upon the Essence and Form of Poetry in the present volume he explains and illustrates this melodious style. In his Examinations of the Golden Verses, which comprises the last division of this book, he has drawn with the power of his great mind the metaphysical correlation of Providence, Destiny, and Will.

The series publishes important new editions of and commentaries on texts from Greco-Roman antiquity, especially annotated editions of texts surviving only in fragments. Due to its programmatically wide range the series provides an essential basis for the study of ancient literature.

The poetry of Edmund Spenser is among the most wide-ranging and allusive ever written. This work offers a detailed literary guide to the life, works, and influence of one of England's greatest poets, and summarizes the scholarship in this area since the publication of the Spenser Variorum 50 years ago. Comprehensive in scope and international in coverage, this work contains over 700 alphabetical entries by 422 contributors from 20 countries. Entries fall into three categories: synoptic essays on individual poems and on the major biographical, historical and social issues, articles providing a full collection of information on a particular topic and its relation to the tradition and articles providing information relevant to the current state of Spenser studies. Throughout the work, Spenser's place in the English literary tradition is fully explored, and in particular his relationship to the minor Elizabethan poets is stressed. The volume also examines Spenser's reputation in other countries, such as France and Japan, and the effects of his influence on writers world-wide.

So many male critics have attacked Ireland's contemporary women poets -- whether through hostile reviews, outright silence, or condescending praise -- that the impression has been created that very few men appreciate these women's poetry. Gonzalez has produced the first book ever to appear in Irish studies in which men make it a point to praise literature written by Irish women. Included are two essays studying the structure of Eavan Boland's poetry sequences, some close readings of Medbh McGuckian's most challenging poems, and the first formal scholarly pieces ever devoted exclusively to Paula Meehan, Rita Ann Higgins, and Mary O'Malley. Additional chapters treat the works of Eilean Ni Chuilleanain and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.

Women poets have made substantial contributions to Irish literature, particularly in the last few decades. However, so many male critics have attacked Ireland's women poets, whether through hostile reviews, outright silence, or condescending praise, that the impression has been created that very few men appreciate these women's poetry. With some notable exceptions, most academic appraisals by men have been less than enthusiastic. Many women also point to the treatment these poets receive in various anthologies, which typically include only token portions of literature written by women. In his book, Gonzalez has responded to these slights by offering a forum to a significant number of men to express their highest praise for Ireland's women poets.

Until now, no book has ever appeared in Irish studies in which men make it a point to praise literature written by Irish women. In this book, Gonzalez includes two essays on each of Ireland's best-known women poets, Eavan Boland, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, and Medbh McGuckian. Three other essays are the first formal scholarly pieces entirely dedicated to Paula Meehan, Rita Ann Higgins, or Mary O'Malley. In his pioneering effort, Gonzalez helps establish the place of these contemporary women poets in the Irish literary canon, corrects the popular misconception that male critics are unresponsive to their works, and encourages further exploration of Irish women poets by male scholars and critics.

Traditionally literary modernism has been seen as a movement marked by transcendent epiphanies, episodes of estrangement, and a privileging of the extraordinary. Yet modernist writings often take great pains to describe the material, seemingly insignificant details of daily life. Modernismand the Ordinary upends our perceived notions of the period's literature as it recognizes just how pivotal commonplace activities are to modernist aesthetics.
Through pointed readings of prose and poetry from both the U. S. and abroad, Liesl Olson highlights the variety of ways modernist writers represented the quotidian details of modern life, even during times of political crisis and war. Run of the mill experiences like walking to work, eating a sandwich, or mending a dress were often resistant to shock, and these daily actions presented a counter-force to the aesthetic of heightened affect with which modernism is often associated. In a series of persuasively argued chapters, we see how the ordinary operates in its many modernist manifestations: the minutiae of list-making and the decidedly unheroic qualities of Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses; Virginia Woolf's rendering of the ordinary as an affective experience in Mrs. Dalloway; the retreat into daily routine as a refuge from the tumult of World War II in Gertrude Stein's Mrs.Reynolds; Wallace Steven's conception of the commonplace as rooted in pragmatist philosophy; and how Beckett and Proust are simultaneously compelled and repelled by the banalities of modern life. These works are read alongside the ideas of philosophers such as William James, Henri Bergson, and Henri Lefebvre to illustrate how these artists responded to the difficulty of representing the mundane without making it transcendent.
A trenchant, richly textured monograph, Modernism and the Ordinary reveals how the non-transformative power of everyday experiences-what Virginia Woolf called the "cotton wool of daily life"-exerts a profound influence on the epoch-defining art of some of the twentieth century's most celebrated writers.