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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
by George SaundersFrom the New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it&’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.In his introduction, Saunders writes, &“We&’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn&’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?&” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.
Swinburne's Apollo: Myth, Faith, and Victorian Spirituality
by Yisrael LevinFocusing on Algernon Charles Swinburne's poems on Apollo, Yisrael Levin calls for a re-examination of the poet's place in Victorian studies in light of his contributions to nineteenth-century intellectual history. Swinburne's Apollonian poetry, Levin argues, shows the poet's active participation in late-Victorian debates about the nature and function of faith in an age of changing religious attitudes. Levin traces the shifts that took place in Swinburne's conception of Apollo over a period of four decades, from Swinburne's attempt to define Apollo as an alternative to the Judeo-Christian deity to Swinburne's formation of a theological system revolving around Apollo and finally to the ways in which Swinburne's view of Apollo led to his agnostic view of spirituality. Even though Swinburne had lost his faith and rejected institutional religion by his early twenties, he retained a distinct interest in spiritual issues and paid careful attention to developments in religious thought. Levin persuasively shows that Swinburne was not simply a poet provocateur who enjoyed controversy but failed to provide valid cultural commentary, but was rather a profound thinker whose insights into nineteenth-century spirituality are expressed throughout his Apollonian poetry.
Swinging in Place
by Jocelyn Hazelwood DonlonThe front porch evokes cherished memories from across a lifetime for many southerners--recollections of childhood games, courtship, family visits, gossip with neighbors. In this book, Jocelyn Hazelwood Donlon offers an original appreciation of the significance of the porch to everyday life in the South. The porch, she reveals, is not a simple place after all, but a stage for many social dramas. She uses literature, folklore, oral histories, and photographs to show how southerners have used the porch to negotiate public and private boundaries--in ways so embedded in custom that they often go unrecognized. Her sources include writings by Dorothy Allison, William Faulkner, Ernest Gaines, Gloria Naylor, Zora Neale Hurston, and Lee Smith, as well as oral histories that provide varying racial, gender, class, and regional perspectives. Originally derived from a number of ethnic traditions, the porch evolved in America into something both structurally and culturally unique. In this, the first serious study of the subject, Donlon shows how porch use and porch culture cross ethnic and cultural lines and discusses the transitional quality of the porch space--how it shifts back and forth, by need and function, between a place that is sometimes interior to the house, sometimes exterior.
Swinging the Maelstrom: A Critical Edition (Canadian Literature Collection)
by Malcolm LowrySwinging the Maelstrom is the story of a musician enduring existence in the Bellevue psychiatric hospital in New York. Written during his happiest and most fruitful years, this novella reveals the deep healing influence that the idyllic retreat at Dollarton had on Lowry. This long-overdue scholarly edition will allow scholars to engage in a genetic study of the text and reconstruct, step by step, the creative process that developed from a rather pessimistic and misanthropic vision of the world as a madhouse (The Last Address, 1936), via the apocalyptic metaphors of a world on the brink of Armageddon (The Last Address, 1939), to a world that, in spite of all its troubles, leaves room for self-irony and humanistic concern (Swinging the Maelstrom,1942–1944). - This book is published in English.
Swinging the Vernacular: Jazz and African American Modernist Literature
by Michael BorshukThis book looks at the influence of jazz on the development of African American modernist literature over the 20th century, with a particular attention to the social and aesthetic significance of stylistic changes in the music.
