379. (Leo Tolstoy)

Hadji Murat should be a tragedy—it is not. That is the crucial fact about it. Tolstoy refused to write tragedy, here … More

376. (Gilbert Murray)

What did Tennyson add to English poetry? Or Wordsworth? Or Swinburne? It’s not a trivial question in the way a … More

375. (Henry James)

The Turn of the Screw is the turn of the key into the heart of Henry James’ fiction; it is … More

367. (Giacomo Leopardi)

Leopardi’s “La Sera Del Di Festa” (“The Evening of the Holiday” (that translations not one to which I will refer, … More

356. (Charles Baudelaire)

Here is the first stanza of “Obsession,” from Aaron Poochigian’s wonderful new translation of Baudelaire: Vast woods, you scare me … More

354. (Søren Kierkegaard)

Wittgenstein praised Kierkegaard, but remarked also that a little of Kierkegaard goes a long way. For Wittgenstein, perhaps. But for … More

348. (Charles Baudelaire)

How long does it take to absorb an influence, to learn what the insights of another mean? A couple of … More

346. (W.B. Yeats)

The early Yeats, the earliest aesthete, late pre-Raphaelite Yeats, the world is presented as a tumult of passion, fading into … More

341. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The Fire of Drift-wood DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD. We sat within the farm-house old, Whose windows, looking o’er the bay, … More

340. (Robert Browning)

It’s true enough that Robert Browning’s enduring preoccupation was the perpetual fracturing of truth. But that preoccupation persists through poetry … More