“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” though it would seem to belie, superbly confirms Coleridge’s critical principle: “nothing can permanently…
394. (Ezra Pound)
Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos inspires questions, and is itself the answer to some of the questions; if we feel the…
393. (William Blake)
When it is reduced to a formula, Blake’s mythology in the masterpiece Jerusalem conveys one of the most plausible and…
392. (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
The contrast between Hopkins and Shelley is so perfect in so many respects—atheist and Jesuit; a seeming see-saw of reputations;…
391. (William Blake)
Blake’s Milton might have been called, at least as a second title, “The Lark and Wild Thyme,” since these are the objects…
390. (Ezra Pound)
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…
Critical Provisions 