Recent Reviews of MHRA Books

MHRA books are regularly reviewed in scholarly journals across the world, and sometimes also in literary papers such as the Times Literary Supplement. From time to time, our books also appear in Europe’s newspapers, from The Independent and the Daily Telegraph to El Imparcial and Gazeta Shqiptare. The following excerpts are from the 20 most recently received reviews:

  • Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs — Claudia Dellacasa, ‘Italo Calvino and Japan è un libro che realizza appieno le proprie ambizioni. Attraverso un parallelo tra il pensiero zen e la semiotica, nei quali tutto è relativo, intessuto in relazioni non dualistiche (rispettivamente Vacuità e Differenza oppositiva) esso restituisce un profilo di Calvino secondo una prospettiva volutamente ‘parziale’ e inedita, offrendo un prisma ‘decentrato’ attraverso cui leggere la scrittura in filigrana, sempre molteplice, dell’autore. La sua più grande qualità consiste nel considerare e mettere in luce come per Calvino la letteratura sia anche una filosofia naturale, uno strumento attraverso cui il mondo, mediante le nostre percezioni, si percepisce. Il libro ci invita dunque a rileggere Calvino, non solo con un’attenzione ecologica e post-umana, ma con la profonda consapevolezza del ‘coesistere’.’ — Greta Gribaudo, Italian Studies published online, 2025 (full text online)
  • Screening Work: The Films of Christian Petzold — Stephan Hilpert and Andrew J. Webber, ‘The inclusion of Petzold’s TV movies is fascinating since they are more often ignored for ‘better’ objects of study. Hilpert and Webber make a compelling case for their inclusion in the corpus since they balance an investigative form of work in Petzold’s filmography. Even as the book was published in September 2024, the authors included analyses of Petzold’s most recent film Afire, a perfect example of the importance of work in Petzold’s filmography. The authors’ commitment to analyzing Petzold’s films diversifies what one could term a ‘good object of study.’’ — John Evjen, Germanic Review 100.2, 2025, 321-23 (full text online)
  • Pablo Messiez, The Eyes — Translated by Alma Prelec and María Bastianes, with an introduction by María Bastianes, ‘This recent translation of Pablo Messiez’s The Eyes is a timely intervention that asserts the value of Spanish and Argentine theatre traditions in a global context. This accomplished English version by Alma Prelec and María Bastianes, specialists in Spanish-language theatre, will be of immense benefit to scholars and theatre practitioners alike. With the book’s thoroughly researched Introduction, a carefully translated text, an interview with Messiez, and an extensive bibliography, there is a wealth of material to support both further research and, it is to be hoped, the eventual realization of an English-language production of the play.’ — Georgina Fooks, Modern Language Review 120.4, 2025, 579-81 (full text online)
  • Crossings: Essays on Poetry and Translation from Hölderlin to Jaccottet — Charlie Louth, ‘These essays are all mature reflections on translation, its definitions, its scope, its possibilities, and its limits. They are interspersed with close readings of poems by Goethe, Hölderlin, Mörike, Rilke, Stadler, and Jaccottet: alone this list of names may indicate the volume’s tone and its breadth and depth of compass. Each essay is free-standing but it is nevertheless fair to say that somewhere in each is a reflection on the transitions, transferences, and transformations that are part of the essence of poetry itself, not least the notion of translation as poetry’s extension and transfiguration... Already has the lineaments of a classic.’ — Roger Paulin, Modern Language Review 120.4, 2025, 581-83 (full text online)
  • Screening Work: The Films of Christian Petzold — Stephan Hilpert and Andrew J. Webber, ‘This is an important book: it offers the first in-depth account of Petzold’s films and of his fascination with the changing world of work. The authors are always highly attentive to the work of cinematography — whether it be the function of CCTV cameras, POV shots, close-ups, intertextuality, clothing, footwear, dialogue, the representation of transitional spaces, or the handling of temporality. By interweaving the analysis of the representation of the precarity of work in late capitalism with the themes of relationality and care, the authors offer a subtle and yet always political reading of Petzold’s hauntological aesthetic.’ — Anne Fuchs, Modern Language Review 120.4, 2025, 584-86 (full text online)
