Bucknell University Books

This is a brief introduction to the work of the great Irish visionary, George Russell. It includes an interesting chapter on A.E. as a Theosophist. The authors were amazingly respectful towards George Russell's desire to be considered a contemplative and a visionary rather than a scholar and writer. There is a useful chronology which lists the important events in A.E.'s life and career. As the nearest contemporary visionary poet to our times, George Russell deserves more serious study than he receives and this little book is a good place to begin.

The range of Vermeer's genius-encompassing scientific and philosophical investigation, pictorial and painterly virtuosity, musical, philosophical, and literary allusions-was enormous. This is but one of the reasons that those who believe Vermeer did not make extensive use of such devices as the camera obscura are not even wrong. Such arguments entirely miss the point of Vermeer's complexity. Robert Huerta's book should inspire an appreciation of Vermeer in the context of the natural science of his time and "more [as he says] in the tradition of a Durer, a Velazquez, or even a Leonardo...." Huerta's bibliography is extensive, his research exhaustive, and his conclusions are always supported with substantial evidence. Even when he conjectures, he does so in an informed way. Note especially the link he makes with Vermeer's "The Astronomer" and Raphael's "Urania, Prime Mover" at the Vatican.

This book will reward those who have both a working knowlege of Vermeer and an appreciation of the history of science as well as an understanding of scientific methodology. It is an exciting addition to literature about Vermeer and builds upon the insights of Gowing and Steadman as those insights have helped to explain Vermeer's expressive "optical way."

one of the most fascinating and enlightening books I've ever read on Blake.

In the Process of Poetry: The New York School And The Avant-Garde, William Watkin (Lecturer in the Department of English, Brunel University, London) provides an extensive and scholarly analysis of poetry by the four main figures of the New York School: John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. Daring to reinterpret the definition of "avant-garde", Watkin presents sample poems along with exhaustive, scholarly dissection and post-structural theory. Each individual poem is followed by several pages of erudite challenging, college-level discussion. In The Process Of Poetry is a book especially for people who want to reflect upon and strive to truly understand avant-garde poetry in general, the poetry of the New York School in particular.

I am a criminal lawyer and never liked philosophy, but this book is full of insight. Not esoterica, but the sort of things you never notice but bowl you over once you realize them. In fact, this book makes the way I learned (and practiced) criminal law seem comparatively esoteric. Although it is not light reading, once you get down the basic viewpont, it is easy to see its practical dimensions.

This is one of those books that's so brilliant that it sends one running to Geza Csath and William S. Burroughs desperately seeking a way into Interzone. A must read by a guy who's been there.

Finally a book that sees nostalgia historically! Together with Ann Colley's Nostalgia and Recollection and Nicholas Dames's Amnesiac Selves, this book not only makes us reconsider the ways we think about nostalgia, but one that looks at 19th (and here also late-18th) century ideas about it as well. In contrast to the many studies that only revolve around vague uses of nostalgia without ever problematizing the term at all, here we find its changing meaning well understood and explored. Personally, I liked the chapter on Dickens best - perhaps because we so often associate nostalgia with him, and all for the wrong reasons.
Refreshingly free of jargon and the psychobabble that so often mars more general diatribes against nostalgia as only a bad thing.

This is an insightful, compelling and radically original study. The Lust of Seeing will be essential to all future work on Hernandez and to a range of issues in cultural studies.

I found this study of Bennett's writing much more than a useful critical discussion of Modernism and Modernity. While many critical works on literature are hard going, this one is remarkably articulate, written in lively and engaging prose that made me want to go out and read everything Bennett wrote. For anyone interested in Modernism as a literary movement, this study provides a sophisticated analysis of the function of content as well as form in the modernist project. It takes on Woolf's criticism of Bennett's work as "traditional realism" in such a way that reveals him to be a much more complex and interesting writer than she gives him credit for; the short discussion of Bennett's reaction to Woolf's work is particularly telling. This is truly a worthy book.

When perusing this volume, you will be struck by how skillfully the author manages to strike a balance between letters and his own interpretation. You are taken on a journey of Roethke's poetic process; the text explores the why and how of Roethke's work in a subtle yet understanding way. This is a good read for those who wish to learn more about the private mind behind Roethke's published writing, and those who wish to gain a better appreciation of how one literary mind shapes and guides another.