Switching Sides: How a Generation of Historians Lost Sympathy for the Victims of the Salem Witch Hunt
by Tony FelsTony Fels traces a remarkable shift in scholarly interpretations of the Salem witch hunt from the post-World War II era up through the present. In Switching Sides, Tony Fels explains that for a new generation of historians influenced by the radicalism of the New Left in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Salem panic acquired a startlingly different meaning. Determined to champion the common people of colonial New England, dismissive toward liberal values, and no longer instinctively wary of utopian belief systems, the leading works on the subject to emerge from 1969 through the early 2000s highlighted economic changes, social tensions, racial conflicts, and political developments that served to unsettle the accusers in the witchcraft proceedings. These interpretations, still dominant in the academic world, encourage readers to sympathize with the perpetrators of the witch hunt, while at the same time showing indifference or even hostility toward the accused.Switching Sides is meticulously documented, but its comparatively short text aims broadly at an educated American public, for whom the Salem witch hunt has long occupied an iconic place in the nation’s conscience. Readers will come away from the book with a sound knowledge of what is currently known about the Salem witch hunt—and pondering the relationship between works of history and the ideological influences on the historians who write them.“With vivacious prose, palpable passion, and powerful reasoning, he delivers a book that is dramatic and dynamic. A rare work of critical historiography that could actually matter, Switching Sides is a brilliant and impassioned volume that will be a must-read for all students of early America.” —Michael W. Zuckerman, author of Peaceable Kingdoms
The Sword of Ambition: Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt (Library of Arabic Literature #38)
by Sherman 'Abd Jackson Uthman b. al-Nabulusi Luke YarbroughThe Sword of Ambition belongs to a genre of religious polemic written for the rulers of Egypt and Syria between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. Unlike most medieval Muslim polemic, the concerns of this genre were more social and political than theological. Leaving no rhetorical stone unturned, the book's author, an unemployed Egyptian scholar and former bureaucrat named Uthman ibn Ibrahim al-Nabulusi (d. 660/1262), poured his deep knowledge of history, law, and literature into the work. Now edited in full and translated for the first time, The Sword of Ambition opens a new window onto the fascinating culture of elite rivalry in the late-medieval Islamic Middle East. It contains a wealth of little-known historical anecdotes, unusual religious opinions, obscure and witty poetry, and humorous cultural satire. Above all, it reveals that much of the inter-communal animosity of the era was conditioned by fierce competition for scarce resources that were increasingly mediated by an ideologically committed Sunni Muslim state. This insight reminds us that seemingly timeless and inevitable "religious" conflict must be considered in its broader historical perspective. The Sword of Ambition is both the earliest and most eclectic of several independent works composed in medieval Egypt against the employment of Coptic and Jewish officials, and is vivid testimony to the gradual integration of Islamic scholarship and state administration that was well underway in its day.
Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York (Routledge Library Editions: Cinema)
by Jeffrey RichardsThis fascinating study of the genre of swashbuckling films received wide critical acclaim when it was first published in 1977. Jeffrey Richards assesses the contributions to the genre of directors, designers and fencing masters, as well as of the stars themselves, and devotes several chapters to the principal subjects if the swashbucklers – pirates, highwaymen, cavaliers and knights. The result is to recall, however fleetingly, the golden days of the silver screen. Reviews of the original edition: ‘An intelligent, scholarly, well-written account of adventure films, this work is sensitive both to cinema history and to the literary origins of the "swashbuckler"….Essential for any library with books on film, it may very well be the definitive book on its subject.’ – Library Journal
Sydney and Its Waterway in Australian Literary Modernism (Literary Urban Studies)
by Meg BrayshawThis book examines literary representations of Sydney and its waterway in the context of Australian modernism and modernity in the interwar period. Then as now, Sydney Harbour is both an ecological wonder and ladened with economic, cultural, historical and aesthetic significance for the city by its shores. In Australia’s earliest canon of urban fiction, writers including Christina Stead, Dymphna Cusack, Eleanor Dark, Kylie Tennant and M. Barnard Eldershaw explore the myth and the reality of the city ‘built on water’. Mapping Sydney via its watery and littoral places, these writers trace impacts of empire, commercial capitalism, global trade and technology on the city, while drawing on estuarine logics of flow and blockage, circulation and sedimentation to innovate modes of writing temporally, geographically and aesthetically specific to Sydney’s provincial modernity. Contributing to the growing field of oceanic or aqueous studies, Sydney and its Waterway and Australian Modernism shows the capacity of water and human-water relations to make both generative and disruptive contributions to urban topography and narrative topology
Syllabic Writing on Cyprus and its Context
by Philippa M. SteeleThis volume offers a new and interdisciplinary treatment of syllabic writing in ancient Cyprus. A team of distinguished scholars tackles epigraphic, palaeographic, linguistic, archaeological, historical and terminological problems relating to the island's writing systems in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, from the appearance of writing around the fifteenth century down to the end of the first millennium BC. The result is not intended to be a single, unified view of the scripts and their context, but rather a varied collection that demonstrates a range of interpretations of the evidence and challenges some of the longstanding or traditional views of the population of ancient Cyprus and its epigraphic habits. This is the first comprehensive account of the 'Cypro-Minoan' and 'Cypriot syllabic' scripts to appear in a single volume and forms an invaluable resource for anyone studying Cypriot epigraphy or archaeology.
