Reading Fiona Sampson

A Study in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics

Omar Sabbagh

• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781785274183
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785274206
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

This book-length study of an eminent, distinguished and influential poet and contemporary woman of letters integrates analysis and a honed interpretation of the near-total gamut of the oeuvre to-date of Professor Fiona Sampson. The study includes biographical insight and synthesizes its rigorous discussions of the dominant rubric of Professor Sampson's poetic métier, her prose in different genres, and the literary practices of over a decades-long and much-lauded literary career. This critical work finds and displays incisive and fruitful ways by which the oeuvre in question crosses boundaries in literary writing and practices with fertile results and evidences those cross-currents in a manner that indicates the trajectory of a sensibility or structure of feeling, one which though highly intelligent and self-aware is also deeply empathic. A lucid, coherent and compelling reading of Sampson's main works makes this book a scintillating study and a much needed contribution to the current work being done on major contemporary poets and writers and, in particular, contemporary women figures, in the British and international literary scenes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 1 HEARTHSIDES AND HOSPICES
• Chapter 2 FROM THE LOOKING GLASS TO THE LAMP
• Chapter 3 PROSE ANIMATIONS
• Chapter 4 FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC
• Conclusion DEMOCRACY AND EXCELLENCE
• Appendix INAUGURAL WELLCOME TRUST ANNUAL PUBLIC MIKE WHITE MEMORIAL LECTURE, JUNE 14, 2016
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX