The Letters of Robert Burns is a complete revision of the earlier text established by J. De Lancey Ferguson. A number of new letters have been added and completed from manuscripts that have come to light since the Ferguson edition--there are letters to twenty-five new correspondents--and footnotes have been expanded to indicate the source of all Burns's quotations where these can be identified. The endnotes have been expanded to indicate letters to which Burns's are answers as well as answers received by Burns to the letters he sent. An appendix contains Currie's List of Letters to Burns, a document of major importance as it represents a selection of letters that were in the poet's possession at the time of his death.

Edgar Allen Poe's influence on the twentieth century French writer Paul Valery was profound, much more so than on Baudelaire and Mallarme. This book is the first comprehensive study of Poe's influence of Valery and is based on Valery's own concept of literary influence. Valery discovered in Poe's tales and literary essays a Drama of the intellect that was to inspire his Evening with Monsieur teste, Agathe, and Introduction to the method of Leonardo Da Vinci. Valery's poetics and approach to literary criticism have direct connections to Poe's Philosophy of Composition and Poetic Principle. Valery's only essay devoted to his American mentor, On Poe's Eureka, recognizes the importance of the cosmological poem in Valery's intellectual development. Eureka awakened in him an interest in science and mathematics that lasted a lifetime and inspired him to apply scientific analysis to literary genius, the first writer to place creative work on an analytical basis and explore the psychological aspects of literature.

This title studies how poets from two postcolonial countries, Ireland and Poland, refuse the consolations of roots and belonging, and search for non-traditional modes of exploring identity. Are we allowed to choose where we belong? What pressures make us feel that we should belong somewhere? This book brings together four major poets - Heaney, Mahon, Zagajewski, and Hartwig - who ask themselves these questions throughout their lives. They start by assuming that we can choose not to belong, but know this is easier said than done. Something in them is awry, leading them to travel, emigrate, and return dissatisfied with all forms of belonging. Writer after writer has suggested that Polish and Irish literature bear some uncanny similarities, particularly in the twentieth century, but few have explored these similarities in depth. Ireland and Poland, with their tangled histories of colonization, place a large premium upon knowing one's place. What happens, though, when a poet makes a career out of refusing to know her place in the way her culture expects? This book explores the consequences of this refusal, allowing these poets to answer such questions through their own poems, leading to surprising conclusions about the connection of knowledge and belonging, roots and identity.

The essays in Yeats Annual No 7 are dedicated to the memory of Richard Ellmann, one of the great pioneer critics of W.B.Yeats. They have been contributed by distinguished colleagues and friends of Richard Ellmann, chosen on his advice. The volume also contains much new material by Yeats himself - a new and virtually complete early draft of his novel The Speckled Bird, here entitled 'The Lilies of the Lord' and two new poems from The Flame of the Spirit manuscript book, given to Maud Gonne in 1981.

Epic and tragedy, from Homer's Achilles and Euripides' Pentheus to Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Milton's Satan, are filled with characters challenging and warring against the gods. Nowhere is the theme of theomachy more frequently and powerfully represented, however, than in the poetry of early imperial Rome, from Ovid's Metamorphoses at the beginning of the first century AD to Statius' Thebaid near its end. This book - the first full-length study of human-divine conflict in Roman literature - asks why the war against god was so important to the poets of the time and how this understudied period of literary history influenced a larger tradition in Western literature. Drawing on a variety of contexts - politics, religion, philosophy, and aesthetics - Pramit Chaudhuri argues for the fundamental importance of battles between humans and gods in representing the Roman world. A cast of tyrants, emperors, rebels, iconoclasts, philosophers, and ambitious poets brings to life some of the most extraordinary artistic products of classical antiquity. Based on close readings of the major extant epics and selected tragedies, the book replaces a traditionally Virgiliocentric view of imperial epic with a richer dialogue between Greek and Roman texts, contemporary authors, and diverse genres. The renewed sense of a tradition reveals how the conflicts these works represent constitute a distinctive theology informed by other discourses yet peculiar to epic and tragedy. Beginning with the Greek background and ending by looking ahead to developments in the Renaissance, this book charts the history of a theme that would find its richest expression in a time when men became gods and impiety threatened the very order of the world. Covering a wide range of literary and historical topics - from metapoetics to the sublime, from divination to Epicureanism, and from madness to apotheosis - the book will appeal to all readers interested in Latin literature, Roman cultural history, poetic theology, and the epic and tragic traditions from antiquity to modernity.

