The Lamb Cycle: What the Great English Poets Would Have Written About Mary and Her Lamb (Had They Thought of It First)

by David R. Ewbank, Kate Feiffer (Illustrator), James Engell (Foreword by)

Overview

The rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” told in the style—and substance—of the great English poets from Edmund Spenser to Stevie Smith.
 
In The Lamb Cycle, David R. Ewbank achieves the unthinkable—he writes so convincingly in the style of the great English poets that one could be lulled into thinking that Shakespeare himself was inspired to muse upon the subject of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Ewbank captures not only the style of each of the poets he chooses, but also their preoccupations and subject matter. So D.H. Lawrence’s Mary longs for her lamb as any woman longing for her lover, whilst T.S. Eliot’s Mary is recollected by an old man looking back on his life. Alexander Pope writes an “An Essay on Lambs,” and Tennyson’s lotus eaters become “The Clover Eater.” Brilliantly written, sophisticated, and laugh-out-loud funny, these poems, enhanced by Kate Feiffer’s charming illustrations, will enchant anyone who has ever read an English poem.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684581665
Publisher:	Brandeis University Press
Publication date:	04/01/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	60
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

David R. Ewbank is professor emeritus of English literature at Kent State University. He has authored A Distant Summer, and a collection of parodies Fairy Tales for Adults, famous stories as they might have been written by classic American authors. He also served as coeditor of the multivolume collection The Complete Works of Robert Browning. Kate Feiffer’s illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and on television. She is the author of eleven highly acclaimed children’s books, including Henry the Dog with No Tail and My Mom is Trying to Ruin My Life, and the event producer for the Martha’s Vineyard-based writers festival Islanders Write.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword by James Engell

Introduction

Mary Had a Little Lamb / Mother Goose
The Silly Lambe / Edmund Spenser
Sonnet No. 155 / William Shakespeare
Temper Rising / John Donne
Academia Lost / John Milton
The School Steps / George Herbert
To Mary, To Get Out On Time / Robert Herrick
Annus Horribilis / John Dryden
An Essay on Lambs / Alexander Pope
The Vanity of Ovine Hubris / Samuel Johnson
The Book of Hell / William Blake
Expulsion and Result / William Wordsworth
The Crime of the Urchin Mary / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Why do I hate this horrid place / Emily Brontë
The Revolt of a Lamb / Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ode to Cologne / John Keats
My Man, Fred / George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Clover Eater / Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Friedrich Schlafbewirken’s Excogitation / Robert Browning
The Deserted Lamb / Matthew Arnold
Mistress Mary / Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Hymn to the Lamb / Algernon Charles Swinburne
A Shropshire Lamb / A. E. Housman
The Lambkin: To Lady Mary / Gerard Manley Hopkins
Lamby / Rudyard Kipling
At School / Thomas Hardy
Loco Lamb and the Schoolman / William Butler Yeats
Lamb / D. H. Lawrence
Little Gaffer / T. S. Eliot
A Refusal to Bleat and Moan About Being Expelled from School / Dylan Thomas
The Anxiety of Age / W. H. Auden
School Going / Philip Larkin
Second Thoughts About Mary / Stevie Smith

Acknowledgements
Dedication

Editorial Reviews

David Ewbank’s versatility in the art of literary imitation is nothing short of shapeshifting. Here are 32 high-wire acts of poetic impersonation, which ironically elevate Mary and her famous little lamb, while honoring the great English poets—all to the delight of every reader’s inner English major. Mother Goose herself rises to applaud, somehow. And Kate Feiffer’s drawings are a charming bonus.

Billy Collins

A tour de force for our times. The Lamb Cycle gives us a new take on Mary and her lamb. Whether evoking the Renaissance, the Victorian Age, or modern life in language and art, Ewbank and Feiffer perform with panache.

Martha's Vineyard Times

A silly and high-minded book, an absolute barrel of laughs for those deeply into English lit and, I suspect, a bit of fun for any sort of reader.

Third Coast Review

Truly remarkable. . . . Not only is Ewbank deeply knowledgeable about each of his thirty-two targets and their poetry, but he has an uncanny ability to ventriloquize their voices without any disrespect or mockery. . . . Endlessly delightful.

Poetry Corner

What former English major wouldn’t get a kick out of The Lamb Cycle?

Washington Post

The Lamb Cycle made me laugh with delight even as it delivered a masterclass on poetic form. David R. Ewbank captures each of the great poets’ stylistic tics and thematic preoccupations, and imbues them with a visionary verve all his own. The poems are perfectly paired with Kate Feiffer’s elegant illustrations, brimming with wit and wonderment.

Geraldine Brooks