Lawrence's work is placed in the context of developments in the tradition of Romantic poet-philosophers and visionary thinkers. Robert E. Montgomery shows how Lawrence reacted to the work of Nietzsche, Heraclitus and Jacob Boehme, where he found ideas similar to his own and precedents for his attempts to evolve a new mode of prophetic-poetical-philosophical discourse, and how Lawrence's place in the visionary tradition differs from that of contemporaries Eliot and Yeats. The result is an exploration of the complex vision that informs and unifies Lawrence's work.

The End of the Salon examines the cultural forces that contributed to the demise of the most important exhibition centre for art in Europe and America in the late nineteenth century. Tracing the history of the salon from the French Revolution, when it was taken away from the Academy and opened to all artists, to the 1880s, Patricia Mainardi shows that its contradictory purposes, as didactic exhibition venue and art market place, resulted in its collapse. She also situates the salon within the shifting currents of art movements, from modern to traditional, and the evolving politics of the Third Republic, when France definitively chose a republican over a monarchic form of government. The book, which was originally published in 1993, demonstrates how all artists were forced to function within the framework of the social, economic and cultural changes then taking place and how art and social history are inextricably linked.

What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as 'gifted', who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Margaret Atwood's wide reference to other writers is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of Western literature.

W. H. Auden is a giant of twentieth-century English poetry whose writings demonstrate a sustained engagement with the times in which he lived. But how did the century's shifting cultural terrain affect him and his work? Written by distinguished poets and scholars, these brief but authoritative essays offer a varied set of coordinates by which to chart Auden's continuously evolving career, examining key aspects of his environmental, cultural, political and creative contexts. Reaching beyond mere biography, these essays present Auden as the product of ongoing negotiations between himself, his time and posterity, exploring the enduring power of his poetry to unsettle and provoke. The collection will prove valuable for scholars, researchers and students of English literature, cultural studies and creative writing.

The Cratylus, one of Plato's most difficult and intriguing dialogues, explores the relations between a name and the thing it names. The questions that arise lead the characters to face a number of major issues: truth and falsehood, relativism, etymology, the possibility of a perfect language, the relation between the investigation of names and that of reality, the Heraclitean flux theory and the Theory of Forms. This full-scale 2011 commentary on the Cratylus offers a definitive interpretation of the dialogue. It contains translations of the passages discussed and a line-by-line analysis which deals with textual matters and unravels Plato's dense and subtle arguments, reaching a novel interpretation of some of the dialogue's main themes as well as of many individual passages. The book is intended primarily for graduate students and scholars, both philosophers and classicists, but presupposes no previous acquaintance with the subject and is accessible to undergraduates.

George Herbert (1593-1633) is widely regarded as the greatest devotional poet in the English language. His volume of poems, The Temple, published posthumously in 1633, became one of the most widely read and influential collections of the seventeenth century. Almost 400 years after they were first published in Cambridge by the 'printers to the Universitie', in 2007 Cambridge University Press was pleased to present the definitive scholarly edition of Herbert's complete English poems, accompanied by extensive explanatory and textual apparatus. The text is meticulously annotated with historical, literary and biblical information, as well as the modern critical contexts which now illuminate the poems. In addition to the lively introduction and notes, this edition includes a glossary of key words, an index of biblical quotations, and the authentic texts of Herbert's work.

Painted in 1878, Cézanne's The Eternal Feminine, has been known by a variety of titles and, as Wayne Andersen discovered, has also been altered. Andersen traced these alterations to an art dealer who made them in an effort to render the painting more marketable. His study focuses on the significance of the original state of The Eternal Feminine in an effort to resolve its mysterious importance to Cézanne and, more broadly, the history of art.

The eighteenth-century saw a radical change in the depiction of country life in English painting: feeling less constrained by the conventions of classical or theatrical pastoral, landscape painters attempted to offer a portrayal of what life was really like, or was thought to be like, in England; and this inevitably involved a distinct approach to the depiction of the rural poor. John Barrell's influential 1980 study shows why the poor began to be of such interest to painters, and examines the ways in which they could be represented so as to be an acceptable part of the decor of the salons of the rich. His discussion focuses on the work of three painters: Thomas Gainsborough, George Morland and John Constable. Throughout the book, Barrell draws illuminating comparisons with the literature of rural life and with the work of other painters. His terse and vigourous account has provided a landmark for social historians and literary critics, as well as historians of art.

The Subjects of Art History provides an introduction to the historiography and theory of the history of art. The editors and contributors to this volume cover such important methodologies as semiotics, phenomenology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, museology, and computer applications, among other topics.

This book examines issues of sensuality and violence in Titian's religious paintings in context of the changing religious climate of sixteenth-century Venice. Titian's literary friends struggled with the same issues of decorum in their writings. Many writers had books banned, or were tried for heresy, while others became Inquisitors. D'Elia has assembled a catalog documenting Titian's relationships with over sixty writers. She reveals that Titian, like many of the writers he knew, did not distinguish between sacred or secular subjects, instead using different decorum for paintings of different sizes, locations, or subjects. Titian painted according to the principles of genre: high subjects requiring grandiloquent rhetoric, pastoral ones humility, tragic martyrdom with violence, and the passion of the Magdalene, eroticism. Titian's decorous, but hardly restrained paintings became central models for Baroque painting, which suggests new ways to interpret the Counter Reformation and art.

