Chris Stamatakis reappraises Sir Thomas Wyatt (c.1504-1542) as a poetic innovator from the literary avant-garde of early Tudor England. He discusses Wyatt's reflections on the writing process, and his awareness of how words can be turned in new directions - that is, rewritten, amended, transformed, manipulated, even performed - over the course of a text's production, transmission, and reception. Where previous studies have read Wyatt's poetry from a largely biographical standpoint, this book examines the reading practices of his Tudor audiences and editors, and it considers the different types of textuality shown by the manuscript collections that contain his verse. By setting Wyatt's writings in the context of sixteenth-century theories of language and literary practice, and by drawing on early Tudor educational, rhetorical, and courtierly handbooks, Stamatakis examines the rhetoric of rewriting that colours Wyatt's texts. Repeatedly, his writings invite readers to 'turn' or perform the word-to draw out something that lies inert within it. These habits of rewriting and verbal performance often serve to sustain an intimate dialogue between writers and readers in this literary culture. The book pays particular attention to the fascinating materiality of Wyatt's texts: the margins around, and the interlinear spaces within, his poems are regularly filled with new text-handwritten scrawls that are supplied by Wyatt himself or by his copyists, editors and readers. Chapters are devoted to the types of rewriting found in each of Wyatt's main genres: Plutarchian essays; forensic apologias; psalm paraphrases; letters and verse epistles, and lyrics or 'balets'. Two appendices offer further detail about patterns of manuscript transmission and the copying of Wyatt's poems. Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Rhetoric of Rewriting argues that reading often shaded into writing (and rewriting) in the early sixteenth century, and it shows how acts of apparent copying often transformed texts inventively and imaginatively.

Chaucerotics examines the erotic language in Chaucerian literature through a unique lens, utilizing the tools of "pornographic literary theory" to open up Chaucer's ribald poetry to fresh modes of analysis. By introducing and applying the notion of "Chaucerotics," this study argues for a more historically-nuanced and theoretically-sophisticated understanding of the obscene content in Chaucer's fabliaux and Troilus and Criseyde. This book demonstrates that the sexually suggestive language of this magisterial Middle English poet could stimulate and titillate various literary audiences in late medieval England, and even goes so far as to suggest that Chaucer might well be understood as the "Father of English pornography" for playing a notable, liminal role in the development of porn as a literary genre. In making this case, Geoffrey W. Gust presents an insightful account of an important intellectual issue and opens up the subject of premodern pornography to consideration in a way that is new and highly provocative.

This collection of essays reassesses the importance of verse as a medium in the long eighteenth century, and as an invitation for readers to explore many of the less familiar figures dealt with, alongside the received names of the standard criticism of the period.

Lizette Woodworth Reese was a professional, independent woman from the time she left high school in 1873. She began her teaching career that year and published her first poem in Baltimore's Southern Magazine in 1874. She taught for 45 years in the public schools of Baltimore. Her poetry and her readings of it were particularly popular in women's roups throughout the United States. She was one of the founders of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore and its chairman of poetry until her death in 1935. In April, 1931 she was named Poet Laureate of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. In that same month, she was iven an honorary doctorate of literature by Goucher College which called her one of the greatest living women in America. In her lifetime, Reese was internationally admired for her poetic genius and hailed by H.L. Mencken as one of the most distinguished poets in the United States. This volume is the first extensive collection of her poems since her Selected Poems was published in 1926. The volume begins with a short biographical sketch of the poet and includes some 250 of her poems. The poems are arranged into sections illustrating some of her major themes: nature, love, remembrance, faith, family, history, and literature. An eighth section contains a complete narrative poem, Little Henrietta, about the life and death of a young girl. Introductory comments help to place Reese in the continuum of American poetry and to indicate her influence on succeeding generations of poets. The book also includes an extensive bibliography and a subject index.

While the sociology of literary translation is well-established, and even flourishing, the same cannot be said for the sociology of poetry translation. Sociologies of Poetry Translation features scholars who address poetry translation from sociological perspectives in order to catalyze new methods of investigating poetry translation. This book makes the case for a move from the singular 'sociology of poetry translation' to the pluralist 'sociologies', in order to account for the rich variety of approaches that are currently emerging to deal with poetry translation. It also aims to bridge the gap between the 'cultural turn' and the 'sociological turn' in Translation Studies, with the range of contributions showcasing the rich diversity of approaches to analysing poetry translation from socio-cultural, socio-historical, socio-political and micro-social perspectives. Contributors draw on theorists including Pierre Bourdieu and Niklas Luhmann and assess poetry translation from and/or into Catalan, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish. A wide range of topics are featured in the book including: trends in poetry translation in the modern global book market; the commissioning and publishing of poetry translations in the United States of America; modern English-language translations of Dante; women poet-translators in mid-19th century Ireland; translations of Russian poetry anthologies into modern English; the translation of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in post-colonial Tanzania and socialist Czechoslovakia; translations and translators of Italian poetry into 20th and 21st century Sweden; modern European poet-translators; and collaborative writing between prominent English and Spanish poet-translators.

