Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Alan Wall: The collection exists in order to hold ruin at bay, so there is an acute poignancy to the ruin of any collection. Particle meets anti-particle; annihilation ensues. Alfred Russel Wallace spent years putting together his collection of animals and plants from the Amazon. The brig on to which they were loaded for return to England caught fire, and almost everything was destroyed.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
John Ferriar: Proudly he shews, with many a smile elate,
The scrambling subjects of the private plate;
While Time their actions and their names bereaves,
They grin forever in the guarded leaves.
Percy Fitzgerald: There is one view of Dickens which has scarcely been sufficiently dealt with, namely, his relations with his literary brethren and friends, as editor and otherwise. These exhibit him in a most engaging light, and will perhaps be a surprise even to those abundantly familiar with his amiable and gracious ways.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
THE BUSINESS OF LIVING early and working late seems like a New England virtue. Certainly, it is one that Ruth Stone, a Yankee poet, mastered perfectly. It’s not surprising that for a poet whose work – and not her celebrity – makes her “major”, it took most of us a lifetime to catch up to [...]
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Edward Dowden: Coleridge broke with tradition in the vulgar sense of the word; he broke with tradition in theology, philosophy, politics; yet he did so in a spirit more truly loyal to the past than was the common orthodoxy in theology or philosophy, or the common Toryism in politics.
Anthony Howell: With Quietism, form fits content as water fits a jug: it’s an abstract fusion that appeals to creative people who value the plastic properties of their medium. In poetry, its focus on familiar experiences or tasks that usually go unremarked, such as breaking eggs, is equivalent to a painter’s preoccupation with still-life. Significance is downplayed, but something is ‘brought to life.’
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
This is the dark side of those progressive Victorians we all know about, with their trains and telegraphs, their technological advances and their scientific discoveries, their liberal politics and their enlightened scepticism.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Lucy Sheehan: Even as Trollope’s maps produce a comforting image of self-contained local communities, they also expertly trace lines of power, grafting social networks onto spatial locations to provide a cartography of social and political influence.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
From the review in THE LITERARY GAZETTE. LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1861. FRAMLEY PARSONAGE1 IT IS A QUESTION whether on the whole we are gainers or losers by the extinction of the romantic element, so rapidly going on in modern English life. When we ridicule every thought or expression savouring of romance, and studiously repress [...]
Sunday, 11 September 2011
“I asked him to name two actors that from his viewpoint represented the two towers,” said Toth. “One of the names he gave me was Gary Cooper. I was dancing around the Internet and somehow came upon Cary Grant. It all just fit together and answered itself and gave a little bit of a human persona to it.”
The judges noted that Lucy Sheehan’s essay successfully “enters the current critical conversation about the nature and effects of space and place in Victorian literary texts, especially how portrayals of space represent or embody ethical positions,” and praised it as a “well-researched, readable, and insightful” text.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Geoffrey Norman: Pointless and depressing to run through the scandals and the tawdry revelations about the game, every one of which has its own book. Too much is known about steroids, gambling, loveless sex and the rest. Too little about the games. There are no Red Smiths who can make you care about the sport. We are invited, instead, to ponder the wreckage of, say, José Canseco.
Stephen Wiest: I wish it, without evocation, or appeal, this desire;
Sans a mutable sign turning this bright zodiac
miming obsession’s coiling serpent; only the simple question,
Will you listen, just listen?
A brief guide to Oxford’s ‘Very Short Introductions’.
Michelene Wandor: The first ‘Very Short Introduction’ appeared in the mid-1990s, and now there are nearly 300 books, which have sold over three million copies, and been translated into over twenty-five languages. The virtue is unadorned: A ‘Very Short Introduction’ contains all you need to know in order to decide if you need to know more. The recipe is a tough call: a ‘Very Short Introduction’ must necessarily historicise, provide an epistemological guide to the subject, analyse its conceptual and ideological issues, and wrap it all up – for now.