Judaic cultures have a commitment to language that is exceptional. Language in many form – texts, books and scrolls; learning, interpretation, material practices that generate material practices – are central to Judaic conduct, experience, and spirituality. In this Judaic traditions differ from philosophical and theological ones that make language secondary. Traditional metaphysics has privileged the immaterial and unchanging, as unchanging truth that language can at best convey and at worst distort. Such traditional metaphysics has come under critique since Nietzsche in ways that the author explores. Shira Wolosky argues that Judaic traditions converge with contemporary metaphysical critique rather than being its target. Focusing on the work of Derrida, Levinas, Scholem and others, the author examines traditions of Judaic interpretation against backgrounds of biblical exegesis; sign-theory as it recasts language meaning in ways that concord with Judaic textuality; negative theology as it differs in Judaic tradition from those which negate language itself; and lastly outline a discourse ethics that draws on Judaic language theory. This study is directed to students and scholars of: Judaic thought, religious studies and theology; theory of interpretation; Levinas and other modern Jewish philosophical writers, placing them in broader contexts of philosophy, theology, and language theory. It is shown how Jewish discourses on language address urgent problems of value and norms in the contemporary world that has challenged traditional anchors of truth and meaning.

Although the Bible is the foundation of American poetic tradition, there is no study of the Bible as an ongoing force in American poetry. Not only a source of imagery, allusion, rhythm and style, the Bible is central to how poetry has both shaped and been shaped by American civic, political, and social history, including issues of ethnicity, race and gender. Through poetry core issues of the Bible in American culture emerge in a new light. What defines America as a nation? What are its historical, political and religious meanings and direction? Vitally, how is it that the Bible is at once a shared common text, binding community, and yet was throughout American culture also contested, disputed, and politicized as a weapon of war? This study begins with the Puritans, and goes on to examine poetry of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as claims and counterclaims in abolition, slavery, and women’s rights. In doing so it treats both popular and major writers, including Edward Taylor, Frances Harper, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Moore and Gwendoln Brooks, concluding with Amanda Gorman.

Handbooks, guides, and articles on the Harry Potter books have been produced, but there is as yet no sustained discussion of the series as a literary work. Shira Wolosky shows here that the Harry Potter books take part in a rich literary tradition, including allegorical double meanings, mirror images among characters, psychological explorations of family dynamics, political and social critique, and complex moral questions. This book draws readers into deeper meanings of Harry Potter, arguing that the books launch and pursue interpretive quests in an ongoing effort to understand patterns and their attendant meanings, implications, and consequences.

Defying traditional definitions of public and private as gendered terms, and broadening discussion of women's writing in relation to feminist work done in other fields, this study addresses American women's poetry from the seventeenth to late-twentieth century. Engaging the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, history, political theory, religious culture, cultural studies, and poetics, this study provides entry into some of the founding feminist discussions across disciplines, moving beyond current scholarship to pursue an interpretation of feminism's defining interests and assumptions in the context of women's writing. The author emphasizes and explores how women's writing expresses their active participation in community and civic life, emerging from and shaping a woman's selfhood as constituted through relationships, not only on the personal level, but as forming community commitments. This distinctive formation of the self finds expression in women's voices and other poetic forms of expression, with the aesthetic power of poetry itself bringing different arenas of human experience to bear on each other in mutual interrogation and reflection. Women poets have addressed the public world, directly or through a variety of poetic structures and figures, and in doing so they have defined and expressed specific forms of selfhood engaged in and committed to communal life.

Defying traditional definitions of public and private as gendered terms, and broadening discussion of women's writing in relation to feminist work done in other fields, this study addresses American women's poetry from the seventeenth to late-twentieth century. Engaging the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, history, political theory, religious culture, cultural studies, and poetics, this study provides entry into some of the founding feminist discussions across disciplines, moving beyond current scholarship to pursue an interpretation of feminism's defining interests and assumptions in the context of women's writing. The author emphasizes and explores how women's writing expresses their active participation in community and civic life, emerging from and shaping a woman's selfhood as constituted through relationships, not only on the personal level, but as forming community commitments. This distinctive formation of the self finds expression in women's voices and other poetic forms of expression, with the aesthetic power of poetry itself bringing different arenas of human experience to bear on each other in mutual interrogation and reflection. Women poets have addressed the public world, directly or through a variety of poetic structures and figures, and in doing so they have defined and expressed specific forms of selfhood engaged in and committed to communal life.

The Art of Poetry offers a step-by-step introduction to skills for reading poetry, working progressively from smaller units to larger ones. It introduces the reader to great lyric poets in the English and American tradition, and offers a vision of poetry as dynamic, historical, and culturally engaged. In fourteen chapters, the author explores such fundamental poetic topics as word choice, syntax, imagery, the sonnet, conventions, meter, and rhythm, providing examples of each.

The Riddles of Harry Potter draws readers into the deeper meanings of these phenomenally successful books, arguing that they launch and pursue interpretive quests in an ongoing effort to understand patterns and their attendant meanings, implications, and consequences.

This book examines an ambivalence to language deeply rooted in Western culture, as seen in the writings of Eliot, Beckett, and Celan, and in the context of age-old metaphysical biases against body, history, time, and the mundane as these continue to shape our system of values and moral commitments..

In The Art of Poetry, Shira Wolosky provides a dazzling introduction to an art whose emphasis on verbal music, wordplay, and dodging the merely literal makes it at once the most beguiling and most challenging of literary forms.
A uniquely comprehensive, step-by-step introduction to poetic form, The Art of Poetry moves progressively from smaller units such as the word, line, and image, to larger features such as verse forms and voice. In fourteen engaging, beautifully written chapters, Wolosky explores in depth how poetry does what it does while offering brilliant readings of some of the finest lyric poetry in the English and American traditions. Both readers new to poetry and poetry veterans will be moved and enlightened as Wolosky interprets work by William Shakespeare, John Donne, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, and others. The book includes a superb two-chapter discussion of the sonnet's form and history, and represents the first poetry guide to introduce gender as a basic element of analysis.
In contrast to many existing guides, which focus on selected formal aspects like metrics or present definitions and examples in a handbook format, The Art of Poetry covers the full landscape of poetry's subtle art while showing readers how to comprehend a poetic text in all its dimensions. Other special features include Wolosky's consideration of historical background for the developments she discusses, and the way her book is designed to acquaint or reacquaint readers with the core of the lyric tradition in English.
Lively, accessible, and original, The Art of Poetry will be a rich source of inspiration for students, general readers, and those who teach poetry.