Unexpected Elegies


Book Description

Thomas Hardy’s famous sequence of love poems, published as a book for the first time. When Emma Hardy died in 1912, her husband, the great novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, began to write “Poems of 1912–13,” a series of elegies that are among the most moving in the English language. Although the couple had been estranged for years, after her death Hardy fell under Emma’s spell again and was enthralled by her as he hadn’t been in decades. He transformed his hopelessly revived love into poetry, pouring out his yearning and passionate attachment to a love forever lost. “Poems of 1912–13” and the other elegies about Emma included in this volume have been read and discussed by poets and scholars for almost a century but never collected in their own book. Their accessibility, emotional power, and focus on the mysterious complexities of marriage make them of interest to a broad public. Readers will cherish this beautifully produced, illustrated volume of poetical testaments to enduring love.




Thomas Hardy, Poet


Book Description

The poems of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) are key to understanding 19th, 20th and even 21st century poetry. This collection of fresh essays sheds new light on Hardy's poems--some of which have received little critical attention--from a variety of thematic and analytical approaches, offering a detailed picture of how his works are currently being read. The contributors discuss why Hardy's poetic genius is less and less overshadowed by his career as a novelist and highlight his passionate attention to small details, his delight in "noticing things" and his "eye for...mysteries."




Elegies


Book Description

'Delia, when flames engulf my bier you'll weep for me, and then you'll mix your kisses with sad tears.' Tibullus (?55-18 BC) was one of a group of poets known as the Latin elegists, whose number included Ovid and Propertius. Living in the age of Augustus, his poems reflect Augustan ideals, but they are above all notable for their emphasis on the personal, and for their subject-matter, love. Tibullus' elegies are addressed to two different mistresses, Delia and Nemesis, and a boy, Marathus. His pious and idealistic love for Delia is replaced by a more tortured affair with the cruel Nemesis, and the poet's elegies to Marathus give a broader perspective to his treatment of the subject. Anguish and betrayal characterize Tibullus' depiction of love's changing fortunes, in poetry that is passionate, vivid, and sometimes haunting. In this parallel text edition, A. M. Juster's eloquent translations are accompanied by an introduction and notes from Robert Maltby which discuss Tibullus' work in its literary and historical context. Together they demonstrate the achievements of this fine Roman poet. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.




Elegies


Book Description




Homeland Elegies


Book Description

This "profound and provocative" work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish followsan immigrant father and his son as they search for belonging—in post-Trump America, and with each other (Kirkus Reviews). "Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable." —Salman Rushdie ​ A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. ​Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one—least of all himself—in the process. One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020 Finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A Best Book of 2020 * Washington Post * O Magazine * New York Times Book Review * Publishers Weekly




The Amatory Elegies of Johannes Secundus


Book Description

This volume contains the first translation into English of all the major love poetry of the Renaissance neo-Latin poet Johannes Secundus and the first detailed critical appreciation of the first two books of his Elegies and the Elegiae Sollemnes. The book consists of an introduction (on the poet's life and works, characters in and dating of the amatory elegies, literary background etc.), facing Latin text and English translation of the Elegies, brief explanatory notes and full essays of appreciation, an appendix with a translation into English of the Basia and Epithalamium, and an index. This work contains extensive amounts of valuable information about Secundus' models, wit, style, sound, diction, placement, structure, manipulation of characters and themes, generic innovation etc. and facilitates a complete reappraisal of this major Renaissance love poet.




Maximianus’ ‘Elegies’


Book Description

This book is the first study to focus on a metaliterary interpretation of Maximianus’ Elegies, and aims to fill a major gap in international literature concerning the thoughts of the last love elegist on the evolution and renovation of the genre of love elegy during Late Antiquity. The book includes all known subjects of Maximianus’ poetry (e.g., the division of his work into six elegies, its attribution to Cornelius Gallus by Pomponius Gauricus in 1502, its reception in recent years, the intellectual milieu of the Ostrogothic Italy, the historical contextualization of his poetry, the Appendix Maximiani, the impact of the Augustan love elegy (and especially Ovid’s) upon it, etc.), in order to offer a more complete picture of it. However, the content of the book is predominantly prototype, as it examines subjects that have not previously been discussed in the past. These include: a) The generic interaction between the ‘host’ genre of love elegy, and several ‘guest’ genres (e.g., Roman comedy, epic, pastoral); b) The hidden metapoetic discourse regarding the genre of love elegy itself. The book is intended for scholars or students working on or interested in Roman love elegy and its generic evolution in Late Antiquity.




Duino Elegies


Book Description

Named for the Castle of Duino, on a rocky headland of the Adriatic, the Duino Elegies speaks in a voice that is both intimate and majestic on the mysteries of human life and our attempt, in the words of the translator, 'to use our self-consciousness to some advantage: to transcend, through art and the imagination, our self-deception and our fear.'







Elegies, I-IV


Book Description

The Latin poet Propertius (ca. 50–16 B.C.) is considered by many to be the greatest elegiac poet of Rome. Long neglected because of the obscurity of his thought and the vagaries of his syntax, Propertius has now emerged as a writer of compelling originality and intellectual power. In this authoritative edition of Propertius’s elegies, L. Richardson, jr, makes these challenging poems both intelligible and accessible. For students of literature and history alike, Propertius offers insights into the intellectual world of Augustan Rome and Roman society. His perplexities and frustrations, his struggles with himself and with his domineering and capricious mistress Cynthia, and his exhilarations and depressions all strike a surprisingly familiar chord for the modern reader. Through an in-depth introduction and explanatory notes, Richardson strives to make the poems as readable as possible, at the same time examining the complexities and textual difficulties of the texts. Each elegy is accompanied by an introductory note providing a literary interpretation of the poem, followed by full and detailed commentary.