Böcker av Charles Williams

Military hero and national leader Petain's life (1856-1951) embraces a fascinating and dramatic period of French history, and helped define it.

Do you mean, ' Sir Giles said, 'that the thing never gets smaller?''Never, ' the Prince answered. 'So much of its virtue has entered into its outward form that whatever may happen to it there is no change. From the beginning it was as it is now.''Then by God, sir, ' Reginald Montague exclaimed, 'you've got the transport of the world in your hands.'Neither of the two men made any answer. The Persian, sitting back in his chair, and Sir Giles, sitting forward on the edge of his, were both gazing at the thing which lay on the table. It was a circlet of old, tarnished, and twisted gold, in the centre of which was set a cubical stone measuring about half an inch every way, and having apparently engraved on it certain Hebrew letters. Sir Giles picked it up, rather cautiously, and concentrated his gaze on them. The motion awoke a doubt in Montague's mi

The Early Metaphysical Plays of Charles Williams (put in larger font at top of back page) Behold three plays by a major member of the Inklings, Charles Williams, none of which has been reprinted since 1930. The editor of his Collected Plays (1963) thought them unworthy of inclusion, but these works so surpass the general run of contemporary productions as to reveal how fresh an artist Williams was. We have been long deprived of these intriguing accomplishments. The Witch would hold the stage at any time, whereas The Chaste Wanton reads like a first rate radio drama of the 1930s. Rites of the Passion is an Easter liturgical choral work, first cousin to W. H. Auden's For the Time Being. With Three Plays, Williams anticipated the revival of the British religious verse drama by half a decade. These theological adventures are the forerunners of the plays of T. S. Eliot, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Christopher Fry. An excellent entry into Williams's world.

The purpose of this book is to provide brief biographies of certain historical figures whose names have for long been prevalent in English literature. These names are used not only in correct historical allusions, but as imaginative ideas; myths, one might almost say, of the English mind.-from the Preface Charles Williams was one of the finest-not to mention one of the most unusual-theologians of the twentieth century. His mysticism is palpable-the unseen world interpenetrates ours at every point, and spiritual exchange occurs all the time, unseen and largely unlooked for. His novels are legend, his poetry profound, and as a member of the Inklings, he contributed to the mythopoetic revival in contemporary culture.

When Charles Williams died in 1945 there remained to us of his work, besides his published books and those which he had in preparation for the press, a number of essays which had appeared in periodicals and elsewhere, many of which contain important statements of his ideas. A selection of these is printed here. -from the Introduction Charles Williams was one of the finest-not to mention one of the most unusual-theologians of the twentieth century. His mysticism is palpable-the unseen world interpenetrates ours at every point, and spiritual exchange occurs all the time, unseen and largely unlooked for. His novels are legend, and as a member of the Inklings, he contributed to the mythopoetic revival in contemporary culture.

After an opening chapter that examines the nature of poetry itself and analyzes its effect upon the reader, the author, in The English Poetic Mind, moves on to his main purpose, which is to try to reveal the source of the drive to creation in three of the greatest English poets: William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Wordsworth. In each he identifies a particular kind of crisis that is the origin of the poetic impulse. In the light of these discoveries he addresses the achievements of several lesser poets and concludes with a chapter that, in a more general way, tentatively offers a vision of the paths poetry might take in the future.Introducing a duet of Charles Williams's best literary criticism on poetry: Reason and Beauty in the Poetic Mind The English Poetic Mind""Williams's deeper interest was in the way the nature of the act of poetic creation could be grasped from the reading of the poems themselves and the means by which the artists reached into and spoke from the hidden places of their imaginative power. . . . [These two books] will enable us to re-appraise, or perhaps encounter for the first time, the distinctive qualities of Charles Williams's approach to the art that was at the centre of his own creative life, poetry.""Brian Horne, from his new 2007 foreword Author and scholar Charles Williams (1886-1945) joined, in 1908, the staff of the Oxford University Press, the publishing house in which he worked for the rest of his life. Throughout these years, poetry, novels, plays, biographies, history, literary criticism, and theology poured from his pen. At the beginning of the Second World War the publishing house was evacuated to Oxford where, in addition to his own writing and his editorial work for the Press, he taught in the University.

Reason and Beauty in the Poetic Mind focuses upon the two intertwined themes of Reason and Beauty as they are expressed poetically in English literature. It begins with a chapter on the unique characteristics of poetic creation, ""The Ostentation of Verse,"" and then unfolds in an alternating pattern, analyzing the distinctive appearances of these two concepts in writers as various as William Wordsworth (Reason), Christopher Marlowe (Beauty), Alexander Pope (Reason), John Keats (Beauty), and John Milton (Reason). In the climactic penultimate chapter, there is a meditation on William Shakespeare's depiction of what the author calls ""the actual schism in Reason."" There follows a brief coda that moves beyond the confines of poetry to a contemplation of the wider religious dimensions that the literary investigation has opened up. ""Williams's deeper interest was in the way the nature of the act of poetic creation could be grasped from the reading of the poems themselves and the means by which the artists reached into and spoke from the hidden places of their imaginative power. . . . [These two books] will enable us to re-appraise, or perhaps encounter for the first time, the distinctive qualities of Charles Williams's approach to the art that was at the centre of his own creative life, poetry.""Brian Horne, from his new 2007 foreword Author and scholar Charles Williams (1886-1945) joined, in 1908, the staff of the Oxford University Press, the publishing house in which he worked for the rest of his life. Throughout these years, poetry, novels, plays, biographies, history, literary criticism, and theology poured from his pen. At the beginning of the Second World War the publishing house was evacuated to Oxford where, in addition to his own writing and his editorial work for the Press, he taught in the University.

THE SHADOW OF ECSTASY Charles Williams had a genius for choosing strange and exciting themes for his novels and making them believable and profoundly suggestive of spiritual truths. Shadows of Ecstasy tells of a mysterious invasion that threatens Europe from Africa. United in a fanatic crusade against death, the spiritual powers of the "Dark Continent" rise up with exultant paganism. A humanistic adept has discovered that by focusing his energies inward he can extend his life almost indefinitely. He undertakes an experiment using African lore to die and resurrect his own body thereby assuring his immortality. His followers begin a revolutionary movement to supplant European civilization.

First major biography to be published on Beaverbrook in over twenty-five years.

All Hallows' Eve is the story of a man and woman whose love was so great it could bridge the gap of death; of evil so terrible as to be unmentionable, of a vision so beautiful it must be true. Opens with a discussion between the ghosts of two dead women wandering about London. Ultimately explores the meaning of human suffering and empathy by dissolving the barrier between the living and the dead through both black magic and divine love. A young woman dies to discover a London that looks right out of Dante. A painter does a portrait of a minister and discovers he has painted beetles, and the minister thanks him for it! A magician sends someone to the future. All Hallow's Eve is an amazing book in that it explores both the question of 'what happens when you die?' as well as 'what is the relationship between the dead and the living?'. Charles Williams at his best.