113. (Ezra Pound)

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

100. (T.S. Eliot)

All poetry orients itself, to knowledge, to others, to the world or something beyond it; Eliot’s poetry stoically queries and … More

Whatever else its relationship to genre, wit is a particular way of coping with the world’s fragility, its tendency to … More

Rather than delete the earlier posts, which now seem wrong in different ways, I’ll keep them and build on them: … More

When T.S. Eliot, in his essay on Andrew Marvell, offered his incomparably confusing characterization of “wit,” what was he onto? … More

Here is another attempt at the Lowell muddle, since the last was either abstruse or wrong. Lowell’s poetry can profitably … More

Born this day, December 24, in 1822, Matthew Arnold would have today celebrated his one hundredth and ninety second birthday, … More

Nowadays, Christopher Smart is best known for his “Jubilate Agno”—“Rejoice in the Lamb.” That poem smacks of the modern, even … More

Apt that an Italian would assist with placing Browning plain before the eyes. Franco Moretti (once again), but this time … More

Minor characters blaze into majority; major events are subordinated to asides; the tempo feels all wrong, the climax abrupt, the … More