Ghubarekhatir (Sallies Of Mind) Is The Last Of Maulana'S Writings And Perhaps The Most Unique. Whereas His Earlier Writings Whether Journalistic Or Academic Dealt With Either Religion Or Politics, Here He Takes Leave Of Both The Preoccupations And Uses

Francis Fergusson was one of the foremost American literary critics and scholars of the twentieth century. A man of the theater as well as a man of letters, Fergusson's versatility and mastery traversed a wide range of intellectual disciplines. As George Core notes: "one of the most remarkable aspects of Fergusson's criticism is that it stands comfortably, at ease, with the best work stemming from diverse schools of criticism that are sometimes in conflict—the New Critics, the New York intellectuals, the myth critics and various distinguished critics of the modern theater." Though allied with the New Critics, Fergusson was intellectually capacious enough to be associated with many critical schools of vastly different persuasions. R.W.B. Lewis once remarked of this respected original that "his critical theories and practices possess a severely beautiful purity." Sallies of the Mind is a collection of Fergusson's essays drawn from a variety of virtually unattainable works. It incorporates Fergusson's representative criticism on such major authors as Dante, Shakespeare, James, and Eliot; on myths as well as action; on the modern stage; and on the modern novel. Essays in this collection include: "T.S. Eliot and His Impersonal Theory of Art" "Humanism" "Maritain's Creative Intuition" "Two Perspectives on European Literature" "Two Acts from Dante's Drama of the Mind" "The Divine Comedy as a Bridge across Time" "Hamlet" "Measure for Measure" "Eugene O'Neill" "Exiles and Ibsen's Work" "Oedipus According to Freud, Sophocles, and Freud" "The Theater of Paul Valery" "D.H. Lawrence's Sensibility" and "The Drama in The Golden Bowl." Francis Fergusson's criticism endures not only owing to its originality, depth, and range but also to its classically austere clarity of style. Looking at the present-day critical scene, we see few who match Fergusson's intelligence, learning, and verve. Sallies of the Mind is a tribute to his legacy as well as to the themes he treats.

Over time, one gets observant as well as curious over the frailties of fellow humans. Being a student of literature, I was learning the more sensitive ways of responding to human vagaries. So when my friend asked me for some light stuff, I put down my ideas, coupled with a touch of humor, and sent off these skits to him. Thus came about these lighthearted musings on fellow humans. Some of the essayists I had to teach in the classroom, like Steele, Goldsmith, and Lamb, furnished me the tone, style, and attitude. Though these pieces deal with a common mans responses to experience, they present the uncommon mans sensibilities. It is this, if any, that makes these skits interesting to me and the likes of me, hopefully.

A collection of Cameron's works from early in his writing career. Everything from his worst to some of his best, covering a plethora of genres. 4 short stories, 10 flash fiction, 5 ramblings, 15 haiku, 20 poems.

Darting into the unknown as only the best poetry safely can, R. H. W. Dillard's new collection bursts with bold violations of customs, flights of fancy, and insouciant leaps of tone and form. Unwaveringly skillful, these brave sallies explore the complex texture of life and death, light and dark, in "earth's eastering whirl", unafraid to confront paradox and finding in their sudden swift grace moments of "poise and equipoise" -- the preciousness of now in the face of the infinite: "Somewhere eternity extends itself like Saturday / with so many things to do and voices in the air. / Somewhere a light will fill forever / like straw spun into gold". Dillard counterbalances his meditative forays with comic excursions into forbidden territory, including a major poem on flatulence -- an ode to bran; three appreciations in verse of fellow writers' work; a barbed academic memo to a dim colleague; and, audaciously, a textbook anthologist's brief history of American poetry based on the mistaken premise that all the poets were Chinese-American acrobats ("The Flying Changs"). Sallies' daring manifests in complex rhyme patterns, unrhymed verse, concrete and found poems, and a closing set of poems complimenting a young woman (Sallie) in the tradition of Dante's poems to Beatrice and drawing together the themes and stylistic variety of the entire book in a celebration of, in Emerson's words, the "open hours / When the God's will sallies free": "By chance (or some higher plan) someone arrives / Just when we need them, shows us the way / From the window's ledge or to the open door, / Helps us to find ourselves . . . and more".

Rosinante,Don Quixotes brave but weary steed, trades stories for oats and an occasional beer. Her fables are told to Sally Netzel, who translates roughly from the Horse-Spanish. They range from light humor to serious satire, all told with gusto if far too much alliteration. Illustrations are provided by Liz Netzel, a relative with a compatible sense of the absurd. The familiar tortoise and hare race ends with an ambivalent moral, if any. The other totally unfamiliar tales portray creatures such as vultures dismayed at their reputation, hyenas protective of their volcanic neighborhood, a love-lorn woodpecker who projects loudly-pecked personals, bats who witness a miracle, and a battle-scared badger who delights in war stories of his athletic triumphs.