Presents the development and the aesthetic theories of the symbolist movement in art and literature

The Modern Language Review (MLR) is an interdisciplinary journal encompassing the following fields: English (including United States and the Commonwealth), French (including Francophone Africa and Canada), Germanic (including Dutch and Scandinavian), Hispanic (including Latin-American, Portuguese, and Catalan), Italian, Slavonic and East European Studies, and General Studies (including linguistics, comparative literature, and critical theory).

Upon his death in 1898, the French Symbolist poet Stephane Mallarmé (b. 1842) left behind a body of published work which though modest in quantity was to have a seminal influence on subsequent poetry and aesthetic theory. He also enjoyed an unparalleled reputation for extending help and encouragement to those who sought him out. Rosemary Lloyd has produced a fascinating literary biography of the poet and his period, offering a subtle exploration of the mind and letters of one of the giants of modern European poetry.Every Tuesday, from the late 1870s on, Mallarmé hosted gatherings that became famous as the "Mardis" and that were attended by a cross section of significant writers, artists, thinkers, and musicians in fin-de-siecle France, England, and Belgium. Through these gatherings and especially through a voluminous correspondence—eventually collected in eleven volumes—Mallarmé developed and recorded his friendships with Paul Valery, Andre Gide, Berthe Morisot, and many others. Attractively written and scrupulously documented, Mallarme: The Poet and His Circle is unique in offering a biographical account of the poet's literary practice and aesthetics which centers on that correspondence.

He has inspired countless films, paintings, poems and novels. But who was Francesco Bernadone, now known as Saint Francis of Assisi? Despite the wealth of writing on the life of this great saint, many still don't know the man. They know the legend: a Francis made palatable to modern sensibilitiesùthe happy friar who carols to the birds and writes poems to the sun and moon. This is the image of the saint that is usually presented, even though it fails to encompass the true personality of Francis. Ivan Gobry, Ph.D., takes on the task of revealing the real man, the man who abandoned wealth and chose to live a beggar's life. Saint Francis lived a life that was full of danger and adventure, ministering to lepers and even traveling to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Muslims. Disciples flocked to him, drawn by the radical challenge of living the Gospel in a world that had become attracted to decadence. Francis rejoiced in nature and animals, but also fought spiritual battles against temptation and vice. Dr. Gobry restores a profoundly human dimension to the Little Poor Man of Assisi: a far cry from the image that has become conventional.