Tag Archives: literary criticism

Sparring With Blushes

Posted on May 27, 2021 by JMN

“My English is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.” (Edward Gibbon) In the Middle Ages, several women poets of Arab Spain (al-Andalus) were known for their erotic and satiric verses composed with … Continue reading →

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‘Cry of Pain’

Posted on April 15, 2021 by JMN

Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” ruefully ironizes over a lad clever enough to “slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay.” Novelists, though, get more mileage out of superannuated jocks — Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Malamud’s Roy … Continue reading →

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“That Was Now, This Is Then”

Posted on December 6, 2020 by JMN

The very title of Vijay Sheshadri’s volume of poems, reviewed by David Orr, has the jewel-beam of poetic crystal to it. I keep rolling it on my tongue, as if it makes some kind of sense of the moment. Orr’s … Continue reading →

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Pithy Gristle

Posted on December 5, 2020 by JMN

David Orr reviews Vijay Sheshadri’s volume of poems “That Was Now, This Is Then” (Graywolf Press). Reviewers who are poets are especially equipped with spicy pronouncements. Poetry has a long, proud history of acting as if readers don’t exist. Often … Continue reading →

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A. O. Scott on Sontag

Posted on December 10, 2019 by JMN

The credit on this piece says “A.O. Scott is a chief film critic at The Times and the author of ‘Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth.’” I read him frequently. (Strictly as a … Continue reading →

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Exactingly Delighted

Posted on October 16, 2019 by JMN

Scholar and literary critic Harold Bloom has died at the age of 89. Dwight Garner hits memorable notes in his tribute to Bloom, who in one of over 40 books launched an attack “from a crenelated embankment” on critics and … Continue reading →

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