"This dictionary brings together in one volume information on Byron's work, life and times. Areas covered include his poetry and prose; authors and works known to him; genres, forms, styles; his life, biographers and incarnations on stage and screen; manuscripts and editions; historical, social and cultural contexts; and his influence on other art"--Provided by publisher.

This important new verse translation (with introduction and commentary) of the third-century BC poet Callimachus will be indispensable to the serious student, and to all who want to understand why he was rated by the ancients as second to none but Homer.

If the urban imagination has been traditionally masculine, this book shifts attention to the role of the city and its processes of mutual transformation in poetry by women writers. By turns challenging, rebellious, utopian and sceptical, some of the most richly experimental poetry is currently being written by women. This book offers readings of their work informed by theorizations of the city, as well as looking at how their innovations in language and form enable new visions of urban space. It addresses key issues in the imagining of the contemporary city and its global relationships, including changing understandings of the body and embodied space in technologized urban environments and the role of cohabiting languages in creating new forms of polis.

Ever since the papyrus containing Alcman's Partheneion was first published in 1863, classicists have been faced with one of the hardest riddles of their scholarship. Although the language was more or less clear, the meaning of many verses and the character of the poem remained elusive. Therefore it is not surprising that during the century and a half that has elapsed since then, a large bibliography has piled up, disproportionate to the mere 101 surviving verses of the enigmatic poem. This book presents a verse-by-verse commentary to the text with a number of new textual and interpretative proposals based on a detailed inspection of the papyrus. Numerous new readings are made in particular to the Scholia to the Partheneion, greatly elucidating not only questions of interpretation but also problems concerning the composition of the chorus, the number of its members, the identity of the protagonist girls, the social context, as well as questions of performance. The girlish story that lurks in the background but actually forms the framework of the poem now becomes more clear, revealing at the same time the didactic objective of the poet. A new edition of the Partheneion and the Scholia is offered at the end, together with a new translation of the poem.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms expands the scope of modernism beyond its traditional focus to explore the contributions of artists from regions like Spain, the Balkans, China, Japan, India, Vietnam, and Nigeria. Together, these essays offer the most comprehensive worldwide examination of modernist studies available. Topics covered include: Richard Wright and photographic modernism; poetry of the Caribbean; Chinese modernism and Lu Xun's Ah Q-The Real Story; Ben Okri and magical realism; aesthetic autonomy in Paris, Italy, Russia; Cuba's avant-gardes; geography of Hebrew and Yiddish modernism in Europe; Japanese modernism in works by Kitagawa Fuyuhiko and Yokomitsu Riichi; and South African cinema.

Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558-1640 is the first modern study of the production and circulation of manuscripts during the English Renaissance. H. R. Woudhuysen examines the relationship between manuscript and print, looks at people who lived by their pens, and surveys authorial and scribal manuscripts, paying particular attention to the copying of verse, plays, and scholarly works by hand. He investigates the professional production of manuscripts for sale by scribes such as Ralph Crane and Richard Robinson. The second part of the book examines Sir Philip Sidney's works in the context of Woudhuysen's research, discussing all Sidney's important manuscripts, and seeks to assess his part in the circulation of his works and his role in the promotion of a scribal culture. A detailed examination of the manuscripts and early prints of his poems, of his Arcadias, and of Astrophil and Stella sheds new light on their composition, evolution, and dissemination, as well as on Sidney's friends and admirers. Based on the examination of hundreds of manuscripts, this book presents much new material describing manuscript production in the fields of literature, politics, the law, and historical, scientific, and antiquarian studies.

Following the Formula in Beowulf, OErvar-Odds saga, and Tolkien proposes that Beowulf was composed according to a formula. Michael Fox imagines the process that generated the poem and provides a model for reading it, extending this model to investigate formula in a half-line, a fitt, a digression, and a story-pattern or folktale, including the Old-Norse Icelandic OErvar-Odds saga. Fox also explores how J. R. R. Tolkien used the same formula to write Sellic Spell and The Hobbit. This investigation uncovers relationships between oral and literate composition, between mechanistic composition and author, and between listening and reading audiences, arguing for a contemporary relevance for Beowulf in thinking about the creative process.

