The acclaimed short stories of the master Japanese writer.

The acclaimed short stories of the master Japanese writer.

Rosanna Warren's first collection of poetry, Each Leaf Shines Separate, announced the emergence of a fresh voice in contemporary American poetry and earned praise from John Hollander, Richard Eberhart, and Mark Strand. Now, in her second book, Rosanna Warren has fulfilled her promise. In Stained Glass she continues to examine, as John Hollander said of her first book, "the relation of art to nature, exploring the ultimate naturalness of the world of picture, and reading tenderly and shrewdly the forms of fable in which reality presents itself to the passionate gaze." Yet in this volume the poems are more personal and intimate - they possess an emotional depth that extends the earlier work. Stained Glass is a book of mourning. It begins with an echo of Milton's Lycidas and concludes with an evocation of Iliad XXIV; in its course it touches on many scenes of loss, personal and impersonal. In the voice of an Eskimo mother, in a Parisian market scene, in brilliant translations of poems by Max Jacob and Pierre Reverdy, to the more intimate elegies, the human drama unfolds within the larger rhythms of the natural landscape. In poems that are classical and eloquent, ranging from sonnets and rhymed quatrains to highly flexible free verse, Warren vividly probes the savagery of aging, the corruption of the human body and human estrangement from the divine, evoking as well scenes of simple tenderness and beauty. This year's recipient of an Ingram Merrill grant and the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets that honors a poet of exceptional merit under the age of forty, Rosanna Warren is clearly one of the most gifted poets of her generation.

Grief and mourning are generally considered to be private, yet universal instincts. But in a media age of televised funerals and visible bereavement, elegies are increasingly significant and open to public scrutiny. Providing an overview of the history of the term and the different ways in which it is used, David Kennedy: outlines the origins of elegy, and the characteristics of the genre examines the psychology and cultural background underlying works of mourning explores how the modern elegy has evolved, and how it differs from ‘canonical elegy’, also looking at female elegists and feminist readings considers the elegy in the light of writing by theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Catherine Waldby looks at the elegy in contemporary writing, and particularly at how it has emerged and been adapted as a response to terrorist attacks such as 9/11. Emphasising and explaining the significance of elegy today, this illuminating guide to an emotive literary genre will be of interest to students of literature, media and culture.

Shusaku Endo is celebrated as one of Japan's great modern novelists, often described as "Japan's Graham Greene," and Silence is considered by many Japanese and Western literary critics to be his masterpiece. Approaching Silence is both a celebration of this award-winning novel as well as a significant contribution to the growing body of work on literature and religion. It features eminent scholars writing from Christian, Buddhist, literary, and historical perspectives, taking up, for example, the uneasy alliance between faith and doubt; the complexities of discipleship and martyrdom; the face of Christ; and, the bodhisattva ideal as well as the nature of suffering. It also frames Silence through a wider lens, comparing it to Endo's other works as well as to the fiction of other authors. Approaching Silence promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endo, within and beyond the West. Includes an Afterword by Martin Scorsese on adapting Silence for the screen as well as the full text of Steven Dietz's play adaptation of Endo's novel.