The Oxford Handbook of Andrew Marvell is the most comprehensive and informative collection of essays ever assembled dealing with the life and writings of the poet and politician Andrew Marvell (1621-78). Like his friend and colleague John Milton, Marvell is now seen as a dominant figure in the literary landscape of the mid-seventeenth century, producing a stunning oeuvre of poetry and prose either side of the Restoration. In the 1640s and 1650s he was the author of hypercanonical lyrics like 'To His Coy Mistress' and 'The Garden' as well as three epoch-defining poems about Oliver Cromwell. After 1660 he virtually invented the verse genre of state satire as well as becoming the most influential prose satirist of the day-in the process forging a long-lived reputation as an incorruptible patriot. Although Marvell himself was an intensely private and self-contained character, whose literary, religious, and political commitments are notoriously difficult to discern, the interdisciplinary contributions by an array of experts in the fields of seventeenth-century literature, history, and politics gathered together in the Handbook constitute a decisive step forward in our understanding of him. They offer a fully-rounded account of his life and writings, individual readings of his key works, considerations of his relations with his major contemporaries, and surveys of his rich and varied afterlives. Informed by the wealth of editorial and biographical work on Marvell that has been produced in the last twenty years, the volume is both a conspectus of the state of the art in Marvell studies and the springboard for future research.

"This book offers an exciting new approach to T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets as it shows why it should be read both closely and in relation to Eliot's other works, notably the poems The Waste Land, "The Hollow Men," and Ash-Wednesday. In Four Quartets, Incarnation is the universal, timeless pattern, the paradigmatic instance of which occurs in and as the Incarnation"--

Prepared in light of recent discoveries in the field, this is the first volume of a modern, four-volume edition of the Greek lyric fragments. The book presents fragments from Alcman, Stesichorus, and Ibycus, along with a preface, a brief exegetical commentary, and ancient testimonia relating to the poets' art and life. All of the text is in Latin or Greek.

Through its recovery of the metrical principles underlying the work of some of the century's major poets, this study highlights the intricacy of the relation between the "music" of verse and its meaning, and helping us to understand the way in which the ferment of metrical experiment eventually led to the emergence of free verse.

Aristotle's Poetics is one of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history. A penetrating, near-contemporary account of Greek tragedy, it demonstrates how the elements of plot, character and spectacle combine to produce 'pity and fear' - and why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process. It introduces the crucial concepts of mimesis ('imitation'), hamartia ('error') and katharsis, which have informed serious thinking about drama ever since. It examines the mythological heroes, idealized yet true to life, whom Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides brought on to the stage. And it explains how the most effective plays rely on complication and resolution, recognitions and reversals. Essential reading for all students of Greek literature and of the many Renaissance and post-Renaissance writers who consciously adopted Aristotle as a model, the Poetics is equally stimulating for anyone interested in theatre today.

Called by her contemporaries the "Tenth Muse," Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648-1695) has continued to stir both popular and scholarly imaginations. While generations of Mexican schoolchildren have memorized her satirical verses, only since the 1970s has her writing received consistent scholarly attention., focused on complexities of female authorship in the political, religious, and intellectual context of colonial New Spain. This volume examines those areas of scholarship that illuminate her work, including her status as an iconic figure in Latin American and Baroque letters, popular culture in Mexico and the United States, and feminism. By addressing the multiple frameworks through which to read her work, this research guide serves as a useful resource for scholars and students of the Baroque in Europe and Latin America, colonial Novohispanic religious institutions, and women's and gender studies. The chapters are distributed across four sections that deal broadly with different aspects of Sor Juana's life and work: institutional contexts (political, economic, religious, intellectual, and legal); reception history; literary genres; and directions for future research. Each section is designed to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the current state of the research on those topics and the academic debates within each field.

This book presents a theoretical and historicized reading of the production of the 'autonomous' subject in Milton's prose and in Paradise Lost. It rejects the current orthodoxy that liberal humanism is just a form of domination, and reads Milton's texts as revolutionary. Although Milton participates in the formation of discourses of sexuality, labour and the nature of reason which come to be normative, neither Milton's texts nor modernity more generally can be understood without also accepting the dynamism inherent in the belief in individual freedom.

First published in 1964, this volume remains the standard introduction to Pindar.

Through close readings of poems covering the span of Georg Trakl's lyric output, this study traces the evolution of his strangely mild and beautiful vision of the end of days. Like much German-language poetry of the years preceding the First World War, the poems of Georg Trakl (1887-1914) are imbued with a sense of historical crisis, but what sets his work apart is the mildness and restraint of his images of universal disintegration. Trakl typically couched his vision of the end of days in images of migrating birds, abandoned houses, and closing eyelids, making his poetry at once apocalyptic, rustic, and intimate. The argument made in this study is that this vision amounts to a unitary worldview with tightly interwoven affective, ethical, social, historical, and cosmological dimensions. Often termed hermetic and obscure, Trakl's poems become more accessible when viewed in relation to the evolution of his methods and concerns across different phases, and the idiosyncrasies of his strangely beautiful later works make sense as elements of a sophisticated system of expression committed to "truth" as a transcendental order. Through close readings of poems covering the span of his lyric output, this study traces the evolution of Trakl's distinctive style and themes while attending closely to biographical and cultural contexts.

What is "Wordsworthian" Romanticism and how did it evolve? This book argues that only by reading Charlotte Smith's poetry in tandem with William Wordsworth's can this question be answered, demonstrating their mutual contribution to the creation of the "Wordsworthian," through literary analysis and historical contextualizing of their writings.

