"Herbert's work in twentieth-century letters . . . rivals that of W. H. Auden or Elizabeth Bishop in its originality, imaginative breadth and humane vigilance." — The Washington PostA New York Times Notable Book of the YearThis outstanding new translation brings a uniformity of voice to Zbigniew Herbert's entire poetic output, from his first book of poems, String of Light, in 1956, to his final volume, previously un...

“One of the finest and most original writers…and one of the greatest Polish writers of [the 20th] century. [Herbert] is a figure comparable to, say, T. S. Eliot or W. H. Auden.”—Edward Hirsch, The New YorkerPolish essayist, poet, and spiritual leader of his nation’s anti-Communist movement, the late Zbigniew Herbert is a literary giant whose writings are revered throughout Europe and the world. A companion volume to the author’s Collected Poems (Ecco 2007), Collected Prose ...

From one of Poland's most acclaimed poets comes a new collection of poems and plays spanning almost five decades and translated for the first time.Encapsulating the prolific work of the poet and playwright Zbigniew Herbert, Reconstruction of the Poet is both a celebration of a profound life of letters and a wide-ranging collection of never-before-published work that casts new light on a much-loved poet. Spanning from 1950 to 1998, this volume of work conta...

From one of Poland's most acclaimed poets comes a new collection of poems and plays spanning almost five decades and translated for the first time.Encapsulating the prolific work of the poet and playwright Zbigniew Herbert, Reconstruction of the Poet is both a celebration of a profound life of letters and a wide-ranging collection of work never published before that casts a new light on a much loved poet. Spanning 1950-1998, Reconstruction of the Poet

This essay collection by the revered public intellectual displays his " profound erudition, lively wit, and passion for ideas of all shapes and sizes" ( Booklist).In these fourteen essays, Umberto Eco examines many of the ideas that have inspired his provocative and illuminating fiction. From the title essay—a disquisition of the notion that every country needs an enemy—he takes readers on an exploration of lost islands, mythical realms, a...

A Wild Peculiar Joy is Irving Layton’s poetic testament. Hailed as the great lyric poet, Irving Layton has come to be known as one of Canada’s most powerful, groundbreaking voices, an important and influential writer whose distinguished career spanned almost forty-five years. By turns passionate and grave, joyous and apocalyptic, his beautifully crafted poems are illuminated by a strong social and political conscience, and an intensely humanistic view of the world. This i...

Osip Mandelstam is one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets and Voronezh Notebooks, a sequence of poems composed between 1935 and 1937 when he was living in internal exile in the Soviet city of Voronezh, is his last and most exploratory work. Meditating on death and survival, on power and poetry, on marriage, madness, friendship, and memory, challenging Stalin between lines that are full of the sights and sounds of the steppes, blue sky and black earth, the roads, winter bre...

Osip Mandelstam, who died anonymously in a Siberian transit-camp in 1938, is now generally considered to be among the four or five greatest Russian poets of the twentieth century. The essays in this volume, presented in an exceptionally scrupulous and true translation, were selected because they represent Mandelstam's major poetic themes and his thought on literature, language and culture, and the work and place of the poet. Mandelstam's views on literature are profound and original, and t...

**A poignant collection of Osip Mandelshtam's poetry, full of a piercing nostalgia for a better world and bearing bitter witness to the cruelty of Stalin's Russia.“Probably the greatest Russian poet of this century.” – The New York Times**Osip Mandelshtam, arguably the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century, died in a Stalinist prison camp at the age of 47. It was not his first arrest - he had already been imprisoned multiple times, as well as tortured, exiled, ...

The last published work of a great poet who wrote a few lines attacking Stalin and was shortly thereafter exiled to Siberia where he died near Vladivostok six years later. An inimitable volume, Journey to Armenia is a travel book in name only.Osip Mandelstam visited Armenia in 1930, and during the eight months of his stay, he rediscovered his poetic voice and was inspired to write an experimental meditation on the country and its ancient culture.Th...

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late...

The heroic Greek dramas that have moved theatergoers and readers since the fifth century B.C.Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, the three plays that tell the story of the fated Theban royal family—Antigone, Oedipus the King and *Oedipus at Colonus—*are among the most enduring and timeless dramas ever written. Robert Fagles's authoritative and acclaimed translation conveys all of Sophocles's lucidity and power: the cut and thrust of his dialogue, his ...