Showing posts with label bards and minstrels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bards and minstrels. Show all posts

Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye) Review

Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye)
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Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye) ReviewOne disadvantage of browsing online bookstores is that you can't simply skim the cover blurbs; sometimes you just have to settle for the opinions of strangers like me. So it may be helpful to read the quotes on the back cover of my copy of 'Fearful Symmetry.'
"To say it is a magnificent, extraordinary book is to praise it as it should be praised, but in doing so one gives little idea of the huge scope of the book and of its fiery understanding . Several great poets have written of Blake, but this book, I believe, is the first to show the full magnitude of Blake's mind, its vast creative thought." -- Edith Sitwell, 'The Spectator'
"According as we agree or disagree with Mr. Frye's contention we shall decide finally on the supremacy of his book. In following the structure of Blake's total vision and relating it to the thought of his age he has triumphantly carried out a task which, given the giant shape of the material, cannot help being immense. His cadences, by sheer explanatory devotion, approach the sonorities of Blake's own." -- 'Times Literary Supplement'
"Frye conducts his ambitious study with unflagging energy, great enthusiasm, and immense erudition." -- 'Poetry'
"An intelligent and beautifully written critical interpretation of the poetry and symbolic thought of William Blake..." -- 'New Yorker'
My opinion: Northrop Frye's literary criticism manages to shift the ground underfoot in the same rare way Blake's poetry does. Frye was the first to crack Blake's code, remove from him the labels of Mystic and Nutcase, and reveal him as a poet who systematically recreates the world. Frye taught Blake to Jesuits, Communist organizers, deans of women, and angry young poets. He was continually pleased to encounter doctors, housewives, clergymen, teachers, blue-collar workers, and shopkeepers, all with a great and deep appreciation of Blake.
Frye's deep appreciation and admiration for Blake comes through on every page, six times over. I reread this book about every five years, each time coming away seeing the world upside down, inside out, and worth renovating.Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Collected Works of Northrop Frye) Overview
Published in 1947, Fearful Symmetry was Northrop Frye's first book and the product of over a decade of intense labour. Drawing readers into the imaginative world of William Blake, Frye succeeded in making Blake's voice and vision intelligible to the wider public. Distinguished by its range of reference, elegance of expression, comprehensiveness of coverage, coherence of argument, and sympathy to its subject, Fearful Symmetry was immediately recognized as a landmark of Blake criticism. Fifty years later, it is still recognized as having ensured the acceptance of Blake as a canonical poet by permanently dispelling the widespread notion that he was the mad creator of an incomprehensible private symbolism.

For this new edition, the text has been revised and corrected in accordance with the principles of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye series. Frye's original annotation has been supplemented with references to currently standard editions of Blake and others, and many new notes have been provided, identifying quotations, allusions, and cultural references. An introduction by Ian Singer provides biographical and critical context for the book, an overview of its contents, and an account of its reception.


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Great Tales from English History: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More Review

Great Tales from English History: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More
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Great Tales from English History: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More ReviewLacey's latest effort is superlative simply because it achieves what it states in its introduction. Namely, to provide a series of anecdotal storeis regarding historical figures any English person simply should know about. As he blandly states, history drops of the curricula quite early on in the english school and the history there is focuses on thematic history rather than factual. I recall dropping history at an early age because it was all about the political twentieth century and didn't really go into our history prior to the Industrial Revolution.
Lacey seeks to rectify that with his delightful and accurate stories about the greatest historcial figures from England's past, cheerfully admitting where he is simply adding to the `word-of-mouth' means of keeping history alive (albeit in the written format) and that he has no primary evidence for the stories. As such we are treated to stories that are part of English folklore, such as King Arthur, Whitby, Cheddar Man, King Alfred, Robin Hood and more. Each is told is a factual manner but doesn't forget that the primary motive for history is storytelling, hence the anecdotal style. The sequence of short tales means you can dip in and out of the book, rather than having to read it staight through (though this is just as pleasurable a read) and, by the end, as it so often is, you remember a lot about many of the tales for the human gossip element that prevails throughout.Great Tales from English History: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More OverviewWith insight, humor and fascinating detail, Lacey brings brilliantly to life the stories that made England--from Ethelred the Unready to Richard the Lionheart, the Venerable Bede to Piers the Ploughman.

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The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography Review

The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography
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The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography ReviewBurns has in the past 50 years come to be treated as a precious relic, to be adored, worshipped, referred to, but not much read. Part of what stoked his rise to fame was his insistence upon writing at least a part of his work in his native Ayrshire dialect. But his broader fame came at first from his English poems, through which he achieved a broader audience. Though he affected being a "farmer poet," his ambition went far beyond that genre. Crawford examines an incredible mass of documentary evidence, most of which was nearly inaccessible up to about 50 years ago, and was too voluminous to sort through until the advent of digital technology. The result is a very solid biography which may resolve some old questions about Burns's character, and which shows how strong Burns's influence upon Scottish and English literature, music, and song has been. I can't imagine anyone in the future writing an essay on Burns without having read this work.The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography Overview

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