Books by tom paulin

Editorial Reviews - Amazon

In this collection of essays, Tom Paulin looks at the work of a selection of poets - ranging from Robert Southey to Philip Larkin, from John Clare to Ted Hughes - defining the originality of their subject matter. He also relates the poets to themes of nationhood and to ideas about ways of speaking which run throughout the book. The author also demonstrate... ...Read More »

"The Secret Life of Poems" is a primer which offers a poem - or on occasion an excerpt - succeeding with commentary in which rhythm, form, metre and sources are the order of the day, not ethical commentary or descriptive paraphrase. This brief engagement with forty-seven poems is intended for students and readers of poetry, and seeks to explain how poetry works by bringing into view the hidden ord... ...Read More »

The Road to Inver gathers the verse translations of Tom Paulin from four decades, and brings together distinguished versions of classical and European poets which have appeared in his previous collections, from Liberty Tree (1983) to The Wind Dog (1999). But The Road to Inver also includes dozens of new and recent translations from the European cannon; it is at once a new volume of poetry by Tom P... ...Read More »

Comprised of pieces spanning five centuries, "Crusoe's Secret" explores the culture of English dissent, whether through canonical works - "Paradise Lost", "Robinson Crusoe", "Clarissa" - or moving between epic and novel, lyric, tract and drama. Tom Paulin engages with the great dissenting voices from Bunyan to D. H. Lawrence, and he casts new light on others - such as Clare or Kipling or Hopkins -... ...Read More »

The Invasion Handbook sets out to recount the origins of the Second World War. The result is a triumph of technique - a myriad staging of historical realities through the poet's intense and bitter scrutiny of the particulars of time and place. The volume opens with the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, and with the answering but ill-fated attempt of the Locarno Treaties of 1925 to restore the torn ... ...Read More »

The first installment of Paulin's ambitious new epic poem about World War II

No matter the Führer is uncultured
he has Heidegger says
such beautiful such sculptured
hands--but these are dangerous days
and Röhm is cultic now is Hitler's
righthand man
so might not the philosopher
be talking in riddles
like one of our ancient warriors?

... ...Read More »

Analysing Hazlitt's radicalism and its foundations in Unitarian culture, Paulin argues that he was in effect a republican epic poet in prose - as distinct from prose poet - and a crucially important critic who has been given nothing like his due. He offers a fully rounded literary portrait with great depth and detail. ...Read More »

In The Day-Star of Liberty, Tom Paulin sets out to place William Hazlitt-master of the essay form, the first major art and drama critic, and one of the most outstanding political and literary journalists Britain has ever produced-in his rightful position as a great prose writer and an exemplary literary artist. Not only are the importance of Hazlitt's Irish background and the significance of the U... ...Read More »