Published September 2016
Rethinking Juan Rulfo’s Creative World: Prose, Photography, Film
Edited by Dylan Brennan and Nuala Finnegan
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 14
Haunted Serbia: Representations of History and War in the Literary Imagination
David A. Norris
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘This is a remarkable study, which accomplishes a lot more than a brief review can mention. One of its greatest merits is the convincing and coherent narrative which strings together a large number of apparently disparate works around an axis which is at one and the same time a literary one — the uncanny and its Gothic repertoire — and extra-literary: searching for meaning in both recent past and in contemporary events. Admirably well researched, Haunted Serbia offers an invaluable insight into a turbulent though fruitful period of Serbia’s literary history, which up until now was uncharted territory.’ — Zoran Milutinović, Slavonic and East European Review 95.2, April 2017, 353-54 (full text online)
- ‘David A. Norris, direttore del Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies dell’Università di Nottingham, disegna un panorama della narrativa a tema bellico nella letteratura serba della seconda metà del XX secolo guardando ad essa dall’angolatura delle “ways in which narrative fiction represents the changing relationship between past and present in times of crisis” (p. 35)... L’interessante sintesi di D. A. Norris, proprio per la complessità del materiale da essa messo in circolazione, induce a più di qualche riflessione.’ — Janja Jerkov, Ricerche Slavistiche N.S. 14, 2016, 560-72
- ‘In this well-informed, logically structured study, David A. Norris o ers a lucid and original interpretation of important and in uential Serbian narrative ction between the demise of Tito in 1980 and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.’ — Ralph Bogert, Slavic Review Summer 2018, 510-12
Aloysius Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit: Beyond the Prose Poem
Valentina Gosetti
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘It is Baudelaire that dubs [Bertrand] the pioneer of the prose-poem and out of this well-meaning act springs the genie of subsequent critical depreciation. Gosetti’s absorbing and hugely valuable historical recontextualization of Bertrand gives us just the tools we need to do Gaspard altogether better justice.’ — Clive Scott, Journal of European Studies 47.1, 2017, 82-83
- ‘In her informative and thoroughly researched monograph, Valentina Gosetti contends that developing a fuller understanding of Bertrand’s Gaspard de la Nuit is contingent upon a wider appreciation of the historical, social, cultural, and literary contexts in which the collection was produced... This study, which includes an appendix containing four beautiful English translations by Gian Lombardo, is a valuable contribution to the scholarship on Bertrand in the Anglophone world. It will be of great interest to historians and literary scholars of French Romanticism.’ — Catherine Witt, H-France 17, 2017
- ‘In clear and eloquent prose, Gosetti presents a lively and thoroughly interesting account of Gaspard that illuminates a creative experimental work deserving of its proper spot in the canon of French Romantic literature... Gosetti convinces the reader many times over that Gaspard de la Nuit is an audacious nexus of literary and artistic motifs that emerge once the portrait of the artist is allowed to share the Romantic limelight.’ — Karen F. Quandt, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 46.1-2, 2017
- ‘This elegant and beautifully written monograph seeks to offer new insights into Gaspard de la nuit, by returning to the literary and cultural context in which it was written, and approaching it on its own terms... Gosetti’s book richly deserves to achieve its aim of encouraging readers to pick up Bertrand, but it also offers an enormously rewarding read for anyone interested more generally in prose poetry, provincial literature, and the role of the fantastic in nineteenth-century France.’ — Fiona Cox, French Studies 71.4, October 2017, 585-86 (full text online)
- ‘«Fascinating work» que ce Gaspard de la Nuit, écrit-elle dans les dernières lignes de sa conclusion: le lecteur en est toujours plus convaincu après avoir lu ce brillant essai.’ — Christine Marcandier, Revue Bertrand No. 1, 2018, 256-59
The Poetry of Ernest Jones: Myth, Song, and the ‘Mighty Mind’
Simon Rennie
Legenda (General Series)
Lucidity: Essays in Honour of Alison Finch
Edited by Ian James and Emma Wilson
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘This carefully crafted volume offers subtle and sustained reflections on the theme of lucidity as it is manifested in a range of cultural forms and media... This volume of fine schol- arship is dedicated to Alison Finch. As such, it pays tribute to her writing, teaching, and personal qualities, and constitutes a fitting tribute to her own lucidity.’ — Shirley Jordan, French Studies 74.1, January 2020, 157 (full text online)
Rewriting Les Mystères de Paris: The Mystères Urbains and the Palimpsest
Amy Wigelsworth
