This critical study explores the relationship between Hopkins' poetic art and his philosophy and shows why Hopkins' poetry has endured. Sean Sheehan is the author of a study of anarchism and of a guide to Wittgenstein.

Jack Sheehan was one of eleven children born into an impoverished farming family on the Sheep's Head peninsula in southwest Ireland. Growing up in hungry times, he stayed on the farm all his eighty-three years, taking it over when his father died and steadfastly caring for its fields through the dormant 1950s and the better times that came in the decades that followed. He lived to see the eclipse of his farming world and to view with dismay the way encroaching property speculators and consumerism were changing the nature of his landscape. Jack Sheehan was born just as the Irish state was coming into existence and his life is as revealing of that country's history as the more familiar accounts of national figures. "Jack's World's" is illustrated in colour with specially commissioned photographs taken by three people, Danny Gralton, Ciaran Watson and Danny Levy Sheehan, who all knew Jack and know his farm. The book is also illustrated with maps, including one showing the farm's fields and their Irish names that were preserved by Jack, and photographs of early documents relating to his farm's history. The book's unique sources, in addition to the memories of friends and family who knew Jack and shared aspects of his world, include diaries kept by Jack from the early 1930s onwards.

The ancient world of fifth century Greece, an astonishing period of cultural development that helps situate the originality of Socrates, and to the city-state of Athens in particular. The social, political and cultural currents flowing through Athens are inseparable from an understanding of the events and attitudes that Socrates examined and intellectually dissected.

The poetry of Tony Harrison is discussed from his early work in the 1970s through to poems on the legacy of the two Gulf Wars, and his status as Britain's greatest living poet is affirmed.

Described as the Mona Lisa of literature and the world's first detective story, Sophocles' Oedipus the King is a major text from the ancient Greek world and an iconic work of world literature. Aristotle's favourite play, lauded by him as the exemplary Athenian tragedy, Oedipus the King has retained its power both on and off the stage. Before Freud's famous interpretation of the play - an appropriation, some might say - Hlderlin and Nietzsche recognised its unique qualities. Its literary worth is undiminished, philosophers revel in its probing into issues of freedom and necessity and Lacan has ensured its vital significance for post-Freudian psychoanalysis. This Reader's Guide begins with Oedipus as a figure from Greek mythology before focusing on fifth-century Athenian tragedy and the meaning of the drama as it develops scene by scene on the stage. The book covers the afterlife of the play in depth and provides a comprehensive guide to further reading for students.

This is an essential overview of this influential Greek drama, enabling students to confidently read the play in depth and understand its unique cultural status. Described as the Mona Lisa literature and the world's first detective story, Sophocles' "Oedipus the King" is a major text from the ancient Greek world and an iconic work of world literature. Aristotle's favourite play, lauded by him as the exemplary Athenian tragedy, "Oedipus the King" has retained its power both on and off the stage. Before Freud's famous interpretation of the play - an appropriation, some might say - Holderlin and Nietzsche recognised its unique qualities. Its literary worth is undiminished, philosophers revel in its probing into issues of freedom and necessity and Lacan has ensured its vital significance for post-Freudian psychoanalysis. This "Reader's Guide" begins with "Oedipus" as a figure from Greek mythology before focusing on fifth-century Athenian tragedy and the meaning of the drama as it develops scene by scene on the stage. The book covers the afterlife of the play in depth and provides a comprehensive guide to further reading for students. "Continuum Reader's Guides" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to key texts in literature and philosophy. Each book explores the themes, context, criticism and influence of key works, providing a practical introduction to close reading, guiding students towards a thorough understanding of the text. They provide an essential, up-to-date resource, ideal for undergraduate students.

One of the most widely-read thinkers writing today, Slavoj Zizeks work can be both thrilling and perplexing in equal measure. Zizek: A Guide for the Perplexed is the most up-to-date guide available for readers struggling to master the ideas of this hugely influential thinker. Unpacking the philosophical references that fill Zizeks writings, the book explores his influences, including Lacan, Kant, Hegel and Marx. From there, a chapter on Reading Zizek guides the reader through the ways that he applies these core theoretical concepts in key texts like Tarrying With the Negative, The Ticklish Subject and The Parrallax View and in his books about popular culture like Looking Awry and Enjoy Your Symptom! Major secondary writings and films featuring Zizek are also covered.

