233. (Samuel Menashe)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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