AMS Press
1650-1850; ideas, �thetics, and inquiries in the early modern era; v.14.
Articles in this issue discuss such matters as the ideology of the master passion in English serious drama 1660-1800, feminine identity in Eliza Haywood's The Wife and The Husband, and the spirituality of trees in later 17th-century horticulture. A special section presents three articles on Jacobite travelers and fellow-travelers in Poland, the colonies, and Sweden. Recently published books are also reviewed, as usual in books of this series. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Dickens studies annual; essays on Victorian fiction; v.38.
Judging by the liveliness in this collection of essays and bibliographies, the Victorians still fascinate. Topics include the influence of sleep, dreams and unconsciousness in Oliver Twist; the use of the discourse of Lent (the relation between the individual and the environment) in Nicholas Nickleby; comparisons of degrees of secrecy in Dickens's historical fiction; functions of class and the middle-class artist in David Copperfield; Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations from a postmodern perspective (suitable for Generation X); Jane Eyre's appropriation of elements of Paradise Lost in Jane Eyre; and narrative sympathy as expressed by character, story and the body in The Mill on the Floss. Other entries include a review of 2005 Dickens studies and studies of Robert Lewis Stevenson from 1975 to 2005, closing with a supplement to an annotated bibliography of Dickens's Christmas books, Christmas stories and other short fiction. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Eighteenth-century thought; v.3.
Based upon materials presented at the conference "John Locke Through the Centuries" held at Yale in October 2004, the papers in this volume in the series focus on the life, influence and thought of John Locke, beginning with Locke's legacy and his continued popularity. Contributors proceed to describe Locke's early life, his place in the modern biological "tradition," his take on Christianity and the aftereffects, the impact of his Two Treatises of Government and Essay concerning Human Understanding, and his theories on property, marriage, citizenship and natural science. Other topics include the historical influence of the Jacobite court in the English Catholic enlightenment and a reinterpretation of the history of ideas in eighteenth-century Britain. Topics of review articles include changes in the language of philosophy, Edmund Burke and the post-colonial enlightenment, and Locke's spirits. The collection closes with book reviews. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ezra Pound and the making of modernism.
Pratt (English emeritus, Miami U., Ohio) argues that Pound was largely, if not completely responsible for the development and maintenance of Modernism, which he believes Pound forged from the French realist and Symbolist literatures of the nineteenth century. Pratt builds his case chronologically, placing Pound's founding of Imagism in 1912 at the fountainhead of Modernist thought. Pratt traces Pound's influence of such leading lights as Yeats and T.S. Eliot, and also considers Pound's evolution as a poet, translator, and scholar of international poetic traditions. Pratt draws on unpublished and published materials as well as his own personal contacts with Pound and his wife to flesh out Pound as an editor, educator and mentor. The result is remarkably convincing, with the material on Pound's self-portraits in poetry and his emergence as a Vatic poet being particularly interesting. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The orders of Gothic; Foucault, Lacan, and the subject of gothic writing, 1764-1820.
How did the shift to the dark world of the Gothic serve as evidence that western literature was shedding classicism and approaching modernity? Townshend (English, U. of Stirling) finds a new path within that debate as he analyzes early Gothic works to explain links in the continuity between the discursive and the literary that are more subtle and complex than previously thought. He admits his approach, which considers the historical perspectives of Foucault's alongside Lacan's thought on the Borromean knot, may itself be subtle and complex, but in his analyses of works by such as Walpole, Ann Radclife and Mary Shelly he proves that such an interdisciplinary approach is essential to understanding the development of the Gothic project. He also gives interesting insights into such Gothic fixations and entertainment as incest, fantasy, torture and death, showing their inclusion in Gothic works are by no means casual but in fact essential. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The original and institution of Civil Government, discuss'd, rev'd ed.
Hoadly (1676-1761) was one of the most influential religious and political thinkers of his time, constantly challenging High Churchmen on the nature of the Church of England and civil government in England. He intended this treatise, published in 1710, as a full and thorough defense of Whig Resistance theory and demolition of the arguments of his intellectual rivals. Gibson (education, Oxford Brookes U., Britain) provides a substantial introduction, but no annotations or index. (Annotation 2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
