This anthology, first published in 1939, aimed to present the English ideal in its various aspects as expressed by representative Englishmen. This book will be of interest to students of literature and to the general reader.
First published in 1998, this valuable reference work offers concise, expert answers to questions on all aspects of life and culture in Medieval England, including art, architecture, law, literature, kings, women, music, commerce, technology, warfare and religion. This wide-ranging text encompasses English social, cultural, and political life from the Anglo-Saxon invasions in the fifth century to the turn of the sixteenth century, as well as its ties to the Celtic world of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the French and Anglo-Norman world of the Continent and the Viking and Scandinavian world of the North Sea. A range of topics are discussed from Sedulius to Skelton, from Wulfstan of York to Reginald Pecock, from Pictish art to Gothic sculpture and from the Vikings to the Black Death. A subject and name index makes it easy to locate information and bibliographies direct users to essential primary and secondary sources as well as key scholarship. With more than 700 entries by over 300 international scholars, this work provides a detailed portrait of the English Middle Ages and will be of great value to students and scholars studying Medieval history in England and Europe, as well as non-specialist readers.
First published in 1989, this is the third of three volumes exploring the changing notions of patriotism in British life from the thirteenth century to the late twentieth century and constitutes an attempt to come to terms with the power of the national idea through a historically informed critique. This volume studies some of the leading figures of national myth, such as Britannia and John Bull. One group of essays looks at the idea of distinctively national landscape and the ways in which it corresponds to notions of social order. A chapter on the poetry of Edmund Spenser explores metaphorical representations of Britain as a walled garden, and the idea of an enchanted national space is taken up in a series of essays on literature, theatre and cinema. An introductory piece charts some of the startling changes in the image of national character, from the seventeenth-century notion of the English as the most melancholy people in Europe, to the more uncertain and conflicting images of today.
The classic realist text has long been derided by post-structuralist critics as an unsophisticated and reactionary form. In this study, first published in 1992, John Rignall makes a powerful case for the rehabilitation of realism as a self-aware and reflexive genre. Using the novels of Scott, Balzac, Dickens, George Eliot, Flaubert, James, Ford and Conrad, Rignall argues for an understanding of realism through the recurrent figure of the flâneur. The flâneur is the strolling spectator whose problematic vision both of and in the novel makes him the representative figure of the realist text. A significant contribution to the field, this title will be of particular view to students of realism, literary theory, and comparative literature.
First published between 1975 and 1991, this set reissues 13 volumes that originally appeared as part of the History Workshop Series. This series of books, which grew out of the journal of the same name, advocated ‘history from below’ and examined numerous, often social, issues from the perspectives of ordinary people. In the words of founder Raphael Samuel, the aim was to turn historical research and writing into ‘a collaborative enterprise’, via public gatherings outside of a traditional academic setting, that could be used to support activism and social justice as well as informing politics. Some of the topics examined in the set include: mineral workers, rural radicalism, and the lives and occupations of villagers in the nineteenth century; working class association; the development of left-wing workers theatre and the changing attitudes to mass culture across the twentieth century; the changing fortunes of the East End at the turn of the century; the position of women from the nineteenth century to the present; the miners’ strike of 1984-5; the social and political images of late-twentieth century London; and a three volume analysis of the myriad facets of English patriotism. This set will be of interest to students of history, sociology, gender and politics.
First published in 1926, this title presents the great artistic and literary innovations of the Romantic movement according to an often overlooked and unacknowledged definition of ‘Romanticism’, which is of particular relevance in the consideration of the English Romantic spirit: pertaining to the style of the Christian and popular literature of the Middle Ages.
First published in 1974, The Augustan Vision looks at the entire spectacle of Augustan Society in an attempt to see English culture as a whole and thus gain greater insight into this critical period in English Literature. Later parts of the book explore poetry, drama, and aesthetics; that distinctive expression of the age, satire, where abuse is made into art, and the moral essay; and finally, the emerging novel, the crucial new form of this period. This is a must read for students and researchers of English literature.
Herbert Read and Selected Works includes four of Herbert Read’s most seminal works; A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays, The English Vision: An Anthology, The Tenth Muse: Essays in Criticism and The Politics of the Unpolitical. This collection also includes the title Herbert Read: A Memorial Symposium - a collection of essays that illustrates the many different aspects and achievements of Read’s career.
First published in 1979, this book makes a detailed study of Rastafarianism. It traces the expansion of Rastafarian culture from its origins and development in Jamaica through to the growth of Rastafarian life in Britain. It looks at Rastafarian culture in England in the late 1970s based on the author’s intimate experiences and communications with followers of the movement.
Ambiguity, vagueness and metaphor are pervasive features of language, deserving of systematic study in their own right. Yet they have frequently been considered mere deviations from ideal language or obstacles to be avoided in the construction of scientific systems. First published in 1979, Beyond the Letter offers a consecutive study of these features from a philosphical point of view, providing analyses of each and treating their relations to one another. Addressed to the fundamental task of logical and semantic explanation, the book employs an inscriptional methodology in the attempt to avoid prevalent forms of question-begging, and, further, in the conviction that sparseness of assumption often reveals points of theoretical interest irrespective of methodolgical preference. The author distinguishes and analyses several varieties of ambiguity, developing new semantic notions in the process; recasts the philosophical treatment of vagueness in the light of recent criticisms of analyticity; discusses the bearing of vagueness on logic; and provides a systematic critique of major recent interpretations of metaphor, developing a revised version of contextualism.