Customer Reviews (1)

Thot provok study of pers growth thru literary protagonists
Thought provoking study of personal growth potential using female literary protagonists as examples. Similar to style of heroic studies by Joseph Campbell. Bit academic, but well worth effort to read and digest. Was used as a text in local college lit. class at my suggestion. Interesting as a very personal read OR as study of contemporary literature, provoking lively discussion. ... Read more

Product Description

The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature is an essential companion to a literary tradition of extraordinary depth. Now published at a popular price, this massive one-volume encyclopedia extends from Aneirin and the poet of Widsith to Cædmon and the author of Beowulf; from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Geoffrey Chaucer; from Spenser to Shakespeare; from Donne to Milton to Dryden; from Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen to William Blake; from Thackeray, the Brontës, and Dickens to Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Coe, and Zadie Smith. This magisterial volume is a guide to literature that is British in scope and origin, including surveys of the literatures written English from the colonial to the postcolonial experience in Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, India, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Product Description

The Literature for Life and Work series continues with British and World Literature for Life and Work. This book challenges students to think critically, work together in teams, and reflect on universal themes by using selections from British and world literature.

Product Description
Recent historical studies have emphasized that the English Reformation can no longer be seen as an inevitable response to abuses within the late-medieval Western ('Catholic') Church. Contrary to Protestant stereotypes, the late-medieval Church catered to the spiritual needs of its members. In addition, the English Reformation was an incomplete process and, even after the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, English religious culture was full of continuities with the past, with pre-Reformation religious culture only partially displaced. This essay collection investigates how the literature of the first century after the Elizabethan Settlement dealt with this cultural ambivalence. Focusing on a mixture of canonical texts and less well-known ones, the contributors show that the religious hybridity of early-modern England is found in a concentrated form in the literary texts of the period. In contrast to theologians, literary writers were not obliged to choose sides. Literary discourse could confront incompatible doctrinal perspectives within a single text, or forge a hybrid spiritual sensibility out of the competing religious traditions. Literature, sometimes in spite of writers' avowed denominational allegiances, embraced, explored and deepened the ambivalence of early modern English religious culture in a manner unavailable in other kinds of texts. ... Read more

Product Description

Volume 2C, The Twentieth Century, of The Longman Anthology of British Literature includes major additions of important works by Carol Ann Duffy, a new contemporary play, and coverage of contemporary British fiction featuring short stories by the well known popular authors of today.  New selections by already well represented authors are included, such as Thomas Hardy, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Walcott.

Product Description
"Introductions to British Literature and Culture" are practical guides to key literary periods. Guides in the series are designed to help introduce a new module or area of study, providing concise information on the historical, literary and critical contexts and acting as an initial map of the knowledge needed to study the literature and culture of a specific period. This accessible introduction to Victorian literature and its contexts from 1837-1901 includes: an overview of the historical, cultural and intellectual background including politics and economics, popular culture, philosophy and religion; a survey of the developments in key genres including discussion of major writers such as the Brontes, the Brownings, Collins, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Hardy, Rossetti, Shaw, Swinburne, Tennyson and Wilde; concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism; a guide to key critical approaches; a chronology mapping historical events and literary works; and guided further reading including websites and electronic resources. ... Read more

Product Description

"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new." - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Glencoe Literature for 2002 also "makes new things familiar and familiar things new." Designed to meet the needs of today's classroom, Glencoe Literature has been developed with careful attention to instructional planning for teachers, strategic reading support, and universal access that meets the learning needs of all students.

Customer Reviews (3)

A great general survey of British Literature
This book is very, very big, covering a wide time period of pieces. It is over 900 pages, I think, so it does include a lot of pieces. My only complaint is that there isn't enough Shakespeare in it... ): If I remember right, I think it only has one of his plays, and one or two of his poems. Which is... not enough for my taste. ^^;;;
But all and all, this is a really nice book. I highly recommend it.

engligh textbook
I was very happy with the book. It was in better shape than I expected.

Never will buy
The books are in fine condition.My problem is with Amazon!
I will never buy text books on Amazon again!Waited over 2 months for the books that were promised within 10 days.Not just one book, but 5 out of 8 that I ordered. Never, Never again! ... Read more

Product Description
In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations throughout, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials, offering additional perspectives both on individual texts and on larger social and cultural developments. Innovative, authoritative, and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature embodies a consistently fresh approach to the study of literature and literary history.

