Contents

Acknowledgements 4

Preface 7

Introduction 9

Nela Bureu. "a poem is like a prayer" 15

Núria Casado. Speaking Up from the Stage: Three Ageing West Indian Women

in the Spotlight 19

Marc Colavincenzo. "Hands of chance and change:" Intimations of Ageing

in Canadian Nature Poetry 33

Gordon Collier. The Casual Measure of All Things: Age and Ageing in Alice Munro 45

Emma Domínguez. The Decay of the Southern Belle: Ellen Glasgow's The Sheltered Life 63

Pere Gallardo. Ageing Mechanisms: The Body/Machine Metaphor in David Lynch's

The Straight Story and Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy 71

John Kinsella. Domine, refugium 83

Maurice Lee. Retirement and Fiction 89

Maria O'Neill. The Ageing of the Anglo-Irish Gentry as Portrayed in the 'Big House' Novel 97

Isabel Santaulària. The Fallacy of Eternal Love: Romance, Vampires

and Love in Linda Lael Miller's Forever and the Night and For all Eternity 111

Maria Vidal. Old Women Empowered in Flora Nwapa's Efuru and Idu 127

Brian Worsfold. Ageing Maculinity and Creativity in André Brink's The Rights of Desire 141

Carmen Zamorano. Making for Ithaca in Late Life: Representations of Successful Ageing in

Anita Brookner's A Start in Life and Brief Lives 163

Notes on contributors 177