Are Taylor Swift’s lyrics works of literature?Clio Doyle has spent her career exploring that question. An award-winning academic and creator of the UK’s first university module on Taylor Swift and English Literature, she is also – unashamedly – a lifelong Swiftie. In From the Vault, she makes the passionate case that examining Swift’s lyrics through the lens of high art illuminates the complexity, ingenuity, and sheer pleasure of her songs.

Inspired by the verbal exuberance and richness of all that can be heard by audiences both on and off Shakespeare’s stages, Shakespeare’s Auditory Worlds examines such special listening situations as overhearing, eavesdropping, and asides. It breaks new ground by exploring the complex relationships between sound and sight, dialogue and blocking, dialects and other languages, re-voicings, and, finally, nonverbal or metaverbal relationships inherent in noise, sounds, and music, staging inters...

**A preeminent Harvard professor and poetry expert explains the artistry—and the celebrity—of Taylor Swift“This is an outstanding look at one of the world’s most beloved entertainers.”―Kirkus (starred)**Taylor Swift has become a peerless superstar, ceaselessly productive and internationally beloved. From her teen country debut to her Eras tour and beyond, Swift’s career and her creations have captivated and bewitched us, opening up new ways to see both her life and...

A keen, ardent celebration of unbridled female ambition in the work of Taylor Swift and Sylvia PlathIn The Slicks, Maggie Nelson positions culture-dominating pop superstar Taylor Swift and feminist cult icon Sylvia Plath as twin hosts of the female urge toward wanting hard, working hard, and pouring forth—and as twinned targets of patriarchy’s ancient urge to disparage, trivialize, and discipline creative work by women rooted in autobiography and abundance...

**National Book Critics Circle Award FinalistBest Book of Fall (Esquire) and a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 (Lit Hub)What Has Happened to Fiction in the Age of Platform Capitalism?**Since it was first launched in 1994, Amazon has changed the world of literature. The “Everything Store” has not just transformed how we buy books; it has affected what we buy, and even what we read. In Everything and Less, acclaimed critic Mark McGurl explores...

Reissued in a handsome A List edition, the largest collection of critical prose to date from world renowned author and poet Margaret Atwood, featuring an introduction by Lennie Goodings.Originally published in 1982, Second Words brings together fifty of Margaret Atwood’s finest essays and reviews spanning two decades, beginning in 1962, with an introduction and commentary by the author.With her incomparable wit and originality, Atwood discusses the...

Literary Analysis: The Basics is an insightful introduction to analysing a wide range of literary forms. Providing a clear outline of the methodologies employed in twenty-first century literary analysis, it introduces readers to the genres, canons, terms, issues, critical approaches, and contexts that affect the analysis of any text. It addresses such questions as:What counts as literature?Is analysis a dissection?How do gender, race, class and cu...

Build confidence in a range of key textual analysis techniques and skills with this practical companion, full of advice and guidance from experienced experts.- Build analysis techniques and skills through a range of strategies, serving as a useful companion throughout the course - from critical-thinking, referencing and citation and the development of a line of inquiry to reflecting on the writing process and constructing essays for Paper 1 and Paper 2- Devel...

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of How to Read Literature Like a Professor tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Thomas C. Foster's book.Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.This summary of How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster includes:Historical contextChapter-b...

From the apparently simple adaptation of a text into film, theatre or a new literary work, to the more complex appropriation of style or meaning, it is arguable that all texts are somehow connected to a network of existing texts and art forms. In this new edition Adaptation and Appropriation explores:multiple definitions and practices of adaptation and appropriationthe cultural and aesthetic politics behind the impulse to adaptthe global and local...

Essential and engaging essays about the joys and challenges of creative writing and teaching creative writing by a host of Canada’s leading writers.Writing Creative Writing is filled with thoughtful and entertaining essays on the joys and challenges of creative writing, the complexities of the creative writing classroom, the place of writing programs in the twenty-first century, and exciting strategies and exercises for writing and teaching different genre...

Pretentiousness is the engine oil of culture; the essential lubricant in the development of all arts, high, low, or middle.Pretentiousness is for anyone who has braved being different, whether that’s making a stand against artistic consensus or running the gauntlet of the last bus home dressed differently from everyone else. It’s an essential ingredient in pop music and high art. Why do we choose accusations of elitism over open-mindedness? What d...