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His Story, Her Story: A Literary Mystery of Renaissance France
Jean M. Fallon
"In 1577 France a prominent member of the court of King Henri III murdered his wife under mysterious circumstances. Shortly afterward a group of anonymous poems written about the murder circulated in print. Seven years later, one of those poems, an enigmatic sonnet, appeared on the final page of a controversial edition of poems by the well-known French author, Pierre de Ronsard. Because that edition has been considered unauthorized throughout the years, the mysterious sonnet has rarely been read or examined. This book proposes attributing authorship of the sonnet to Ronsard by investigating numerous historical figures and events associated with the sonnet, the contested, controversial edition of the poems, and the life of the poet himself. Calling attention to a fascinating poem, a turbulent society as well as to forgotten voices by combining intelligent speculation with historical data, His Story, Her Story reopens a literary mystery that has been neglected for centuries."--Amazon.com description
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Voice and Vision in Ronsard's Les Sonnets pour Hélène
Jean M. Fallon
"The one hundred forty-six poems which comprise Les Sonnets pour Helene represent Pierre de Ronsard's final cycle of sonnets. This study explores the 1584 edition, the last published during Ronsard's lifetime, and focuses on the harmony and unity of the work as a whole. It enhances our comprehension of the sonnets by examining systems of dualities, the most prominent of which are the voices and discourses of two personas, a lover and a poet. This fresh approach to a sonnet sequence provides insights into the composition and themes of the cycle by interpreting the entire sequence as a text about poetry rather than love."--Amazon.com description.
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A Blue Moon in Poorwater
Cathryn Hankla
Dorie Porks looks back to her eleventh year as a poor child in the sleepy Appalachian town of Poorwater, reflects on her coal-miner father, strong mother, and wayward brother, and wonders about the powerful and mysterious gift of healing she possesses.
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The Land Between
Cathryn Hankla
"Moira is about to join her husband in California, but before leaving her Southwest Virginia property she lets some cavers explore her land in search of a cavern that legend has placed nearby - the Murder Hole. As the cavers are drawn below, two thousand miles away, in strange counterpoint, vaguely familiar sounds are being transmitted from deep within a mountain near Moira's new home.
Characters in The Land Between are propelled by personal quests to places where the life they knew must yield to another way of being. Yet where are they coming from and why do they feel they must go there?"--Amazon.com description
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Letters from Cairo
Pauline Kaldas
"When her husband is offered a six-month Fulbright grant to teach American literature at Cairo University, Pauline Kaldas embarks on a new journey-and an opportunity to return home. Born in Egypt, she immigrated with her parents to the United States when she was eight years old. Returning now with her own children, Kaldas writes from a perspective as an Arab American, straddling two homelands and two identities. Through a collection of letters, journal entries, essays, and even local recipes, she provides a richly detailed portrait of life in Cairo, recording daily revelations and eventually reconciling past and present."--Barnesandnoble.com description.
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Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts
William Krause
"The last of the Spanish Romantics, composer, conductor, and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) left his mark on virtually every aspect of Spanish musical culture during a career that spanned six decades and saw tremendous political and cultural upheavals. After Falla, he was the most important and influential musician: in addition to his creative activities, he was President of the General Society of Authors and Editors and director of the Academy of Fine Arts. His enduring contributions as a composer include dozens of guitar works composed for Andres Segovia and several highly successful zarzuelas, which remain in the repertoire today.
Written by two leading experts in the field, Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts explores not only his life and work, but also the relationship of his music to the cultural milieu in which he moved. It sheds particular light on the relationship of Torroba's music and the cultural politics of Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-75). Torroba came of age during a cultural renaissance that sought to reassert Spain's position as a unique cultural entity, and authors Walter A. Clark and William Krause demonstrate how his work can be understood as a personal, musical response to these aspirations. Clark and Krause argue that Torroba's decision to remain in Spain even during the years of Franco's dictatorship was based primarily not on political ideology but rather on an unwillingness to leave his native soil. Rather than abandon Spain to participate in the dynamic musical life abroad, he continued to compose music that reflected his conservative view of his national and personal heritage. The authors contend that this pursuit did not necessitate allegiance to a particular regime, but rather to the non-political exaltation of Spain's so-called "eternal tradition," or the culture and spirit that had endured throughout Spain's turbulent history.
