282. (W.B. Yeats)

I’d been intending to write up some thoughts on Yeats before the LRB review of Geoffrey Hill’s last book appeared, … More

241. (Davie, Auerbach, Arnold)

A friend of mine pointed out that semi-recent posts on decorum are a bit of a muddle and that I … 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

214. (T.S. Eliot)

When someone says that something possesses the quality of the literary, or refers to the literary or even artistic imagination, … More

211. (Percy Shelley)

Shelley’s poetry has challenged some of the finest critics, and even Hazlitt, who stands opposed to Shelley’s most notable detractors, … More

176. (Robert Burns)

It’s difficult to know what to do with Robert Burns, besides read and enjoy him, and take fortification from him; … More

144. (Philip Larkin)

[COMPLETE VERSION.] A chief complaint against Larkin is the insularity, his reaction to modernism that confuses an affirmation of Hardy’s special … More

113. (Ezra Pound)

Pound, whose faith in poetry as a force to make something happen was constant and remains invigorating, began his career … More

86. (Christopher Smart)

Donald Davie’s hand-annotated copy of Smart’s Song to David (e.d. J.B. Broadbent) is on my shelf; the annotations I might return to, … More