This book asserts that Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) was a major precursor of W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939), and shows how Wilde's image and intellect set in train a powerful influence within Yeats's creative imagination that remained active throughout the poet's life. The intellectual concepts, metaphysical speculations and artistic symbols and images which Yeats appropriated from Wilde changed the poet's perspective and informed the imaginative system of beliefs that Yeats formulated as the basis of his dramatic and poetic work. Section One, 'Influence and Identity' (1888 - 1895), explores the personal relationship of these two writers, their nationality and historical context as factors in influence. Section Two, 'Mask and Image' (1888 - 1917), traces the creative process leading to Yeats's construction of the antithetical mask, and his ideas on image, in relation to the role of Wilde as his precursor. Finally, 'Salome: Symbolism, Dance and Theories of Being' (1891 - 1939) concentrates on the immense influence that Wilde's symbolist play, Salome, wrought on Yeats's imaginative work and creative sensibility.

This book traces the development of hypermetric verse in Old English and compares it to the cognate traditions of Old Norse and Old Saxon. The study illustrates the inherent flexibility of the hypermetric line and shows how poets were able to manipulate this flexibility in different contexts for different practical and rhetorical purposes. This mode of analysis is therefore able to show what degree of control the poets had over the traditional alliterative line, what effects they were able to produce with various stylistic choices, and how attention to poetic style can aid in literary analysis.

Defying critical suggestions that the pastoral elegy is obsolete, Iain Twiddy reveals the popularity of the form in the work of major contemporary poets Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Paul Muldoon, Michael Longley, Douglas Dunn and Peter Reading. As Twiddy outlines the development of the form, he identifies its characteristics and functions. But more importantly his study accounts for the enduring appeal of the pastoral elegy, why poets look to its conventions during times of personal distress and social disharmony, and how it allows them to recover from grief, loss and destruction. Informed by current debates and contemporary theories of mourning, Twiddy discusses themes of war and peace, social pastoral and environmental change, draws on the enduring influence of both Classical and Romantic poetics and explores poets' changing relationships with pastoral elegy throughout their careers. The result is a study that demonstrates why the pastoral elegy is still a flourishing and dynamic form in contemporary British and Irish poetry.

Exam Board: Pearson Edexcel Level: AS/A-level Subject: English literature First teaching: September 2015 First exams: Summer 2016 (AS); Summer 2017 (A-level) Enable students to achieve their best grade with this Pearson Edexcel AS/A-level English literature guide, designed to instil in-depth textual understanding as students read, analyse and revise the Poems of the Decade anthology throughout the course. This Study and Revise guide: - Increases students' knowledge of the Poems of the Decade anthology as they progress through the detailed commentary and contextual information written by experienced teachers and examiners - Develops understanding of characterisation, themes, form, structure and language, equipping students with a rich bank of textual examples to enhance their coursework and exam responses - Builds critical and analytical skills through challenging, thought-provoking questions and tasks that encourage students to form their own personal responses to the poems - Extends learning and prepares students for higher-level study by introducing critical viewpoints, comparative references to other literary works and suggestions for independent research - Helps students maximise their exam potential using clear explanations of the Assessment Objectives, sample student answers and examiner insights - Improves students' extended writing techniques through targeted advice on planning and structuring a successful essay

This collection traces the intersection between writing and intoxication, from the literary to the theoretical, exploring a diversity of experiences of excess. Comprising a variety of perspectives, this book offers unique insights into how politics and literature have been shaped by states of intoxication.

In these odes Horace creates lyric poetry in Latin which stands comparison with anything written by his brilliant predecessors in Greek. Of the three books published together in 23 BC the second is in many ways the most rewarding. The first ode, for instance, looks back at the civil wars fought by Caesar and Pompey, and by Octavian and Antony, from the point of view of Horace and his friend Pollio who both took part in them. There are also poems of friendship which give insight into the social and intellectual tone of the age of the first Roman emperor Augustus, and Horace's unique, elusive sense of humour is in evidence throughout. This book contains the Latin text (from the Oxford Classical Text), a translation which attempts to be close to the Latin while catching as much as possible of the flavour of the original, and a commentary which tries to suggest how these poems work as poetry.

