For John Dryden, the world tends towards fusion and confusion and it is for the poet to establish distinctions and … More
Tag: T.S. Eliot
257. (T.S. Eliot)
Since the age of 16 or 17, when I discovered the criticism of T.S. Eliot for myself, I’ve met with … More
248. (James Thomson)
Among the reasons Thomson’s “The City of Dreadful Night” can be enjoyed is that it is a second-rate poem that … More
236. (Christopher Ricks)
What is the appeal of criticism, of reading or doing it? It must rest in beguilement at judgment itself, and … 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
172. (Eugenio Montale)
The Poetry Foundation’s website has a brief essay on Montale, helpful mostly for its generous quotations from critics and … More
171. (T.S. Eliot)
Among Eliot’s staunchest and nimblest readers, Christopher Ricks was unrelenting in his 1978 attack on Eliot’s late essay, “What … 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
131. (Ezra Pound)
Friday morning, stuck in Pound’s forty-seventh canto, a student (precocious, ambitious reader) broke me free from the jam(b) I was in: … More
118. (Geoffrey Hill)
Geoffrey Hill died last week, on June 30, at age 84. Nobody doubts that he wrote some of the greatest … More