SUBJECT INDEX:

LITERARY CRITICISM:

The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets: Helen Vendler; Helen Vendler, widely regarded as our most accomplished interpreter of poetry, here serves as an incomparable guide to some of the best-loved poems in the English language. In detailed commentaries on Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, Vendler reveals previously unperceived imaginative and stylistic features of the poems, pointing out not only new levels of import in particular lines, but also the ways in which the four parts of each sonnet work together to enact emotion and create dynamic effect.; Mixed 1997 / Paperback 1999

Is Milton Better than Shakespeare?: Nigel Smith; Smith makes a compelling case for Milton’s relevance to our present situation. In direct and accessible terms, he shows how the seventeenth-century poet, while working to write the greatest heroic poem in the English language, also managed to theorize about religious, political, and civil liberty in ways that matter as much today as they did in Puritanical times.; Hardcover 2008

Language in Literature: Roman Jakobson; Krystyna Pomorska, Editor; Stephen Rudy, Editor; This book is the first comprehensive presentation in English of Jakobson's major essays on the intertwining of language and literature: here the reader will learn how it was that Jakobson became legendary. This will become a basic book for contemplating the function of language in literature--a project that will continue to engross the keenest readers.; Hardcover 1988 / Paperback 1990

Notorious Identity: Linda Charnes; Richard III, Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra--these were figures of intense signification long before Shakespeare gave them new life on the stage. When he did, Linda Charnes argues, he used these legendary figures to explore a new kind of fame--notorious identity--an infamy based not on the moral and ethical "use value" of legend but on a commodification of identity itself.; Paperback 1995 / Hardcover

Ruin the Sacred Truths: Harold Bloom; Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. In so doing, he uncovers the truth that all our attempts to call any strong work more sacred than another are merely political and social formulations.; Hardcover 1989 / Paperback 1991

Shakespeare without Words and Other Essays: Alfred Harbage; In the title essay of this volume, Harbage admonishes the critics and directors whose modern--and often perverse--presentations of Shakespeare attempt to locate him in the theatre of the absurd. According to the author, such critics are using the actions of the plays but ignoring the words; his concern is that the plays be read and responded to as whole works of art. Thus the groundwork is laid for this outstanding collection of essays and lectures; Hardcover 1972