Overview
While his detractors found his verse to be deliberately obscure, Robert Browning resisted such charges and went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed and popular English poets of the nineteenth century. Known for his imaginative originality and dramatic power, Browning's enduring voice is evidenced in such works as "My Last Duchess," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came," "Andrea del Sarto," and "Caliban upon Setebos." This volume of essays featuring commentary from Browning's contemporaries and later critics also includes a chronology, an index, and an introduction from literary critic Harold Bloom.
Bloom's Classic Critical Views presents a selection of the most important enduring literary criticism on the authors most commonly read in high school and college classes today. The series attempts to place these great authors in the context of their time and to provide criticism that has proved over the years to be the most valuable to readers and writers. Selections range from reviews in popular magazines, which demonstrate how a work was received in its own era, to profound essays by some of the strongest critics in the British and American traditions. In addition, each volume contains contributions by a contemporary expert who introduces the most important critical selections, putting them in context and suggesting how they might be used by a student writer to influence his or her own writing.
Synopsis
While his detractors found his verse to be deliberately obscure, Robert Browning resisted such charges and went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed and popular English poets of the nineteenth century. Known for his imaginative originality and dramatic power, Browning's enduring voice is evidenced in such works as "My Last Duchess," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came," "Andrea del Sarto," and "Caliban upon Setebos." This volume of essays featuring commentary from Browning's contemporaries and later critics also includes a chronology, an index, and an introduction from literary critic Harold Bloom.
Bloom's Classic Critical Views presents a selection of the most important enduring literary criticism on the authors most commonly read in high school and college classes today. The series attempts to place these great authors in the context of their time and to provide criticism that has proved over the years to be the most valuable to readers and writers. Selections range from reviews in popular magazines, which demonstrate how a work was received in its own era, to profound essays by some of the strongest critics in the British and American traditions. In addition, each volume contains contributions by a contemporary expert who introduces the most important critical selections, putting them in context and suggesting how they might be used by a student writer to influence his or her own writing.
School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up-In each of these volumes, five poems are represented in critical essays by literary analysts both past and contemporary. Robert Browning highlights "My Last Duchess," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," "Andrea del Sarto," and "Caliban Upon Setebos." Sylvia Plath features "The Colossus," "The Arrival of the Bee Box," "Daddy," "Ariel," and "Lady Lazarus." The main texts are prefaced by brief but informative biographies of the poets and conclude with bibliographies of works by and about them as well as indexes of important themes and ideas from the poems. Each volume is divided into sections, one for each poem, and each section begins with Bloom's thematic analysis of the work. This information, given in a straightforward style, will be helpful to students. Because the essays are written by scholars, however, the language is often dense and hard to grasp for all but the most advanced high-school literature students. With their academic approach and language, these research and study guides would be best used in school libraries that support intensive literary research on the precollege or Advanced Placement level.-Toni D. Moore, Simon Kenton High School, Independence, KY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.