In this, his first collection of short stories, Hardy sought to record the legends, superstitions, local customs, and lore of a Wessex that was rapidly passing out of memory. But these tales also portray the social and economic stresses of 1880s Dorset, and reveal Hardy's growing scepticism about the possibility of achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world. By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these seven stories show the range of Hardy's story-telling genius. The critically established text, the first to be based on detailed study of all revised texts, presents manuscript readings which have never before appeared in print. The stories include: The Three Strangers; A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four; The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion; The Withered Arm; Fellow-Townsmen; Interlopers at the Knap; The Distracted Preacher.

Plautus was the single greatest influence on Western comedy. Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and Moliere's The Miser are two subsequent classics directly based on Plautine originals. Plautus himself borrowed from the Greeks, but his jokes, rapid dialogue, bawdy humour, and irreverent characterizations are the original work of an undisputed genius. The comedies printed here show him at his best, and professor Segal's translations keep their fast, rollicking pace intact, making these the most readable and actable versions available. His introduction considers Plautus' place in ancient comedy, examines his continuing influence, and celebrates his power to entertain.

This excellent and accessible work includes many major texts in translation: Aristotle's Poetics, Longinus' On Sublimity, Horace's Art of Poetry, Tacitus' Dialogues, and extracts from Plato and Plutarch. Based on the highly praised Ancient Literary Criticism (OUP, 1972), it contains a new introduction and explanatory notes, and will be of enormous value to students both of Latin and Greek and of literary criticism and theory.

Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted Germinal! Germinal! The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike protesting against pay-cuts — a strike which becomes a losing battle against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations, Lantier retains his belief in the ultimate germination of a new society, leading to a better world. Germinal is a dramatic novel of working life and everyday relationships, but it is also a complex novel of ideas, given fresh vigour and power in this new translation.

Aurora Leigh is an example of the mid-19th-century poem of contemporary life. This verse-novel is a detailed representation of the early Victorian age. The social panorama extends from the slums of London, through the literary world, to the upper classes and a number of satiric portraits: an aunt with rigidly conventional notions of female education; Romney Leigh, the Christian socialist; Lord Howe, the amateur radical; Sir Blaise Delorme, the ostentatious Roman Catholic; and the unscrupulous society beauty Lady Waldemar. However, the dominant presence in the work is the narrator, Aurora Leigh herself. From early years in Italy and adolescence in the West Country to the vocational choices, creative struggles, and emotional entanglements of her first decade of adult life, Aurora Leigh develops her ideas on art, love, God, the Woman Question, and society.

What Maisie Knew (1897) represents one of James's finest reflections on the rites of passage from wonder to knowledge, and the question of their finality. The child of violently divorced parents, Maisie Farange opens her eyes on a distinctly modern world. Mothers and fathers keep changing their partners and names, while she herself becomes the pretext for all sorts of adult sexual intrigue. In this classic tale of the death of childhood, there is a savage comedy that owes much to Dickens. But for his portrayal of the child's capacity for intelligent wonder, James summons all the subtlety he devotes elsewhere to his most celebrated adult protagonists. Neglected and exploited by everyone around her, Maisie inspires James to dwell with extraordinary acuteness on the things that may pass between adult and child. In addition to a new introduction, this edition of the novel offers particularly detailed notes, bibliography, and a list of variant readings.

William Thackeray called it the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began. As a group of travellers visit places in England and Scotland, they provide through satire and wit a vivid and detailed picture of the contemporary social and political scene.

This edition brings together Jonson's four great comedies in one volume. Volpone, which was first performed in 1606, dramatizes the corrupting nature of greed in an exuberant satire set in contemporary Venice. The first production of Epicene marked the end of a year long closure of the theatres because of an epidemic of the plague in 1609; its comedy affirms the consolatory power of laughter at such a time. The Alchemist (1610) deploys the metaphors of alchemical transformation to emphasize the mutability of the characters and their relationships. In Bartholomew Fair (1614) Jonson embroils the visitors to the fair in its myriad tempations, exposing the materialistic impulses beneath the apparent godliness of Jacobean Puritans. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. Stage directions hvae been added to facilitate the reconstruction of the plays' performance, and there is a scholarly introduction, detailed annotation, and a glossary.