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Presentant des demonstrations dont Jes etapes sont habilement resumees pour clore chaque chapitre, Rewriting Les Mysteres de Paris offre des etudes fouillees d'reuvres riches mais rarement traitees par la critique... La demonstration est convaincante et stimulante par Jes avenues de reflexion qu'elle ouvre.’ — Nicolas Gauthier, L'Esprit Créateur 57.1, 2017, 141
Poetry and the Leningrad Religious-Philosophical Seminar 1974-1980: Music for a Deaf Age
Josephine von Zitzewitz
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Von Zitzewitz convincingly demonstrates that the religious-philosophical impulse in general, and a pull to Russian Orthodoxy in particular, was a widespread cultural phenomenon in the late Soviet period, cutting across the official/unofficial divide... von Zitzewitz’s precise situating of her subjects in their unofficial environment constitutes a crucial key to understanding the semantic and formal features of their work, and in turn, the lonely and frustrated spirit of their time.’ — Ainsley Morse, Modern Language Review 112.4, 2017, 1053-55 (full text online)
- ‘In her impeccably researched and documented book, Josephine von Zitzewitz combines an examination of the Religious-Philosophical Seminar with five case studies of poets from the Leningrad underground of the 1970s and 80s... An important contribution to the study of both late-Soviet poetry and religious literary culture.’ — Sarah Clovis Bishop, Slavic and East European Journal 61.4, Winter 2017, 913-14
Pasolini after Dante: The 'Divine Mimesis' and the Politics of Representation
Emanuela Patti
Italian Perspectives 35
The Italian Academies 1525-1700: Networks of Culture, Innovation and Dissent
Edited by Jane E. Everson, Denis V. Reidy and Lisa Sampson
Italian Perspectives 31
- ‘With new archival research, new areas of study, and an innovative approach, Italian Academies challenges preconceived ideas about academies and successfully demonstrates the fundamental role played by these associations in disseminating ideas, culture, innovation, and dissent in the early modern period.’ — Patrizia Bettella, Quaderni d'Italianistica 39.1, 2017, 265-68
Published August 2016
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, An Impossible Man
Translated by Alexander Stillmark
New Translations 12
- ‘This MHRA edition is a useful reference work for Anglophone readers and students of Hofmannsthal and provides an authoritative translation of Der Schwierige that will be welcomed by literary and theatre historians alike.’ — Edward Saunders, Austrian Studies 2017, 25, 253-54 (full text online)
Published July 2016
Slavonic and East European Review 94.3
Published May 2016
La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse
Edited by Glynnis M. Cropp
Critical Texts 51
- ‘As Glynnis Cropp notes in her foreword, while historians have made reference to La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse, a vernacular fourteenth-century dream-vision poem, the text itself has never received a critical edition. That omission has now been impressively rectified... this is an impressive and accessible edition, justifying why La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse deserves recognition in its own right.’ — Bridget Riley, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 506 (full text online)
- ‘L’edizione di Cropp... ha il merito incontestabile di far progredire in maniera sostanziale la nostra conoscenza di un testo e di una tradizione no ad oggi completamente trascurati. Il testo critico è stabilito con criteri chiari e le scelte operate sono controllabili. Si tratta di un lavoro di grande peso e impegno, che offre delle basi di partenza solide a chi vorrà approfondirne la complessa situazione testuale della Voie de la Pouvreté et de la Richesse.’ — Maria Teresa Rachetta, Revue de Linguistique Romane 82.325-26, January-June 2018, 278-81
- ‘This slim but attractively produced volume is part of the enormously useful MHRA Critical Texts series... The volume contains a useful introduction followed by the edited text based on MS Paris, BnF, fr. 1563, fols 203r–221r. An index of proper names, a glossary, and a thorough bibliography are compiled with that meticulous attention to detail we are accustomed to nd in Cropp’s work... An invaluable edition.’ — Anne M. Scott, Parergon 36.1, 2019, 238-39
Georg Kaiser, After Expressionism: Five Plays
Translated by Fred Bridgham
New Translations 11
- ‘This volume is a valuable addition to world literature libraries, and of great interest to scholars of theatre... Scholars can be grateful to Bridgham for his efforts in placing these works before a broader public.’ — Carole J. Lambert, Translation and Literature 27, 2019, 100-07 (full text online)
Published April 2016
Abraham Fraunce, The Shepherds' Logic and Other Dialectical Writings
Edited by Zenón Luis-Martínez
Critical Texts 46
- ‘Luis-Martínez gives as rigorous and detailed an account of the work’s genesis and immediate context as most readers could possibly wish for, offering much greater precision about Fraunce’s sources than earlier studies have been willing or able to provide... Fraunce has found a well-informed and sympathetic editor who can guide readers through what will be, to most, the unappealing thickets of humanistic logic, and direct their attention, instead, to the instructive value of this idiosyncratic Elizabethan voice.’ — Michael Hetherington, Spenser Review 47.1.14, Winter 2017
