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The Cambridge Companion to John Drydenby Steven N. Zwicker
Cambridge University Press 2004; US$ 27.00John Dryden was one of the great literary figures of the late seventeenth century. This Companion provides a fresh look at the full range of Dryden's work in the context of his time, and includes a chronology of Dryden's life and times and a guide to further reading. more...
Macbethby William Shakespeare
The Floating Press 1753; US$ 3.95Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and one of his best-known plays. Often referred to as an archetypal tale, it warns against lust for power and the betrayal of friends. Shakespeare based the play loosely on a King Macbeth of Scotland. The play is traditionally considered "cursed", and thus many actors refer to it as "The Scottish Play" to avoid naming it. more...
Shakespeare's Sonnetsby William Shakespeare
The Floating Press 1753; US$ 4.95The Sonnets compiles 154 Sonnets written by Shakespeare on all manner of themes from love and fidelity to politics and lineage. Many of the sonnets - in particular the first 17, commonly called the procreation sonnets - were commissioned, a fact which calls a simple, romantic reading into question. more...
Much Ado about Nothingby William Shakespeare
The Floating Press 1753; US$ 3.95Shakespeare's comedy play Much Ado About Nothing pivots around the impediments to love for young betrothed Hero and Claudio when Hero is falsely accused of infidelity and the "lover's trap" set for the arrogant and assured Benedick who has sworn of marriage and his gentle adversary Beatrice. The merry war between Benedick and Beatrice with the promptings of their friends soon dissolves into farcical love, while Hero's supposed infidelity is shown to be little more... more...
The Alchemistby Ben Jonson
The Floating Press 1900; US$ 4.95Samuel Taylor Coleridge said of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist that it had one out of the three most perfect plots in literature. This play, with its sharp portrayal of human folly, is considered by many to be Jonson's best comedy. First performed 1610, its popularity has endured to this day. more...
The Canterbury Tales in Modern Verseby Geoffrey Chaucer; Joseph Glaser
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2005; US$ 8.95Readers of this witty and fluent new translation of The Canterbury Tales should find themselves turning page after page: by recasting Chaucer's ten-syllable couplets into eight-syllable lines, Joseph Glaser achieves a lighter, more rapid cadence than other translators, a four-beat rhythm well-established in the English poetic tradition up to Chaucer's time. Glaser's shortened lines make compelling reading and mirror the elegance and variety of Chaucer's verse to a degree rarely met by translations that copy Chaucer beat for beat. Moreover, this translation's full, Chaucerian range of diction?from earthy to Latinate?conveys the great scope of Chaucer's interests and effects. more...
Crime and Defoeby Lincoln B. Faller
Cambridge University Press 1993; US$ 29.00Lincoln Faller describes and discusses some of the ways in which Defoe's crime fiction relates to the ordinary, popular narrative form which it imitates. more...
The Oxford Shakespeareby William Shakespeare; Stanley Wells
OUP Oxford 2001; US$ 8.95The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers- a new, modern-spelling text, based on the Quarto text of 1608- on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions and much else- detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances and changing critical attitudes to the play- illustrated with production photographs and related art- includes 'The Ballad of King Lear' and related offshoots- full index to introduction and commentary- durable sewn binding for lasting use'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.' Times Literary... more...
Reading Between the Linesby Annabel Patterson
Routledge 1993; US$ 39.95Annabel Patterson tackles the hottest topic in literary studies today - the `Great Books Debate' and the question of teaching the canon of English literature. Her superbly formulated moderate stance will be a welcome attribute to the debate. more...
Romanticismby Aidan Day
Routledge 1995; US$ 22.95Day examines the history and usage of the term Romanticism and the changing views and debates which surround it. A range of writers - canonical and non-canonical - are included, as are today's debates such as feminism and new historicism. more...