The Victorians

The Victorians PDF Author: Martin Hewitt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191056529
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description

The Victorians

The Victorians PDF Author: Martin Hewitt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191056529
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


British Cinema: A Very Short Introduction

British Cinema: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Charles Barr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191512702
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Cinema has had a hugely influential role on global culture in the 20th century at multiple levels: social, political, and educational. The part of British cinema in this has been controversial - often derided as a whole, but also vigorously celebrated, especially in terms of specific films and film-makers. In this Very Short Introduction, Charles Barr considers films and filmmakers, and studios and sponsorship, against the wider view of changing artistic, socio-political, and industrial climates over the decades of the 20th Century. Considering British cinema in the wake of one of the most familiar of cinematic reference points - Alfred Hitchcock - Barr traces how British cinema has developed its own unique path, and has since been celebrated for its innovative approaches and distinctive artistic language. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction

The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Christopher Kelly
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0192803913
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. With a population of sixty million people, it encircled the Mediterranean and stretched from northern England to North Africa and Syria. This Very Short Introduction covers the history of the empire at its height, looking at its people, religions and social structures. It explains how it deployed violence, 'romanisation', and tactical power to develop an astonishingly uniform culture from Rome to its furthest outreaches.

Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Christopher Harvie
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 0192853988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Victorian Soundscapes

Victorian Soundscapes PDF Author: John M. Picker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195151916
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Far from the hushed restraint we associate with the Victorians, their world pulsated with sound. This book shows how, in more ways than one, Victorians were hearing things. John Picker draws upon literary and scientific works to recapture the Victorian sense of aural discovery.

Mary Shelley: A Very Short Introduction

Mary Shelley: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Charlotte Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192640178
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring In 1816, when eighteen-year old Mary Godwin began writing Frankenstein, the idea that a woman could dream up such a tale was as far-fetched as raising a being from the dead. But Mary wasn't just any woman. The daughter of two notorious radicals, Mary had become an outcast from English society when she was only sixteen. A lifelong advocate for the rights of women, she refused to be governed by social conventions, running away with a married man, having children out of wedlock, and authoring books, stories, and essays that broke literary conventions. This Very Short Introduction explores the context, background, and important themes contained in Shelley's most famous novel, Frankenstein, as well as demonstrating the importance of her work after Frankenstein. Over the course of her long career, Shelley developed a distinctive voice, and a political and philosophical stance. Exploring key themes throughout Shelley's work, Charlotte Gordon shows how she devoted herself to the propositions her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, outlined in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: that women are equal to men; that all people deserve the same rights; that human reason and the capacity for love can reform the world; and that every person is entitled to justice and freedom. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

French Novels and the Victorians

French Novels and the Victorians PDF Author: Juliette Atkinson
Publisher: British Academy Monographs
ISBN: 9780197266090
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
La jaquette indique : "In 1836 John Wilson Croker, having immersed himself in dozens of contemporary French novels, warned that 'she who dares to read a single page of the hundred thousand licentious pages with which the last five years have indundated society, is lost for ever.' Many readers, both then and during the following decades, were nonetheless willing to take the risk. it has become common to oppose prudish Victorian England with permissive nineteenth-century France, but the extent to which Gallic literature was rejected has been greatly exaggerated. French Novels and the Victorians sets out to trace the fortunes of French fiction in England between 1830 and 1870. The book explores the institutions, businesses, publications and networks that enabled French novels to cross the Channel and reach British hands. The works' dissemination was sufficiently extensive to cause alarm, and the notion of their immorality was subjected to scrutiny in transnational critical discussions, readers' responses, censorship debates and fictional representations. the impact of French novels was, however, by no means considered simply in moral terms, but also in literary and even commercial ones, as the pervasiveness of these imports challenged the boundaries and identity of England's national literature. In addition to assessing the cultural importance of novelests such as Balzac, Dumas, Dumas fils, Hugo, Sans and Sue, and recovering the significance of currently neglected writers sur as Paul de Kock, French novels and the Victorians seeks to investigate how critics, novelists, and readers elaborated and responded to the concept of 'the French novel'."

Reading: A Very Short Introduction

Reading: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Belinda Jack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192552449
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Today many people take reading for granted, but we remain some way off from attaining literacy for the global human population. And whilst we think we know what reading is, it remains in many ways a mysterious process, or set of processes. The effects of reading are myriad: it can be informative, distracting, moving, erotically arousing, politically motivating, spiritual, and much, much more. At different times and in different places reading means different things. In this Very Short Introduction Belinda Jack explores the fascinating history of literacy, and the opportunities reading opens. For much of human history reading was the preserve of the elite, and most reading meant being read to. Innovations in printing, paper-making, and transport, combined with the rise of public education from the late eighteenth century on, brought a dramatic rise in literacy in many parts of the world. Established links between a nation's levels of literacy and its economy led to the promotion of reading for political ends. But, equally, reading has been associated with subversive ideas, leading to censorship through multiple channels: denying access to education, controlling publishing, destroying libraries, and even the burning of authors and their works. Indeed, the works of Voltaire were so often burned that an enterprising Parisian publisher produced a fire-proof edition, decorated with a phoenix. But, as Jack demonstrates, reading is a collaborative act between an author and a reader, and one which can never be wholly controlled. Telling the story of reading, from the ancient world to digital reading and restrictions today, Belinda Jack explores why it is such an important aspect of our society. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Victorian Afterlives

Victorian Afterlives PDF Author: Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198187271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
'This book is one of the most impressive critical analyses of nineteenth-century literary culture that I have read in a long time. A closely written and argued discussion of theories of literary influence in a nineteenth-century context, it ranges widely and makes always interesting and sometimes brilliant connections...This is a major work of Victorian literary criticism, and a book to be read over and over again for its myriad insights and felicities.' -Tennyson Research Bulletin'Close readings unravel the manner in which 'dead' voices haunt Tennyson's poetry, and the author is uncommonly sharp-eared for nuance.' -Scotland on Sunday'Ambitious, delightful, frustrating, wide-ranging, often beautifully written... Its sheer range sets it apart from the usual academic monograph... refreshingly free of jargon.' -Angela Leighton, Times Literary Supplement'One of the enjoyable features of Douglas-Fairhurst's writing is its commitment to close reading. He can make a word or line come alive by a turn of phrase which resonantly prolongs its momentum.' -Angela Leighton, Times Literary SupplementThis major study examines a Victorian obsession with 'influence', the often unpredictable after-effects of words and actions, in fields as diverse as mesmerism and theology, literary theory and sanitation reform. For writers such as Tennyson, FitzGerald and Dickens, the idea is both a theoretical and a practical problem.Survival is not only what their writing critically examines, but also what it sets out to achieve.

Tragedy

Tragedy PDF Author: Adrian Poole
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:
Category : Comparative literature
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
How and why does tragedy matter? This book approaches this question through a close reading of Greek tragedies that is designed both for readers with Greek and those with none. It explores Greek plays alongside three of Shakespeare's tragedies: "Macbeth", "Hamlet" and "King Lear".