Literature

Adventuress and opportunist, Ethelberta reinvents herself to disguise her humble origins, launching a brilliant career as a society poet in London with her family acting incognito as her servants. Turning the male-dominated literary world to her advantage, she happily exploits the attentions of four very different suitors.

This vintage book contains Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev’s 1883 collection of poetry, “Poems in Prose”, being a translation of what are among the last things written by Tourguéneff. The poems of this collection are varied: some are like studies for the scenes of a novel; others, again, like a conversation, are purely imaginative sketches, whilst some have an autobiographical interest.

Sanai’s poetry stresses the possibility of an “awakening”; While mankind remains mere baggage in the world It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep. What can they see in sleep? What real merit or punishment can there be? He who knows not his own soul, how shall he know the soul of another? and he who only knows hand and foot, how shall he know the Godhead? The prophets are unequal to understanding this matter; why dost thou foolishly claim to do so?

In The Crescent Moon, Rabindranath Tagore brings alive the world of a child—in some poems he describes the simple joys of children at play, while in others, he feels the bonds of affection between mother and child, and in yet others, he expresses wonder at the earthly beauty all around us.

Stray Birds are short poems, short aphorisms which embody Tagore’s love of nature and love of simplicity. The power and beauty of these poems comes from their simplicity. For example the poem belowis an example of how Tagore uses the splendour of the universe to inspire and soothe the human spirit.