The full Broadview Anthology of British Literature comprises six bound volumes, together with an extensive website component; the latter has been edited, annotated, and designed according to the same high standards as the bound book component of the anthology, and is accessible online by using the passcode obtained with the purchase of one or more of the bound volumes. The six individual bound volumes are also available in any combination at special package prices.

Highlights of Volume 1: The Medieval Period include: Roy Liuzza's acclaimed translation of Beowulf, along with new translations by Liuzza of many other works of Old English poetry and prose; a powerful new verse translation of Judith by Stephen Glosecki; new translations of some of the Lais of Marie de France by Claire Waters; and newly edited texts of eight of The Canterbury Tales, supplemented by a wide variety of contextual materials. ... Read more

Product Description
Three opens with the death of a young woman, identified only as S, possibly a suicide. Following her death, Ruth and Leonard--a middle-aged British couple whose marriage has devolved into pithy and bitter conversations--review the time S spent at their summer house. In a lyrical prose style likened to that of such diverse writers as Virginia Woolf and William Burroughs, Ann Quin presents the enigmatic intricacies of the relationship between these three people by blending the conversations and flash-backs of Ruth and Leonard with the diary, audiotapes and movies S left behind. A combination of laconic dialogue and poetic impressions, Three is an incisive exploration of the emotional and sexual undercurrents of British middle-class life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ann Quin's Best?
A bickering middle-aged bourgeois couple go through the belongings of their lodger, a young woman, who has apparently committed suicide. They listen to her tapes and read her diaries, most of which consist of her observations of their lives. Aspects of the psycho-sexual relations between the three characters emerge from different standpoints.
In typical 1960s style Ann Quin's four novels gets progressively more experimental. The first "Berg" is still in conventional modernist territory, with overwrought mythical subtexts & symbolism, while her third & fourth novels got increasingly lost in formal "postmodern" experimentation. But in her second book, "Three" she gets it just about right. Maybe there's still some Pinter/Beckett-type influence, but Quin definitely finds an original voice. The narrative switches back and forth between characters & the tapes/diaries, thus different perspectives & versions of episodes accumulate, going back & forth in time. As with her friend/rival B.S.Johnson, Quin's idiosyncrasy lies in combining these "nouveau roman" techniques with a very English tragi-comedy of social manners (& as with Johnson there also is an explicit sense of suicidal hysteria informing the writing). However Quin's writing has a highly charged visionary, sensual & lyrical quality not found in Johnson. If Johnson was trying to capture reality, Quin was trying to capture the reality of fantasy. All these elements make "Three" an uneven but fascinating and moving novel, which has ceased to be a period piece and once again come to life.
Note: These excellent (American) Dalkey Archive reprints of Quin's novels are good quality, well-produced editions.
... Read more

Product Description
This text emphasizes George MacDonald's achievement as a Victorian novelist, critic and thinker who anticipates many of the issues surrounding readers, texts, and authors we tend to think of as modern or postmodern. It also shows his awareness of the role of faith in these literary interrelationships. It examines novels which are often overlooked, such as "Sir Gibbie" and "Wilfred Cumbermede", finding in these more realistic works similar textual preoccupations to those in thefantasies. ... Read more

Product Description
In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations throughout, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials, offering additional perspectives both on individual texts and on larger social and cultural developments. Innovative, authoritative, and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature embodies a consistently fresh approach to the study of literature and literary history.The six individual bound volumes are also available in any combination at special package prices.

Highlights of Volume 3: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century include: Eliza Haywood's Fantomina; Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure; selections from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe together with contextual materials; and Frances Burney's The Witlings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Paperback vs Hardback
This book was delivered quickly. I have not had time to read much of it but what I have read is very interesting and informing. However, this book is a paperback that really should have been a hardback. Considering its larger dimensions, being a paperback it is hard to hold. Otherwise it is a perfectly good book. ... Read more

Product Description

"We, the readers and students of literature, have been hijacked. The literary critics, our teachers, those assassins of culture, have put us up against the wall and held us captive." So begins Jonah Raskin's The Mythology of Imperialism. When first published in 1971, this book was nothing short of a call to arms, an open revolt against the literary establishment. In his critique of five well-known British writers—Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Joyce Cary—Raskin not only developed the model for a revolutionary anti-imperialist criticism, but, through this book's influence on Edward Said, helped usher in the field of postcolonial studies.

