UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 17, Page 4
January 23, 1992
U.D. Press titles include literature, political science

     The University of Delaware Press has announced eight new
titles in the fields of literature and political science. The books
are available at the University Bookstore.
     Rural Development in South Korea: A Sociopolitical Analysis by
William W. Boyer and Byong Man Ahn takes a comprehensive look at
the changing and complex phenomenon of South Korean rural
development, drawing policy implications and suggesting strategies
for South Korea that could have significance for other developing
countries. Boyer is the Charles Polk Messick Professor of Public
Administration at the University of Delaware, and Ahn, a professor
at Hankuk University, has been a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer on
campus.
     Van Akin Burd's Christmas Story: John Ruskin's Venetian
Letters of 1876-1877 reveals Ruskin's winter in Venice as the
culmination of his search for personal revelation of a spiritual
world, especially his mystical experiences with the spirit of his
lost love, Rose La Touche. This work is a source of new primary
materials on Ruskin and discusses his travels in Italy as he
journeyed towards selfhood. Burd is distinguished professor
emeritus at the State University of New York, College at Cortland.
     The Oddingley Murders, by Mercer University Professor Carlos
Flick, is a combination of social and legal history blended within
a lively yet real story of intrigue--the mysterious death of Vicar
George Parker. This 1806 murder case discloses the workings of the
early 19th-century British judicial system and social tensions
between the church and its parishioners.
     Robert Zaller compiles recent essays by Jeffers scholars in
Centennial Essays for Robinson Jeffers, offering the first
comprehensive overview of one of the most important and
controversial American literary figures of the 20th century.
Jeffers was an American poet surrounded by controversial criticism:
Some critics believed he was preoccupied with blasphemy and
violence, while others acclaimed his expressions of natural beauty
and intellectual eclecticism. Zaller is professor of history at
Drexel University.
     Dazzling Images: The Masks of Sir Philip Sidney argues that
Sidney adopted a variety of personae and scourged his audience into
forgetting who they were, both in their psychic inner worlds and
their social worlds. Alan Hager, a fellow at the Newberry Library
in Chicago, argues that Sidney was an image-maker who continuously
frustrates the audiences's vision; Sidney's masks trick us into
consciousness of the larger authority of his peculiar fictional
world and its paradoxes.
     The Noble Science: A Study and Transcription of Sloane MS.
2530, Papers of the Masters of Defence of London, Temp. Henry VIII
to 1590 transcribes a manuscript describing the public examinations
or "play prizes" that were performed as a form of drama that
competed with plays for audiences and space in playhouses. The
manuscript is from the Company of the Masters of Defence of London,
which was a professional association of Englishmen involved in
fencing in the London area. Author Herbert Berry is a professor
emeritus of English at the University of Saskatchewan.
     George Chapman, the first English translator of Homer, was
also a successful Stuart dramatist. In Natural Fictions: George
Chapman's Major Tragedies, A. R. Braunmuller studies Chapman's four
major tragedies and their failure to shape material reality. The
book contains new information about Chapman's plays, historiography
and the early Stuart court. Braunmuller is a professor of English
and comparative literature at University of California at Los
Angeles.
     Order and Variety: Essays and Poems in Honor of Donald E.
Stanford, edited by R. W. Crump, honors Stanford's scholarship on
Robert Bridges, as well as his work as a poet and co-editor of The
Southern Review. The book is a compilation of original essays and
poems by Stanford's friends and colleagues, and includes a
bibliography of Stanford's works.
                                        - Marceline A. Bunzey