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Bezig met laden... Lord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) (editie 2008)door George Gordon Lord Byron (Auteur), Jerome J. McGann (Redacteur)
Informatie over het werkLord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) door Lord Byron
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Byron has been my favorite Romantic poet--as he was during the Romantic period--since I have been able to read with ease (say, since grad school). His "English Bard and Scotch Reviewers" sets the standard for English Satire since Jonson and Dryden. It is very funny at the expense of an intellectual elite much less doubtful than ours today. We need another Byron. His "Don Juan" is without equal in English literature; maybe Ariosto's similar in Italian, though I think Byron more witty.Recounting his high school (Brit, "college") he diminishes his achievement, "For there one learns--'tis not for me to boast, Though I acquired-- but I pass over that, As well as all the Greek I since have lost, I always say there's the place--but 'Verbum sat'..." He ends the First Canto with his parody 18C "address to the reader": "But for the present, gentle reader! and Still gentler purchaser! the bard-- that's I Must, with permission, shake you by the hand... 'Go, little book, from this my solitude! I cast thee on the waters--go thy ways! And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, The world will find thee after many days.' When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood, I can't help putting in my claim to praise-- The first four rhymes are Southey's, every line: For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine!" His Canto II takes Juan (rhymes with "new one") on maritime adventure, where his ship is dismasted, on its side. The Longboat is readied for a twenty people, out of 300 aboard. "...while this Was going on, some people were unquiet, That passengers would find it much amiss To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet." Next stanza begins, "There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion..."(II. 34). Byron's, and his Don Juan's, main literary legacy is the greatest of all Russian poems, Евгений Онегин. I have read perhaps one-fourth of Pushkin's great work in Russian, and it has struck me as a cross between Byron and Wordsworth. Since I have spent many hours translating Latin and Renaissance Latin, I admire Byron's exact critiques of classical poets like the epigrammatic satirist Martial--"the nauseous epigram of Martial" according to Don Juan's/ Byron's mother. I could add much, but it gets late/early. All passion, intensity and fire, Byron cuts a swathe through the Regency era's lights, literature and ladies. He does so in a style that is the most beautiful and high prose you will ever read; magnificent curving arcs of words that could have come straight from the proud mouth of an archangel (or Lucifer himself). Of course, he occasionally descends into petty back-stabbing, misogyny and generally seems to be a bit of a spoilt child with too much time on his hands, but you can forgive him that just for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage alone. This book claims to contain most of Lord Byron's major works and it certainly is a full volume, weighing in at over 1000 pages in paperback format. The larger works include the above-mentioned Pilgrimage and Don Juan. These take up at least 700 pages themselves. The remaining space is occupied by Manfred - a rather Nietzschean work about a magician; the Giaour - a tale of unrepentant love and loss; Mazeppa - a story of a man whose fortunes fall and rise dramatically; Beppo - a Venetian affaire de cour; Cain - an intense retelling of the biblical tale with Manichean overtones, and assorted shorter poems. There are also fifty pages of assorted correspondence with various individuals. The book comes equipped with a very short introduction (for a book of 1000 pages), a chronology of Byron's life, an index and end notes. There is very little in the way of explanation of why pieces are included and the end notes are mostly helpful but often explain the obvious while leaving the obscure, obscure. If you like books that contain no analysis, this is for you, but if you want things explained you will do better with something else. Personally, I preferred the intensity and vision of Childe Harold, Cain and the Giaour to the more sarcastic and occasionally contrived style of Don Juan. Byron is at his best describing beauty - be it nature, art or woman. And much, if not all, of what he writes about is related to the fairer sex. You should write what you know about, they say, and Byron certainly knew women - in both the intellectual and biblical sense. His love affairs raged across all of Europe and brought him condemnation from his peers - particularly his dalliance with his half-sister. His books are full of the worship of the beauty of women and he objectifies them in a way that is entirely politically incorrect in our day and age and likely was then as well. If you can get past the fact that he seems like a teenage boy in rut most of the time, his descriptive powers, characterization, wit, sheer beauty and nobility of expression are sure to please. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)BevatDon Juan door Lord Byron The Giaour door Lord Byron Mazeppa door Lord Byron Cain door Lord Byron Beppo door Lord Byron Don Juan: Cantos I & II door Lord Byron (indirect) Don Juan: Cantos III, IV and V door Lord Byron (indirect) Don Juan: Cantos VI, VII and VIII door Lord Byron (indirect) Don Juan: Cantos XV and XVI door Lord Byron (indirect) Don Juan: Cantos XII, XIII and XIV door Lord Byron (indirect) Don Juan: Cantos IX, X and XI door Lord Byron (indirect)
This edition presents the most comprehensive selection of Byron's poetry and prose ever collected in a single volume. The poetry section includes the complete texts of his masterpieces, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, as well as representative examples of his satires, tales, plays, and short poems. Among the selected prose entries are letters, journal excerpts, essays, and other formal prose. These texts are, in every case, based on the most recent and authoritative editorial work, and incorporate many corrections to both poetry and prose. Byron offers readers the unique opportunity to appreciate the dual literary achievement of one of the romantic period's most flamboyant and most influential artists. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)821.7Literature English English poetry 1800-1837, romantic periodLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
Ben jij dit?Word een LibraryThing Auteur. |
Not that there aren't some gorgeous verse of Byron that can rank with the best of Keats--Byron's most famous poem arguably is "She Walks in Beauty"--notably it's short. As are almost all the other poems of his I'd count as favorites: "Darkness," "Prometheus," "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte," "We'll Go No More a-Roving." "By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept," "I Would I Were a Careless Child." Byron is a more varied poet than Keats; Byron wrote in an astonishing variety of forms and lengths--I have to give him snaps for that. But maybe because of that experimental quality, unlike with Keats, I found a lot more misses than hits with Byron. To me Byron too often wore out his welcome at longer lengths. There was an exception though, and one that goes to the heart of his appeal--to me and to my friend. That poem was his epic Don Juan. It was funny, snarky, catty, witty, and like Dante, Byron is not afraid to take things to a personal level with personalities he knew--have a stanza:
He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued
His self-communion with his own high soul,
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
Had mitigated part, though not the whole
Of its disease; he did the best he could
With things not very subject to control,
And turn'd, without perceiving his condition,
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.
My friend thinks Keats all too earnest. And I admit there's something charming and refreshing in a Romantic poet that doesn't take things too seriously, who has a sense of humor. On the other hand, Don Juan, his comic masterpiece, remained uncompleted at his death. And I can't say I can put it up there quite with the epic poems I've loved, the works of Homer, Vergil, Dante--even Milton for all his flaws. I do recommend giving Byron a try. His poems deserve to be better known, and he deserves to be better known than the poet of just "She Walks in Beauty" and the man known as "mad, bad and dangerous to know." ( )