Longman annotated texts

This is the first collection of Spenser's shorter poems to offer modernised spelling and punctuation, thus placing the poet alongside his contemporaries - amongst them Sidney, Shakespeare, and Donne - as a writer who can now be read and understood by modern readers without the obstacles of archaic spelling and punctuation artificially obscuring his meaning. Spenser's celebrated manifesto poem, The Shepherds' Calendar (1579), together with its original prefatory material and the contemporary glosses by E.K., appears here for the first time in a modernised form, but with the conscious archaisms and dialectal forms retained so that it can now, for the first time since it was published, be read as the linguistic palimpsest Spenser intended it to be. Each poem is prefaced by a headnote explaining occasion, genre, sources, theme, and current critical debate, which, together with the detailed footnotes, allows the reader to place each work in its critical and historical context. Aimed at undergraduate as well as postgraduate readers, this groundbreaking edition will make the richness and variety of Spenser's shorter poems truly accessible to the modern reader.

This edition of Ben Jonson's four middle comedies places these works in the popular history and culture of the times, 1605-1614, and surveys the influences, classical and contemporary, on Jonson as a playwright. Its purpose is to revise attitudes towards Jonson's plays, once considered densely intellectual and verbal, by demonstrating their stage-worthiness and physical immediacy. The annotations attempt to recreate the audience's perception of the plays as performances by commenting on the stage-directions, the self-conscious theatricality of characters and scenes, and the vivid colloquialisms of early modern London that give the dialogue a heightened dimension of reality. Brief introductions to each play discuss the local settings, sources, theatre history and further readings. The full general introduction includes a biography of Jonson, a full chronology of the plays and masques, and separate essays on each play, dealing particularly with Jonson's satirical treatments of trends and shams of the day, whether political, social, commercial, or spiritual. The changing roles of women in the period come under particular scrutiny. This text is intended to help students, graduate and undergraduate, see Jonson as he was seen by his contemporaries, the most influential and controversial playwright of the seventeenth century.

This volume presents a selection of Arthur Hugh Clough's poetry (1819-1861). Each poem is accompanied by detailed annotation which provides the modern reader with the intellectual, cultural, and historical information necessary for a full appreciation of the poet's work. A substantial critical introduction analyses the major themes and stylistic features of Clough's poetry, and attempts to place his work in the context of nineteenth-century poetry as a whole. The poems discussed span Clough's entire career, with new texts provided for all posthumously published works. The main focus of the book is on two of his most important poems, Amours de Voyage and Dipsychus and The Spirit. Each is discussed at length in the critical introduction and prefaced by a substantial headnote elucidating its historical background and literary antecedents. Dipsychus and The Spirit is presented here in the first-ever annotated version of the only complete draft of the poem, resulting in a uniquely reliable and accessible text for one of the crucial works of mid-nineteenth-century literature. Clough: Selected Poems will be essential reading for all students of nineteenth-century English literature. Providing a wealth of information about the poet and the context of his work, it also represents a substantial contribution to scholarship on the subject in its own right.

"Margery Kempe's autobiography engages the modern reader with its richly textured images of late-medieval England - its town life, customs, means of travel, dress, food, and, most notably, its observations of the religious rituals that prevailed in the author's lifetime (ca. 1373-ca. 1440). Lynn Staley's new translation does not modernize; rather, it stays as close to the original Middle English as possible without sounding archaic. The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations, a map of medieval England, and a Kempe lexicon." ""Contexts" collects primary readings chosen to inform readers about late-medieval religious authority, mysticism, and expressions of worship. Included are excerpts from The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel, Meditations on the Life of Christ, The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, The Book of Saint Bride, and The Life of Marie d'Oignies by Jacques de Vitry." ""Criticism" includes nine important interpretations of The Book of Margery Kempe, chosen to engage student readers and stimulate classroom discussion. Clarissa W. Atkinson, Lynn Staley, Karma Lochrie, David Aers, Kathleen Ashley, Gail McMurray Gibson, Sarah Beckwith, Caroline Walker Bynum, and Nicholas Watson provide their varied assessments." "A Selected Bibliography is also included."--BOOK JACKET.