Traditional Japanese Literature features a rich array of works dating from the very beginnings of the Japanese written language through the evolution of Japan's noted aristocratic court and warrior cultures. It contains stunning new translations of such canonical texts as The Tales of the Heike as well as works and genres previously ignored by scholars and unknown to general readers. This volume includes generous selections from Man'yÿsh, The Tale... more...

Critics have often charged Edgar Allan Poe with sloppy writing. Using stylistics and classical rhetorical theory, Brett Zimmerman demonstrates that Poe was in fact a brilliant and deliberate lexical technician who varied his prose style according to genre and the world views and the mental health or illness of his narrators. Zimmerman breaks new ground in Poe studies by providing a catalogue of three hundred figures of speech and thought in the... more...

From Zeus and Europa, to Diana, Pan, and Prometheus, the myths of ancient Greece and Rome seem to exert a timeless power over us. But what do those myths represent, and why are they so enduringly fascinating? Why do they seem to be such a potent way of talking about our selves, our origins, and our desires? This imaginative and stimulating Very Short Introduction goes beyond a simple retelling of the stories to explore the rich history and diverse... more...

Historical Linguistics provides a comprehensive and clearly written introduction to historical linguistic theory and methods. Since its first publication in 1962 the book has established itself as core reading for students of linguistics. This edition has been thoroughly revised. Drawing on recent linguistic and archaeological research Professor Lehmann incorporates key developments in the field. These include exciting advances in the history and... more...

"How should we read Lolita? The beginning of an answer is that we should read it the way all great works deserve to be read: with attention and intelligence. But what sort of attention should we pay and what sort of intelligence should we apply to a work of art that recounts so much love, so much loss, so much thoughtlessness—and across which flashes something we might be tempted to call evil? To begin with, we should read with the... more...

A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c.1350-c.1500 challenges readers to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. A ground-breaking collection of newly-commissioned essays on medieval literature and culture. Encourages students to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. Reflects the erosion of the traditional, rigid boundary between... more...

Drawing comparisons with other art forms, this book examines the role of aesthetic features in silent reading, such as narrative structure, and the core experience of reading a novel as a story rather than a scholarly exercise. Focuses on the experience of the art form known as the novel Uses the more common perspective of a reader who reads to be told a story, rather than for scholarly or critical analysis Draws comparisons with... more...

Mark Twain claimed he could read human character as well as he could read the Mississippi River. Now one of America s preeminent Twain scholars has interwoven the author s inner life with his writings to produce a meditation on how Twain s understanding of human nature evolved and deepened. Quirk charts the ways in which this humorist and occasional philosopher contemplated human nature, revealing how his outlook changed over the years. His travels,... more...

Reading may be dead, but books are alive and well What good are books, you may be wondering, if we're not going to read them? What are we even doing in this bookstore? Not to worry! It turns out that there are literally thousands of things to do with these chunky stacks of bound tree pulp. Fun, exciting, adventurous, creative things. In fact, this familiar rectangular object suddenly offers enough dazzling new interactive possibilities to, yes,... more...

In the years since his death from alcohol poisoning, San Francisco Renaissance poet Jack Spicer (1925-1965) has gradually come to be recognized as one of most intriguing, demanding, and rewarding of the so-called 'New American Poetry' poets who were first published in Donald Allen's historic anthology of that name.This is the first full-length critical monograph on his work, placing it in the context not only of the San Francisco Renaissance and... more...