Synge was one of the key dramatists in the world of Irish literature at the turn of the century. This volume offers all of Synge`s plays, which range from racy comedy to stark tragedy, all sharing a memorable lyricism. The introduction places him in the context of the Irish literary movement.

Now listen with good will, as I go straight to my subject matter, in which you may hear the double sorrows of Troilus in his love for Criseyde, and how she forsook him before she died Like Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan and Iseult, the names of Troilus and Criseyde will always be united: a pair of lovers whose names are inseparable from passion and tragedy. Troilus and Criseyde is Chaucer's masterpiece and was prized for centuries as his supreme achievement. The story of how Troilus and Criseyde discover love and how she abandons him for Diomede after her departure from Troy is dramatically presented in all its comedy and tragic pathos. With its deep humanity and penetrating insight, Troilus and Criseyde is now recognized as one of the finest narrative poems in the English language. This is a new translation into contemporary English of Chaucer's greatest single poem which can be read alongside the Middle English original, or as an accurate and readable version in its own right.

This book has two major themes: firstly, it discusses psycholinguistic and cognitive aspects of language learning, and secondly, it looks at the contrast between universalist accounts of language learning and accounts which focus on individual differences between learners. Interwoven throughout is a focus on practical applications of these themes in task-based learning and language testing. Winner MLA Kenneth W Mildenberger Prize.

Psycholinguists have shown that the comprehension and production of even the simplest language is a highly complex, almost miraculous, process. This brief introduction shows how psycholinguistic research can act as a window to the workings of the human mind.

A resource book of activities to prepare students for public examinations. Includes over 70 classroom activities ranging from raising awareness of individual sounds to full-scale listening projects. Emphasizes listening as a social and interactive skill. Helps learners to develop strategies to make sense of what they hear in English.

Sociolinguistics is the study of the different ways in which different groups of people use language. This book provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the field, making links with related disciplines such as history, politics, and gender studies.

This is the first English translation for forty years of a medieval classic, offering vivid and unique insight into the life of a great monastery in late twelfth-century England. The translation brilliantly communicates the interest and immediacy of Jocelin's narrative, and the annotation is particularly clear and helpful.

Jacobean Tragedy explores the tensions between the disruptive energies of sex and seventeenth century social, cultural and political values with an exceptional frankness, and the plays collected in this volume demonstrate the genre at its most sinister and explicit. The Insatiate Countess (1610), by William Barksted and Lewis Machin from a draft by John Marston, is a study in obsessive nymphomania and the reprisals taken by the male establishment. The Maid's Tragedy (1611) by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, reveals dark sexual secrets at the heart of the royal court, and emphasizes the political instability which ensues their discovery. Thomas Middleton's The Maiden's Tragedy (1611) provides an overtly Christian dimension to the conflict between lust and chastity, and John Fletcher's The Tragedy of Valentinian (1614) is a chilling portrayal of rape as the exercise of absolute power. Each play raises difficult questions about conventional moral and social attitudes to sexuality which remain relevant today.

For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand. Does God exist? Can we know anything about God's nature? Have we any reason to think that the Christian religion is true? What is truth, anyway? Do human beings have freedom of choice? Can they have such freedom in a world created by God? These questions, and others, were ones which Anselm of Canterbury (c.1033-1109) took very seriously. He was utterly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion, but he was also determined to try to make sense of his Christian faith. Recognizing that the Christian God is incomprehensible, he also believed that Christianity is not simply something to be swallowed with mouth open and eyes shut. For Anselm, the doctrines of Christianity are an invitation to question, to think, and to learn. Anselm is studied today because his rigour of thought and clarity of writing place him among the greatest of theologians and philosophers. This translation provides readers with their first opportunity to read all of his most important works within the covers of a single volume.

A four-level course that develops learning and language skills, using humorous characters, crosswords, and strip cartoons, with a strong emphasis on listening.

A four-level course that develops learning and language skills, using humorous characters, crosswords, and strip cartoons, with a strong emphasis on listening.