Following Franco's death in 1975, there was ambivalence towards figures like Torroba who had made their peace with the dictatorship and paid a heavy price in terms of their reputation among expatriates. Moreover, his very conservative musical style made him a target for the post-war avant-garde, which disdained his highly tonal and melodic espanolismo. With the demise of high modernism, however, the time has come for this new, more distanced assessment of Torroba's contributions. Richly illustrated with photographs and musical examples, and with a helpful chronology and works list for reference, this biography brings a fresh perspective on this influential composer to Latin American and Iberian music scholars, performers, and lovers of Spanish music alike."--Amazon.com
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Brocade River Poems : Selected Works of the Tang dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao
Jeanne Larsen
"Xue Tao (A.D. 768-831) was well known as a poet in an age when all men of learning were poets--and almost all women were illiterate. As an entertainer and official government hostess, she met, and impressed, many of the most talented and powerful figures of her day. As a maker of beautiful paper and a Taoist churchwoman, she maintained a life of independence and aesthetic sensibility. As a writer, she crrated a body of work that is by turns deeply moving, amusing, and thought-provoking. Drawing knowledgeably on a rich literary tradition, she created images that here live again for the contemporary reader of English. This bilingual edition contains about two-thirds of Xue Tao's extant poems. The translations are based on accurate readings of the originals and extensive research in both Chinese and Japanese materials. The notes at the end of the book explain allusions and place the poems in the context of medieval Chinese culture and its great literary heritage, while the opening essay introduces Xue Tao's work and describes her unusual life history."--Amazon.com description
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Bronze Mirror
Jeanne Larsen
The ruin of her family's business by marauding Jin sends pleasure-loving young Pomegranate into the service of a degenerate, wealthy family in twelfth-century China
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Manchu Palaces: A Novel
Jeanne Larsen
A novel on court life in 17th Century China. The heroine is Lotus, a lady-in-waiting to the empress. By applying her training in femininity and guile she is on the verge of success; a prince is after her. But does she, a woman of the spirit, really want to be part of the court's materialistic existence?
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Silk Road : A Novel of Eight-Century China
Jeanne Larsen
In the eighth century, Greenpearl, the daughter of a powerful Chinese general is kidnapped by Tibetan raiders. She travels the Silk Route having magical encounters brought about by the interference of a heavenly bureaucrat.
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Willow, Wine, Mirror, Moon : Women's Poems from Tang China
Jeanne Larsen
"This collection of 106 poems by 44 female Tang-era poets is the most comprehensive of its kind. Poets are organized based on their status in Tang dynasty society: women of the court, women of the household, courtesans and entertainers, and women of religion. While each poet’s concerns vary with their social status, common thematic threads include heartbreak and the mysteries of the natural world. Thumbnail biographies of each poet and notes regarding individual poems complete this important collection."--Amazon.com description
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Medieval Europe: A Short Sourcebook
J. W. Leedom
A compilation of primary sources on medieval Europe.
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Latin America's Christian Democratic Parties: A Political Economy
Edward A. Lynch
"This work provides a comprehensive examination of Christian Democracy in Latin America from its nineteenth-century origins to the events of the 1990s. Lynch treats the record of Christian Democratic parties in the most crucial areas of economic concern in Latin America: chapters on land reform, nationalization, and the emergence of free market capitalism point up the relationship between politics and economics. Lynch concludes that had Latin America's Christian Democrats followed their own policy prescriptions, both they and Latin America would be better off. Instead, Christian Democrats abandoned their roots in Catholic social thought, embraced statism, and left their countries completely unprepared for the upsurge in liberal economic reform that swept Latin America in the 1980s."--Barnes and Noble description
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