Philip Larkin: life, art and love

By Booth, James

Publishing Date: 2014

Classification: 800

Call Number: 821.914 BOO

In one of the most comprehensive pictures of the poet yet published, James Booth examines the people, the places and the chance encounters that influenced Larkin and shaped his poetry. From Larkin's early life, his academic studies and his aspirations as a novelist, an image emerges of a reserved and gentle man greatly affected by those close to him. Delving into his fluctuating relationships with Maeve Brennan and Monica Jones, two of the many women in Larkin's life, and analysing their varied effect on his work, Booth sheds fresh light on one of Britain's best loved poets.

The book of the city of ladies

By Christine

Publishing Date: 1999

Classification: 800

Call Number: 843.2 CHR

"'Philosophers, poets and orators too numerous to mention ... all seem to speak with one voice and are unanimous in their view that female nature is wholly given up to vice.'" "It was this misogynist consensus that Christine de Pizan (c. 1364-1430), France's first professional woman of letters, confronted head-on in the City of Ladies. Here, with the help of Reason, Rectitude and Justice, Christine constructs an allegorical city in which to defend womankind, using examples of female virtue and achievement both from the past and her own day as the stones with which to build the city's walls and towers." "A key text in the history of feminism, the City of Ladies not only provides powerful positive images of women, ranging from warriors, inventors and scholars to prophetesses, artists and saints, but also offers a fascinating insight into the debates and controversies about the position of women in medieval culture. In her Introduction to this new translation for Penguin Classics, Rosalind Brown-Grant sets the work within its historical and intellectual context."--Jacket.