Pound felt himself to be in an earthly hell, in the cage in which the Pisan Cantos were written. But…
389. (Henry James)
The title gives something away: that The Ambassadors will be a novel about power, about relations of power, and about…
388. (A.E. Housman)
One of Housman’s most poignant poems: Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked…
387. (Henry James)
James appeals to the concept of life with the most brazenly airy of gestures, and his novels are also open…
386. (Christopher Ricks)
Christopher Ricks’ Along Heroic Lines is his best work of criticism since Essays in Appreciation, which is also the collection…
385. (William Wordsworth)
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the…
384. (John Donne)
After all some faffing with patterns, a return to basics, two legs upon which to stand and move forward. For…
383. (Wallace Stevens)
There is no sine qua non for poetic success, but it is difficult to imagine making sense of whether a…
382. (Jean Racine)
In approaching Racine’s Iphigénie and Phèdre , I’ll take seriously Aristotle, whose critical philosophy has special import for the French…
381. (Aristotle)
As often in Aristotle, what seems empirical is in fact metaphysical realism. The Poetics used to leave me baffled—like others—by…
Critical Provisions 