The first fifty volumes of this yearbook of Shakespeare studies are being reissued in paperback.

p.B. J. Whiting savors proverbial expressions and has devoted much of his lifetime to studying and collecting them; no one knows more about British and American proverbs than he. The present volume, based upon writings in British North America from the earliest settlements to approximately 1820, complements his and Archer Taylor's Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880. It differs from that work and from other standard collections, however, in that its sources are primarily not "literary" but instead workaday writings - letters, diaries, histories, travel books, political pamphlets, and the like. The authors represent a wide cross-section of the populace, from scholars and statesmen to farmers, shopkeepers, sailors, and hunters. Mr. Whiting has combed all the obvious sources and hundreds of out-of-the-way publications of local journals and historical societies. This body of material, "because it covers territory that has not been extracted and compiled in a scholarly way before, can justly be said to be the most valuable of all those that Whiting has brought together," according to Albert B. Friedman. "What makes the work important is Whiting's authority: a proverb or proverbial phrase is what BJW thinks is a proverb or proverbial phrase. There is no objective operative definition of any value, no divining rod; his tact, 'feel, ' experience, determine what's the real thing and what is spurious."

Vol. for 1888 includes dramatic directory for Feb.-Dec.; vol. for 1889 includes dramatic directory for Jan.-May.

The Arthurian verse-novel Wigalois, written by the German knight Wirnt von Grafenberg in the early years of the thirteenth century, tells a story which was well known in the medieval period, appearing in eight versions of four languages. This first English translation makes accessible to a new audience the adventure-filled tale of the hero's knightly education and quest for honor, and his ultimate recognition of Sir Gawain as his long-lost father. The translator's introduction compares Wirnt's work with other treatments of the Wigalois material in France, England, and Italy; discusses the German sources and reception of the novel; and offers a careful literary analysis.

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) was the master poet of fourteenth-century France. He established models for much of the vernacular poetry written by subsequent generations, and he was instrumental in institutionalizing the lay reader. In particular, his longest and most important work, the Voir dit, calls attention to the coexistence of public and private reading practices through its intensely hybrid form: sixty-three poems and ten songs invite an oral performance, while forty-six private prose letters as well as elaborate illustration and references to it's own materiality promote a physical encounter with the book. In Controlling Readers, Deborah McGrady uses Machaut's corpus as a case study to explore the impact of lay literacy on the culture of late-medieval Europe. Arguing that Machaut and his bookmakers were responding to contemporary debates surrounding literacy, McGrady first accounts for the formal invention of the lay reader in medieval art and literature, then analyses Machaut and his bookmakers' innovative use of both narrative and bibliographical devices to try to control the responses of his readers and promote intimate and sensual reading practices in place of the more common public performances of court culture. McGrady's erudite and exhaustive study is key to understanding Machaut, his works, and his influence on the history of reading in the fourteenth century and beyond.

The liberal arts university has been in decline since well before the virtualization of campus life, increasingly inviting public skepticism about its viability as an institution of personal, civic, and professional growth. New technologies that might have brought people together have instead frustrated the university’s capacity to foster thoughtful citizenship among tomorrow’s leaders and exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities that are poisoning America’s civic culture. With Liberal Education and Citizenship in a Free Society, a collection of 19 original essays, editors Justin Dyer and Constantine Vassiliou present the work of a diverse group of scholars to assess the value of a liberal arts education in the face of market, technological, cultural, and political forces shaping higher learning today.

Aesop is just another way of saying 'a poser' which is what he was. The words are almost anagrams! He's long been held up as a fount of wisdom, but he should have changed his name to Kyrie Profanis, which is Greek for 'Mr Obvious'. He was apparently a slave, and judged from this effort - assuming he actually did write any of it - he must have suffered terribly if this collection was the result. Æsop had it coming. These fables are over 2,000 years out of date and it shows. It's high time they were updated for the modern world. This mature and deviant collection of inane, humorous, off-the-wall, and downright ridiculous foibles all of which are rooted in his crazed stories, aims to do just that. Don't say you weren't warned. From the insane author of: Baker Street Bar Trek Dire Virgins Dune With the Wind It's a Wonderful Lie! Macdeath Merde on the Prurient Express Misadventures Mindgame Raw Stars Thoracic Pearl Fallen Condom Urinals

'Essays at the End of the Age' examines the rise and fall of nihilism in the context of the cycles of intellectual history and suggests ways to go beyond it. The modern era began with Descartes and the attempt to use the 'cogito' to obtain a clear understanding of transcendent being. Unfortunately, the 'cogito' led to nothingness through its resistance to constructs of Òbeing. Then Kant attempted to synthesize nothingness with being in the transcendental aesthetic, with mixed results. Finally, Nietzsche used the power of nothingness itself (or nihilism) to negate any concept of being for the sake of the will to power. But nihilism led to the same nothingness as the 'cogito' did, since nihilism, too, was based on resistance. The limitations of the superman became evident through the art and culture that reflected his negative ideal of absolute resistance to Òthe good--and yet nihilism also indicates the end of philosophy and its attempt to describe transcendent value and the good of happiness. The superman is dead, and philosophy appears to be dead as well. The question now is whether it is possible to go beyond nihilism and find the identity, purpose, and meaning that the human spirit craves. 'Essays at the End of the Age' uses illustrations from literature, music, science, and sacred texts to show why the superman failed to obtain happiness, and to point the way to a new mode of being.