Literary Criticism

Thomas Hardy's first love was always poetry. It was not until 1898, when he was fifty-eight years old, having already established his reputation with fourteen novels and over forty short stories, that his first book of poetry, Wessex Poems was published...

Treating ancient plays as living drama. Classical Greek drama is brought vividly to life in this series of new translations. Students are encouraged to engage with the text through detailed commentaries, including suggestions for discussion and analysis...

Can you get lost in a crowd? It is polite to stare at people walking past on the street? What differentiates the city of daylight and the nocturnal metropolis? What connects walking, philosophy and the big toe? Can we save the city - or ourselves - by...

Against the background of intellectual and political debates in France during the 1950s and 1960s, Daniel Just examines literary narratives and works of literary criticism arguing that these texts are more politically engaged than they may initially...

Bestselling novelist Alexander McCall Smith's charming account of how the poet W. H. Auden has helped guide his life-and how he might guide yours, tooWhen facing a moral dilemma, Isabel Dalhousie-Edinburgh philosopher, amateur detective, and title...

Through a series of theoretically informed readings, this book explores the uncanny effectivity of history in its seeming absence in canonical works by Burke, Wordsworth, Keats, and Baudelaire written in the shadow of the French Revolution and the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781621064848Author Stephen DuncombeFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Microcosm PublishingPublisher Microcosm Publishing

The virtual suppression of explicit ethical and evaluative discourse by current literary theory can be seen as the momentary triumph of a sceptical post Enlightenment reflective tradition over others vital to a full account of human and literary worth...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781910400616Author Gary DexterFormat HardbackPage Count 192Imprint Old Street PublishingPublisher Old Street Publishing

The literature of Ireland displays an exceptional richness and diversity - whether in Irish or English, by native Irish and Anglo-Irish writers or by outsiders like Edmund Spenser whose works were deeply imbued with the country in which he lived and...

This 2007 second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Dante is designed to provide an accessible introduction to Dante for students, teachers and general readers. The volume was fully updated and includes three new essays on Dante's works. The...

The beginning is both internal and external to the text it initiates, and that noncoincidence points to the text's vexed relation with its outside. Hence the nontrivial self-reflexivity of any textual beginning, which must bear witness to the...

Oxford Readings in Catullus is a collection of articles that represent a sampling of the most interesting and important work on Catullus from around 1950 to 2000, together with three very short pieces from the Renaissance. The readings, selected for...

South Africa's unique history has produced literatures in many languages, in both oral and written forms, reflecting the diversity in the cultural histories and experiences of its people. The Cambridge History offers a comprehensive, multi-authored...

Finalist, Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism Ezra Pound's Cathay (1915) is a masterpiece both of modernism and of world literature. The muscular precision of images that mark Pound's translations helped establish a modern style for American literature,...

First published in 1952, Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks is one of the most important anti-colonial works of the post-war period. It is both a profound critique of the conscious and unconcious ways in which colonialism brutalises the colonised and...

This book takes a look at the arc of the storyline in Harry Potter, digging below the surface to explore ethical, mythological, and religious meanings in J.K. Rowling's best-selling series. Why do we find ourselves so intrigued with the tale of Harry...

Now in its third edition, Feminist Literary Theory remains the most comprehensive, single volume introduction to a vital and diverse field Fully revised and updated to reflect changes in the field over the last decadeIncludes extracts from all the major...

From a devoted reader and lifelong bookseller, an eloquent and charming reflection on the singular importance of bookstoresDo we need bookstores in the twenty-first century? If so, what makes a good one? In this beautifully written book, Jeff Deutsch-the...

So many questions surround the key figures in the English literary canon, but most books focus on one aspect of an author's life or work, or limit themselves to a single critical approach. D. H. Lawrence is a comprehensive, user-friendly guide which:*...

Between 1829 and 1833 the first complete edition of Scott's fiction appeared, in 48 volumes issued one a month, each illustrated with two engravings, and with introductions and notes by Scott himself. The Magnum Opus, as it was familiarly called, was a...

Relating the blues to American social and literary history and to Afro-American expressive culture, Houston A. Baker, Jr., offers the basis for a broader study of American culture at its "vernacular" level. He shows how the "blues voice" and its economic...

Arabs have traditionally considered classical Arabic poetry, together with the Qur'an, as one of their supreme cultural accomplishments. Taking a comparatist approach, Jaroslav Stetkevych attempts in this book to integrate the classical Arabic lyric into...

2022 Eisner Award Winner for Best Academic/Scholarly Work Japanese comics, commonly known as manga, are a global sensation. Critics, scholars, and everyday readers have often viewed this artform through an Orientalist framework, treating manga as the...

Ranging from early medieval times to the present, this diverse collection explores the myriad ways in which literary texts are informed by their historical contexts. The thirty-one chapters draw on varied themes and perspectives to present stimulating...

A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA Telegraph Editor's ChoiceAn Evening Standard "Best Books about London" SelectionIn popular imagination, London is a city of fog. The classic London fogs, the thick yellow "pea-soupers," were born in the...

In The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski offer the first complete rendering of the Inklings' lives and works. Lewis maps the medieval mind, accepts Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, becomes a world-famous evangelist and...

Aiming in his translation for an English haunted and affected by the strangeness of the original, David Constantine offers a wealth of Heinrich von Kleist's key writings in this collection, the most ambitious of its kind.About the AuthorDavid Constantine...

'A remarkable book... the breadth and depth of research is astonishing' Emma Thompson 'An illuminating study... fascinating' Independent Hailed as a gay icon and pioneer of individualism, Oscar Wilde's insistence that 'there should be no law for...

The first volume in Philip Pullman's groundbreaking His Dark Materials trilogy, re-published in hardback with a stunning fine art cover. "Without this child, we shall all die." Lyra Belacqua and her animal...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780451214096Author Paul RocheFormat PaperbackPage Count 736Imprint Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.Publisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams)...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781940625508Author Fernando PessoaFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Contra Mundum PressPublisher Contra Mundum PressWeight(grams) 263gDimensions(mm)...

In 1500, as many as 99 out of 100 English women may have been illiterate, and girls of all social backgrounds were the objects of purposeful efforts to restrict their access to full literacy. Three centuries later, more than half of all English and...

Forensic Shakespeare illustrates Shakespeare's creative processes by revealing some of the intellectual materials out of which some of his most famous works were composed. Focusing on the narrative poem Lucrece, on four of his late Elizabethan plays --...

In the summer of 1818, John Keats and his friend, Charles Brown, headed north to Scotland on a walking tour to visit Burns country and the rugged, Romantic landscape beyond. They planned a route that would first take them through Northern England, the...

What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear--a world of wit, irony, and knowing...

What does the term "reading" mean? Matthew Rubery's exploration of the influence neurodivergence has on the ways individuals read asks us to consider that there may be no one definition. This alternative history of reading tells the stories of...

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780385473767Author Anna Deavere SmithFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Anchor BooksPublisher Random House USA Inc

The Dutch Courtesan is a riotous tragicomedy that explores the delights and perils afforded by Jacobean London. While Freevill, an educated young Englishman and the play's nominal hero, frolics in the city's streets, taverns and brothels, Franceschina,...