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One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is among the greatest poets to have written in the English language. He was a multi-talented writer, fascinated by the occult, an important dramatist, critic and autobiographer, with a career extending over more than fifty years. Professor Jeffares investigates the relationship between Yeats's life and his work. He considers the crucial moments as well as the famous relationships that changed Yeats's d...

This book offers the intelligent new reader a critically evaluative guide to Keats's major poems and letters, from a perspective which aims to counter the historical emphasis of recent critical work

The world knows more about secret North Korea than the free society of the South. As a peace summit heralded a new era for a country divided for 50 years, Jennifer Barclay searched for the spirit of South Korea, discovering a land full of passion, tradition and spirituality, good humour and great food. Jen quit her high-pressure job and followed her musician boyfriend to South Korea, where his band had a contract to play funk at a luxury hotel. But life in Seoul was lonely and bewildering. De...

An invaluable resource for all those waiting to discover the fascinating truth behind the legend of the Illuminati, Simon Cox's latest work examines the historical and scientific accuracy of Dan Brown's blockbuster Angels & Demons. Using a simple A-Z format, it provides the reader with vital background information and sheds intriguing new light on the many mysteries at the heart of the bestselling novel.

Here David Ellison explores the problems encountered by France's best experimental authors writing between 1956 and 1984, when faced with the question: "What should my writing be about?" These years are characterized by the rise of the "new novelists," who questioned the representational function of writing as they created works of imagination that turned in upon themselves and away from exterior reality. It became fashionable at one point to affirm that literature was no longer about the world...

Forgiveness was a preoccupation of writers in the Victorian period, bridging literatures highbrow and low, sacred and secular. Yet if forgiveness represented a common value and language, literary scholarship has often ignored the diverse meanings and practices behind this apparently uncomplicated value in the Victorian period. Forgiveness in Victorian Literature examines how eminent writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde wrestled with the religious and socia...

Changing perceptions about history necessarily color the critical reception of historical plays, not only in terms of expectations regarding historical accuracy, but also in judgments about the value and suitability of historicalmaterial for the stage. The German playwright, poet, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), often called the father of modern German drama, broke new ground with his late historical plays -- the Wallenstein trilogy, Maria Stuart, and Die Jungfrau von Orleans --...

Gendered Testimonies of the Holocaust: Writing Life begins with the premise that writing proves virtually synonymous with survival, bearing the traces of life and of death carried within those who survived the atrocities of the Nazis. In reading specific testimonies by survivor-writers Paul Celan, Charlotte Delbo, Olga Lengyel, Gisella Perl, and Dan Pagis, this text seeks to answer the question: How was it possible for these survivors to write about human destruction, if death is such an intimat...

A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c.1350-c.1500 challenges readers to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. A ground-breaking collection of newly-commissioned essays on medieval literature and culture. Encourages students to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. Reflects the erosion of the traditional, rigid boundary between medieval and early modern literature. Stresses the importance of...

Shawcross proposes that the many ambiguities surrounding Milton's dramatic poem Samson Agonistes are intentional: the actual words, the dates of composition, the genre, and the characters - particularly Samson and Dalila but including Manoa, Harapha, and the Chorus. Ambiguity also lies in Milton's presentation of political issues both philosophical and practical, his treatment of gender concepts, the constant questioning of the reader, and the poem's effect. Discussing all these elements, Shawcr...

Reiko Oya explores theatrical expressions of Shakespearean tragedy in Georgian London and the relations between the representative players of the time - David Garrick, John Philip Kemble and his sister Sarah Siddons, and Edmund Kean - and their close circle of friends. The book begins by analysing the tragic emotion that Garrick conveyed through his performance of King Lear, and the responses to it from such critics as Samuel Johnson and Elizabeth Montagu. The second chapter examines the concept...

Never affiliated with any group or school, Anne Stevenson grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was educated at the University of Michigan where, in 1954, she won a Major Hopwood Prize for poetry. Since 1964 she has lived in the United Kingdom where a restless career as a mother, teacher, bookseller, and skep-tical enthusiast for some poetry has produced many volumes of verse, a highly controversial biography of Sylvia Plath, and two critical introductions to the work of Elizabeth Bishop. Feminist...

Though individual prologues and epilogues have been treated in depth, very little scholarship has been published on early modern framing texts as a whole. The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama fills a gap in the literature by examining the origins of these texts, and investigating their growing importance and influence in the theatre of the period. This topic-led discussion of prologues and epilogues deals with the origins of these texts, the difficulty of definition, and the way in whi...