George Bernard Shaw

J. M. Beach

"Shaw saw himself and his dramatic translation of the Nietzschian Superman as the Modern and secularized realization of the ancient concept of poet-creator. He believed (as did Blake, Emerson, and Nietzsche) that the poet-creator had a genius which was the spiritual source of Vision and a Will-to-Power and that these two human faculties, in a Marxist-utopian sense, held the hope of humanity. The poet's quest into the unknown, as Shaw believed, begins with a revolutionary renunciation of inherited duty and worn illusions in order to find the freedom to create a new order of being. The poet's imagination will be the guide. The poet as prophet must herald the new state of being into words, and sometimes deeds: "To desire, to imagine, to will, to create ... in one word, to conceive." The poet's gift is a state of vision and the wherewithal and will to bring that Vision into being before the greater consciousness of humanity."--Cover.

Selected Plays and Prefaces

William Blake

William Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, wanted to believe that Blake was a "new kind of man; and hence his was a new kind of art, and a new kind of poetry." However, what sets William Blake apart as a great poet and artist was not that he was so "new," but that he was so "old." He was a part of a mytho-poetic and Vatic tradition as old as poetry itself. Blake was heir to a mytho-poetic tradition that can be traced back to the very foundations of human thought and speech. The extraordinary in William Blake was not the "man," but his Vision and how he expressed it. But most (if not all) of Blake's contemporaries, and a great many since, wrote Blake's genius off as madness. Gilchrist explained, "it is only within that last century and a half [that] the faculty of seeing visions could have been one to bring a man's sanity into question." But divine inspiration has always been the hallmark of mythological poetry and religious prophetic utterance, and Daemonic inspiration was even the source of Socrates' rationalism. It is realizing and perfecting the "visionary" component of the human mind, which is the central focus of most Visionary's work - sometimes to the point of alienating those do not share in the Visionary understanding. But Blake "claimed the possession of some powers only in a greater degree that all men possessed and which they undervalued in themselves & lost through love of sordid pursuits." The Visionary, while seen as extraordinary and a genius, is only a glimpse of what all human beings can experience for themselves. Blake's poetry needs to be read as the expression of a visionary genius who saw what others could not see. He is an enduring testament to the creative powers of the human mind. The book includes: Selected Poetry of William Blake Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience The Book of Thel The Marriage of Heaven and Hell All Religions are One There is NO Natural Religion The Book of Urizen Jerusalem Selected Letters of William Blake

Selected Poetry and Letters

This book examines the idea of educational accountability in higher education, which has become a new secular gospel. But do accountability policies actually make colleges better? What if educational accountability tools don’t actually measure what they’re supposed to? What if accountability data isn’t valid, or worse, what if it’s meaningless? What if administrators don’t know how to use accountability tools or correctly analyze the problematic data these tools produce? What if we can’t measure, let alone accurately assess, what matters most with teaching or student learning. What if students don’t learn much in college? What if higher education was never designed to produce student learning? What if college doesn’t help most students, either personally or economically? What if higher education isn’t meritocratic, actually exacerbates inequality, and makes the lives of disadvantaged students even worse? This book will answer these questions with a wide, interdisciplinary range of the latest scientific research.

Why Accountability Metrics in Higher Education Are Unfair and Increase Inequality

The Myths of Measurement and Meritocracy

This book examines the idea of educational accountability, which has become a new secular gospel. But do accountability policies actually make schools better? Do business management theories and practices make organizations more effective? What if the most widely used management theories and assessment tools don't work? What if educational accountability tools don't actually measure what they're supposed to? What if accountability data isn't valid, or worse, what if it's meaningless? What if administrators don't know how to use accountability tools or correctly analyze the problematic data these tools produce? What if we can't measure, let alone accurately assess, what matters most with teaching or student learning. How is a business-model of economic efficiency supposed to increase the competing, and perhaps mutually exclusive, ends of schooling, such as human development, student learning, personal satisfaction, social mobility, and economic growth? What if students don't learn much in schools? What if schools were never designed to produce student learning? This book will answer these questions with a wide, interdisciplinary range of the latest scientific research.

