Joinings and Disjoinings illustrates the importance of marriage or singleness in short stories and novels and suggests the diverse perspectives the topic can provide on specific works and on analysis of the cultural importance of marriage and marital status. Essays discuss canonical and lesser-known works, providing social, historical, and literary context.
Repetition has connotations of something boring, or unoriginal, or lacking in poetic skill, but repetition - in several different senses - dominates Wordsworth's poetry. This book explores those moments of repetition, placing them in the early nineteenth century context from which they emerged, and teasing out through extended close attention to the poetry itself the complexities of repetition and recapitulation. Drawing on extensive close readings of Wordsworth's poetry, the book asks what it means to repeat, and how saying things again, often in a way which recognises both sameness and difference at the same time, is fundamental to Wordsworth's attempt to write what he called 'sincere' verse. By analysing instances of repetition and the conjunctions which facilitate recapitulation within Wordsworth's writing, the book attempts to understand the context, in terms of ideas of repetition, from which Wordsworth's works emerge, and to consider repetition in a broad range of senses - from repeated words and sounds within particular poems, to ideas of translation, allusion, and echo. Houghton-Walker also argues the importance of the element of difference within even apparently 'pure' repetition. Such difference might be in perception, attitude, or understanding, but for Wordsworth, the subtle relationship between instances of what seems to be the same experience illuminates the potential for poetry to portray simultaneously the specific and the universal: to hold within its lines both immediate and general truths at the same time.
Life After Death shows how representations of the widow in theeighteenth-century novel express attitudes toward emerging capitalismand women's participation in it. Authors responded to the century'sinstability by using widows, who had the right to act economically andself-interestedly, to teach women that virtue meant foregoing theopportunities that the changing economy offered. Novelists thus helpedto create expectations for women that linger today, and established thenovel as a cultural arbiter. The first study of widows in the developingnovel, Life After Death also takes the next step in merging genre, gender, and economic criticism
The Female Servant and Sensation Fiction: 'Kitchen Literature' explores why Victorian sensation fiction was derided as literature fit only for maids and cooks and how the depictions of fictional female domestics, from Jane Eyre to Neo-Victorian novels, reflect contemporary social concerns about the blurring of the boundaries of class and gender.
A selectively comprehensive bibliography of the vast literature about Samuel Beckett's dramatic works, arranged for the efficient and convenient use of scholars on all levels.
From Publisher's Weekly: "[Abbot George] Burke enthusiastically explores the story as a means for knowing oneself, the cosmos, and one's calling within it. His plainspoken insights often distill complex lessons with simplicity and sagacity. Those with a deep interest in the Gita will find much wisdom here." Several thousand years ago in north-central India, two people sat in a chariot in the midpoint of a great battlefield. One of them, the yogi Arjuna, knew that it would be not be long before the conflict would begin. So he asked Krishna, the Master of Yoga (Yogeshwara), what should be his attitude and perspective in this moment. And above all: What should he do?There was no time to spare in empty words. In a brief discourse, later turned into seven hundred Sanskrit verses by the sage Vyasa, Krishna outlined to Arjuna the way to live one’s entire life so as to gain perfect self-knowledge and self-mastery. The Bhagavad Gita tells us that we can attain a Knowing beyond even what it tells us. And it shows us the way. With penetrating insight, Abbot George Burke illumines the Bhagavad Gita's practical value for spiritual seekers, and the timelessness of India's most beloved scripture. With a unique perspective of a lifetime of study and practice of both Eastern and Western spirituality, Abbot George mines the treasures of the Gita and presents them in an easily intelligible fashion for those wishing to put these priceless teachings into practice. Drawing from the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Jesus, Paramhansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, Papa Ramdas, and other spiritual masters and teachers, as well as his own experiences, Abbot Burke illustrates the teachings of the Gita with stories which make the teachings of Krishna in the Gita vibrant and living. While Yogananda in his commentary on the Gita, “God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita,” focuses on the valuable symbolism contained in the Gita, Abbot Burke dwells primarily on the practical aspects, and what aspirants can put into practice here and now on a daily basis. Any student of the Bhagavad Gita will find “The Bhagavad Gita for Awakening” an essential companion in their studies. At times general principles found in the Gita are illumined, and in other places the deeper meanings found in the Sanskrit text are explained word by word so that seekers will have and in-depth understanding of the religion, practices, and culture that those familiar with Indian religion and philosophy take for granted. "A must read for anyone on a spiritual quest for the truth!” —Sailaja Kuruvadi
In Ruth Hall, one of the bestselling novels of the 1850s, Fanny Fern drew heavily on her own experiences: the death of her first child and her beloved husband, a bitter estrangement from her family, and her struggle to make a living as a writer. Written as a series of short vignettes and snatches of overheard conversations, it is as unconventional in style as in substance and strikingly modern in its impact.
- provides the first comprehensive overview of the critical history of Book of the Duchess - offers for the first time a thorough analysis of Book of the Duchess’s medieval and early modern reception - establishes Book of the Duchess’s structuring investment in the idea of ‘the book’ – its construction, consumption, and transmission - as it contributes to a poetics of intertextuality
