William Wordsworth's later poetry complicates possibilities of life and art in war's aftermath. This illuminating study provides new perspectives and reveals how his work following the end of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars reflects a passionate, lifelong engagement with the poetics and politics of peace. Focusing on works from between 1814 and 1822, Philip Shaw constructs a unique and compelling account of how Wordsworth, in both his ongoing poetic output and in his revisions to ear...

Described as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. While Horses pays homage to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the book's core lies in a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics and includes discussions of lyrical preoccupations: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, god, met...

'Beowulf', one of the earliest poems in the English language, recounts a tale of heroism played out against the backdrop of Scandinavia in the 5th to 6th centuries AD. And yet, this Old English verse narrative set in Scandinavia is – a little surprisingly, perhaps – populated with names of German descent.This insight into the personal names of 'Beowulf' acts the starting point for Philip A. Shaw's innovative and nuanced study. As Shaw reveals, the origins of these personal names pr...

This bestselling text by Charles Barber, with updating contributions from Joan C. Beal and Philip A. Shaw, recounts the history of the English language from its remote ancestry to the present day. Using dozens of familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Shakespeare and Chaucer, the English language is explored in terms of where it came from, where it is going and the global impact it has had, taking into account the many varieties of English that now exist. Stimulating and int...

A comprehensive yet concise history of the English language, this accessible textbook helps those studying the subject to understand the formation of English. It tells the story of the language from its remote ancestry to the present day, especially the effects of globalisation and the spread of, and subsequent changes to, English. Now in its third edition, it has been substantially revised and updated in light of new research, with an extended chapter on World Englishes, and a completely ...

Cabbage soup, meat cake and mechanical mayhem.When Andi's parents decide it's time for a family robot, Andi surprises everyone by falling for the scruffy, second-hand model no one else wants. She is named Delilah, and she quickly becomes part of the household's chaotic rhythms, mixing up orders, baking odd cakes and bowing at all the wrong moments.A misguided express-tube adventure shows how far they'll go to protect each other. But the weekend trip to Grandpa's cabin in the forest truly t...

Arms and the Man is a satirical drama play written by George Bernard Shaw published in 1898. It has become one of the most popular of his plays. Like his other works, Arms and the Man questions conventional values and uses war and love as his satirical targets. He delightfully pops the bubble of the 'brave soldier' always wishing to charge into battle and shows (I think) how people stay the same whether in uniform or not and are not magically changed into different people. A cautious soldi...

Sidney envisions the world as an ideally ordered structure that rewards good and punishes evil, but this order, vitiated by sin, has fallen prey to random chance. The function of poetry is, by teaching (through delight of various sorts), to restore the original order so far as is humanly possible. This treatise defends the dignity of poetry, by which Sidney means literature in general, and criticizes the literature of his own day. Much of this criticism sounds to a modern ear like unimagin...

A spellbinding exploration of the human capacity to imagine the futureOur ability to think about the future is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. In The Invention of Tomorrow, cognitive scientists Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, and Adam Bulley argue that its emergence transformed humans from unremarkable primates to creatures that hold the destiny of the planet in their hands.Drawing on their own cutting-edge research, the authors break down the science o...

How viruses emerge to cause pandemics, how our immune system combats them, and how diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antiviral therapies work.Throughout history, humans have contended with pandemics. History is replete with references to plagues, pestilence, and contagion, but the devastation wrought by pandemics had been largely forgotten by the twenty-first century. Now, the enormous human and economic toll of the rapidly spreading COVID-19 disease offers a vivid r...

One of Saint Augustine's most important contributions to Christian Theology, "On Christian Doctrine" is essential reading for any serious believer interested in learning more about faith in God. The four books of St. Augustin On Christian Doctrine (De Doctrina Christiana, iv libri) are a compend of exegetical theology to guide the reader in the understanding and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, according to the analogy of faith. The first three books were written ad 397; the fourth...

It began in late winter of 2004. Almost 100 years had passed since the last spotting of a wild wolverine in Michigan when coyote hunters caught a glimpse of one of the animals in a frozen farm field in the northern thumb region. For the next six years, Jeff Ford, a local science teacher and amateur naturalist, devoted himself to locating and filming the wolverine that had unexpectedly and inexplicably appeared in the Wolverine State. By the time hikers found the animal dead in early 2010, ...