The Poetry Book Society Anthology

Literature & Fiction

CONSTANTINE, David

Poetry

London: Hutchinson

Elective Affinities was written when Goethe was sixty and long established as Germany's literary giant. This is a new edition of his penetrating study of marriage and passion, bringing together four people in an inexorable manner. The novel asks whether we have free will or not and confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of repressing what little "real life" they have in themselves, a life so far removed from their natural states that it appears to them as something terrible and destructive.

Elective Affinities: A Novel (The ^AWorld's Classics)

GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

This book, the first new critical biography of Hölderlin to appear in over fifty years, makes a notoriously "difficult" major poet accessible to English-speaking readers, providing a comprehensive discussion of his life and work, and placing him firmly in the context of his times.

Holderlin

This book, the first new critical biography of Hölderlin to appear in over 50 years, makes a notoriously "difficult" major poet accessible to English-speaking readers, providing a comprehensive discussion of his life and work, and placing him firmly in the context of his times.

Biographies & Memoirs

Clarendon Press

Elective Affinities was written when Goethe was sixty and long established as Germany's literary giant. This is a new edition of his penetrating study of marriage and passion, bringing together four people in an inexorable manner. The novel asks whether we have free will or not and confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of repressing what little "real life" they have in themselves, a life so far removed from their natural states that it appears to them as something terrible and destructive. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Elective Affinities: A Novel (Oxford World's Classics)

Literary

The Sorrows of Young Werther propelled Goethe to instant fame when it first appeared in 1774. Goethe's story of a sensitive young artist--an alienated youth of searching introspection and passionate intensity--captured the Romantic sensibility of the day and led to a wave of imitations. Translated by the award-winning author David Constantine, this new edition captures the novel's lyric clarity and powerful immediacy. In addition, Constantine's critical introduction sheds light on the autobiographical background, the novel's epistolary form and structure, and Werther's reception and afterlife. The explanatory notes illuminate contemporary allusions, literary references, and the parallels with Goethe's life. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Oxford World's Classics)

When I Was Touched By Love is a book of poems divided into six chapters about love, heartache, pain and the beauty of both life and art. It depicts the rise and fall of a man mentally and emotionally heart broken, yet full of sunshine.

When I was Touched by Love

Tellwell Talent

The life of Sir William Hamilton is rich in contradictions: hedonist, scholar and an aesthete with a Rabelaisian streak, he represented the epitome of honourable public service until, as the eighteenth century drew to its climax, his personal life and career were flung into freefall when he became involved in the most scandalous ménage à trois of the century. The son of a favourite courtier, William Hamilton began life sharing a wet-nurse with the future George III, and spent much of his childhood in the discordant atmosphere of the Hanoverian household. After several years as a soldier, courtier and MP, he turned to the diplomatic world and, in 1764, was sent to Naples as Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. There Hamilton could indulge the two passions: volcanoes and vases. His meticulous observations of Vesuvius earned him a Fellowship of the Royal Society. His unique collection of vases was eventually acquired by the British Museum. Later in life he also worked with Wedgwood and Boulton. Yet, for most people, William Hamilton is not remembered as a diplomat, art-collector, naturalist, musician and scholar but as the cuckolded husband of Emma Hamilton, mistress of the heroic Lord Nelson. Using the substantial correspondence between them and, for the first time, Hamilton’s unpublished notebooks, David Constantine throws new light on the relationship between the aristocratic Sir William and the relentlessly self-improving, irredeemably vulgar Emma. Interweaving fascinating detail with a broad historical sweep David Constantine brings to life this essentially private man.

Fields of fire: A life of Sir William Hamilton

Leaders & Notable People

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

David Constantine's second book shows a remarkable development in the range and power of his poetry. After establishing his reputation with the quiet but resonant poems of A Brightness to Cast Shadows (1980), Constantine has gone on to achieve a classical mastery of form and to further develop a highly individual voice, which now has an almost visionary edge. In the poems and related Greek translations of Watching for Dolphins David Constantine recreates a complete imaginative world. Mythical an biblical figures - Christ, Lazarus, Aphrodite and Persephone - appear as opposing forces of Christian compassion and classical excellence. Contrasts and contradictions are at the heart of Constantine's poetic world. The possibility of personal happiness is insisted upon: any wider optimism would be out of place.

Watching for Dolphins

Bloodaxe Books

In this first collection of short stories from a highly regarded poet, a girl's body reappears in the ice where she fell 50 years earlier, a businessman watches his soul abandon him as he makes a speech, and a tourist staggers through Athens as it transforms into a vision of hell. Depicting solitary figures drawn against stark, troubling backdrops, these stories probe the theme of isolation by freezeframing each character's life just at the moment when the past breaks the surface, or when the present—like the dam of the title—collapses under its own weight.

Under the Dam: And Other Stories

Contemporary

Comma Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CONSTANTINE, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by CONSTANTINE, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CONSTANTINE, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Poetry Book Society Anthology

Elective Affinities: A Novel (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Holderlin

Holderlin

Elective Affinities: A Novel (Oxford World's Classics)

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Oxford World's Classics)

When I was Touched by Love

Fields of fire: A life of Sir William Hamilton

Watching for Dolphins

Under the Dam: And Other Stories