A Terrible Beauty Is Born


W.B. Yeats - 1916
    'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet...'By turns joyful and despairing, some of the twentieth century's greatest verse on fleeting youth, fervent hopes and futile sacrifice.

An Introduction to Poetry


X.J. Kennedy - 1978
    Kennedy and Dana Gioia, write of their subject with wit and a contagious enthusiasm.  Informative, accessible apparatus presents readable discussions of the literary devices, illustrated by apt works, and supported by interludes with the poets.  This edition features more than 50 new poems, a new masterwork casebook on T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Songs of J. Alfred Prufrock," extensively revised and expanded chapters on writing, and a fresh new design.

William Blake vs the World


John Higgs - 2021
    His life passed without recognition and he worked without reward, mocked, dismissed and misinterpreted. Yet from his ignoble end in a pauper's grave, Blake now occupies a unique position as an artist who unites and attracts people from all corners of society, and a rare inclusive symbol of English identity.Blake famously experienced visions, and it is these that shaped his attitude to politics, sex, religion, society and art. Thanks to the work of neuroscientists and psychologists, we are now in a better position to understand what was happening inside that remarkable mind, and gain a deeper appreciation of his brilliance. His timeless work, we will find, has never been more relevant.In William Blake vs the World we return to a world of riots, revolutions and radicals, discuss movements from the Levellers of the sixteenth century to the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, and explore the latest discoveries in neurobiology, quantum physics and comparative religion. Taking the reader on wild detours into unfamiliar territory, John Higgs places the bewildering eccentricities of a most singular artist into context. And although the journey begins with us trying to understand him, we will ultimately discover that it is Blake who helps us to understand ourselves.

The Complete Poems


Walt Whitman - 1902
    A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation, and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric” to the elegiac “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s art fuses oratory, journalism, and song in a vivid celebration of humanity. Containing all Whitman’s known poetic work, this edition reprints the final, or “deathbed,” edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 “Song of Myself.”Features a completely new—and fuller—introduction discussing the development of Whitman's poetic career, his influence on later American poets, and his impact on the American cultural sensibilityIncludes chronology, updated suggestions for further reading, and extensive notes

Dear Future Historians: Lyrics and Exegesis of Rou Reynolds for the Music of Enter Shikari


Enter Shikari - 2017
    They have become one of the most influential British rock bands of their generation, sharing with their fans a belief that music can inspire change. Dear Future Historians features front-man Rou Reynolds own song interpretations and social commentary alongside all of their lyrics to date.

Orlando Innamorato: Orlando in Love


Matteo Maria Boiardo
    Inventive, humorous, inexhaustible, the story recounts Orlando's love-stricken pursuit of "the fairest of her Sex, Angelica" (in Milton's terms) through a fairyland that combines the military valors of Charlemagne's knights and their famous horses with the enchantments of King Arthur's court. Today it seems more than ever appropriate to offer a new, unabridged edition of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, the first Renaissance epic about the common customs of, and the conflicts between, Christian Europe and Islam. Having extensively revised his earlier translation for general readers, Charles Ross has added headings and helpful summaries to Boiardo's cantos. Tenses have been regularized, and terms of gender and religion have been updated, but not so much as to block the reader's encounter with how Boiardo once viewed the world. Charles Stanley Ross has degrees from Harvard College and the University of Chicago and teaches English and comparative literature at Purdue University. "Neglect of Italian romances robs us of a whole species of pleasure and narrows our very conception of literature. It is as if a man left out Homer, or Elizabethan drama, or the novel. For like these, the romantic epic of Italy is one of the great trophies of the European genius: a genuine kind, not to be replaced by any other, and illustrated by an extremely copious and brilliant production. It is one of the successes, the undisputed achievements." -C. S. Lewis

Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950


Cesare Pavese - 1961
    His poetry was revolutionary—both artistically and politically—rejecting the verbal and philosophical constraints of tradition and utilizing direct, colloquial language. His subjects were peasants, hobos, and prostitutes, and this bilingual volume includes all the poetry Pavese ever published, including work originally deleted by Fascist censors. A landmark volume.Cesare Pavese (1908-50) was a novelist, poet, and translator, and a major literary figure in post-war Italy. He brought American influence to Italian literature through his translations. Pavese’s flight from the Fascists and subsequent confinement were reflected in his writings, which dealt with social struggle and revealed his sympathy for the oppressed. He committed suicide at the height of his literary powers.A Kage-an Series Book

The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories


Edgar Allan Poe - 1845
    Accessible language and carefully controlled vocabulary build students' reading confidence. Introductions at the beginning of each story, illustrations throughout, and glossaries help build comprehension. Before, during, and after reading activities included in the back of each book strengthen student comprehension. Audio versions of selected titles provide great models of intonation and pronunciation of difficult words.

Penguin's Poems by Heart


Laura Barber - 2009
    This small collection of the best English poems offers the reader the chance to re-engage with poetry. Filled with favourites, and thoughtfully selected by Laura Barber (editor of Penguin's Poems for Life and the forthcoming Penguin's Poems for Love) this anthologoy is an essential addition to everyone's repertoire.

A Season in Hell


Arthur Rimbaud - 1873
    This volume presents the text in French and English with photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.

The Essential Rumi


Rumi
    This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.

Epigrams


Marcus Valerius Martialis
    His Epigrams can be affectionate or cruel, elegiac or playful; they target every element of Roman society, from slaves to schoolmasters to, above all, the aristocratic elite. With wit and wisdom, Martial evokes not “the grandeur that was Rome,” but rather the timeless themes of urban life and society.

The Witness of Poetry


Czesław Miłosz - 1983
    From the special perspectives of "my corner of Europe," a classical and Catholic education, a serious encounter with Marxism, and a life marked by journeys and exiles, Milosz has developed a sensibility at once warm and detached, flooded with specific memory yet never hermetic or provincial.Milosz addresses many of the major problems of contemporary poetry, beginning with the pessimism and negativism prompted by reductionist interpretations of man's animal origins. He examines the tendency of poets since Mallarme to isolate themselves from society, and stresses the need for the poet to make himself part of the great human family. One chapter is devoted to the tension between classicism and realism; Milosz believes poetry should be "a passionate pursuit of the real." In "Ruins and Poetry" he looks at poems constructed from the wreckage of a civilization, specifically that of Poland after the horrors of World War II. Finally, he expresses optimism for the world, based on a hoped-for better understanding of the lessons of modern science, on the emerging recognition of humanity's oneness, and on mankind's growing awareness of its own history.

Selected Poems


Stevie Smith - 1978
    Bizarre, witty, sad, sometimes caustic, her poems impart a zest for life, and reveal her unique eye for the marvels of the ordinary and her deep sensibility to the paradoxical nature of all human emotions.