ENGL305 :The Premodern Life of Trees: Interdisciplinarity and Literary Study of the Past (HC)

The poet Virgil remains the most significant and influential figure in Latin literature, and this expanded and updated Companion covers his life, work, and reception from antiquity to the present. The Aeneid, the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Appendix Vergiliana are all discussed, as are art, history, politics, and philosophy; Virgil's literary style is carefully explored along with poetic traditions before and since, and chapters engage with his poems and their reception from perspectives including intertextuality, narratology, gender theory, philology and historicism. Leading authors cover topics from translations and commentaries to genre, authority, and characterisation, providing revised and updated recommendations for further reading. This volume is an accessible introduction to Virgil and his legacy for students and teachers, while also providing wide-ranging and in-depth investigations that will appeal to scholars of classical literature and other disciplines.

Ovid was one of the greatest writers of classical antiquity, and arguably the single most influential ancient poet for post-classical literature and culture. In this Cambridge Companion, chapters by leading authorities from Europe and North America discuss the backgrounds and contexts for Ovid, the individual works, and his influence on later literature and art. Coverage of essential information is combined with exciting critical approaches. This Companion is designed both as an accessible handbook for the general reader who wishes to learn about Ovid, and as a series of stimulating essays for students of Latin poetry and of the classical tradition.

From the conjectured identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to misprints in the First Folio, from Shakespeare's favorite figures of speech to the staging of Othello in South Africa, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare offers the most comprehensive coverage available on all aspects of Shakespeare's life and works. Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and boasting contributions from a team of internationally renowned scholars (including such noted Shakespeare authorities as Helen Vendler, Park Honan, and Jonathan Bate), the Companion has more than 3,000 entries that offer succinct, stimulating, and authoritative commentary on Shakespeare's life and times, his plays and poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. All Shakespeare's plays--from As You Like It and All's Well that Ends Well to King Lear and Hamlet--are covered in major articles. There are concise descriptions of allusions in Shakespeare (Ajax, Agamemnon), well-known critics (Samuel Johnson, John Dryden), great Shakespearian actors (Richard Burbage, Lawrence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh), characters in the plays (Mercutio, Ophelia), figures of speech (metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron), and much more. Longer articles explore topics such as Shakespeare's birthplace, censorship, the Chamberlain's Men, film, and Shakespeare's reception in such countries as China, Italy, and the United States. Bringing its readers up to date not only with the latest in Shakespearian scholarship and controversy but with the plays' most recent incarnations on stage, film, and in international popular culture, this is the perfect companion to Shakespeare's works, covering everything from Aaron to Zeffirelli, and from Shakespeare in schools to Shakespeare in Love.