A Companion to Medieval Poetry presents a series of original essays from leading literary scholars that explore English poetry from the Anglo-Saxon period up to the 15th century. Organised into three parts to echo the chronological and stylistic divisions between the Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Post-Chaucerian periods, each section is introduced with contextual essays, providing a valuable introduction to the society and culture of the time.
The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought is a collection of essays by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and Peter Schwartz, and edited by Leonard Peikoff. It appeared in 1989. The essays by Rand originally appeared in a variety of places, including Rand's newspaper column and in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, and The Objectivist Forum. The essays by Peikoff are based on his talks at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston, which he carried on after Rand. Schwartz's essay is an expanded version of an article in The Intellectual Activist. This book is volume five of the "Ayn Rand Library" series edited by Peikoff.
This collection of essays on objectivism sets down Ayn Rand's views on individual rights and challenges listeners on all sides of the political fence to consider their views. Although published in 1961 and aimed at the Cold War world, the essays hold up well and often seem related to today's issues and headlines. Most of Rand's barbs are aimed at liberals, but conservatives also draw fire for faltering in defense of liberties and the Constitution. C.M. Herbert reads with a passion and confidence that seems to personify Rand. One especially well-read passage depicts a hypothetical conversation in which she defends her views to a critic.
This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: rational, conscious, and therefore practical; or contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal. Written with all the clarity and eloquence that have placed Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy in the mainstream of American thought, these essays range over such basic issues as education, morality, censorship, and inflation to prove that philosophy is the fundamental force in all our lives.
humorous, and insightful, Readings is a collection of classic essays and reviews by Michael Dirda, book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. From a first reading of Beckett and Faulkner at the feet of an inspirational high-school English teacher to a meeting of the P. G. Wodehouse Society, from an obsession with Nabokov's Lolita to the discovery of the Japanese epic The Tale of Genji, these essays chronicle a lifetime of literary enjoyment.
