Richard Kerridge

N. H. Reeve

This is the first book-length study of the work of J. H. Prynne, who has been described by Peter Ackroyd as `without doubt the most formidable and accomplished poet in England today, a writer who has single-handedly changed the vocabulary of expression'. The book sets out to introduce Prynne's poetry to a larger audience than it has hitherto received and the authors examine the work in relation to traditions of Romanticism and Modernism, recent theory, debates about Modernism and Postmodernism, political questions of discourse and power, and the implications of lyrical uses of scientific and technical material. The impetus for these discussions is provided by detailed, exploratory readings of individual poems and sequences from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. Nearly Too Much succeeds in the difficult task of providing both a knowledgeable and sophisticated analysis of Prynne's poetry for those to whom it is familiar and a helpful introduction for the benefit of a larger public to whom the work is new.

The Poetry of J.H. Prynne

Nearly Too Much

Elizabeth Taylor (1912–75) is increasingly being recognised as one of the leading English novelists and short story writers of the middle of the twentieth century. Successive generations of readers have delighted in her subtle and penetrating exposures of the vanities and self-delusions of everyday life, her special sensitivity to frustration and disappointment, and the marvellous freshness of her wit and humour. Now, to mark the centenary of her birth, Elizabeth Taylor: A Centenary Celebration presents several new critical assessments of her work by leading academics, together with a sizeable number of Taylor’s uncollected or unpublished writings: short stories, including the first and the last she completed, essays on writers and writing, and a selection of letters to various correspondents, including Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. Opening many previously unexplored perspectives on Taylor’s work, this volume will be essential reading for her admirers and for the wider study of the literature of her time.

N. H. Reeve

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