Syllable-Based Generalizations in English Phonology (Routledge Library Editions: The English Language #15)
by Daniel KahnThis dissertation, first published in 1980, is concerned with the role of the syllable in generative grammar. Kahn argues that the syllable is a necessary element in phonological descriptions by identifying aspects of phonology that seem to call for analysis in terms of syllabic structure and demonstrating the superiority of syllabic analyses over possible alternative solutions. This title will be of interest to students of English language and linguistics.
Syllable Theory in Prosodic Phonology (Routledge Library Editions: Phonetics and Phonology #10)
by Junko ItôFirst published in 1988. The goal of this study is to explore the workings of a syllable theory which is an integral part of Prosodic Phonology. It will be shown that theory-internal considerations and a variety of empirical arguments converge on a conception of syllabification as continuous template matching governed by syllable wellformedness conditions and a directional parameter. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.
Syllable Weight: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology
by Matthew GordonThe book is the first systematic exploration of a series of phonological phenomena previously thought to be unified under the rubric of syllable weight. Drawing on a typological survey of 400 languages, it is shown that the traditional conception that languages are internally consistent in their weight criteria across weight-based processes is not corroborated by the cross-linguistic survey. Rather than being consistent across phenomena within individual languages, weight turns out to be sensitive to the particular processes involved such that different phenomena display different distributions in weight criteria. The book goes on to explore the motivations behind the process-specific nature of weight, showing that phonetic factors explain much of the variation in weight criteria between phenomena and also the variation in criteria between languages for a single process. The book is unlike other studies in combining an extensive typological survey with detailed phonetic analysis of many languages. The finding that the widely studied phenomenon of syllable weight is not a unified phenomenon, contrary to the established view, is a significant result for the field of theoretical phonology. The book is also an important contribution to the field of phonetically-driven phonology, since it establishes a close link between the phonology of weight and various quantitative phonetic parameters.
Syllables of Recorded Time: The Story of the Canadian Authors Association 1921-1981
by Lyn HarringtonSyllables of Recorded Time is a lively look at the development over the last six decades of a national authors’ association, with all its problems and foibles. Personalities such as Bliss Carman, Nellie McClung, Stephen Leacock, B.K. Sandwell, W.A. Deacon, Mazo de la Roche, John Murray Gibbon, Helen Chreighton, Watson Kirkconnell, Charles G.D. Roberts and Duncan Campbell Scott figure prominently in the amusing anecdotes of the early days, and Hugh MacLennan, Pierre Berton, Dorothy Livesay and Arthur Hailey in the later years. Syllables of Recorded Time highlights the discussions and legalities regarding issues of copyright, contracts, women’s role, cultural domination by Britain and the U.S.A., government funding and markets for writers. It tells why there was a spinoff of specialized interests including the Canadian Writers’ Foundation, the League of Poets, the Governor General’s Awards, the Canadian Copyright Institute, the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers and the Writers’ Union of Canada. Harrington vividly portrays all facets of the organization in this valuable resource book.