Why Educational Accountability Metrics Lower Student Learning and Demoralize Teachers

Can We Measure What Matters Most?

This book examines the idea of educational accountability, which has become a new secular gospel. But do accountability policies actually make schools better? Do business management theories and practices make organizations more effective? What if the most widely used management theories and assessment tools don’t work? What if educational accountability tools don’t actually measure what they’re supposed to? What if accountability data isn’t valid, or worse, what if it’s meaningless? What if administrators don’t know how to use accountability tools or correctly analyze the problematic data these tools produce? What if we can’t measure, let alone accurately assess, what matters most with teaching or student learning. How is a business-model of economic efficiency supposed to increase the competing, and perhaps mutually exclusive, ends of schooling, such as human development, student learning, personal satisfaction, social mobility, and economic growth? What if students don’t learn much in schools? What if schools were never designed to produce student learning? This book will answer these questions with a wide, interdisciplinary range of the latest scientific research.

Walt Whitman

The poetry of Walt Whitman is the cornerstone of modern American verse. He was America's first truly great poet and his influence is still evident today. The first edition of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, was a revolutionary manifesto declaring America's independence from European cultural domination. His rhapsodic free verse broke radically with poetic, tradition: it was poetry about America, its democracy, its people, and its hopes. It was uniquely American without apology--brash, proud, optimistic, and filled with the bustling energy of the new and growing nation. This collection brings together Whitman's greatest and most famous poems spanning the whole of his career. From the groundbreaking first edition of "Leaves of Grass are seven poems, including "Song of Myself" and "I Sing the Body Electric." From later editions there are such masterpieces as "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and "I Hear America Singing." Also included is Whitman's great cycle of Civil War Poems, "Drum-Taps, which he wrote in the months when he was ministering to the wounded in battlefield hospitals. Concluding this collection is one of his last poems, "Good-bye My Fancy!"--his touching farewell to his muse, his life, and his readers. More than one hundred years after his death, Walt Whitman's poetry has become part of the American heritage. It is a visionary which speaks as aptly to readers today as it will to future generations. As he says in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "others...look back on me because I look'd forward to them." Whitman's poetry is a link that connects all Americans--past, present, and future. This book features a deluxe cover, ribbon marker, top stain, and decorative endpaper with a nameplate.

Leaves of Grass: The Complete 1891-92 Edition

This book describes the key learning experiences of a unique man who has become a teacher, scholar and poet. Beach explains not only his personal experiences, but also creates a philosophy of education, based on his experience from childhood through graduate school, and based on his research. This book is very critical of all forms of schooling. Set against schooling, Beach argues for the power of education, which he defines in terms of learning, doing, and knowing.

A Philosophical Autobiography

Dare to Know

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley took his place within the vatic history of mythopoetic bards and bore the Visionary legacy. He offered a simple "spark" of poetry to his audience while promising a raging fire would burn if the poetry was nurtured correctly. However, Shelley realized that most people cannot accept the poet's offering (for various reasons; ignoring, rejecting or misunderstanding) and they let that spark smolder into nothing. Shelley shouts into his written words, leaving his hard-earned knowledge of the human condition and his visionary plight for willing human ears. Shelley paints himself as the Visionary, sound and steady within a wisdom that understands the suffering beauty of the human condition, who sits as a "tranquil star" to burn as heavenly light. Shelley's hope is to guide humanity through the dark night of doubt and fear towards the possibility laying dormant within being human. This volume contains the first three volumes of Shelley's complete works of both poetry and prose, with an introduction by J. M. Beach. Volume I: Early Poems Volume II: Later Poems & Plays Volume III: Essays You can find Shelley's collected translations in Volume IV, published separately.

J. M. Beach

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