In this study, first published in 1983, Professor Smith makes the argument that although The Waste Land is analogous in form to a musical composition that it is actually made of its literary echoes. He calls these a ‘music of allusions’ and shows the resemblance of this music in its evocativeness to the technique of Mallarmé and the French symbolists. Smith also comments extensively on Eliot’s critical theories as they bear on The Waste Land and traces the development of ...

From the National Book Critics Circle Award–winning poet and critic: "A lovely book, full of joy and wisdom." — The Baltimore SunHow to Read a Poem is an unprecedented exploration of poetry, feeling, and human nature. In language at once acute and emotional, Edward Hirsch describes why poetry matters and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message can make a difference. In a marvelous reading of verse from around the world, including wo...

The bestselling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms provides clear and concise definitions of the most troublesome literary terms, from abjection to zeugma. It is an essential reference tool for students of literature in any language. Now expanded and in its fourth edition, it includes increased coverage of new terms from modern critical and theoretical movements, such as feminism, schools of American poetry, Spanish verse forms, life writing, and...

How you can enrich your life by becoming a more skillful and engaged reader of literatureWe are what we read, according to Robert DiYanni. Reading may delight us or move us; we may read for instruction or inspiration. But more than this, in reading we discover ourselves. We gain access to the lives of others, explore the limitless possibilities of human existence, develop our understanding of the world around us, and find respite from the hectic demands of everyday...

Sir Frank Kermode is acknowledged as one of the greatest critics of our time, renowned for the wit humanity and good sense of his writing. Pleasing Myself brings together the very best of his shorter pieces, on topics ranging from Donne and Yeats to modern art and money.

"The Waste Land", by T.S. Eliot, is conclusively regarded as "one of the most important poems of the 20th century" and a central text in Modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and the mantr...

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the twentieth century's most famous poet and its most influential literary arbiter, T.S. Eliot has long been thought to be an obscure and difficult poet--forbiddingly learned, maddeningly enigmatic. Now, in this brilliant exploration of T.S. Eliot's work, prize-winning poet Craig Raine reveals that, on the contrary, Eliot's poetry (and drama and criticism) can be seen as a unified and coherent body of work. Indeed, despite its manifest original...

Verse and drama have provided outlets for emotive expression and the creative impulse for centuries. Poignant, inspiring, and thought-provoking, plays and poems spoken or written in any language help reinterpret reality and evoke some of humanity’s most profound truths. The terms culled in this volume describe many of the most potent elements of language—those that venture beyond the realm of prose and invoke the power of cadence, lyricism, and drama to recount all aspects of the human con...

A stunning volume of epic breadth which connects the lives and works of over 300 English-language poets of the last 700 years.LIVES OF THE POETS traverses the landscapes of biography, form, cultural pressures and important historical moments to tell not just a history of English poetry, but the story of English as a language.'Astonishing' New York Times.'Deft critical judgements, lightness of touch, the ability both to examine minutely and to generalize bol...

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...

Victorian poetry was read and enjoyed by a much larger audience than is sometimes thought. Publication in widely-circulating periodicals, reprinting in book reviews, and excerpting in novels and essays ensured that major poets such as Tennyson, Browning, Hardy and Rossetti were household names, and they remain popular today. The Cambridge Introduction to Victorian Poetry provides an accessible overview of British poetry from 1830 to 1901, paying particular attention to its role in mass med...

Drawing on the latest developments in scholarship and criticism, The New Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot opens up fresh avenues of appreciation and inquiry to a global twenty-first century readership. Emphasizing major works and critical issues, this collection of newly commissioned essays from leading international scholars provides seven full chapters reassessing Eliot's poetry and drama; explores important contemporary critical issues that were previously untreated, such as the signi...