James Biester sees the shift in late Elizabethan England toward a witty, rough, and obscure lyric style—metaphysical wit and strong lines—as a response to the heightened cultural prestige of wonder. That same prestige was demonstrated in the search for strange artifacts and animals to display in the wonder-cabinets of the period. By embracing the genres of satire and epigram, poets of the Elizabethan court risked their chances for political advancement, exposing themselves to the danger of being classified either as malcontents or as jesters who lacked the gravitas required of those in power. John Donne himself recognized both the risks and benefits of adopting the'admirable'style, as Biester shows in his close readings of the First and Fourth Satyres. Why did courtier-poets adopt such a dangerous form of self-representation? The answer, Biester maintains, lies in an extraordinary confluence of developments in both poetics and the interpenetrating spheres of the culture at large, which made the pursuit of wonder through style unusually attractive, even necessary. In a postfeudal but still aristocratic culture, he says, the ability to astound through language performed the validating function that was once supplied by the ability to fight. Combining the insights of the new historicism with traditional literary scholarship, Biester perceives the rise of metaphysical style as a social as well as aesthetic event.

James Biester sees the shift in late Elizabethan England toward a witty, rough, and obscure lyric style--metaphysical wit and strong lines--as a response to the heightened cultural prestige of wonder. That same prestige was demonstrated in the search for strange artifacts and animals to display in the wonder-cabinets of the period. By embracing the genres of satire and epigram, poets of the Elizabethan court risked their chances for political advancement, exposing themselves to the danger of being classified either as malcontents or as jesters who lacked the gravitas required of those in power. John Donne himself recognized both the risks and benefits of adopting the "admirable" style, as Biester shows in his close readings of the First and Fourth Satyres. Why did courtier-poets adopt such a dangerous form of self-representation? The answer, Biester maintains, lies in an extraordinary confluence of developments in both poetics and the interpenetrating spheres of the culture at large, which made the pursuit of wonder through style unusually attractive, even necessary. In a postfeudal but still aristocratic culture, he says, the ability to astound through language performed the validating function that was once supplied by the ability to fight. Combining the insights of the new historicism with traditional literary scholarship, Biester perceives the rise of metaphysical style as a social as well as aesthetic event.

Synthesizes the most important recent work on wonder and brings a number of disciplines into conversation. Wonder has been celebrated as the quintessential passion of childhood. From the earliest stages of our intellectual history, it has been acclaimed as the driving force of inquiry and the prime passion of thought. Yet for an emotion acknowledged so widely for the multiple roles it plays in our lives, wonder has led a singularly shadowy existence in recent reflections. Philosophers have largely passed it over in silence; emotion theorists have shunned it as a case that sits awkwardly within their analytical frameworks. So what is wonder, and why does it matter? In this book, Sophia Vasalou sketches a “grammar” of wonder that pursues the complexities of wonder as an emotional experience that has carved colorful tracks through our language and our intellectual history, not only in philosophy and science but also in art and religious experience. A richer grammar of wonder and broader window into its past can give us the tools we need for thinking more insightfully about wonder, and for reflecting on the place it should occupy within our emotional lives. “Vasalou’s book is an important and exciting contribution to the literature. It is not a narrow academic inquiry on an obscure topic, but a sweeping exploration of an emotion that was once recognized as among the most important. Vasalou makes a powerful case for wonder and her book will spark great interest.” — Jesse Prinz, author of Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind “This is a powerful study of wonder, whose major strengths include its engagement of overlooked primary sources (in particular, Adam Smith and Zorba the Greek), its exhaustive treatment of the secondary literature, and its careful attunement to historical complexities.” — Mary-Jane Rubenstein, author of Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe

The authority of poetry varies from one period to another, from one culture to another. For Robert von Hallberg, the authority of lyric poetry has three sources: religious affirmation, the social institutions of those who speak the idioms from which particular poems are made, and the extraordinary cognition generated by the formal and musical resources of poems. Lyric Powers helps students, poets, and general readers to recognize the pleasures and understand the ambitions of lyric poetry. To explain why a reader might prefer one kind of poem to another, von Hallberg analyzes—beyond the political and intellectual significance of poems—the musicality of both lyric poetry and popular song, including that of Tin Pan Alley and doo-wop. He shows that poets have distinctive intellectual resources—not just rhetorical resources—for examining their subjects, and that the power of poetic language to generalize, not particularize, is what justly deserves a critic’s attention. The first book in more than a decade from this respected critic, Lyric Powers will be celebrated as a genuine event by readers of poetry and literary criticism.

In the first part of this book, Adam Max Cohen embraces the many meanings of wonder in order to challenge the generic divides between comedy, tragedy, history, and romance and suggests that Shakespeare's primary goal in crafting each of his playworlds was the evocation of one or more varieties of wonder.

From "Begin the Beguine" to "It's Delovely" to "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and "I Get a Kick Out of You", here are the complete lyrics to the much-loved songs of Cole Porter--800 songs meant to be hummed, sung, danced to, and remembered. "A record of (Porter's) artistic development and of the time in which he flourished".--Rhoda Koenig, New York Magazine.

Alan Jay Lerner wrote the lyrics for some of the most beloved musicals in Broadway and Hollywood history. Most notably, with composer Frederick Loewe he created enduring hits such as My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot, and Brigadoon. In The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner, editors and annotators Dominic McHugh and Amy Asch bring all of Lerner's lyrics together for the first time, including numerous draft or alternate versions and songs cut from the shows. Compiled from dozens of archival collections, this invaluable resource and authoritative reference includes both Lerner's classic works and numerous discoveries, including his unproduced MGM movie Huckleberry Finn, selections from his college musicals, and lyrics from three different versions of Paint Your Wagon. This collection also includes extensive material from Lerner's two most ambitious musicals: Love Life, to music by Kurt Weill, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which Lerner wrote with Leonard Bernstein.