Selected works by Petrarch.

Argues that Keat's six odes form a sequence, identifies their major themes, and provides detailed interpretations of the poems' philosophy, mythological references, and lyric structures.

Literary Studies: A Practical Guide provides a comprehensive foundation for the study of English, American, and world literatures, giving students the critical skills they need to best develop and apply their knowledge. Designed for use in a range of literature courses, it begins by outlining the history of literary movements, enabling students to contextualize a given work within its cultural and historical moment. Specific focus is then given to the use of literary theory and the analysis of: Poetry Prose fiction and novels Plays Films. A detailed unit provides clear and concise introductions to literary criticism and theory, encouraging students to nurture their unique insights into a range of texts with these critical tools. Finally, students are guided through the process of generating ideas for essays, considering the role of secondary criticism in their writing, and formulating literary arguments. This practical volume is an invaluable resource for students, providing them with the tools to succeed in any English course.

"Italian Literature before 1900 in English Translation provides the most complete record possible of texts from the early periods that have been translated into English, and published between 1929 and 2008. It lists works from all genres and subjects, and includes translations wherever they have appeared across the globe. In this annotated bibliography, Robin Healey covers over 5,200 distinct editions of pre-1900 Italian writings. Most entries are accompanied by useful notes providing information on authors, works, translators, and how the translations were received. Among the works by over 1,500 authors represented in this volume are hundreds of editions by Italy's most translated authors - Dante Alighieri, [Niccoláo] Machiavelli, and [Giovanni] Boccaccio - and other hundreds which represent the author's only English translation. A significant number of entries describe works originally published in Latin. Together with Healey's Twentieth-Century Italian Literature in English Translation, this volume makes comprehensive information on translations accessible for schools, libraries, and those interested in comparative literature."--Pub. desc.

Beasts and Beauties examines the relationship between domesticity and power by focusing on the contemporaneous development of the invention of the 'pet' and the delineation of the home as a uniquely private enclosure, where the pater familias ruled over his own secluded world of domesticated wife, children, servants, and animals.

Dante and Petrarch are two of the world's greatest love poets who convey the story of their emotional, intellectual, and religious life in part through a story of human love. The focus here is not so much on the myriad symbolic values and associations of Beatrice and Laura but rather both on the attitudes of these two poets to sexual desire in order to throw some light on the character of their human love and on the status and value they give to human love in the context of their Christian lives.For all the stark contrasts between them, Dante and Petrarch have been often compared, for they write in a common literary, classical, and Christian tradition. The comparison generally leads to the conclusion that Dante describes his human love experience as positive and constructive whilst Petrarch's experience of love is negative and destructive. My intention here is not to polarize their views in this way, but rather to identify the different yet positive and highly original value both poets attribute to human love. More than fifty years ago, Etienne Gilson claimed that Peter Abelard turned to loving God in the way that Heloise had loved him, with the disinterestedness which she claimed in loving him and which she accused him of never understanding in loving her. It is the general argument of this study that Dante and Petrarch, as well as leaving their original mark on the treatment of love in literature, have insights into religion, personal to them, which can be likewise characterized by examining their attitude to human love and the story of their personal loves. There are many more aspects to their Catholicism than are examined in these essays. The discussion here is of that part of their faith which grows out of, is coloured by, or at least can be explored, through their human loving.

This thoughtful little volume features the full range of Arnold's poetry, including "Shakespeare", "Sohrab and Rustum", "Isolation", "To Marguerite", "To Marguerite--Continued", "Dover Beach", "The Future", "Thyrsis", and "Rugby Chapel". Edited by E K Brown, this selection is well supported by Arnold's preface to Poems (1853), an introduction, a list of principal dates in Arnold's life, and a bibliography.

By their very nature, sonnets allow quick glimpses into the lives of individuals and their surroundings. They can reveal what people loved, hated, idealized, and found ridiculous or grotesqueand Italian sonnets in particular exhibit a remarkably wide range of content and form. Rinaldina Russell, a scholar of Italian medieval and Renaissance literature and of women studies, leads you on a glorious exploration of medieval and Renaissance verse in Sonnet. Focusing strictly on Italy, she explains that sonnet writing was not the purview of a selected group of people. From the sonnets appearance in the first half of the thirteenth century through the Renaissance and on to the baroque age, writing sonnets was an activity people at all levels of society and of all intellectual and literary backgrounds practiced. She translates some of Italys most important, interesting, and underappreciated sonnets, conveying the meaning and structure of thought as faithfully as possible. Themes vary from political and military arguments to expressions of love and sexual needs, from atheistic and cynical views on mans nature and destiny, to a celebration of life and the divine. She also provides commentary to relate what translations do not convey, including the rhythmic and verbal effects of the Italian text and its topical allusions.

No nineteenth-century composer had more diverse ties to his contemporary world than Franz Liszt (1811-1886). At various points in his life he made his home in Vienna, Paris, Weimar, Rome, and Budapest. In his roles as keyboard virtuoso, conductor, master teacher, and abbé, he reinvented the concert experience, advanced a progressive agenda for symphonic and dramatic music, rethought the possibilities of church music and the oratorio, and transmitted the foundations of modern pianism. The essays brought together in Franz Liszt and His World advance our understanding of the composer with fresh perspectives and an emphasis on historical contexts. Rainer Kleinertz examines Wagner's enthusiasm for Liszt's symphonic poem Orpheus; Christopher Gibbs discusses Liszt's pathbreaking Viennese concerts of 1838; Dana Gooley assesses Liszt against the backdrop of antivirtuosity polemics; Ryan Minor investigates two cantatas written in honor of Beethoven; Anna Celenza offers new insights about Liszt's experience of Italy; Susan Youens shows how Liszt's songs engage with the modernity of Heinrich Heine's poems; James Deaville looks at how publishers sustained Liszt's popularity; and Leon Botstein explores Liszt's role in the transformation of nineteenth-century preoccupations regarding religion, the nation, and art. Franz Liszt and His World also includes key biographical and critical documents from Liszt's lifetime, which open new windows on how Liszt was viewed by his contemporaries and how he wished to be viewed by posterity. Introductions to and commentaries on these documents are provided by Peter Bloom, José Bowen, James Deaville, Allan Keiler, Rainer Kleinertz, Ralph Locke, Rena Charnin Mueller, and Benjamin Walton.

Franceso Petrarch (1304-1374), creator of the sonnet form, remained for more than three hundred years the most influential poet in Europe, his works more widely read than even those of Dante. This collection contains English language versions of his poems from across six centuries, in a wide variety of translations and reinterpretations. Spanning the Trionfi series and the Canzoniere - Petrarch's empassioned sonnet-sequence concerning his beloved Laura - it also includes great English poems influenced by Petrarch. From Chaucer's early adaptation of a Petrarchan sonnet in Troilus and Criseyde to the sixteenth century translations by the Earl of Surrey, Byron's mocking consideration of the Canzoniere in Don Juan and Ezra Pound's parody Silet, all provide a unique insight into the significance of the founder of the European lyric tradition.