'An immensly valuable and stimulating resource ... fully deserves its title.' The Art Book 'These essays will appeal very widely. Specialists will find in them fresh ideas and new material, students, a stimulating initiation both to Delacroix and to more general forces in French culture.' Modern Language Review
‘An immensly valuable and stimulating resource … fully deserves its title.’ The Art Book
'These essays will appeal very widely. Specialists will find in them fresh ideas and new material, students, a stimulating initiation both to Delacroix and to more general forces in French culture.' Modern Language Review
The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix serves as an introduction to one of the most important and most complex artists of the nineteenth century. Providing an overview of his life and career, this volume offers essays by leading authorities on the artist’s pictorial practice, the stylistic range over Classicism and Romanticism, his writings, both private diary notations and published articles, and his impact on modern aesthetics, among other topics. Designed to serve as an essential resource for students of French nineteenth-century art history, cultural history, and literature, The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix also provides a chronology of the artist’s life, set into its political and cultural contexts, as well as a list of suggested further readings in the topic areas.

Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913-27) changed the course of modern narrative fiction. This Introduction provides an account of Proust's life, the socio-historical and cultural contexts of his work and an assessment of his early works. At its core is a volume-by-volume study of In Search of Lost Time, which attends to its remarkable superstructure, as well as to individual images and the intricacies of Proust's finely-stitched prose. The book reaches beyond stale commonplaces of madeleines and memory, alerting readers to Proust's verbal virtuosity, his preoccupations with the fleeting and the unforeseeable, with desire, jealousy and the nature of reality. Lively, informative chapters on Proust criticism and the work's afterlives in contemporary culture provide a multitude of paths to follow. The book charges readers with the energy and confidence to move beyond anecdote and hearsay and to read Proust's novel for themselves.

Landscapes of material are also landscapes of meaning: praxis is itself symbolic, and all landscapes are symbolic in practice. Ideology and Landscape in Historical Perspective draws together fifteen historical geographers to examine landscapes as messages to be decoded, as signs to be deciphered. The range of examples is wide in terms of period, from the medieval to the modern, and of place, embracing the USA, Canada, Palestine, Israel, South Africa, India, Singapore, France and Germany. Each essay addresses a specific problem, but collectively they are principally concerned with the ideologies of religion and of politics, of Church and state, and their historical impress upon landscapes. The book is introduced by an essay which explores the dialectical understanding of landscapes, and landscapes as expressions of the connection of an ideology to a quest for order, to an assertion of authority and to a project of totalization. The issues raised by landscapes and their meanings - issues of individual and collective action, of objective knowing, of materialist and idealist explanation - are fundamental not only to historical geography but to any humanistic study, and render the geographical study of landscapes of interest to scholars in many disciplines.

The issue of religious liberty has gained ever-increasing attention among policy makers and the public. Whereas politicians have long championed the idea of religious freedom and tolerance, the actual achievement of these goals has been an arduous battle for religious minorities. What motivates political leaders to create laws providing for greater religious liberty? In contrast to scholars who argue that religious liberty results from the spread of secularization and modern ideas, Anthony Gill argues that religious liberty results from interest-based calculations of secular rulers. Using insights from political economists, Gill develops a theory of the origins of religious liberty based upon the political and economic interests of governing officials. Political leaders are most likely to permit religious freedom when it enhances their own political survival, tax revenue, and the economic welfare of their country. He explores his theory using cases from British America, Latin America, Russia, and the Baltic states.

This commentary is an innovative interpretation of one of the most profound texts of world literature: the book of Genesis. The first book of the Bible has been studied, debated, and expounded as much as any text in history, yet because it addresses the weightiest questions of life and faith, it continues to demand our attention. The author of this new commentary combines older critical approaches with the latest rhetorical methodologies to yield fresh interpretations accessible to scholars, clergy, teachers, seminarians, and interested laypeople. It explains important concepts and terms as expressed in the Hebrew original so that both people who know Hebrew and those who do not will be able to follow the discussion. 'Closer Look' sections examine Genesis in the context of cultures of the ancient Near East. 'Bridging the Horizons' sections enable the reader to see the enduring relevance of the book in the twenty-first century.

This book investigates the central role of reason in Islamic intellectual life. Despite widespread characterization of Islam as a system of belief based only on revelation, John Walbridge argues that rational methods, not fundamentalism, have characterized Islamic law, philosophy and education since the medieval period. His research demonstrates that this medieval Islamic rational tradition was opposed by both modernists and fundamentalists, resulting in a general collapse of traditional Islamic intellectual life and its replacement by more modern but far shallower forms of thought. However, the resources of this Islamic scholarly tradition remain an integral part of the Islamic intellectual tradition and will prove vital to its revival. The future of Islam, Walbridge argues, will be marked by a return to rationalism.

There is currently much interest in the history of interpretation, reader-response and the sociology of sacred texts - in what the text does as much as what it means. Isaiah, 'more evangelist than prophet' according to Jerome and others, provides an ideal case study, because of his profound influence on the language and imagery of Christianity. With illustrations from art, music, literature and the media as well as commentaries, sermons and official church pronouncements, Professor Sawyer shows how Isaiah has been used in all kinds of context, from the cult of the Virgin Mary, mediaeval passion iconography and antisemitic propaganda to Christian feminism and liberation theology. This first attempt at a comprehensive critical study of an essential part of biblical interpretation will provide a model for further research, and ensure that commentaries will never be the same again.