Nearly four decades later, The Mythology of Imperialism is all the more relevant. Its readings of British literature still offer bold and original insight into the relationship between text, artist, and historical context. But, perhaps more crucially, this book sends a revolutionary message to all readers and students of literature. Against much of today's postcolonialism—diluted by postmodern obfuscation and largely detached from its historical roots—Raskin locates the center of his anti-imperialist criticism in the anti-imperialist struggle itself and takes his cues not from "the assassins of culture" in the academy but from the national liberation movements of his time.

Written with absorbing passion and machete-sharp analysis, this new edition of The Mythology of Imperialism includes the original text, a new introduction and afterword by the author, and a preface by Bruce Robbins.

Customer Reviews (2)

A core addition to any collection focusing on British literature
How does the classic literature of Britain's imperial era come into play in today's world? "The Mythology of Imperialism: A Revolutionary Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age" was first published in 1971, but today it still holds much ground as Britain and its former colonies continue to grow more distant from the principles of the Empire, as author Jonah Raskin predicted almost forty years ago. His work is a must read for anyone evaluating and criticizing modern English literature in comparison to the literature of the empire. "The Mythology of Imperialism" is a core addition to any collection focusing on British literature.

An inspiring, invigorating look at British writers of the Imperialist period through the eyes of a revolutionary.
I've been wanting to read this book, long out of print, since I found it mentioned in Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism.Said singled out Jonah Raskin's The Mythology of Imperialism as one of the few books that understood the connection between literature and imperialism.The book delivers on this promise.

Writing as a student for students, Raskin arms himself with the revolutionary philosophies of Castro, Mao, Minh and Debray against the literary and intellectual establishment of his time.As a student of British literature, Raskin felt it was unacceptable in the late 1960s to still be studying only white, male British writers, whose works had helped to prop up the imperialist value system of the late 19th and early 20th century.Moreover, he found his teachers (and revered critics like T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis) to still be entrenched in these values, particularly in his hometown of New York.In fact, as he explains in his new introduction, the publishing of this book (by Random House, no less), hurt rather than helped his chance at a tenured faculty position.This irony is compounded by the fact that in the UK, where Raskin completed the dissertation that would serve as the basis for this book, he found his professors to be more open to his radical theories about British literature than in the USA.It turns out Raskin was ahead of his time, writing about colonialism and post-colonialism years before it earned its place in the universities; The Mythology of Imperialism predates Said's landmark book on the subject, Orientalism, by a decade.

The book begins with what Raskin calls a "clarion call to arms," an introduction full of poetic vigor that outlines the radical philosophical framework of the book.Raskin's mission is to discuss the works of writers like Kipling, Conrad, Forster, and Lawrence in order to show to what degree they are either on the side of imperialism or on the side of revolution. The book itself is an exciting mix of culture, politics and literature.Raskin's is not the tone of the sedentary literature critic/student, and he isn't neutral; on the contrary, he is perfectly comfortable praising or criticizing sacred figures of British literature.His non-academic style is as irreverent as his beliefs, and the lack of footnotes makes him simultaneously accessible and anti-establishment.In addition to its iconoclastic, eye-opening literary criticism, I found The Mythology of Imperialism to be an invaluable survey of major and minor works of authors who underscored belief systems for generations of students from the elementary to the university level.The book has inspired me, as a graduate student, to read these and other texts in order to make my own large scale critiques.

I can understand why tenured professors and the literary establishment balked at Raskin's book.Not only is he promoting cultural and academic revolution, he also writes as if his was the last word on the subject.At times, I was put off by his cocksure tone, and I often felt like I missed a more academic edge.But largely I attribute this to my own conventionalism.Raskin questions why we venerate certain authors and their canonical texts and why we confine them to what he calls the "literary museum," rather than critically examine and judge their social and political implications.These questions may be common now, but they were revolutionary in the 1960s, as was Raskin's uncompromising ethical stance that writers should be socially conscious and revolutionaries themselves.I hope his message of revolution resonates with today's students and reinvigorates the literary community in a time of rehabilitated political and cultural conservatism.
... Read more

