New Releases by Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart is not only one of Australia''s most important poets but a major figure in world poetry. He is a visionary writer who has taken his bearings as much from English Romanticism and European Modernism as from the Bible, Plato and Meister Eckhart.

Kevin Hart traces the vast literary legacy and reputation of Samuel Johnson. Through detailed analyses of the biographers, critics and epigones who carefully crafted and preserved Johnson''s life for posterity, Hart explores the emergence of what came to be called ''The Age of Johnson''. Hart shows how late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain experienced the emergence and consolidation of a rich and diverse culture of property. In dedicating himself to Johnson''s death, Hart argues, James Boswell turned his friend into a monument, a piece of public property. Through subtle analyses of copyright, forgery and heritage in eighteenth-century life, this study traces the emergence of competing forms of cultural property: a Hanoverian politics of property engages a Jacobite politics of land. Kevin Hart places Samuel Johnson within this rich cultural context, demonstrating how Johnson came to occupy a place at the heart of the English literary canon.

Poets'' Voices is an international series of books with audio CD''s which present collections of poems by significant poets whose work is not available in existing publications. Their poems appear in the original language, together with an English translation on the facing page. With each book, whenever possible, there is a CD recording of the poet reading poems in the collection in the original language and when feasible, in the English translations. Poets'' Voices will also feature monographs on key poets about whose lives, works, and influence little is currently available. In Kevin Hart''s seventh collection of poetry he explores the lush tropics of Queensland, Australia where he grew up, the landscapes of the soul, and the rich spirituality of Eros. Harold Blom has claimed Hart as "one of the major living poets in the English language", while Charles Simic has hailed him as "an absolutely original and indispensable poet".

A.D. Hope has long been Australia''s most internationally renowned poet, yet Kevin Hart''s new critical study of the 85 year old poet is the only one devoted to his work. Hart seeks to read Hope''s poetry and criticism in terms of several overlapping contexts: critical debate about Australian poetry; twentieth-century poetry as a whole (including French, German, and Russian poets who have influenced the poet); Hope''s intellectual and cultural commitments (such as his aesthetic theory, as drawn from Aquinas and others, his interest in science and mathematics, his cultural politics in the university); and contemporary critical theory. Superbly argued, and written by one of Australia''s finest young poets and critics, A.D. Hope is a worthy guide to the career of one of our most notable writers.