In his deservedly famous poem The Darkling Thrush Thomas Hardy looks out over a desolate landscape which seems to reflect his own forlorn sense of what the world has become. Against the gloomy backdrop he suddenly sees and then hears a decrepit bird, an old thrush, that holds forth in song. Its cheery note is so anomalous to his dark thoughts that it makes him think the bird must know something he does not. Hence my own title. Since, in a world gone to bloody hell, I find yet much to celebrate, my song is Known By the Darkling Thrush.

An Ancient Evil Waits for Him in an Abandoned Castle Fed up with desk duty in the Imperial Arcane Library, rebellious young book hunter Colin Bliss accepts a private commission to find The Sword's Shadow, a legendary witches' grimoire. But to find the book, Colin must travel to the remote Western Isles and solve a centuries-old murder. It shouldn't be much more than an academic exercise, so why is the Societas Magicke trying so hard to interfere--even going so far as to send the austere and alarming Magister Septimus Marx to stop him? As Colin digs deeper and deeper into the Long Island's mysterious past, he begins to understand why Septimus is willing to stop him at any price--but by then, it's too late to turn back.

Study Material for Reverie (A Collection of ISC Poems)

What’s the point of poetry? It’s a question asked in classrooms all over the world, but it rarely receives a satisfactory answer. Which is why so many people, who read all kinds of books, never read poetry after leaving school. Exploring twenty-two works from poets as varied as William Blake, Seamus Heaney, Rita Dove and Hollie McNish, this book makes the case for what poetry has to offer us, what it can tell us about the things that matter in life. Each poem is discussed with humour and refreshing clarity, using a mixture of anecdote and literary criticism that has been honed over a lifetime of teaching. Poetry can enrich our lives, if we’ll let it. The Point of Poetry is the perfect companion for anyone looking to discover how.

In Thomas Hardy: Texts and Contexts distinguished critics from Canada, Japan, the USA and the UK, offer fresh and challenging readings of Hardy's works. They also raise far wider and far-reaching questions about Hardy's attitude to his art, his relation to such contemporary forms as melodrama, and his response to the ongoing scientific debates, from Darwin to Einstein, about sexuality, personal identity, the meaning of suicide and the nature of time.

In this highly individual study, Avrom Fleishman explores a wide range of literary references to human culture—the culture of ideas, facts, and images. Each critical essay in Fiction and the Ways of Knowing takes up for sustained analysis a major British novel of the nineteenth or the twentieth century. The novels are analyzed in the light of social, historical, philosophical, and other perspectives that can be grouped under the human sciences. The diversity of critical contexts in these thirteen essays is organized by Avrom Fleishman's governing belief in the interrelations of literature and other ways of interpreting the world. The underlying assumptions of this approach—as explained in his introductory essay—are that fiction is capable of encompassing even the most recondite facts and recalcitrant ideas; that fiction, though never a mirror of reality, is linked to realities and takes part in the real; and that a critical reading may be informed by scientific knowledge without reducing the literary work to a schematic formula. Fleishman investigates the matters of fact and belief that make up the designated meanings, the intellectual contexts, and the speculative parallels in three types of novel. Some of the novels discussed make it clear that their authors are informed on matters beyond the nonspecialist's range; these essays help bridge this information gap. Other fictional works are only to be grasped in an awareness of the cultural lore tacitly distributed in their own time; a modern reader must make the effort to fathom their anachronisms. And other novels can be found to open passageways that their authors can only have glimpsed intuitively; these must be pursued with great caution but equal diligence. The novels discussed include Little Dorrit, The Way We Live Now, Daniel Deronda, he Return of the Native, and The Magus. Also examined are Wuthering Heights, Vanity Fair, Northanger Abbey, To the Lighthouse, Under Western Eyes, Ulysses, and A Passage to India.

A literary-historical account of English poetry from Anglo-Saxon writings to the present.

Thomas Hardy : The Poet Is, Undoubtedly, An Original Critical Work Which Throws Ample Light On Hardy, A Poetic Genius, So Far Neglected. From Several Perspectives Dr. Patil Analyses And Interprets Hardy'S Poetic Ouvre In An Altogether New Critical Idiom. Hardy, As The Author Argues, Is More Of A Poet Than Of A Novelist. In Fact, He Began His Literary Career As A Poet And Ended It In Becoming A Poet Of High Order. Only For The Sake Of Livelihood, He Had To Write Novels In The Middle Phase. Throughout His Life, He Was Extremely In Love With Poetry.Historically Speaking, Hardy Is Aptly Considered To Be 'A Transition Poet' As He Is The Last Victorian And The First Modern. Like G.M. Hopkins, He Made Several Experiments In Writing Poetry And Firmly Established The Modern Trend. These Things About The Poet Are Not At All Taken Seriously By Many Of His Critics; But, There Are Some Like George Saintsbury, Donald Davie, Philip Larkin And James G. Southworth Who Constantly Urge That Good Hardy Critics Are Wanted.The Present Book Explores, In-Depth, The Truth And Beauty Of Hardy'S Poetry. What The Earlier Critics Have Missed Is, Here, Pain¬Stakingly Unearthed I.E., Hardy'S Views On Love, Nature, Society, Religion, God And Universe. His Evolutionary Meliorism And Scientific Humanism Are Discussed At Length. His Robust Optimism And Melancholic Demeanour Are Also Pointed At, With A Greater Clarity And Confidence. All Those Who Want To Understand Modern Poetry Must Begin By Reading This Truly Remarkable Book. Dr. Mallikarjun Patil Was Born In 1967 In A Village In Belgaum District In Karnataka. He Graduated From Karnatak Arts College, Dharwar, And Obtained His M. A. Degree From Karnatak University. He Also Did His Ph.D., On The Existential Philosophy In Thomas Hardy'S Poetry In 1995.At Present, He Is A Lecturer In The Department Of Studies In English, In Gulbarga University, Gulbarga. He Is A Genuine Scholar And A Writer. He Writes Critical Articles And Poems. His Radio-Talks Are Regularly On Broadcast From Air, Gulbarga. His Research Articles Are Published In Encyclopaedias And Journals. His Another Critical Work Hardy'S Poetry And Existentialism Is In Press. His Sole Ambition In Life Is To Become A Full-Fledged Writer In English.

Illuminating the poetry of birdsong in the Romantic and Victorian periods, this timely study dissects historical attitudes to nonhuman life.