Literary Criticism

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...

W. G. Sebald was a literary phenomenon: a German literary scholar working in England, who took up creative writing out of dissatisfaction with German post-war letters. Within only a few years, his unique prose books made him one of the most celebrated...

'...Rubinstein is far from innocent and comes to our aid with a lot of learning...and is quite right to urge that not to appreciate the sexiness of Shakespeare's language impoverishes our own understanding of him. For one thing, it was a strong element...

Marriage is the novel's traditional subject matter. But what happens to the novel when another genre of writing lays claim to the novel's traditional material? Primitive Marriage: Victorian Anthropology, the Novel, and Sexual Modernity shows how the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780470581780Author Nancy R. ReaginFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint John Wiley & Sons LtdPublisher Turner Publishing CompanyWeight(grams)...

There was no single 'Elizabethan stage'. Early modern actors exploited various opportunities for patronage and profit between the 1570s and 1642, whether touring, or performing at inns, in country houses, in purpose-built theatres, at court, at the...

This anthology of Sumerian literature constitutes the most comprehensive collection ever published, and includes examples of most of the different types of composition written in the language, from narrative myths and lyrical hymns to proverbs and love...

Shakespeare and Spenser: Attractive Opposites is a much-needed volume that brings together ten original papers by the experts, on the relations between Spenser and Shakespeare. There has been much noteworthy work on the linguistic borrowings of...

Surprising though it may seem, this is the first full-scale scholarly commentary in English on Virgil's Eclogues. Written between about 42 and 35 BC, these ten short pastorals are among the best known poems in Latin literature. They have inspired...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781847452689Author Sue SimsFormat PaperbackPage Count 232Imprint Girls Gone By PublishersPublisher Girls Gone By Publishers

In the first edition of this now-classic text, Richard Peterson offered an important revaluation of the poetry of Ben Jonson and a new appreciation of the way in which the classical doctrine of imitation-the creative use of the thoughts and words of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781405858199Author Jack DonovanFormat PaperbackPage Count 952Imprint LongmanPublisher Taylor & Francis Ltd

No literary figure of the past century - in America or perhaps in any other Western country - is comparable to Ezra Pound in the scope and depth of his exchange with China. To this day, scholars and students still find it puzzling that this influential...

Originally published in 1988. Selections here are organised chronologically looking at both theatrical commentary and literary criticism. The organisation brings out the shifts in emphasis as each generation reinvents Shakespeare, and Othello, by the...

The unprecedented popularity of the Harry Potter books took the publishing world by storm and captured the imaginations of readers around the world. This unofficial biographical study of J. K. Rowling invites fans and critics alike to take a close look...

In essays on literary images of lesbianism from Defoe and Diderot to Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes, on the homosexual reputation of Marie Antoinette, on the lesbian writings of Anne Lister, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Janet Flanner, and on Henry...

How to cultivate Greek heroes and athletes.In the writings of Philostratus (ca. AD 170-ca. 250), the renaissance of Greek literature in the second century AD reached its height. His Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of the Sophists, and Imagines...

Renowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London ... until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but...

Catalonia's towering Romantic poet and rebel priest, Jacint Verdaguer (1845-1902), delves deep into the Catalan imaginary in his foundational long poem Mount Canigo (1886), recounting the historical and legendary mix, bothtragic and triumphant, of the...

In Breathing Aesthetics Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and...

This sourcebook presents a wealth of material relating to every aspect of Roman spectacles, especially gladiatorial combat and chariot racing. Draws on the words of eye-witnesses and participants, as well as depictions of the games in mosaics and other...

In Paradise Lost, Adam asks, "Why do I overlive?" Adam's anguished question is the basis for a critical analysis of living too long as a neglected but central theme in Western tragic literature. Emily Wilson examines this experience in works by Milton...

A new Norton Anthology illuminates how literature can build character and foster critical-thinking skills for future leaders in business, law, politics, medicine, and beyond.About the AuthorElizabeth D. Samet received her BA from Harvard and her PhD in...

Maurice L?vy's book is a penetrating analysis of the themes running through the works of H. P. Lovecraft, the writer of horror and supernatural fiction. Broader than a thematic study, however, L?vy's analysis is unique in his use of Lovecraft's work as a...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsWinner of Man Booker International Prize 2007.Book InformationISBN 9780385414791Author Chinua AchebeFormat PaperbackPage Count 208Imprint Anchor BooksPublisher Random House...

Michael McKeon, author of The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, here assembles a collection of influential essays on the theory of the novel. Carefully chosen selections from Frye, Benjamin, Levi-Strauss, Lukacs, Bakhtin, and other prominent...

Elizabeth Gaskell is best known as a novelist and biographer, but she was also a lively and sensitive letter writer, with a vivacious interest in all that was going on around her.This selection from her letters, with a linking commentary provides a...

A Preface to Paradise Lost provides an interpretation of Milton's purpose in writing the epic.ReviewsAn essential work in understanding both the literary approach of C.S. Lewis and the theological assumptions of Paradise Lost. Unparalleled in its...

Robert A. Heinlein began publishing in the 1940s at the dawn of the Golden Age of science fiction, and today he is considered one of the genre's 'big three' alongside Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. His short stories were instrumental in developing...

This volume provides a broad analysis of the term 'discourse' and a thorough examination of the many theoretical assumptions surrounding it. In the revised edition of this invaluable guidebook, Sara Mills:*examines the historical definitions and...

The "Continuum Contemporaries" series is designed to be a source of ideas and inspiration for members of book clubs and reading groups, as well as for literature students at school, college and university. The series aims to give readers...

Robert Cummings's important new anthology offers in-depth annotation to a chronologically arranged selection from more than 50 poets writing between 1600 and 1700.About the AuthorRobert Cummings teaches at the University of Glasgow. He is author of ...

"[It] will move you across the globe and back in time." - Library Journal Europa Compass series - new format and covers For the readers of Mary Beard and Bethany Hughes (Re)discover the timeless beauty of ancient literature The classics...

This is an up-to-date readers guide to Atwood's contemporary classic covering contexts, themes and criticism. Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel "A Handmaid's Tale", engages the reader with a broad range of issues relating to power,...

Margaret Harkness is the first book to bring together research on the life and work of a writer, activist and traveller at the forefront of literary innovation and social change at the turn of the twentieth century. Its multidisciplinary approach...

Oxford Shakespeare Topics provides students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original...

This is an invaluable introductory guide for the English student who needs to decipher a page from a play, or a facsimile equivalent, from the Shakespearean period. The original quartos and folios of early play texts are increasingly subject to editorial...

This authoritative history of Latin literature offers a comprehensive survey of the thousand-year period from the origins of Latin as a written language to the early Middle Ages. At once a reference work, a bibliographic guide, a literary study, and a...

A look at how ideas of translation, migration, and displacement are embedded in the works of prominent artists, from Ovid to Tacita DeanOn Belonging and Not Belonging provides a sophisticated exploration of how themes of translation, migration, and...

Conversion disorder-a psychiatric term that names the enigmatic transformation of psychic energy into bodily manifestations-offers a way to rethink the present. With so many people suffering from unexplained bodily symptoms; with so many seeking recourse...