  • Standing at the Crossroads: Stories of Doubt in Renaissance Italy — Marco Faini, ‘Despite its opening on an iconic religious and intellectual figure, Marco Faini’s captivating study approaches doubt as an ordinary human experience worthy of investigation as a question, as an individual circumstance, as an instance of incredulity, and as an object of visual or verbal representation. Moving beyond widely explored masters of doubt from Aristotle to Machiavelli, Faini examines vernacular poetry and prose - including pamphlets, books of problems, and games - as well as visual sources that are less noted today, but popular in the Renaissance. Five well-ordered chapters cover a period Faini characterizes as uniquely productive for the literature on doubt, from the 1490s to the conclusion of the Council of Trent in 1563.’ — Caterina Mongiat Farina, Renaissance Quarterly 78.3, 2025, 961-62 (full text online)
  • The Poems and Songs of Henry Hall of Hereford: A Jacobite Poet of the 1690s — Oliver Pickering, ‘Pickering’s book is meticulously prepared and handsomely presented... this fine study offers rich rewards to those interested in Hall’s life and career as a whole and will be invaluable to scholars of Restoration music as the starting point for smaller-scale investigations of his music.’ — Alan Howard, Early Music published online, 2025 (full text online)
  • Staging Germanness in Contemporary British Theatre — Joseph Prestwich, ‘The analyses are certainly rigorous, as is the engagement with extensive scholarly and journalistic sources. The performance analyses are framed by the specificities of the institutions to reveal subtle and detailed readings throughout... The deployment of pertinent theoretical frameworks, institutional contextualization and the specificities of the productions in question deliver insightful conclusions.’ — David Barnett, Journal of European Studies 55.3, 2025, 397-99 (full text online)
  • Re-Viewing the Canon: Feminist Readings of German Literature from the Age of Goethe to the Present — Elizabeth Boa, ‘Reading these essays, it becomes clear what a formidable contribution Boa made to a feminist understanding of particularly modernist literature, drawing out the gendered assumptions underpinning the canon of German-language modernist writers from Kafka to Wedekind, and setting it in a wider European context. One of the great pleasures of the collection are the flashes of dark humour and joy in words that shine like points of light within the scholarly prose, disrupting academic gravitas and inviting the reader into the discussion at a more personal level.’ — Helen Finch and Ingrid Sharp, Journal of European Studies 55.3, 2025, 393-95 (full text online)
  • Anne Cooke’s Englishing of Bernardino Ochino — Edited by Patricia Demers, ‘Demers achieves a great deal. She presents the texts in accessible modern-spelling versions, with light footnote annotations drawing attention to Cooke’s deviations from Ochino’s originals and to scriptural allusions (some but not all of which are printed as marginal notes in the originals). In her very useful introduction, Demers provides detailed and informative sketches of both Ochino and Cooke, cognizant of the long critical engagement with the former, and fully immersed in the very recent scholarship on the latter. She adeptly summarizes the larger movements from which Ochino’s writings emerged and explains some of the complex theological debates contained in his sermons. Throughout, Demers draws our attention to the texture both of Ochino’s Italian and Cooke’s English. [...] It is very good to have this excellent edition to propel us into new inquiries about Anne Cooke Bacon.’ — Alan Stewart, Renaissance and Reformation 48.3 (2025), 232–34 (full text online)
  • Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy and Beyond: Materiality, Paratexts and Interpretative Strategies — Edited by Guyda Armstrong, Simon A. Gilson and Federica Pich, ‘Die zahlreichen Studien, die in den letzten Jahren zur Exegese Petrarcas entstanden sind, und der Erfolg dieser digitalen Datenbank weisen nun auf den Horizont einer umfassenden digitalen Edition, die eine vergleichende Analyse des exegetischen Textkorpus ermöglicht und neue Perspektiven auf die Beziehungen zwischen den Renaissance-Gemeinschaften in ganz Europa eröffnet.’ — Nicolas Longinotti, Germanische-Romanische Monatsschrift 75.3, 2025, 361-64
  • A Gaping Wound: Mourning in Italian Poetry — Edited by Adele Bardazzi, Francesco Giusti, and Emanuela Tandello, ‘One major contribution of the volume is the careful theoretical approach that the three editors outline in the “Introduction: Why Mourning in Poetry?” and then expand with a renewed energy in the “Epilogue: Towards an Elegiac Mode.” In the introductory text, the editors stress that “[t]he scope of this volume... seeks to bring Italian poetry and theory into the lively international debate about mourning in literature” (1). In turn, the editors illustrate the rationale for the selected articles by carefully linking them to theoretical approaches.’ — Ernesto Livorni, Italica 101.4, 2024, 684-86 (full text online)
