Engelska

The first female translator of the epic into English in over sixty years, Stephanie McCarter addresses accuracy in translation and its representation of women, gendered dynamics of power, and sexual violence in Ovid's classic.<br/><br/>     Ovid's Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war, beauty, and so on) is as changeable as the beings that inhabit its pages. The sustained thread is power and how it transforms us, both those of us who have it and those of us who do not. For those who are brutalized and traumatized, transformation is often the outward manifestation of their trauma. <br/><br/>A beautiful virgin is caught in the gaze of someone more powerful who rapes or tries to rape them, and they ultimately are turned into a tree or a lake or a stone or a bird. The victim's objectification is clear: They are first a visual object, then a sexual object, and finally simply an object. Around 50 of the epic's tales involve rape or attempted rape of women. Past translations have obscured or mitigated Ovid's language so that rape appears to be consensual sex. Through her translation, McCarter considers the responsibility of handling sexual and social dynamics.<br/><br/>Then why continue to read Ovid? McCarter proposes Ovid should be read because he gives us stories through which we can better explore ourselves and our world, and he illuminates problems that humans have been grappling with for millennia. <br/><br/>Careful translation of rape and the body allows readers to see Ovid's nuances clearly and to better appreciate how ideas about sexuality, beauty, and gender are constructed over time. <br/><br/>This is especially important since so many of our own ideas about these phenomena are themselves undergoing rapid metamorphosis, and Ovid can help us see and understand this progression. The Metamorphoses holds up a kaleidoscopic lens to the modern world, one that offers us the opportunity to reflect on contemporary discussions about gender, sexuality, race, violence, art, and identity.

<b>This luxurious hardback edition presents Dante's celebrated work, <i>The Divine Comedy</i>, with opulent gold cover embossing, striking illustrated page edges and 135 classic illustrations by Gustave Doré.</b><br/><br/>Dante's<i> Divine Comedy</i> is regarded as a masterpiece of medieval literature, telling the story of Dante's descent into hell, his journey through purgatory and eventual ascent into heaven, with Virgil as his guide. Along with stirring adventures and boundless imagination are Dante's reflections on spirituality and the nature of faith and reason in the world. <br/><br/>From the pilgrim's deepening insight into the workings of evil and moral choice (Hell) through to the dramatization of the nature and purpose of moral conversion (Purgatory) to the blissfully mystical ascent before God (Paradise), Dante's cosmic vision remains unparalleled.<br/><br/>This beautiful hardback edition, with <b>gold foil accents</b> and <b>stunning printed edges</b>, includes Henry W. Longfellow's classic translation,<b> 135 magnificent, full-page illustrations by Gustave Doré</b> and a brilliant introduction by Anna Amari-Parker, full of accessible analysis of Dante's allegorical tale.<br/><br/><b>ABOUT THE SERIES:</b> <i>Arcturus Epic Classics </i>brings together stunning hardback gift editions of classic works, presented with striking illustrated page edges and illustrated throughout by such greats as Gustave Doré and Harry Clarke.

<b>Here is the definitive edition of Seamus Heaney's poetry, with illuminating critical notes, including uncollected poems and a selection of previously unseen material.</b><br/><br/>This is the long-awaited, definitive edition of Seamus Heaney's poetry. It encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from <i>Death of a Naturalist </i>(1966) to <i>Human Chain</i> (2010), and those poems published in pamphlets, journals and magazines or with limited circulation. In addition, the book includes a small selection of previously unseen material.<br/><br/>It is a body of work that, in its entirety, resounds with the 'lyrical beauty and ethical depth' cited by the Nobel committee: poems 'which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.' <br/><br/>Critical introductions to each collection and notes that illuminate the history and development of the poems make this the essential volume for admirers of the work.<br/><br/>'Heaney's voice, by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive, is one of a suppleness almost equal to consciousness itself.' Helen Vendler<br/><br/>'More than any other poet since Wordsworth he can make us understand that the outside world is not outside, but what we are made of.' John Carey<br/><br/>'His is "closeup" poetry - close up to thought, to the world, to the emotions. Few writers at work today, in verse or fiction, can give the sense of rich, fecund, lived life that Heaney does.' John Banville<br/><br/>'These poems find - in the dowser's gift and the child's perception of the world - images of the marvellous that are also wonderfully grounded. . . Heaney is a poet who deserves to be read in entirety.' Jamie McKendrick<br/><br/>'For Heaney, there were marvels enough in this world, and never mind the next. Ordinary objects and places - a sofa, a wireless, a satchel, a gust of wind, the sound of rain - were sanctified.' Blake Morrison

Orlam reveals PJ Harvey as not only one of the most talented songwriters of the age, but a gifted poet - whose formal skill, transforming eye and ear for the lyric line has produced a strange and moving poem like no other.<br/><br/>Nine-year-old Ira-Abel Rawles lives on Hook Farm in the village of UNDERWHELEM. Next to the farm is Gore Woods, Iras sanctuary, overseen by Orlam, the all-seeing lambs eyeball who is Ira-Abels guardian and protector. Here, drawing on the rituals, childrens songs, chants and superstitions of the rural West Country of England, Ira-Abel creates the twin realm through which she can make sense of an increasingly confusing and frightening world. Orlam follows Ira and the inhabitants of UNDERWHELEM month by month through the last year of her childhood innocence. The result is a poemsequence of light and shadow suffused with hints of violence, sexual confusion and perversion, the oppression of family, but also ecstatic moments in sunlit clearings, song and bawdy humour. The broad theme is ultimately one of love carried by Iras personal Christ, the constantly bleeding soldier-ghost Wyman-Elvis, who bears The Word: Love Me Tender.<br/><br/>Orlam is not only a remarkable coming-of-age tale, but the first full-length book written in the Dorset dialect for many decades. Orlam also reveals P J Harvey as not only one of the most talented songwriters of the age, but a gifted poet whose formal skill, transforming eye and ear for the lyric line has produced a strange and moving poem like no other.

'The world is blood-hot and personal': in her moving and illuminating introduction, the poet Emily Berry remembers her own teenage encounters with<i> Ariel </i>and offers a personal way into this definitive collection. She shows us how Plath can crystallize our most volatile emotions, transforming them into images so potent and precise that they resonate with us all. Plath has been an inspiration to successive generations; her influence, enduring and profound.<br/><br/>'If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.' A. Alvarez, <i>Observer</i>, 1965

The greatest story to encapsulate the roaring twenties, The Great Gatsby has remained a timeless classic in American literature.

From TikTok phenomenon Whitney Hanson, a brand-new collection of poems exploring the cadences of love, loss, grief, and healing<br/><br/><br/><br/>i am finally finding a balance,<br/><br/>a great harmony<br/><br/>between the loss<br/><br/>and the love,<br/><br/>between who i was<br/><br/>and who i have become<br/><br/><br/><br/>In this exquisite poetry collection, Whitney Hanson, chronicles the loss of a loved one, tracing the progression of grief and healing through the lens of music.<br/><br/>We each begin with a simple note, but as life progresses, we're led to the next note, and the next-all of which combine to form the melody of a song and a life. As life becomes more complicated and complex, we find that loss, grief, and heartache can muffle our music, making the world go silent.<br/><br/>But as Whitney's poems show, all of these rests and pauses in the music are part of the composition of life, and it is only by moving through the variations that we can find the harmony and grace that come with healing.