This is the first commentary on Lucretius' theory of atomic motion, one of the most difficult and technical parts of De rerum natura. The late Don Fowler sets new standards for Lucretian studies in his awesome command both of the ancient literary, philological, and philosophical background to this Latin Epicurean poem, and of the relevant modern scholarship.

For over seven centuries, Dante and his masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy," have held a special place in Western culture. The poem is at once a vivid journey through hell to heaven, a poignant love story, and a picture of humanity's relationship to God. It is so richly imaginative that a first reading can be bewildering. In response, Peter Hawkins has written an inspiring introduction to the poet, his greatest work, and its abiding influence. His knowledge of Dante and enthusiasm for his vision make him an expert guide for the willing reader.

Religious poetry has often been regarded as minor poetry and dismissed in large part because poetry is taken to require direct experience; whereas religious poetry is taken to be based on faith, that is, on second or third hand experience. The best methods of thinking about "experience" are given to us by phenomenology. Poetry and Revelation is the first study of religious poetry through a phenomenological lens, one that works with the distinction between manifestation (in which everything is made manifest) and revelation (in which the mystery is re-veiled as well as revealed). Providing a phenomenological investigation of a wide range of "religious poems", some medieval, some modern; some written in English, others written in European languages; some from America, some from Britain, and some from Australia, Kevin Hart provides a unique new way of thinking about religious poetry and the nature of revelation itself.

This book offers a comprehensive interpretation of the entire range of Tennyson's poetry, with emphasis on the great period up to and including In Memoriam, but also with chapters on Maud, the Idylls of the King, and the best of the later poems. Taking the view that every poem contains its own literary history, Dwight Culler traces Tennyson's evolving image of himself as a poet and the relation of this image to changing literary structures. He particularly emphasizes the "frame" device by which Tennyson first mediated between himself and the world and then, inverting it, placed himself in the world. He also explores the longer "composted" poem by which Tennyson declared himself a Victorian Alexandrian. Eschewing the autobiographical emphasis of recent years, Culler provides readings of Maud, Locksley Hall, The Palace of Art, Tithonus, and the Idylls of the King that depart significantly from previous interpretations. His sympathy for the Victorian element in Tennyson also recovers for modern taste several neglected areas of the poetry: the English Idylls, the civic poem, and the poems of social converse. Culler sees Tennyson's faith in the magical power of the word as the source of his gift and, when he loses that faith, the reason for its decline.

In 1953 African-American poet Langston Hughes began corresponding with several South African writers variously affiliated with the legendary "Drum" magazine. Published here for the first time, these letters provide an invaluable glimpse into the growing repression of South African apartheid and the slow but painful progress of the American Civil Rights movement. Revealing a fascinating set of transatlantic friendships between a titan of American letters and a group of writers that includes Peter Clarke, Todd Matshikiza, Bloke Modisane, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Peter Abrahams, and Richard Rive, this volume highlights Hughes’s enormous influence on the rise of English-language literature by black and mixed-race writers in South Africa.

In a follow-up to his previous Homeric studies, noted classicist Paolo Vivante explores Homer's verse, highlighting rhythm rather than metre. Rhythmical qualities, he argues, constitute the force of the verse-for example, in the way the words take position and in the way each pause hints suspense, producing an immediate sense of time. Vivante's main concern is not with the techniques or rules of the verse-composition, but more philosophically with verse itself as a fundamental form of human expression. This study will be of interest to both students and scholars.

Romanticism and the Rural Community investigates the representation of the rural village and country town in a range of Romantic texts. The proper organisation of rural communities was central to political and social debates at the turn of the eighteenth century, and featured strongly in 1790s political polemic. This book considers works by Jane Austen, Robert Burns, John Clare and William Wordsworth, as well as less well-known writers (Robert Bloomfield, George Crabbe and Ebenezer Elliott). It is informed by ideas derived from recent study of communitarian social development and the role of human links and networks in sustaining adaptable community structures. Through its focus on the search for local solutions to what were perceived to be large-scale or national problems of sustainability, the book is relevant to recent developments in eco-criticism within Romantic studies. It also links into the ongoing contemporary debate about the make-up and function of rural communities.