This collection gives sustained attention to the literary dimensions of children's poetry from the eighteenth century to the present. While reasserting the importance of well-known voices, such as those of Isaac Watts, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, Christina Rossetti, A. A. Milne, and Carol Ann Duffy, the contributors also reflect on the aesthetic significance of landmark works by less frequently celebrated figures such as Richard Johnson, Ann and Jane Taylor, Cecil Frances Alexander and Michael Rosen. Scholarly treatment of children's poetry has tended to focus on its publication history rather than to explore what comprises - and why we delight in - its idiosyncratic pleasures. And yet arguments about how and why poetic language might appeal to the child are embroiled in the history of children's poetry, whether in Isaac Watts emphasising the didactic efficacy of "like sounds," William Blake and the Taylor sisters revelling in the beauty of semantic ambiguity, or the authors of nonsense verse jettisoning sense to thrill their readers with the sheer music of poetry. Alive to the ways in which recent debates both echo and repudiate those conducted in earlier periods, The Aesthetics of Children's Poetry investigates the stylistic and formal means through which children's poetry, in theory and in practice, negotiates the complicated demands we have made of it through the ages.

Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation spans the boundaries between literary studies and history. It looks at the impact of tyrannical government on the work of poets, playwrights, and prose writers of the early English Renaissance. It shows the profound effects that political oppression had on the literary production of the years from 1528 to 1547, and how English writers in turn strove to mitigate, redirect, and finally resist that oppression. The result was the destruction of a number of forms that had dominated the literary production of late-medieval England, but also the creation of new forms that were to dominate the writing of the following centuries. Paradoxically, the tyranny of Henry VIII gave birth to many modes of writing now seen to be characteristic of the English literary Renaissance.

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.

Exploring the diverse factors that persuaded Christopher Columbus that he could reach the fabled "East" by sailing west, Dante, Columbus and the Prophetic Tradition considers, first, the impact of Dante's Divine Comedy and the apocalyptic prophetic tradition that it reflects, on Columbus's perception both of the cosmos and the eschatological meaning of his journey to what he called an 'other world.' In so doing, the book considers how affinities between himself and the exiled poet might have led Columbus to see himself as a divinely appointed agent of the apocalypse and his enterprise as the realization of the spiritual journey chronicled in the Comedy. As part of this study, the book necessarily examines the cultural space that Dante's poem, its geography, cosmography and eschatology, enjoyed in late fifteenth century Spain as well as Columbus's own exposure to it. As it considers how Italian writers and artists of the late Renaissance and Counter Reformation received the news of Columbus' 'discovery' and appropriated the figure of Dante and the pseudo-prophecy of the Comedy to interpret its significance, the book examines how Tasso, Ariosto, Stradano and Stigliani, in particular, forge a link between Dante and Columbus to present the latter as an inheritor of an apostolic tradition that traces back to the Aeneid. It further highlights the extent to which Italian writers working in the context of the Counter Reformation, use a Dantean filter to propagate the notion of Columbus as a new Paul, that is, a divinely appointed apostle to the New World, and the Roman Church as the rightful emperor of the souls encountered there.

William Wordsworth: Interviews and Recollections collects and reprints, on a generous scale, selections from the texts of both immediately recorded opinions and characterizations that were written down in later years. Represented in this anthology are 22 of Wordsworth's most important contemporaries. With the exception of Shelley, they all knew Wordsworth personally. It was difficult, and perhaps impossible, for any of them to write neutrally or objectively about the impression that Wordsworth made on them. Their comments make for lively reading.

This critical volume addresses the question of Rabindranath Tagore's relevance for postmodern and postcolonial discourse in the twenty-first century. The volume includes contributions by leading contemporary scholars on Tagore and analyses Tagore's literature, music, theatre, aesthetics, politics and art against contemporary theoretical developments in postcolonial literature and social theory. The authors take up themes as varied as the implications of Tagore's educational vision for contemporary India; new theoretical interpretations of gender, queer elements, feminism and subalternism in Tagore's literary and social expressions; his language use as a vehicle for a dialogue between positivism, Orientalism and other constructs in the ongoing process of globalization; the nature of the influence of Tagore's music and literature on national and cultural identity formation, particularly in Bengal and Bangladesh; and intersubjectivity and critical modernity in Tagore's art. This volume opens up a space for Tagore's critique and his creative innovations in present theoretical engagements.

In Andre du Bouchet: Poetic Forms of Attention, Emma Wagstaff provides the first book-length study in English of this major poet of the second half of the twentieth century. She shows how Du Bouchet's rigorous and innovative creative and critical writing advances our understanding of attention. Du Bouchet is known as a post-war poet of the natural world and the space of the page. Far from just a solitary writer, however, he engaged with others through his work as editor, critic, and translator, and his involvement in the protests of May 1968. Emma Wagstaff shows how his writing demonstrates nuanced attention to language, time, nature, and art, and incites a 'slow' response on the part of the reader.

This Reader's Guide provides a timely critical overview that allows readers to orient themselves authoritatively in the rapidly-evolving field of contemporary British poetry. Focusing on key themes and issues, and a wide range of poets, the Guide captures the intersection between the historical and cultural contexts of critical debate today.

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.

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.

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.

Through discussion of the ways in which major Northern Irish poets (such as John Hewitt, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Louis MacNeice and Derek Mahon) have been influenced by America, this study shows how Northern Irish poetry overspills national borders, complicating and enriching itself through cross-cultural interaction and hybridity.

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.

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).