James A. Winn is a distinguished scholar whose work delves into the fascinating intersection of literature and the other arts, particularly within England's Restoration and early eighteenth-century periods. Possessing a profound appreciation for both classical poetry and music, Winn explores the ways in which artistic expressions reflect and shape human experience. His research, blending literary analysis with a broad interest in music, painting, and gender politics, offers a unique perspective on the connections between creative forms. Winn endeavors to reach wider audiences, presenting provocative ideas on the nature of the humanities and the deep truths found within the poetry of war.
Exploring the enduring relationship between poetry and war, this book traces the reflections of poets from ancient times, such as Homer, to contemporary voices like Bruce Springsteen. It delves into how these artists have captured the complexities of conflict, revealing the emotional and cultural impacts of war through their verses. The narrative highlights the evolution of themes and styles, showcasing the power of poetry as a means of understanding and processing the human experience of warfare.
As the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1665-1714) received the education thought proper for a princess, reading plays and poetry in English and French while learning dancing, singing, acting, drawing, and instrumental music. As an adult, she played the guitar and the harpsichord, danced regularly, and took a connoisseur's interest in all the arts. In this comprehensive interdisciplinary biography, James Winn tells the story of Anne's life in new breadth and detail, and in unprecedented cultural context. Winn shows how poets, painters, and musicians used the works they made for Anne to send overt and covert political messages to the queen, the court, the church, and Parliament. Their works also illustrate the pathos of Anne's personal life: the loss of her mother when she was six, her troubled relations with her father and her sister (James II and Mary II), and her own doomed efforts to produce an heir. Her eighteen pregnancies produced only one child who lived past infancy; his death at the age of eleven, mourned by poets, was a blow from which Anne never fully recovered. Her close friendship with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a topic of scabrous ballads and fictions, ended in bitter discord; the death of her husband in 1708 left her emotionally isolated; and the wrangling among her chief ministers hastened her death. Richly illustrated with visual and musical examples, Queen Anne draws on works by a wide array of artists-among them the composer George Frideric Handel, the poet Alexander Pope, the painter Godfrey Kneller, and the architect Christopher Wren-to shed new light on Anne's life and reign. This is the definitive biography of Queen Anne
