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An unparalleled introduction to the parodist's art, The Oxford Book of Parodies includes parodies from Chaucer to the present day, ranging from imitations and spoofs to lampoons and pastiches, comical, scornful, witty, and subtle. It also takes in advertisements, legal rituals, political warfare and a scientific hoax.
This is a unique anthology. Drawing on the full range of English prose, wherever it has been written, it illustrates the growth, development, and resources of the language from the legends of Sir Thomas Malory to the novels of Kashuo Ishiguro. In the process it reveals a variety ofachievements which no other language can match. The book represents an enormous diversity of men and women - from John Bunyan to John Updike, from Brendan Behan to Chinua Achebe, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Patrick White. As the centuries progress, American writers increase their presence, and by the twentieth century there are contributions fromIndia, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, the Caribbean and many other parts o...
Shylock, the cunning moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, is one of the great familiar figures of the world of drama. He is also one of the most controversial characters ever conceived. Photos.
Gathers witty quotations about nature, religion, fear, hope, fame, wealth, politics, marriage, happiness, knowledge, language, and death
An unrivalled collection of literary gossip and intimate sidelights on the lives of the authors. This hugely entertaining anthology ranges from Chaucer to the present day, with anecdotes that are hilarious, touching, outrageous, sinister, inspiring, and downright weird.
The essay is one of the richest of literary forms. Its most obvious characteristics are freedom, informality, and the personal touch--though it can also find room for poetry, satire, fantasy, and sustained argument. All these qualities, and many others, are on display in The Oxford Book of Essays. The most wide-ranging collection of its kind to appear for many years, it includes 140 essays by 120 writers: classics, curiosities, meditations, diversions, old favorites, recent examples that deserve to be better known. A particularly welcome feature is the amount of space allotted to American essayists, from Benjamin Franklin to John Updike and beyond. This is an anthology that opens with wise words about the nature of truth, and closes with a consideration of the novels of Judith Krantz. Some of the other topics discussed in its pages are anger, pleasure, Gandhi, Beau Brummell, wasps, party-going, gangsters, plumbers, Beethoven, potato crisps, the importance of being the right size, and the demolition of Westminster Abbey. It contains some of the most eloquent writing in English, and some of the most entertaining.
Twelve authors, from W.B. Yeats to Franz Kafka, and how the TLS reacted to their work on its first appearance, and something of how it has come to be viewed in retrospect.
From limericks to social satire, The Oxford Book of Comic Verse offers a remarkable collection of outstanding light poetry. John Gross has brought together the finest writers in the history of the English language - from Chaucer and Skelton to Shakespeare and Swift, Lord Byron to Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson to John Updike, as well as witty song lyrics from such artists as Irving Berlin and Cole Porter - offering delightful examples of their comic verse. Drawing on many different types of verse, including epigrams, street ballads, advertising jingles, clerihew, music-hall lyrics, and the doubledactyl of the calypso, this highly entertaining collection offers an exceptionally wide range of comic pleasures. The poems are by turns subtle, down-to-earth, macabre, ingenious, acerbic, ribald, and cheerful. Written to amuse, they call forth laughter and delight in equal measure. Compiled by one of our finest critics and anthologists, this reissue boasts a stylish new design and a fresh contemporary feel.
Although this book is a work of fiction, it is based on actual events. John Gross lived through those events. He commanded a mechanized infantry company that fought in Bien Hoa City on the first day of the Tet Offensive. I was one of his soldiers that day. He has an insider's understanding of the Vietnam War, but he also has a wonderful facility for making it understandable to the average reader. David T. Zabecki, Editor, Vietnam Magazine
No writer has served as such a powerful source of inspiration for other writers as Shakespeare. No writer has attracted such widespread and varied comment. This unique anthology draws on the vast literature that plays little part in formal Shakespeare criticism and scholarship, but that shows with immediacy and passion the enormous impact Shakespeare has had on our cultural life. Novelists, poets, and playwrights are all represented. So are philosophers, historians, composers, film-makers, politicians. Shakespearean characters and motifs are shown fuelling the genius of Goethe and Dostoevsky, Aldous Huxley and Emily Dickinson, John Updike and Duke Ellington, Nabokov and Proust. Shakespeare t...