Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Taking into account recent developments in historical and ecological criticism, and incorporating fresh research into poetry and politics in the 1790s, the second edition of The Politics of Nature enlarges and updates Nicholas Roe's acclaimed study of Romanticism. Hitherto marginal figures are restored to prominence, and there is new material on William Wordsworth's radical years.
... Read more

Product Description
Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 2. please visit www.valdebooks.com for a full list of titles ... Read more

Product Description
Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature.This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students.Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts. ... Read more

Product Description
This book seeks to isolate the special factors that generate Wordsworth's greatness as a poet. Motivated by a dissatisfaction with the current trend toward New Historicism in Wordsworthian criticism, McFarland endeavors to qualify the social and political bias of that criticism by a renewed assertion of the poetic primacy of the personal and qualitative. Taking Marjorie Levinson's reading of "Tintern Abbey" as the book's starting point, McFarland sets forth a different way of approaching the poem, and then proceeds to an identification of "intensity" as the secret of Wordsworth's power. The permutations of that quality are illustrated by careful examinations of several other poems and Wordsworth's desiccation is seen as precisely the absence of intensity. McFarland then discusses the special way in which Wordsworth assumed the prophetic stance, which was essential to his poetic vision, and concludes with a discussion of The Borderers, which is shown to be a disposal chamber for the dark matter of the Wordsworthian cosmos. ... Read more

Product Description
The letters of William Wordsworth provide a unique and vivid portrait of the personality and concerns of the poet, one which belies his reputation as a romantic dreamer obsessed with his own genius.This new selection presents 162 complete letters--eight of which have never before been published--drawn from the new and enlarged edition of The letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth.The subject matter of the letters, and the correspondents themselves, are as varied as the poet's own interests and preoccupations: topics range from literature, art, religion, and politics, to the changing landscape of the Lakes, walks in the countryside, family affairs, and the troubles and triumphs of friends and neighbors--literary figures such as Coleridge and De Quincy as well as people from many different walks of life whose names would otherwise be unknown to us but whom the poet favored with an equally deep and loyal friendship. ... Read more

Product Description
"A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came, The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name . . ."—Coleridge, A Soliloquy of the full Moon, April 1802

Over a dramatic six-month period in 1802, William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, and the two Hutchinson sisters Sara and Mary formed a close-knit group whose members saw or wrote to one another constantly. Coleridge, whose marriage was collapsing, was in love with Sara, and Wordsworth was about to be married to Mary, who would be moving in beside Dorothy in their Grasmere cottage. Throughout this extraordinary period both poets worked on some of their finest and most familiar poems, Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode and Wordsworth's Immortality Ode. In this fascinating book, John Worthen recreates the group's intertwined lives and the effect they had on one another.

Drawing on the group's surviving letters, and poems, as well as Dorothy's diaries, Worthen throws new light on many old problems. He examines the prehistory of the events of 1802, the dynamics of the group between March and July, the summer of 1802, when Wordsworth and Dorothy visited Calais to see his ex-mistress and his daughter Caroline, and the wedding between Wordsworth and Mary in October of that year. In an epilogue he looks forward to the ways in which relationships changed during 1803, concentrating on a single day—11 January 1803—in the lives of the group.Amazon.com Review
British academic John Worthen gives a new spin to the oft-told tale of English Romanticism's best-known coterie. It's well known that William Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, that Samuel Taylor Coleridge hopelessly loved her sister Sara, and that Dorothy Wordsworth served as intimate friend to them all, not least her brother William. Worthen deepens our knowledge by closely analyzing every available document--diaries, letters, household accounts--from a pivotal six-month period in 1802 when Coleridge wrote "Dejection: An Ode" and Wordsworth began work on one of his most famous poems, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality." Only by delving into the artists' daily lives, Worthen asserts in a thoughtful preface, can we truly understand the way their creativity fed off the natural world and their personal relationships. Taking critical issue with previous biographers (particularly Richard Holmes), whom he argues used source material very selectively to serve their own agendas, Worthen seeks a fairer, fuller view. He reminds us that the Wordsworths' highly unconventional lifestyle shocked many people other than Coleridge's soon-to-be-estranged wife, Sarah (better treated here than in many books on the period). He asserts that there is no documentation to suggest that Sara Hutchinson regarded Coleridge's declaration of adulterous love with anything but shock and horror, again reproving scholars who overread the evidence. Most crucially, Worthen makes clear the key importance of the interchange among Coleridge and the Wordsworth siblings, which shaped both men's poetry and placed Dorothy at the group's emotional center. The academic (though accessible) prose and dense lines of argument may intimidate casual readers, but this excellent study turns literary monuments back into human beings. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Product Description
In the third volume are the shorter poems composed between 1807 and 1820, including the Waterloo odes, the fourteen-book Prelude, all eight sonnet series and itinerary poems composed between 1820 and 1845, including The River Duddon, Ecclesiastical Sketches and Yarrow Revisited, poems from the Scottish and Italian tours, and Last Poems, the remaining poems composed between 1821 and 1851. ... Read more