A major work of Latin literature, Tristia 2 is a verse letter addressed by the exiled poet Ovid to the man who banished him from Rome, the emperor Augustus. Ovid apologizes to Augustus for the misdemeanours that led to his banishment, but, more importantly, defends both his life and his poetry in light of the accusation that his earlier Ars amatoria (The Art of Love) had promoted adultery. Jennifer Ingleheart's commentary, the most up-to-date and comprehensive one available, is an invaluable guide to all aspects of the poem - textual, literary, historical, and political - while her Introduction explores, among other topics, its ironical and subversive aspects.

Edward Thomas, professional author and critic, was thirty-nine when he was killed in the Arras offensive on Easter Day, 1917. Six months later his first collection of poems was published and his literary reputation secured. These Selected Letters present a uniquely vivid portrait of Thomas's life, from his time as an undergraduate at Oxford through to his final days at the Front. Chosen from more than 2,000 extant letters from Thomas to his family and literary friends - including Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare, and Eleanor Farjeon - the selection traces his struggle to establish himself as a writer, his long and successful fight against depression, and, amid the strain of a marriage which sometimes brought much agony, the strength of his love for his wife Helen. The letters, which formed a key source for R George Thomas's highly praised biography of a poet, help substantiate the editor's belief that despite Thomas's immense prose output and the late flowering of his verse in 1914-1916, it was nevertheless the name and nature of poetry that was Edward Thomas's dominant lifelong concern.

A great deal of excellent poetry was composed in Scotland in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1603, when James Stewart became also king of England and Ireland, several Scottish poets moved to London, and commented on events at Court. Others preferred to remain in their homeland, at a distance from the metropolis; and some who had gone south soon returned home. In addition to the perennial themes of love and religion, attention was given to topics such as national identity, foreign travel, civil society, monarchy, the good life, friendship, retreat, and the nature and language of literature itself. Poets faced the political and cultural challenges inherent in the novel concept of Great Britain in a variety of ways, and the thistle and the rose bloomed together in the Jacobean garden of verses.

The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio is one of the most discussed sources for the Norman Conquest of England. Its authorship and date cannot be established entirely beyond dispute, but the weight of scholarly opinion supports a date of composition of 1068 or earlier, by Guy, bishop of Amiens, thus making it the earliest surviving account. Whatever its date, the Carmen remains a source of intrinsic interest and importance, and one used by some of the great chroniclers of the period, such as Orderic Vitalis. It is an epic poem, concerned with some of the most momentous events of a remarkable year, in which Halley's comet was a disturbing portent of undisclosed disasters. For this second edition, Frank Barlow has written an entirely new and substantial historical introduction, incorporating the scholarly research of a generation. He has also provided a fresh translation and notes, as well as revising the Latin text of the 1972 edition by Catherine Morton and Hope Muntz.

How does irony affect the evaluation and perception of the First World War both then and now? "Irony and the Poetry of the First World War "traces one of the major features of war poetry from the author's application as a means of disguise, criticism or psychological therapy to its perception and interpretation by the reader.

This study reads Auden's poetry and plays through the shifts from modernism to postmodernism. It analyzes the experiments in Auden's writings for their engagement with crucial contemporary problems: that of the individual in relation to others, loved ones, community, society, but also transcendental truths. It shows that, rather than providing firm answers, Auden's poetry emphasizes the absence of certainties. Yet far from becoming nihilistic, it generates hope, affection, and most importantly, an ethical challenge of responsibility out of its discoveries.

This book offers a timely examination of the relationship between Shakespeare and contemporary digital media. By focusing upon a variety of 'Shakespearean' individuals, groups and communities and their 'online' presence, the book explores the role of popular internet culture in the ongoing adaptation of Shakespeare's plays and his general cultural standing. The description of certain performers as 'Shakespearean' is a ubiquitous but often throwaway assessment. However, a study of 'Shakespearean' actors within a broader cultural context reveals much, not only about the mutable face of British culture (popular and 'highbrow') but also about national identity and commerce. These performers share an online space with the other major focus of the book: the fans and digital content creators whose engagement with the Shakespearean marks them out as more than just audiences and consumers; they become producers and critics. Ultimately, Digital Shakespeareans moves beyond the theatrical history focus of related works to consider the role of digital culture and technology in shaping Shakespeare's contemporary adaptive legacy and the means by which we engage with it.

