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The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural histor...

The School of Life offers radical ways to help us raid the treasure trove of human knowledge' Independent on SundayFriedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, poet and cultural critic. He is best known for his controversial idea of 'life affirmation' that challenged traditional morality and all doctrines. Born in 1844 outside Leipzig, Germany, his teachings inspired people in all walks of life, from dancers and poets to psychologists and social revolutionaries. Here you ...

What is Romanticism? In this Very Short Introduction Michael Ferber answers this by considering who the romantics were and looks at what they had in common -- their ideas, beliefs, commitments, and tastes. He looks at the birth and growth of Romanticism throughout Europe and the Americas, and examines various types of Romantic literature, music, painting, religion, and philosophy. Focusing on topics, Ferber looks at the 'Sensibility' movement, which preceded Romanticism; ...

Many books have sought to introduce the writings of the infamous and influential philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, but Get Over Yourself puts matters the other way round. Rather than simply explaining his thought, it instead asks: what would Nietzsche make of us? What would he think of our 21st-century, digital age? In our time of identity politics, therapy culture, 'safe spaces', religious fundamentalism, virtue-signalling, Twitterstorms, public emoting, 'dumbing-down', digital addiction ...

From one of the country's most eminent reviewers and academics, a delightfully sceptical and devastatingly intelligent assessment of the true value of art.

These lectures were delivered by Seamus Heaney while he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. In the first of them, Heaney discusses and celebrates poetry's special ability to redress spiritual balance and to function as a counterweight to hostile and oppressive forces in the world. He proceeds to explore how this 'redress' manifests itself in a diverse range of poems and poets, including Christopher Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander', 'The Midnight Court' by the eighteenth-century Irish...

Poetry, arguably, has a greater range of conceptual meaning than perhaps any other term in English. At the most basic level everyone can recognise it--it is a kind of literature that uses special linguistic devices of organization and expression for aesthetic effect. However, far grander claims have been made for poetry than this--such as Shelley's that the poets 'are the unacknowledged legislators of the world', and that poetry is 'a higher truth'. In this Very Short Introduction...

Does humour make us human, or do the cats and dogs laugh along with us? On Humour is a fascinating, beautifully written and funny book on what humour can tell us about being human. Simon Critchley skilfully probes some of the most perennial but least understood aspects of humour, such as our tendency to laugh at animals and our bodies, why we mock death with comedy and why we think it's funny when people act like machines. He also looks at the darker side of humour, as rife in sex...

Romanticism was a revolutionary intellectual and artistic movement which generated some of the most popular and influential texts in British and American literary history. This clear and engaging guide introduces the history, major writers and critical issues of this crucial era. This fully updated second edition includes:Discussion of a broad range of writers including William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, H.D. T...

This set comprises of 40 volumes covering nineteenth and twentieth century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes.This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.

Poetry has never been so rigorous and diverse, nor has its audience been so numerous and engaged. Strong words? Not if the poets are right. As Ezra Pound wrote: ‘You would think that anyone wanting to know about poetry would go to someone who knew something about it.’ That’s exactly what Bloodaxe has done with this judicious and comprehensive selection of British, Irish and American manifestos by some of modern poetry’s finest practitioners.Opening the 20th century account with Ezr...

Now appearing in its third edition, Martin Stephen's classic text and course companion to English literature has been thoroughly revised and updated, taking account of the changes which have occurred in the subject since publication of the second edition.