The Syllables of Time: Proust and the History of Reading
by Teresa WhitingtonThis study reveals reading to be one of the main activities to occupy the inhabitants of the world of Marcel Prousts novel A la recherche du temps perdu. Characters do not just read books but have access to the journals and newspapers of a rapidly expanding print industry. They receive letters and postcards from family and friends. The posters of a nascent advertising industry tempt them to spend an evening at the theatre or a holiday by the sea, and new forms of communication, such as telegraphy, enter their lives and require new strategies of deciphering. All human activity is glossed by means of a series of metaphors of reading, extending the readers domain beyond the written text. Through a series of illuminating analyses, Teresa Whitington shows how this web of references builds into a specifically Proustian account of both the outer, social context of reading and the inner, psychological world of the reader. Proust offers a contribution to the history of reading in the France of his own lifetime and suggests that reading is the very condition of the writing of his fiction.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades 1 & 2 (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for 2nd grade with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in 1st grade, including: • Numbers and counting• Addition and subtraction• Basic measurements• Short and long vowels• Words to know• Reading comprehensionInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for 2nd grade!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades 2 & 3 (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for 3rd grade with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in 2nd grade, including: • Addition and subtraction• Basic fractions• Time and money• Measuring and comparing• Vowels and consonants• Compound words and contractions• Reading comprehensionInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for 3rd grade!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades 3 & 4 (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for 4th grade with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in 3rd grade, including: • Addition and subtraction • Multiplication and division• Fractions, weights and measurements• Context clues and predicting what happens• Main ideas and details• Story comprehensionInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for 4th grade!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades 4 & 5 (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for 5th grade with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in 4th grade, including: • Addition and subtraction • Multiplication and division• Fractions and decimals• Time and money• Facts and opinions• Comparing and contrasting• Story-planning• Reading between the linesInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for 5th grade!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades K & 1 (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for 1st grade with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in kindergarten, including: • Numbers• Patterns • Shapes • Letters and sounds • Words to know• Story comprehensionInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for 1st grade!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvan Summer Smart Workbook: Between Grades Pre-K & Kindergarten (Sylvan Summer Smart Workbooks)
by Sylvan LearningStop "summer slide" and get ready to return to the classroom for kindergarten with Sylvan's SUMMER SMART Workbooks!Research shows that kids can lose up to 2.5 months' worth of hard-earned knowledge from the previous grade over the summer vacation break. That's why we at Sylvan Learning—America's #1 tutoring brand—created the SUMMER SMART workbook series!Packed with fun exercises and teacher-created activities, this book reinforces math and reading concepts your child learned in pre-k, including: • Basic numbers and counting • Upper and lowercase letters• Drawing numbers • Drawing lettersInside each Summer Smart book, you'll also find:• Teacher tips for staying sharp over the summer• Special &“Vacation Challenge!&” activities and games section• Cut-out flashcard sheets and recommended reading lists• A &“Summer Smart!&” Achievement CertificateLet the experts at America's #1 tutoring brand help get your child ready for kindergarten!***** Why Sylvan Products Work ***** Sylvan Learning Workbooks won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Honors Award as a top book series for children in the elementary-aged category. NAPPA is the nation&’s most comprehensive awards program for children&’s products and parenting resources and has been critically reviewing products since 1990. The Award recognizes Sylvan Learning Workbooks as some of the most innovative and useful products geared to parents. Sylvan's proven system inspires kids to learn and has helped children nationwide catch up, keep up, and get ahead in school. Sylvan has been a trusted partner for parents for thirty years, and has based their supplemental education success on programs developed through a focus on the highest educational standards and detailed research. Sylvan&’s line of educational products equips families with fun, effective, and grade-appropriate learning tools. Our workbooks and learning kits feature activities, stories, and games to reinforce the skills children need to develop and achieve their academic potential. Students will reap the rewards of improved confidence and a newfound love of learning.
Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness
by Edward ButscherThis is the first full-length biography of Sylvia Plath, whose suicide in made her a misinterpreted cause celebre and catapulted her into the ranks of the major confessional voices of her generation.
Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness
by Edward ButscherBiography of the famous, gifted poetess whose short life has become a legend
Sylvia Plath: New Views on the Poetry
by Gary LaneOriginally published in 1979. Sylvia Plath is one of the most controversial poets of our time. For some readers, she is the symbol of women oppressed. For others, she is the triumphant victim of her own intensity—the poet pursuing sensation to the ultimate uncertainty, death. For still others, she is a doomed innocent whose sensibilities were too acute for the coarseness of our world. The new essays of this edited collection (with a single exception, all were written for this book) broaden the perspective of Plath criticism by going beyond the images of Plath as a cult figure to discuss Plath the poet. The contributors—among them Calvin Bedient, Hugh Kenner, J. D. O'Hara, and Marjorie Perloff—draw on material that most previous commentators lacked: a substantial body of Plath's poetry and prose, a moderately detailed biographical record, and an important selection of the poet's correspondence. The result is an important and provocative volume, one in which major critics offer an abundance of insights into the poet's mind and creative process. It offers insightful and original readings of many poems—some, like "Berck-Plage," scarcely mentioned in previous criticism—and fosters new understandings of such matters as Plath's comedy, the development of her poetic voice, and her relation to poetic traditions. The serious reader, whatever his or her initial opinion of Sylvia Plath, is sure to find that opinion challenged, changed, or deepened. These essays offer insights into a violently interesting poet, one who despite, or perhaps because of, her suicide at age thirty continues to fascinate and trouble us.