Gregory Dart expands upon existing notions of Cockneys and the 'Cockney School' in the late Romantic period by exploring some of the broader ramifications of the phenomenon in art and periodical literature. He argues that the term was not confined to discussion of the Leigh Hunt circle, but was fast becoming a way of gesturing towards everything in modern metropolitan life that seemed discrepant and disturbing. Covering the ground between Romanticism and Victorianism, Dart presents Cockney...

Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material. - ;'You can leave a forest, but you can never leave a cloister; you are free in the forest, but yo...

"A splendid edition: it incorporates the most recent modern scholarship ... and it does so within a compass and format that is both readable and usable." - Around the GlobeMacbeth is one of Shakespeare's most performed and studied tragedies. This Arden Shakespeare Third Series edition offers students detailed on-page commentary notes highlighting meaning and theatrical ideas and themes, as well as an illustrated, lengthy introduction setting the p...

The Elizabethans took from the Middle Ages the modified view of the universe which, Platonic and biblical in origin, radically differed from our own. For them all creation was ranged in an unalterable order from the angels down to man - for whom the world existed - and thence to the beasts and plants. In this short study Dr Tillyard not only elucidates such fairly familiar - though often mystifying - concepts as the four elements, the celestial harmony of 'nine enfolded Sphears', or macroc...

INTRODUCTION BY GERMAINE GREERShakespeare's sonnets are lyrical, haunting, beautiful and often breath-taking, representing one of the finest bodies of poetry ever penned. They demonstrate the writer's skill in capturing the full range of human emotions within a carefully prescribed form and creating something unique in every one. Some are familiar - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? - others unexpected, but together they form an extraordinary meditation on the nature...

Revising traditional 'rise of the nation-state' narratives, this collection explores the development of and interactions among various forms of local, national, and transnational identities and affiliations during the long eighteenth century. By treating place as historically contingent and socially constructed, this volume examines how Britons experienced and related to a landscape altered by agricultural and industrial modernization, political and religious reform, migration, and the bui...

In late-sixteenth-century London, the commercial theaters undertook a novel experiment, fueling a fashion for plays that trafficked in the contemporary urban scene. But beyond the stage’s representing the everyday activities of the expanding metropolis, its unprecedented urban turn introduced a new dimension into theatrical experience, opening up a reflexive space within which an increasingly diverse population might begin to “practice” the city. In this, the London stage began to operate ...

A comparative reference guide to Shakespeare's grammar, based on a complete revision of an extremely elderly but still much-cited volume, Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar, first published in 1869 and still regarded by default as an essential component of Shakespeare research. This volume meets the identified need for an authoritative and systematic grammar of Shakespeare which takes account both of current linguistic developments and of the current state of knowledge about Early Modern Engli...

A comprehensive critical analysis of the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors. This volume focuses on Shakespeare's reception by Bradley, Greg and Folger.

This Festschrift honours the dedicated book historian and medievalist Gabriele Müller-Oberhäuser. Her wide-ranging scholarly expertise has encouraged and influenced many adepts of the book. The essays in this volume reflect the variety of her interests: The contributions range from Chaucer’s Fürstenspiegel to the value of books in comedy, from the material book to the magical book in religious and literary cultures, from collaborative efforts in manuscript production to the relati...

This is the first full-length critical study of country house entertainment, a genre central to late Elizabethan politics. It shows how the short plays staged for the Queen at country estates like Kenilworth Castle and Elvetham shaped literary trends and intervened in political debates, including whether women made good politicians and what roles the church and local culture should play in definitions of England. In performance and print, country house entertainments facilitated political ...

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) was a highly regarded printer and influential novelist when he produced his final work of fiction, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Like his other novels, it was written in epistolary form, reflecting his lifelong interest in letter writing and the letter as a genre. Covering the period 1750–1754, many of these fully annotated letters are published from manuscript for the first time, or have been restored to their complete original form. Recording ...