The title gives something away: that The Ambassadors will be a novel about power, about relations of power, and about … More

One of Housman’s most poignant poems: Because I liked you better      Than suits a man to say, It irked … More

James appeals to the concept of life with the most brazenly airy of gestures, and his novels are also open … More

Christopher Ricks’ Along Heroic Lines is his best work of criticism since Essays in Appreciation, which is also the collection … More

As often in Aristotle, what seems empirical is in fact metaphysical realism. The Poetics used to leave me baffled—like others—by … More

What opens when “pattern,” rather than “form” is allowed to guide our reading of literature? It might be thought a … More

Lately, I’ve been thinking—as a teacher and reader of criticism—about how criticism depends on discerning and working out various puzzles. … More

In a work of literature, rightness of feeling coincides with a feeling of rightness; authors apprehend just what and how … More

In the prior post, written around a year ago, I took up the chapter of Biographia Literaria in which Coleridge … More

One divide in post-1950, maybe post-1960, American poetry could be said to grow out of the claims of the eye. … More