Review: Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things by Amanda Lovelace

 

Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things by Amanda Lovelace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

in her new standalone poetry collection, flower crowns & fearsome things, bestselling & award-winning poetess amanda lovelace explores the complexity of femininity through alternating wildflower & wildfire poems.

within these pages, you will find that each of us has the ability to be both soft & fierce at the same time. there is no need to choose one or the other.

—- 

I finished this beautiful poetry collection on femininity last month and this was exactly the book I needed. The poetry is wonderfully written, so lyrical, and so powerful. The imagery is mesmerising, and I loved the motif of soft vs fierce.

There’s so much packed into these words, and the collection as a whole requires deep thought and contemplation afterward—I couldn’t simply dive into my next book as I needed to process what I’d read.

This collection is very feminist and it circles around abuse in a really sensitive but powerful way.

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Review: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Unknown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written by an anonymous 14th-century poet, this epic poem is recognized as an equal of Chaucer's masterworks and of the great Old English poems, including "Beowulf." This edition includes a Preface by Raffel and a new Introduction. Revised reissue.

When I first started reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I really wasn't sure that I was going to like it. But how wrong was I?!

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

To be honest, I knew nothing about this book before I picked it up (the copy I have is translated by Bernard O'Donoghur) and, being a massive fan of the TV series, Merlin, I was pleasantly surprised to realise that the main character, Sir Gawain, was one of Arthur's knights. And, in the book, you meet King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, several other knights (Lancelot is mentioned) and Morgan Le Fay (Morganna in the TV series). And Merlin is mentioned too!

So yeah, this really was my kind of book!

At first, even after realising who the characters were, I wasn't sure how easy this book was going to be to read, as it's written in verse form. But wow, it read just like a book! A lot easier to read than The Odyssey of Homer or Beowulf, in my opinion.

The plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is brilliant. Focussing on themes of greed, pride, trickery and loyalty, this is a great read and I highly recommend it to everyone. (Go and read it NOW!)

This is quite a short book, so it's easily accessible to the modern reader, and I was able to read it in one sitting. And it really was worth it.

There's so much foreshadowing in this book, which I loved! And the imagery is great too, whilst the characterisation is superb. Detail has been used well, but there aren't great chunks of description which could put readers off. No, this is a lean book with a truly great plot, and if you've watched Merlin, I'd definitely recommend that you read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Review: Seven Fables by Robert Henryson

The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables by Robert Henryson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A master of high narrative, Henryson was also a comic master of the verse fable, and his burlesques of human weakness in the guise of animal wisdom are delicately pointed with irony. Seven of the Fables are here sparklingly translated by Heaney, their freshness rendered to the last claw and feather.

Please note that this review is only of the seven fables in this book, and not The Testament of Cresseid', as the seven fables were part of my university reading list, whereas The Testament of Cresseid was not.

Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved these fables. These seven fables are all retellings of Aesop's fables, or are based on these; each uses animal characters to teach its readers moral messages.

My favourite fables were The Lion and the Mouse, and The Two Mice. I thought both of these, especially, had an almost fairy-tale like quality to them, and were 'cute'.

I also liked The Toad and The Mouse due to the reference of physiognomy, yet this is perhaps the saddest and most poignant of all the tales in this book. Yet its moral message is just as applicable in today's society, as are any of the other fables' messages.

Most of the fables are split into sections: the actual tale, and then a 'Morality' section. However, a couple also include a prologue-like beginning as well. This made them easy to read, and the morality section often tells the reader what the different animals could be symbolic of in the human world.

The majority of the fables look at the negative aspects of mankind, making this a powerful read with a hugely moral purpose.

Written in poem form, these fables have a nice rhythm, however, as Henryson's original writing is on the left hand page and Heaney's translation on the right, I can see that in several places Seamus Heaney has added in extra syllables, and, in some cases, changed the meaning of particular lines--whether this is an improvement on Henryson's original text, I am still undecided.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading these fables and I read them in one sitting. Would highly recommend that you read them, particularly of you're studying English Literature.

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