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48+ oeuvres 441 utilisateurs 5 critiques 1 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Fiona Sampson is a leading British poet and writer who has been published in more than thirty-five languages. The recipient of many national and international honors for her poetry, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and has received an MBE for service to literature.

Œuvres de Fiona Sampson

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poems Selected by Fiona Sampson (2011) — Directeur de publication — 29 exemplaires
Poetry Writing: The Expert Guide (2009) 17 exemplaires
Rough Music (2010) 16 exemplaires
Common Prayer (2007) 14 exemplaires
The Distance Between Us (2005) 10 exemplaires
Limestone Country (2017) 10 exemplaires
On Listening (Reconstruction) (2007) 8 exemplaires
Poetry Review Dreams of Elsewhere (2007) 7 exemplaires
Coleshill (2013) 6 exemplaires
Creative writing in health and social care (2004) — Directeur de publication — 5 exemplaires
Identity 2006 (Poetry Review) (2006) 5 exemplaires
Folding the Real (2001) 4 exemplaires
A century of Poetry Review (2009) 4 exemplaires
Poetry Review, Vol 99:3 (2009) 4 exemplaires
Poetry Review 2005: Summer 95/2 (2005) 4 exemplaires
Poetry Review 95/3 2005: Autumn (2005) 3 exemplaires
Come down (2020) 2 exemplaires
Poetry Review (2007) 2 exemplaires
Setting the Echo (2005) 2 exemplaires
The Catch (2016) 2 exemplaires
Poetry Review: (Spring 2005 95/1) (2005) 2 exemplaires
Night fugue: selected poems (2013) 1 exemplaire
Hotel Casino (2004) 1 exemplaire
Picasso's Men (1994) 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

Mary Shelley Horror Stories (Romantic Fantasy) (2018) — Avant-propos — 68 exemplaires
The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks (2017) — Contributeur — 16 exemplaires

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Critiques

Mary Shelly’s story is a fascinating one, daughter of two literary iconoclasts, elopes with an upcoming poet, hangs out with controversial romantic figures, and when challenged to write a ghost story for fun produces a gothic classic in Frankenstein. And all before the age of twenty.

The basic facts of her life are well documented, but who was she? Billed as a literary biography this volume attempts to answer that question, and for me falls well short.

It is too “literary” in its approach for my tests, with an over abundance of references, frequent conjecture and supposition, and at times circular narrative threads that make it confusing to follow.

Maybe it’s just me but I feel I came away knowing more about the author’s thought processes than I did about Mary Shelly’s.
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Signalé
gothamajp | 1 autre critique | Aug 16, 2022 |
I read that this is the first biography of Browning in 30 years, so I agree with the Kirkus reviewer that this book will introduce another generation to EBB. This book, in particular, delves a bit into the source of the family's wealth (sugar production on the island of Jamaica using slave labor), and Elizabeth's efforts to right this wrong through her abolitionist leanings.

The first-born into the large Barrett family, her genius was recognized early. Due to a combination of family wealth and chronic ill health, she was free to pursue her passion of writing poetry. We all know that she eventually meets Robert Browning and elopes with him to Italy. During her relatively short married life, she produces a son and writes, among other things, the work she is most famous for, Aurora Lee. The Browning family continually move between England, France and Italy, hoping warmer climates will help Elizabeth's ailments. She still dies relatively young, and her husband lives another quarter century beyond her.

One thing that struck me on reading this book was the privilege that was her life. She was pampered her entire life, first by her father, and then by her husband. There is nothing wrong with this, but it seems odd to someone from the 20th and 21st centuries. I wonder about others of her generation who were not so blessed, and who most likely lived shorter lives, or whose own ambitions were thwarted by having to work for a living. This does not take away from her genius, but it makes me wonder about all of the other people whose potential was snuffed out, as they were not able to live such a life. Perhaps this seems petty, but I recently finished 'The Education of Henry Adams,' another man lucky enough to be born into a wealthy (and famous in his case) family, and who spent his lifetime traveling, like EBB, and writing. I got the same impression after reading that book, too.

In any case, I am glad i read the book. I found the writing adequate but not always comprehensible. maybe its my American roots. For anyone who is a big EBB fan, however, this book is a must read.
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Signalé
peggybr | Sep 26, 2021 |
For millennia mankind has been shaping the landscapes that we have lived in, we have torn down trees to make fields, changed watercourses to better suit our needs and expends vast amounts of energy hauling rocks from the ground. The very land that we live on has provides all that we need. What people lose by living in a city is that contact with the soil and rocks that rural living affords, the way that the landscape changes as the seasons roll by and more importantly the roots that we put down as we settle in a particular area.

Fiona Sampson has lived in a variety of places, but the places that have made a deep and lasting impression on her have all had limestone as the bedrock. In this book she explores just what has made these places so unique and important to her and the people that she lives near. Beginning in Autumn, we are in Chambon in southern France where people still farm the land and produce the most wonderful foods. More challenging is the soupy French dialect as she struggles to translate as the strong aperitif clouds her mind. It is a place that she feels at home in.

Stepping back a season to summer we arrive in Slovenia in Škocjan in the Karst region. Sampson recalls time spent with a Macedonian lover, the slivovitz plum brandy, the walks through the woods that are full of boars and deer and the caves that permeate the area containing finds from humans who lived there 3000 years ago. We find ourselves in the village of Coleshill in spring, a place that they have lived in for seventeen years and are just about to leave. It is a place with a long history and parts that you’d immediately recognise as quintessential rural scenes. The limestone there has been shaped by the rivers that flow through it and water still plays a huge part today in the landscape particularly in the spring.

Winter takes us to a place that needs no introduction really, Jerusalem. Getting to this ancient city that sits on the sedimentary rocks that were once even older sea beds, is demanding enough with all the required security checks. When you arrive under the stark sunlight and blue skies the limestone feels like it has been bleached to a pure white. The colour of the limestone changes with the light and the area you are in, ranging from softer pinks to purples. In some ways it reflects the city, with its triparty of religions and the hotchpotch of streets adding to the atmosphere.

There is lots to like about this book. It has a certain intimacy as Sampson talks about the places that have meant so much to her where she has lived and the people that inhabit them. The final chapter was the one I liked the least, can’t quite put my finger on why, but I think that it might have been because it was a city, which tend to larger and more impersonal and it didn’t have the warmth of the other chapters. Even though it is disconcerting heading backwards through the seasons, it suits the character of the book perfectly. As I have come to expect from poets who write non-fiction, the prose is quite special. It is a fine addition to the contemporary works that Little Toller have in their Monograph range that I seem to be inadvertently collecting now.
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Signalé
PDCRead | Apr 6, 2020 |
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability!


Bought this slim volume for its portability. There were hopes for the transportive. I will leave Elevation to Bono and other (lower-case) bards. My thoughts while digesting this were often rich, if not fecund. Then reality beckoned and I shuddered. Oh Percy Bysse, why did you live so foolishly fully?

This secret in the pregnant womb of time,
Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme.


I suppose Shelley was an Iggy Pop to Lord Byron's Bowie. Who among us thought Iggy would outlive Ziggy?

Loose lips remain the talk of the town. The spies are in open revolt and we parse the stanzas looking for wiretaps.
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Signalé
jonfaith | Feb 22, 2019 |

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Œuvres
48
Aussi par
2
Membres
441
Popularité
#55,516
Évaluation
½ 3.6
Critiques
5
ISBN
76
Langues
2
Favoris
1

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