She is metaphysical in that her poetry seeks to resolve, and is a novel means for resolving, a fundamental tension … More
Category: 19th Century
264. (Thomas Hardy)
To make some attempt at getting at what Hardy’s poems grasp, I’ll look at one of the most famous later … More
260. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Among the defining conventions of Romanticism–the era of poetry that we, these days, might be seeing an end of–is the … More
254. (William Makepeace Thackeray)
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair doubles that charge: the novel is braced by a simultaneous awareness of Regency and Victorian foibles, of … More
224. (Emily Dickinson)
In this third and last in a series of posts on Emily Dickinson and decorum, I’ll try to bring decorum … More
223. (Emily Dickinson)
To begin with recapitulation and self-remonstration: poetry must, in F.H. Bradley’s persuasive formulation, get within the judgment the condition of … More
221. (John Keats)
This post is the first in a series of evolving sketches on “decorum” in poetry; it leads into the next … More
218. (William Wordsworth)
Perverse as it is to redefine words against conventional meanings, it is nonetheless possible to loosen from conventional meanings an … More
202. (William Wordsworth)
Unlike Samson, whose strength returns with his hair and whose blindness, though indignity and infirmity, is not absolute impotence, Wordsworth’s … More
139. (Matthew Arnold)
Showing, earlier this week, some poems I’d written to a critic I admire and trust, I received back some critical … More