Product Description
This study examines the non-literary and non-aesthetic reasons underlying the bias in favour of realism in the formation of the traditional literary canon of 19th-century British fiction. It examines the role of the Anglican Church as well as that of nonconformist or dissenting evangelical sects in the educational institutions of the first half of the century, and the function of the academic study of English literature in British imperialist ideology in the latter part of the century. The author seeks to demonstrate that both Church and Empire needed a canon of realism to promote their own brand of conservative ideology. Victorian fantasy writers often targeted Church doctrine or imperial dogma for especially satirical treatment, thus insuring their own exclusion from the universities which were run by the Church and operated to supply patriotic administrators to the Empire. Examines in detail the ecclesiastical and political context of educational philosophy and how this context affected the reading curriculum and ultimately, the canon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fantasy is literature
I borrowed this book from my university library as its price far outweighs my student budget.As an aspiring literary scholar with an interest in both fantasy as literature and the literary canon, I found Michalson's study to be provocative and enlightening.She analyzes the life and works of five Victorian writers whose fantasy works have been neglected by scholars: John Ruskin, George MacDonald, Charles Kingsley, Henry Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling.She shows how the influence of both the Anglican Church and British empire building on the nascent British education system prevented fantasy from gaining respect in academic circles.This is important because even though the religion and politics have disappeared, contemporary scholars have inherited the attitude that fantasy is disreputable.I'm tempted to show it to some of my professors who don't consider fantasy to be serious literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This guide provides a clear and concise overview of literature and its context from 1890-1939. This accessible introduction to Modernism and its contexts from 1890-1939 includes: an overview of the historical, cultural and intellectual background including arts, science and philosophy; a survey of the developments in key genres including discussion of major writers and groups including Virginia Woolf, T.S.Eliot, James Joyce and the Bloomsbury group; concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism; a guide to key critical approaches to modernism from contemporary critics to the present; a chronology mapping historical events and literary works; and guided further reading including websites and electronic resources."Introductions to British Literature and Culture" provide practical guides to key literary periods. Guides in the series help to orientate students as they begin a new module or area of study, providing concise information on the historical, cultural, literary and critical context and acting as an initial map of the knowledge needed to study the literature and culture of a specific period.Each guide includes an overview of the historical period, intellectual contexts, major genres, critical approaches and a guide to original research and resource materials in the area, enabling students to progress confidently to further study. ... Read more

Product Description
The Medieval British Literature Handbook is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to literature and culture in the middle ages, focusing particularly on Middle English and the period from 1300-1500. It offers a one-stop resource for students with the essential information and guidance needed at the beginning of a course through to developing more advanced knowledge and skills. It includes: - introductions to authors, texts and contexts - guides to key critics, concepts and topics - an overview of major critical approaches, changes in the canon and directions of current and future research - case studies in reading primary and secondary texts - annotated further reading (including websites), timeline and a glossary of critical terms. Written in clear language by leading academics, it is an indispensable starting point for anyone beginning their study of medieval literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A treasure trove of information, and a very highly recommended read
Literature has always proved a powerful force and mirror of history. "The Medieval British Literature Handbook" looks back into history at the literature of thirteenth to sixteenth century Britain and the major works of the period which offer insight into the culture of the period. Daniel T. Kline offers scholarly insight into the literature of the period and how the roots of this era ring true into literature of the years afterwards. A complete and comprehensive study guide, "The Medieval British Literature Handbook" is a treasure trove of information, and a very highly recommended read.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

heavy lit
Great book for the price. Book is very heavy and a second book came in handy to keep at home. I bought two of these books used for the price of a new one.

Great Collection of Literary Works
I am a senior at Oregon Connections Academy and we have a 2009 edition of this text book printed just for my school. Overall I have to say that I love the pieces of literature gathered for this text book. I have looked up many different translations of the Anglo-Saxon poems that appear in this book such as "The Wife's Lament" and "Beowulf" and have found that these translations were among the best. The sections to help build skill are very concise and easy to understand but do not trivialize them. Overall, I love this text book.

~Rae

Heavy and expensive but good!
First of all, I have to teach from this textbook for my seniors in a New Jersey city high school. Anyway, the pictures are lovely and there is plenty of appropriate questions and exercises for the students to do in class. Do I think it's worth the price or worth to be used in New Jersey high schools? Well, look at it this way, these books were really published with the intent for students to pass the New Jersey High School Proficiency Test. While Prentice Hall is making lots of money, I don't think these high price textbooks are any more useful than anthologies in the classroom where the teacher can choose from a large selection. These books are meant for students to pass a test that millions of dollars are spent. Do I think they are worth it? I don't know but I would like to have more choices for my lesson plans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Satisfied
I was very satisfied with this transaction. I had the book in less than a week. Thank you so much ... Read more

Product Description
In Reforming Empire, Christopher Hodgkins shows how formore than four centuries the Protestant imagination gave the BritishEmpire its main paradigms for dominion and also, ironically, its chieflanguages of anti-imperial dissent. ... Read more