A surprising number of Victorian scientists wrote poetry. Many came to science as children through such games as the spinning-top, soap-bubbles and mathematical puzzles, and this playfulness carried through to both their professional work and writing of lyrical and satirical verse. This is the first study of an oddly neglected body of work that offers a unique record of the nature and cultures of Victorian science. Such figures as the physicist James Clerk Maxwell toy with ideas of nonsense, as through their poetry they strive to delineate the boundaries of the new professional science and discover the nature of scientific creativity. Also considering Edward Lear, Daniel Brown finds the Victorian renaissances in research science and nonsense literature to be curiously interrelated. Whereas science and literature studies have mostly focused upon canonical literary figures, this original and important book conversely explores the uses literature was put to by eminent Victorian scientists.

This study shows how poets worked within and against the available forms of nature writing to challenge their place within physical, political, and cultural landscapes. Looking at the treatment of different ecosystems, it argues that writing about the environment allowed labouring-class poets to explore important social and aesthetic questions.

Famed and outspoken Russian poet, Maximilian Voloshin's notoriety has grown steadily since his slow release from Soviet censorship. For the first time, Landa showcases his vast poetic contributions, proving his words to be an overlooked solution both to the political and cultural turmoil engulfing the Soviet Union in the early twentieth century.

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), perhaps best known as a dramatic theorist, is an important but extremely difficult writer. This book studies the development of his thinking, from the early texts of the 1920s through to the acclaimed but lesser known 1940s writings, on such issues as the body, theology, language, identity and the search for an elusive and unsayable self-presence, and then uses this as a framework in which to read his late texts. New attention is paid to the processes by which his texts generate meanings, the logics that hold these meanings together, and the internal contradictions of the late poetry. This allows a new picture to emerge that accounts for the coherent if unequal development of his ideas as well as the drive towards systematization to be found in even his most opaque writings. By returning to the texts and focusing on the specific terms of Artaud's writing, as well as their gleeful resourcefulness and ludicity, it is argued that Artaud needs to be considered not as a contestatory psychotic but as a writer of the first magnitude.
Accessible to both scholar and newcomer, this illuminating and original study will refocus critical thought on both the development of Artaud's thinking and the significance of his oft-neglected later work.

Warren's major theme--whether man can live on a purely naturalistic level--is seen as a parallel to the major intellectual currents of American literature in the past 25 years.

Born in 1749, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the giants of world literature and the last European to embody the multi-faceted expertise of the Renaissance personality. Assembled to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death, the essays included here are appropriately written from a variety of perspectives-- literary, humanistic, and scientific. A genuinely interdisciplinary collection, this volume is witness to the powerful influence Goethe's works have had on a wide range of subjects from fiction, drama, and art to physics, psychology, and psychiatry. The collection also demonstrates the extent to which his ideas have transcended national boundaries, as well as historic ones.

A scholarly edition of poems by William Cowper. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

T. S. Eliot's lifelong quest for a world of the spirit is the theme of this book by leading Eliot scholar A. David Moody. The first four essays in the collection map Eliot's spiritual geography: the American taproot of his poetry, his profound engagement with the philosophy and religion of India, his near and yet detached relations with England, and his problematic cultivation of a European mind. At the centre of the collection is a study of the Latin poem Pervigilium Veneris, a fragment of which figures enigmatically in the concluding lines of The Waste Land. The third part of the collection is a set of five investigations of Eliot's poems, dealing particularly with The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets, and attending to how they express and shape what he called 'the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being'.

While glosses on Heaney's verse forms figure more or less in critical accounts of his poetry, this is the first book to take the craft of his art as its focus. Setting out a historically informed approach to poetic form, the book places Heaney's developing versification in the context of mid-century Anglo-American theories of metre and rhythm.

The thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose was a major bestseller - largely due to its robust treatment of 'natural' sexuality. Alastair Minnis's innovative study considers the ways in which Jean de Meun, in imitation of Ovid as understood within medieval scholarship, assumed the mock-mastership of love. The reception of the Rose is placed within the European history of literary criticism.

As the essays in this volume reveal, Keats's places could be comforting, familiar, grounding sites, but they were also shifting, uncanny, paradoxical spaces where the geographical comes into tension with the familial, the touristic with the medical, the metropolitan with the archipelagic. Collectively, the chapters in Keats's Places range from the claustrophobic stands of Guy's Hospital operating theatre to the boneshaking interior of the Southampton mail coach; from Highland crags to Hampstead Heath; from crowded city interiors to leafy suburban lanes. Offering new insights into the complex registrations of place and the poetic imagination, the contributors to this book explore how the significant places in John Keats's life helped to shape an authorial identity.