Product Description
In Adam Sisman’s previous book, the award-winning Boswell’s Presumptuous Task, he inventively recounted the making of the most distinguished biography in the English language, James Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Now, with The Friendship, Sisman details the relationship of two of the most important Romantic poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The first modern biography to consider them together, The Friendship is a wonderfully readable account that evokes these two extraordinary personalities and situates them in their time, exploring the influence each writer had on the other, as well as providing glimpses of the creative process itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An outstanding book on Coleridge & Wordsworth
This is an account of the long relationship between Coleridge and Wordsworth. It is as well-written and thoroughly researched as anyone who has read Adam Sisman's biographies of Hugh Trevor-Roper and his book on James Boswell would expect. The Friendship is not only for those who read the two poets: though it covers their work and their other relationships (Coleridge's wife, his drugs and Dorothy Wordsworth in particular), it's for anyone who has an interest in early nineteenth-century England. ... Read more

Product Description
Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex Its lyricism, comedy (both broad and subtle) and magical transformations have long made A Midsummer Night s Dream one of the most popular of Shakespeare's works. The supernatural and the mundane, the illusory and the substantial, are all shimmeringly blended.Love is treated as tragic, poignant, absurd and farcical. 'Lord, what fools these mortals be!', jeers Robin Goodfellow; but the joke may be on him and on his master Oberon when Bottom the weaver, his head transformed into that of an ass, is embraced by the voluptuously amorous Titania. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
It's neither the best nor worst of Shakespeare's many comedies, but "A Midsummer Night's Dream" definitely holds one honor -- it's the most fantastical of his works. This airy little comedy is filled with fairies, spells, love potions and romantic mixups, with only the bland human lovers making things a little confusing (who's in love with whom again?).

As Athens prepares for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, the fusty Egeus is demanding that his daughter Hermia marry the man he's chosen for her, Demetrius. Her only other options are death or nunhood.

Since she's in love with a young man named Lysander (no, we never learn why her dad hates Lysander), Hermia refuses, and the two of them plot to escape Athens and marry elsewhere. But Helena, a girl who has been kicked to the curb by Demetrius, tips him off about their plans; he chases Hermia and Lysander into the woods, with Helena following him all the way. Are you confused yet?

But on this same night, the fairy king Oberon and his queen Titania are feuding over a little Indian boy. Oberon decides to use a magical "love juice" from a flower to cause some trouble for Titania by making her fall in love with some random weaver named Nick Bottom (whom his henchman Puck has turned into a donkey-headed man). He also decides to have Puck iron out the four lovers' romantic troubles with the same potion. But of course, hijinks ensue.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is another one of Shakespeare's plays that REALLY needs to be seen before it's read. Not only is it meant to be seen rather than read, but the tangle of romantic problems and hijinks are a little difficult to follow... okay, scratch that. They can be VERY difficult to follow, especially if you need to keep the four lovers straight.

But despite those small flaws, Shakespeare is in rare form here -- the story floats along in an enchanted haze of fairy magic, forest groves, and a love square that twists in on itself. And Shakespeare's lush, haunting poetry is absolutely lovely here ("With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine/There sleeps Titania sometime of the night/Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight...").

But he also packs it with plenty of hilarity -- not only is it funny to read about the haughty fairy queen fawning over a guy with a donkey head (Nick Bottom = "ass's head", get it?), but there's plenty of funny moments in the dialogue ("Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet...").

The four main lovers are relatively bland and interchangeable, and we never find out much about them except that Helena is kind of stalkerish and not too bright (she tips off the guy she likes that the girl HE likes is eloping so he can stop her?). The real draws are the fairy creatures -- Titania and Oberon are proud alien creatures filled with both cruelty and kindness, and Puck is delightfully mischievous and.... puckish.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a shimmering little concoction of magic, romantic mayhem and fairy squabbling. Absolutely stunning. ... Read more

Product Description
Each book in this established series contains the full and complete text, and is designed to motivate and encourage students who may be writing on these challenging writers for the first time. It contains useful notes to add depth and knowledge to students' understanding, comments to explain literacy and historical allusions, tasks to help students explore themes and issues, and suggestions for further reading. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more