In her introduction to this brilliant and outrageous literarylandmark, Anne Barton places Don Juan within the context of Byron'slife and reading, and offers an interpretation of the poem whichdemonstrates its underlying coherence and artistic integrity,despite Byron's mischievous protestations to the contrary. A longchapter on the reception of the poem considers some of the attemptsto imitate or continue it, using them to define what is fundamentalto Byron's own handling of the Don Juan legend.
One of America’s finest historians shows us how Bob Dylan, oneof the country’s greatest and most enduring artists, stillsurprises and moves us after all these years. Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discov??ered themusic of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a centurylater, he revisits Dylan’s work with the skills of an eminentAmerican historian as well as the passion of a fan. Drawn in partfrom Wilentz’s essays as “historian in residence” of Dylan’sofficial website, Bob Dylan in America is a unique blend of fact,interpretation, and affinity—a book that, much like its subject,shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion warrants. Beginning with his explosion onto the scene in 1961, this bookfollows Dylan as he continues to develop a body of musical andliterary work unique in our cultural history. Wilentz’s approachplaces Dylan’s music in the context of its time, including theearly influences of Popular Front ideology and Beat aesthetics, andoffers a larger critica
