The letters abound in both trivial and important events: observations about the people he met; comments on the reactions to his music; satirical remarks about dilettantes and incompetent professionals; and thoughts on other composers, pianoforte and organ playing, singing, and his own methods of composition.Mozart’s letters are interspersed in this edition with a generous selection of letters from his father. This two-sided, voluminous correspondence shows the close and sometimes conflicting relationship between father and son. Mozart’s letters to his sister are especially playful, exhibiting an impish, lighthearted wit reminiscent of his music, and the letters to his wife are equally revealing. Taken all together, this collection presents an informal and intimately detailed portrait of a genius.

    Once again this bilingual volume, translated in this edition for the first time in English, reveals the importance of the great Romanian-German poet, who lived for most of his life in France. Translator Pierre Joris has achieved a great feat in bringing these three volumes into the English language.

    Through an insightful study of Romantic poets, Bloom puts forth his central vision of the relations between precursors and the individual artist. His argument that all literary texts are a strong misreading of those that precede them had an enormous impact on the practice of criticism and post-structuralist literary theory. The book remains a central work of criticism for all students of literature.Written in a moving personal style, anchored by concrete examples, and memorable quotations, this second edition of Bloom's classic work maintains that the anxiety of influence cannot be evaded - neither by poets nor by responsible readers and critics. A new introduction, centering upon Shakespeare and Marlowe explains the genesis of Bloom's thinking, and the subsequent influence of the book on literary criticism of the past quarter of a century.

    In publishing his music and writing for the rising classes, Beethoven claimed freedom and expressed the emotions of the new rulers, the artists. The Eroica, Fidelio, and the piano works express the emotions of the new rulers — the intense love, the need for companionship of people, the forces that conspired to defeat the artist, and the strength and superiority of the artist in overcoming the weaknesses. The letters of Beethoven are the principal nonmusical expression of his personality in its relationship with the world of his time.In what he called the "dry letters of the alphabet," Beethoven depicted his fears, his loves, and his friendly relations: his fears of deafness and of corrupted texts by pirating printers; his loves, Bettina Brentano and Giulietta Guicciardi; and his friendly relations with Baron Zmeskall, Frau Nannette Streicher, and the music publishers Steiner and Company. He praises the poetry of Goethe and Schiller but condemns Goethe for his obeisance toward royalty. He solicits help during his perpetual trouble with his health and with his servants. He castigates publishers, sets prices for his works, and calculates letters of dedication. He expresses his love for his nephew, Carl, but documents the trouble that Carl was causing him by taking up his precious time. And although Beethoven liked to decorate the letters with musical openings and closings and an occasional song to the receiver, he increasingly signed his letters, "In haste."The 457 letters collected here are the most important of the letters of the spirit that was to shape and move a century. Explanatory notes comment upon works, on persons mentioned, and on the puns of which Beethoven was fond. The letters chronicle his business, his needs, his humor and bitterness, and his philosophy. They will give many insights into Beethoven's methods, his influences, his moods, and the conditions under which the master worked.

    Now, with Pigeon, this singer of existential bewilderment takes another step forward. She finds an analog for the divine in a massive, new model tractor and an analogue for the malign in the face of the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez. Her poems are X-rays of delusions and mistaken perceptions, intellectual explorations of bad luck, creeping catastrophe, and the eros of danger come dressed to kill. Her ear is impeccable and her syntax the key to a rare, razor-sharp poetic intelligence. Pigeon expands Solie’s growing readership, making clear to anyone who encounters her that there is still fresh, unmapped territory in the world of poetry. As poet Michael Hofmann said, “Solie’s work should be read wherever English is read.”

    Index.

    He remains a wellspring to which all of us might go to refresh our belief in the value of this art.

    His unearthly style based on elaborate linguistic riddles and puns fascinated the Surrealists and famously influenced the composition of Marcel Duchamp's -Large Glass, - but also affected writers as diverse as Gide, Robbe-Grillet and Foucault (author of a book-length study of Roussel). The title essay of this collection is the key to Roussel's method, and it is accompanied by selections from all his major works of fiction, drama and poetry, translated by his New York School admirers John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and Harry Mathews, and the painter and author Trevor Winkfield. Ashbery writes that Roussel's work is -like the perfectly preserved temple of a cult which has disappeared without a trace... we can still admire its inhuman beauty, and be stirred by a language that seems always on the point of revealing its secret.-

    

    As the Civil War raged, an unlikely friendship was born between the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a literary figure who ran guns to Kansas and commanded the first Union regiment of black soldiers. When Dickinson sent Higginson four of her poems, he realized he had encountered a wholly original genius; their intense correspondence continued for the next quarter century.In White Heat, Brenda Wineapple tells an extraordinary story about poetry, politics, and love -- one that sheds new light on her subjects, and on the roiling America they shared.

    Well known as the most notorious, bloody, and ruthless band of mercenaries in the world, in 1998 the Legion accepted Tony Sloane at the age of 18, inviting him as an elite member of this secret and mysterious fighting force. The legend and the myths of the Legion captivated Sloane and he quickly learned that life as a legionnaire was not just about physical training, but also about pledging mind and soul to the missions and operations.

    In Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends, Neyer breathes new life into both classic and obscure stories throughout twentieth-century baseball—stories that, while engaging on their own, also tell us fascinating things about their main characters and about the sport's incredibly rich history. With his signature style, Rob gets to the heart of every anecdote, working through the particulars with careful research drawn from a variety of primary sources. For each story, he asks: Did this really happen? Did it happen, sort of? Or was the story simply the wild invention of someone's imagination? Among the scores of legends Neyer questions and investigates... -Did an errant Bob Feller pitch really destroy the career of a National League All-Star? -Did Greg Maddux mean to give up a long blast to Jeff Bagwell? -Was Fred Lynn the clutch player he thinks he was? -Did Tommy Lasorda have a direct line to God? -Did Negro Leaguer Gene Benson really knock Indians second baseman Johnny Berardino out of baseball and into General Hospital? -Did Billy Martin really outplay Jackie Robinson every time they met? -Oh, and what about Babe Ruth's “Called Shot”? Rob checks each story, separates the truths from the myths, and places their fascinating characters into the larger historical context. Filled with insider lore and Neyer's sharp wit and insights, this is an exciting addition to a superb series and an essential read for true fans of our national pastime.

    Drawing on fourteen years of research; more than a hundred letters unknown to prior biographers; exclusive interviews with Lorca's friends, family, and acquaintances; and dozens of newly discovered archival material, Stainton has brought her subject to Life as few writers can. She describes his carefree childhood in rural Andalusia; his residencies in Madrid and Granada, then in New York, Havana, and Buenos Aires; his potent interaction with other Spanish artists, such as Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, and the composer Manuel de Falla; and, finally, Stainton shows how Lorca's marginal political activity during the Spanish Civil War still cost him his life.Throughout, Stainton meticulously but unobtrusively relates the oeuvre to the life. Her biography is quickly becoming the standard one-volume work on the poet.

    The unreal becomes real and the good gets a taste for the great.

    And what's bad about that? In Pictures and Tears, art historian James Elkins tells the story of paintings that have made people cry. Drawing upon anecdotes related to individual works of art, he provides a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past, and a meditation on the curious tearlessness with which most people approach art in the present. Deeply personal, Pictures and Tears is a history of emotion and vulnerability, and an inquiry into the nature of art. This book is a rare and invaluable treasure for people who love art. Also includes an 8-page color insert.