Imprint: eth press
Published: 10/05/2017
There have been many iterations of the Joan of Arc story: “testimonies,” books, and films have attempted to capture the drama of one of history’s most famous gender warriors. But few, if any, have been undertaken by an author who met her subject matter with such recognition and insight, a fellow warrior, a rebel in[…]
Imprint: eth press
Published: 06/03/2015
Ballads uses the lyric form to explore the effects of global Capitalism from a sharp Marxist perspective. Recognizing the congruence between folk song circulation and the circulation of money, the “currency” of the ballad alongside supply-side economics, Owens hails Wordworth’s Lyric Ballads experiment (undertaken at the dawn of England’s Industrial Age) as one touchstone. But he also understands the built-in[…]
Imprint: eth press
Published: 02/15/2015
“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” François Villon’s most famous line is a kind of translation, a variation of the old “ubi sunt” trope: Where are the things that used to be? But Villon specifically asks: Where are the snows? Even in the thick of a snowy winter, this snow is not the same as[…]
Imprint: eth press
Published: 04/24/2014
Manuscript Cotton Nero A.x takes its designation from the unique cataloging system of seventeenth-century British antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton’s library: busts of historical figures atop shelves provided the organizing principle, such that one found this particular codex under the bust of Roman Emperor Nero, on the top shelf, ten volumes over. (Another famous manuscript, containing Beowulf,[…]
Imprint: eth press
Published: 04/01/2014
The sestina is a form in which words repeat regularly, intricately, appearing and reappearing in new contexts with new meanings. Sam Lohmann’s Unless As Stone Is emerged from a few years of living with Dante’s sestina, “Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra.” He allowed the text to appear in its own new — if irregularly[…]