- ‘Luis-Martínez’s introduction not only explains Ramism but also puts Fraunce’s project in dialogue with Spenser’s 'Shepheardes Calender’.’ — Katherine Eggert, English Literature 57, 2017, 209
- ‘All in all, for the foreseeable future Luis-Martínez’s meticulous, ground-breaking edition will be the obligatory point of departure for all students and scholars with an interest in Fraunce’s logical writings, as well as a providing a useful introduction to English Ramism in general. The book is a credit to English Renaissance studies in Spain, and Luis-Martínez is to be congratulated.’ — Jonathan P. A. Sell, Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies Yearbook 27, 2017, 255–61
- ‘The edition issues a siren call to literary scholars, in particular those working on historical formalism, and literature and education, to probe afresh for potential reciprocity between poetry and logic in England in this period... By making a rationale for reading The Shepherds’ Logic not as a poor cousin of Fraunce’s later, more famous textbook, but in its own right with its own arguments to make about poetry and logic, and the vernacular, Luis-Martínez elevates this text to essential reading for those working on English humanism and early modern education and literature more broadly.’ — Emma Annette Wilson, Spanish Journal of English Studies 38, 2017, 139‒143
- ‘Many are the reasons why Zenón Luis-Martínez’s critical edition of Abraham Fraunce’s The Shepherds’ Logic is a highly valuable contribution to early modern scholarship... As customary with editions published by the MHRA, there is a “Textual Notes” section at the end of the work to supplement the rich comments of the footnotes that run throughout the text, a final glossary of rare and archaic words, and an updated bibliography.’ — Rocío Gutiérrez Sumillera, Miscelánea 56, 2017, 141-144
Slavonic and East European Review 94.2
Wilhelm Meinhold, 'The Amber Witch': Translated by Lady Duff Gordon
Edited by Barbara Burns
European Translations 4
- ‘The modest success the novel enjoyed in nineteenth-century Germany was far outstripped by its popularity in Britain. Writing with verve and clarity, Barbara Burns explores the reasons for this in her meticulously researched introduction. Meinhold was fortunate in his English translator... When Duff- Gordon decided to translate this work she selected something that arguably deserved to become a German classic but did not, and turned it into a minor classic in English in its day... It is easy to imagine it finding a further afterlife as a graphic novel or a movie.’ — Helen Chambers, Translation and Literature 26, 2017, 100-08
Published March 2016
The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, Volume 76: Survey Year 2014
Edited by Stephen Parkinson
Alexis Piron, Gustave-Wasa
Edited by Derek Connon
Critical Texts 57
- ‘Connon’s rich critical edition boasts extensive contextualization and intriguing paratexts. His wide-ranging Introduction analyses the tragedic elements of pity, terror, and character self-revelation, alongside Piron’s spirited self-defence against Prévost’s accusations of plagiarism.’ — Síofra Pierse, Modern Language Review 113.1, January 2018, 244-45 (full text online)
Translating Austria
Edited by Florian Krobb and Deborah Holmes
Austrian Studies 23
William Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetry (1586)
Edited by Sonia Hernández-Santano
Critical Texts 47
- ‘William Webbe’s A Discourse of English Poetry, the ‘first published treatise exclusively dedicated to the theory of poetry’ in England but not edited in full in over a century, is conveniently presented in Sonia Herna ́ndez-Santano’s edition. She provides us with an extensively glossed and annotated modern-spelling text that situates Webbe’s treatise both in its early modern context and in terms of contemporary scholarship... Hopefully Herna ́ndez-Santano’s fine treatment of Webbe’s Discourse will inspire editions of other such fascinating early modern poetic treatises.’ — Sarah Case, Review of English Studies Advance Access 4 October 2016
- ‘Webbe will be well served by the ready availability of a modernized text, and by the detailed introduction... The materials are here for a fuller reintegration of Webbe’s Discourse into our understanding of Elizabethan humanism, poetics, and cultures of reading.’ — Michael Hetherington, Spenser Review 47.1.14, Winter 2017
- ‘Sonia Hernández-Santano’s edition of William Webbe’s 'A Discourse of English Poetry (1586)', is an unexpected treasure: an affordable, well-introduced, paperback edition of a text companionate to George Gascoigne’s, George Puttenham’s, and Philip Sidney’s discourses on poetry and poetics.’ — Katherine Eggert, English Literature 57, 2017, 183
Published February 2016
Critiquing Criticism: From the Ancient to the Digital
Edited by Sophie Corser and Lucy Russell
MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 10
Published January 2016
Writing the Americas, 1480–1826
Edited by Robert Lawson-Peebles and Kristin A. Cook
Yearbook of English Studies 46