All you need to know about John Milton's Paradise Lost is in this advanced guide to the text. Connell Guides are advanced guide books that offer sophisticated analysis and broad critical perspectives for higher-level GCSE and A Level English Literature students. Written by leading academics, Connell Guides are clear, concise and beautifully designed to help students understand, and enjoy, great works of literature. They are perfect for coursework, revision and exam preparation. Connell Guides are also great reads themselves scholarly, yet approachable and entertaining.
Milton's Paradise Lost has long been acknowledged as one of the greatest literary works in the English language. Yet while many readers have been carried away by Milton's sublimity, others have been daunted by his grandeur, scope and learning. In this brilliantly concise and scholarly book, Caroline Moore shows what makes Milton's verse so extraordinarily powerful and why many critics have misunderstood him. Paradise Lost, Moore argues, is the most profound study ever undertaken of the human act of choice. No other English poet - not even Shakespeare - has ever stared so long and hard into the abyss "between the acting of a dreadful thing / And the first motion"; no other poet has shown quite so vividly the dark byways and infinite strangeness of the human heart.
What’s the secret of writing a good essay? How do you plan it? How do you start it? How do you end it? What do examiners really look for? Dr Jonathan Patrick is the Head of English at St Paul’s Girls School in London. He is also an examiner....
What’s the secret of a stylish essay, or story, or email? How do you make your sentences sparkle? In this slim volume, a leading editor who is also a pop critic and sportswriter shows how much fun you can have while sharpening your pen. In a few breezy chapters, Tim...
This book has one aim: to help you read, understand and appreciate poetry. Do you really need a guide for that? Can’t you just get on and read some of the wonderful poetry that has been published in English? You certainly can, but there are things you really need to...
What is distinctive about American fiction? What sets it apart from the greatest of English or European fiction? Stephen Fender, who has lectured on the US novel for more than 40 years, explores the forces which shaped it, from the mixture of exhilaration and anxiety caused by living in...