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Critical Provisions

scraps of literary criticism–from the classroom, works in progress, private musings, public soliloquies, barroom disputations, and more.

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Tag: wit

233. (Samuel Menashe)

  The poetry of Samuel Menashe is illuminated by the thought that, even the smallest lyric poem, when successful, will … More

American Literature, American poetry, History, Poetry, Samuel Menashe, wit

164. (Herman Melville)

When T.S. Eliot characterized that peculiar mental life we and he call wit, he had in mind a metaphysical poet … More

American Literature, herman melville, moby-dick, the novel, wit

102. (Samuel Menashe)

Samuel Menashe (American; 20th c.) is not a witty poet, despite having written one of the best modern poems on … More

American poetry, Poetry, wit

99. (William Empson)

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

Alexander Pope, Andrew Marvell, Baudelaire, Christina Rossetti, Christopher Ricks, Jonathan Swift, Poetry, Robert Lowell, T.S. Eliot, William Empson, wit

97. (Oscar Wilde)

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon quips: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s … More

Drama, Lewis Carroll, narrative, Oscar Wilde, wit

92. (Robert Lowell)

My mind is snared by wit, and Marvell’s wit in particular. The Greatness of that poet, once proclaimed, has burned … More

American poetry, Andrew Marvell, Poetry, Robert Lowell, wit

91. (Andrew Marvell)

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

Andrew Marvell, Poetry, T.S. Eliot, waste, wit

90. (Andrew Marvell)

Yesterday’s post on Andrew Marvell perhaps flew too high in abstraction; the thought that literature might be classified by tolerance … More

Andrew Marvell, comedy, genre, George Eliot, pastoral, Poetry, satire, tragedy, wit

89. (Andrew Marvell)

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

Andrew Marvell, Baudelaire, Christopher Ricks, genre, Michael Wood, Poetry, T.S. Eliot, waste, William Empson, wit

21. (Geoffrey Hill)

Excess curries parody. The late Hill has not been one to shun excesses: in output, in rhetorical posturing, in allusiveness, … More

Davie, Eleanor Cook, Geoffrey Hill, Marvell, Pope, Stevens, T.S. Eliot, wit
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