This new edition focuses on the Sonnets as poetry - sometimes strikingly individual poems, but often subtly interlinked in thematic, imagistic and other groupings. Gwynne Evans and Anthony Hecht also address the many questions that cast a veil of mystery over the genesis of the Sonnets: to what extent are they autobiographical? What is the nature of the 'love', strongly expressed, between the 'poet', the 'youth' and the 'Dark Lady'? Can they, apart...

This entertaining history of Cuba and its music begins with the collision of Spain and Africa and continues through the era of Miguelito Valds, Arsenio Rodriguez, Benny Mor, and Prez Prado. It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of music in the New World. The ways in which the music of black slaves transformed...

Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, lived in the 4th century B.C. and is thought of as one of the most important figures from classical antiquity. Aristotle was probably the most famous member of Plato's Academy in Athens, whose writings would ultimately form the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. His writings were not constrained to simply one field of inquiry but covered such various subjects as physics, biology, metaphysics,...

A nostalgic and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970's and 1980's, complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles.

Episode 1. Jazz is born in New Orleans at the turn of the century emerging from several forms of music including ragtime, marching bands, work songs, spirituals, creole music, funeral parade music and above all, the blues. Musicians profiled here who advanced early jazz are Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Freddie Keppard, and musicians of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Episode 2. From 1917 through 1924, the "Jazz Age" begins with...

The blues is a seven-part documentary film series exploring the evolution of the blues, featuring rare archival performance footage of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon ... et al., also including over 100 newly-filmed performances by contemporary artists such as B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Beck ... et al. singing classic blues songs.

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But had she been allowed to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immoral sibling. In this classic essay, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using...

Surveys the history and components of music, concentrating on Western musical traditions.