This is a student-friendly guide enabling the new reader of "Ulysses" to understand, analyse and appreciate the most famous, and famously 'difficult', novel of the twentieth century. "Ulysses" remains less widely read than most texts boasting such a canonical status, largely due to misunderstanding about how to read it, and this guide provides an easy-to-follow remedy. By showing how Joyce reacted to the historical and cultural context in which he was situated, the radical nature of his use of language is laid bare in a chapter-by-chapter analysis of "Ulysses". This approach enables the student reader to read and enjoy the novel's plurality of styles and to understand the terms of critical debate surrounding the nature and significance of Joyce's novel. Continuum "Reader's Guides" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to key texts in literature and philosophy. Each book explores the themes, context, criticism and influence of key works, providing a practical introduction to close reading, guiding students towards a thorough understanding of the text. They provide an essential, up-to-date resource, ideal for undergraduate students.

Modern scholarship judges Herodotus to be a more complex writer than his past readers supposed. His Histories is now being read in ways that are seemingly incompatible if not contradictory. This volume interrogates the various ways the text of the Histories has been and can be read by scholars: as the seminal text of our Ur-historian, as ethnology, literary art and fable. Our readings can bring out various guises of Herodotus himself: an author with the eye of a travel writer and the mind of an investigative journalist; a globalist, enlightened but superstitious; a rambling storyteller but a prose stylist; the so-called 'father of history' but in antiquity also labelled the 'father of lies'; both geographer and gossipmonger; both entertainer and an author whom social and cultural historians read and admire. Guiding students chapter-by-chapter through approaches as fascinating and often surprising as the original itself, Sean Sheehan goes beyond conventional Herodotus introductions and instead looks at the various interpretations of the work, which themselves shed light on the original. With text boxes highlighting key topics and indices of passages, this volume is an essential guide for students whether reading Herodotus for the first time, or returning to revisit this crucial text for later research.

Modern scholarship judges Herodotus to be a more complex writer than his past readers supposed. His Histories is now being read in ways that are seemingly incompatible if not contradictory. This volume interrogates the various ways the text of the Histories has been and can be read by scholars: as the seminal text of our Ur-historian, as ethnology, literary art and fable. Our readings can bring out various guises of Herodotus himself: an author with the eye of a travel writer and the mind of an investigative journalist; a globalist, enlightened but superstitious; a rambling storyteller but a prose stylist; the so-called 'father of history' but in antiquity also labelled the 'father of lies'; both geographer and gossipmonger; both entertainer and an author whom social and cultural historians read and admire. Guiding students chapter-by-chapter through approaches as fascinating and often surprising as the original itself, Sean Sheehan goes beyond conventional Herodotus introductions and instead looks at the various interpretations of the work, which themselves shed light on the original. With text boxes highlighting key topics and indices of passages, this volume is an essential guide for students whether reading Herodotus for the first time, or returning to revisit this crucial text for later research.

One of the most widely-read thinkers writing today, Slavoj Zizek's work can be both thrilling and perplexing in equal measure. Zizek: A Guide for the Perplexed is the most up-to-date guide available for readers struggling to master the ideas of this hugely influential thinker. Unpacking the philosophical references that fill Zizek's writings, the book explores his influences, including Lacan, Kant, Hegel and Marx. From there, a chapter on 'Reading Zizek' guides the reader through the ways that he applies these core theoretical concepts in key texts like Tarrying With the Negative, The Ticklish Subject and The Parrallax View and in his books about popular culture like Looking Awry and Enjoy Your Symptom! Major secondary writings and films featuring Zizek are also covered.

"Views of Lenin" are currently set in a tone of highly judgemental opinion: he was inflexible, doctrinaire and a cold-blooded revolutionary. A man whose indifference to culture led to political extremes, paving the way for his successor Stalin's totalitarianism and some of the most heinous and gruesome ideological crimes committed during the 20th century. Enshrined as an icon of Soviet ideology and power, the statues of Lenin that were once a common sight across Eastern Europe and Russia have been toppled and his reputation crumbled into the dust of historical memory. This short "Life & Times" biography of Lenin sets out to examine his legacy in the light of the complete and total collapse of the ideology he espoused. Sheehan seeks to separate the myth from the fact, and let the real Lenin emerge from behind the opposing shrouds of deification and condemnation, revealing the creator of the 20th century's most influential yet bloodthirsty beliefs.

"U""lysses "remains less widely read than most texts boasting such a canonical status, largely due to misunderstanding about how to read it, and this guide provides an easy to follow remedy. By showing how Joyce reacted to the historical and cultural context in which he was situated, the radical nature of his use of language is laid bare in a chapter-by-chapter analysis of "Ulysses. "This approach enables the student reader to read and enjoy the novel's plurality of styles and to understand the terms of critical debate surrounding the nature and significance of Joyce's novel.