Literature in English, British Isles

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  Hippolyta's View: Some Christian Aspects of Shakespeare's Plays

  Scholars have already demonstrated that Shakespeare ‘s language abounds in Biblical allusions and references, but Mr. Bryant now undertakes to show us how such details may bear on the full meaning of the plays. Seeking to interpret Shakespeare’s plays as Christian poetry, Mr. Bryant has developed in this significant work a new critical approach which may have far-reaching consequences for future Shakespearean scholarship.

  In an introductory essay the author shows that the typological view of Scripture was a familiar one to the Christians of Shakespeare ‘s time; he suggests that for Shakespeare, as for many of his contemporaries, the Bible ...Read More

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  Rhyme and Meaning in Richard Crashaw

  Richard Crashaw’s use of rhyme is one of the distinctive aspects of his poetic technique, and in the first systematic analysis of his rhyme craft, Mary Ellen Rickey concludes that he was keenly interested in rhyme as a technical device. She traces Crashaw’s development of rhyme repetitions from the simple designs of his early epigrams and secular poems to the elaborate and irregular schemes of his mature verse.

  Mary Ellen Rickey is an associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky.

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  Milton's Ontology, Cosmogony, and Physics

  Walter Clyde Curry, a well-known student of Milton, analyzes the origins and unique construction of the grand stage upon which Milton presents the drama of human destiny in Paradise Lost. Through close examination of four entities—Heaven of Heavens, Hell, chaos, and the World—a greatly expanded view is provided of the poet’s concept of space and God’s relation to total creation. In facing structural and philosophical problems Milton is shown to be neither a materialist, nor an eclectic, nor a pantheist, as many scholars have insisted; he emerges rather as a master syncretist of widely divergent materials and as a devout ...Read More

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  Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello

  In his earlier work on King Lear, Mr. Heilman combined a number of critical procedures to form a new and important approach to Shakespearian criticism. His study of Othello displays the maturity of insight and skill in analysis the years have brought him in developing his critical method. Mr. Heilman takes account of stage effects; he traces out literal and symbolic meanings; he analyzes plot relationships; he examines characters in terms of both their psychological and their moral situations, and style in relation to both character and meaning. He traces some effects due to historical meanings which have now been ...Read More

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  Index and Finding List of Serials Published in the British Isles, 1789–1832

  Growth of interest in the periodical literature of the past has emphasized increasingly the need for specialized hand lists, a need which the American Union List of Serials, the British Union Catalogue of the Periodical Publications in the University Libraries of the British Isles, and other existing indexes cannot answer. To satisfy one area of this need, William S. Ward has compiled a near-definitive index and finding list of periodicals and newspapers of the English Romantic period. In it are reflected the holdings of almost eleven hundred American, Canadian, and British libraries and newspaper offices. The volume is also the ...Read More