  • The First English Pastor Fido — Edited by Massimiliano Morini, ‘The most reliable modern text of this work, [including] a new critical apparatus and a detailed and insightful assessment of what is one of the major polemical texts of the Renaissance. This edition [...] brings out of the shadows of literary history a translation that, as Morini persuasively argues, deserves much greater attention. [...] The text is also meticulously annotated, with explanatory notes that clarify metrical, linguistic, cultural, mythological, and literary references, often referring to classical, Italian, and Elizabethan works. [...] Generations of researchers will remain indebted to Morini's meticulous work.’ — Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation 48.1–2, 2025, 374–76 (full text online)
  • Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature — Mara Josi, ‘Rome 16 October 1943 is a sound and accomplished piece of scholarship that demonstrates an outstanding knowledge of the subject. The structure of the book is logical and clear, and the dialogue between the literary readings and theory (as well as between the different theoretical frameworks deployed throughout the text) is well-balanced and insightful.’ — Stefano Bellin, Italica 101.3, 2024, 501-03 (full text online)
  • Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy and Beyond: Materiality, Paratexts and Interpretative Strategies — Edited by Guyda Armstrong, Simon A. Gilson and Federica Pich, ‘An exciting and excellent work that skillfully covers an impossibly broad field of Petrarchan reception. With considerable merits, not least of which is the creation of the field-changing digital tools related to the volume, and the volume’s exemplary modeling of the type of scholarly investigation that digital humanities help facilitate, Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis more than succeeds in its goal to avail to readers a transformative, “rich terrain upon which to investigate what exegesis is and means” in Petrarchan vernacular poetry and the commentary tradition.’ — Alani Hicks-Bartlett, Italica 101.3, 2024, 493-96 (full text online)
  • Dante and Petrarch in the Garden of Language — Francesca Southerden, ‘Il libro affascina per la capacità di tenere insieme i fili di una complessità di contenuti di cui si è potuto dare solo una descrizione sintetica con l’augurio di aver suscitato interesse per un’opera rilevante per studiosi di Dante e Petrarca, ma anche delle valenze simboliche dell’immagine del giardino e della tradizione lirica medievale.’ — Simona Lorenzini, Italica 101.2, 2024, 357-59
  • Dante’s Blood — Anne C. Leone, ‘Through the revelation of the polysemous role of blood, Dante’s Blood points at the very core of Dante’s journey: the imitation of Christ through his poem.’ — Rookshar Myram, Italica 101.2, 2024, 362-63 (full text online)
  • Fiction as History: Resistance and Complicities in Angolan Postcolonial Literature — Dorothée Boulanger, ‘Boulanger’s book is highly relevant to scholars interested in postcolonial studies, African literature, and intellectual history. It invites readers to reflect on how fiction can serve as an alternative historical source, enriching discussions on national identity, cultural memory and postcolonial power dynamics.’ — Sandra Sousa, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 102.4, 2025, 934-37
  • German Political Tragedy: The Machiavellian Plot and the Necessary Crime — Ritchie Robertson, ‘An engaging and often entertaining read. Robertson presents a broad-ranging discussion of these texts in a style that recalls an earlier study of German tragedy, Benjamin’s The Origins of German Tragic Drama (1928). Robertson’s German Political Tragedy will prove useful to readers interested in the political and dramaturgical dynamics of these plays, and no doubt makes a valuable contribution to the study of German theatre culture, its influences, styles and contexts.’ — Richard McClelland, Journal of European Studies 55.2, 2025, 224-25 (full text online)
  • Dante’s Blood — Anne C. Leone, ‘Dante’s Blood is a multifaceted book, reflecting the nature of its subject-matter. Blood symbolizes life itself according to several traditions, and the choice to focus on its presence and significance within Dante’s works is a particularly intelligent one. This connection between blood and life, at once biological and symbolical, has allowed Anne Leone to show compellingly how the issue of blood in Dante’s writings can be approached from many perspectives and through the methods of different disciplines.’ — Carmen Costanza, Modern Language Review 120.1, January 2025, 169-71 (full text online)