The Oxford Book of the Sea

Book Overview

Truly the source of eternal fascination, the sea is one of the enduring subjects of literature, and certainly the most protean. Indeed, the sea in literature is as liquid and as volatile as the sea in life, shaping itself anew for every writer and every generation. For Addison and Burke, it was the realm of the sublime, of "foaming billows and floating mountains," of agreeable horror." For Romantics such as Turner, it was pure, unpent nature at its...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019214197X
• ISBN13: 9780192141972
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 542 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Some entries end up short!

I very much enjoyed this anthology . . . a good blend of poetry, short story and excerpts. However, some of the excerpts ended rather abruptly. I had the feeling that the editor intentionally cut the items at a particular point to keep the reader off-balance! At times, I wished for just a couple more sentences to get some kind of resolution to the piece, even if that didn't finish the story! Otherwise, a very enjoyable volume to pass time either on or off the water.

Great Invitation to the Sea

Terrific book for those who yearn to learn more about the sea, especially for all those armchair wanderers. Raban has done a yeomans job in collecting some of the more well-known stories (Ancient Mariner etc.,) but the true beauty of the book is in those lesser-known impressions of the sea. This book will draw you back again and again, its pull is that of the sea itself.