Category: English Literature

By Ann L. Ardis

Ann Ardis questions generally held perspectives of radical modernism on the flip of the 20 th century. She depicts the "men of 1914," (as Wyndham Lewis known as the coterie of writers based round Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce) as just one between a couple of teams rationale on redefining the cultural targets of British literature on the flip of the 20 th century. concurrently, Ardis reclaims key examples of non-modernist aesthetic attempt linked to British socialism and feminism of the interval.

By Roger Luckhurst

Within the iciness of 1922-23 archaeologist Howard Carter and his filthy rich shopper George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, sensationally opened the tomb of Tutenkhamen. Six weeks later Herbert, the sponsor of the excursion, died in Egypt. the preferred press went wild with rumours of a curse on those that disturbed the Pharaoh's relaxation and for years each twist and switch of the destiny of the boys who have been serious about the historical discovery. lengthy brushed aside by way of Egyptologists, the mummy's curse continues to be part of well known supernatural trust. Roger Luckhurst explores why the parable has captured the British mind's eye around the centuries, and the way it has impacted on pop culture.

Tutankhamen used to be no longer the 1st curse tale to emerge in British pop culture. This booklet uncovers the 'true' tales of 2 impressive Victorian gents largely believed on the time to were cursed by means of the artefacts they introduced domestic from Egypt within the 19th century. those are extraordinary tales that weave jointly a solid of recognized writers, painters, feted squaddies, lowly smugglers, revered males of technology, disreputable society dames, and spooky spiritualists. concentrating on stories of the curse delusion, Roger Luckhurst leads us via Victorian museums, foreign exhibitions, inner most collections, the battlefields of Egypt and Sudan, and the writings of figures like Arthur Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard and Algernon Blackwood. Written in an open and available sort, this quantity is the made from over ten years learn in London's such a lot curious information. It explores how we turned fascinated by Egypt and the way this fascination used to be fuelled by way of fable, secret, and hearsay. furthermore, it offers a brand new and startling course throughout the cultural historical past of Victorian England and its colonial possessions.

Top recognized at the present time for the cutting edge satire and experimental narrative of Tristram Shandy (1759-67), Laurence Sterne was once no much less well-known in his time for A Sentimental trip (1768) and for his arguable sermons. Sterne spent a lot of his lifestyles as an vague clergyman in rural Yorkshire. yet he brilliantly exploited the feeling accomplished with the 1st instalment of Tristram Shandy to develop into, by means of his loss of life in 1768, a trendy big name throughout Europe. during this better half, specifically commissioned essays by way of top students offer an authoritative and available consultant to Sterne's writings of their ancient and cultural context. Exploring key matters in his paintings, together with sentimentalism, nationwide identification, gender, print tradition and visible tradition, in addition to his next effect on a number very important literary pursuits and modes, the ebook bargains a finished new account of Sterne's existence and paintings.

By Nicholas Grene

Nicholas Grene explores Yeats's poetic codes of perform, the major phrases and behavior of speech that form the examining adventure of his poetry. the place earlier stories have sought to decode his paintings, expounding its symbolic meanings by means of references to Yeats's occult ideals, philosophical rules or political ideology, the point of interest this is on his poetic strategy, its regular types and their implications for the knowledge of the poems. Grene is worried with the particular stylistic signatures of the Collected Poems: using dates and position names inside of person poems; the dealing with of demonstratives and of grammatical stressful and temper; yes nodal Yeatsian phrases ("dream," "bitter," "sweet") and pictures (birds and beasts); discussion and monologue because the voices of his dramatic lyrics. the purpose all through is to demonstrate the moving and volatile circulation among lived fact and transcendental concept in Yeats, the embodied caliber of his poetry among a lovely international of sight and an imagined international of vision.

By Randall Martin

This ebook offers the 1st complete learn of over one hundred twenty revealed information experiences of murders and infanticides devoted via early glossy ladies. It deals an interdisciplinary research of woman murder in post-Reformation information codecs starting from ballads to newspapers. person circumstances are illuminated on the subject of altering felony, non secular, and political contexts, in addition to the dynamic development of business crime-news and readership.

This booklet examines fictional representations of India in novels, performs and poetry produced among the years 1772 to 1823 as old resource fabric. It makes use of literary texts as case experiences to enquire how Britons dwelling either within the metropole and in India justified, faced and imagined the colonial stumble upon in this interval.

This research offers with the interval in Hardy's existence whilst he was once contemplating a occupation within the Church. via studying files, determining priests, and learning their writings, together with sermons, the writer has reconstructed those an important years in Hardy's existence. The publication charts Hardy's deceptive distortions of his early non secular sympathies, chronicling his shut institutions with opposing extremes of trust, earlier than studying his eventual adoption of a apparently idiosyncratic agnosticism.

By Natalie Pollard

Speaking to You examines our pleasures in, debts of, and makes use of for British poetry this day. It explores the paintings of 4 vital poets writing post-1960--Don Paterson, Geoffrey Hill, W.S. Graham, and C.H. Sissons--in order to teach how modern British poetry's inventive dealing with of addresses to 'you' are key in its interactions with readers, critics, fanatics, editors, fellow poets, and deceased forebears.

The publication lays out basically, in 4 sections that target person writers, how asserting 'you' operates in modern poetry. It exhibits how lyric deal with is sure up with poetry's skill to please, circulation and tease its public. It places deal with into discussion with quite a number universal literary figures around the a while - particularly particular Modernist, Romantic, early sleek, and Classical poets - that may be well-known to students and traditional readers alike.

From John Donne to Carol Ann Duffy, T.S. Eliot to Philip Larkin, Keats to Tony Harrison, handle has been key in developing political and private identities. This e-book argues that, for modern poets - like that of those canonical writers - tackle is persuasive public interlocution; challenging 'you' reconsider neighborhood and old allegiances.