January 1, 2001
The Industry of Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Varioum Edition Edited by R. W. Franklin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. 3 vols. $125. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition Edited by R. […]
January 1, 2001
A Local Habitation and a Name
New York City Ballet at 50 Dance for a City: Fifty Years of the New York City Ballet curated by Lynn Garafola and Eric Foner. The New York Historical Society, […]
January 1, 2001
Seeking a Post-Ibsenian Playwright
On Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov by Stella Adler. Edited by Barry Paris. New York: Knopf, 1999. 323 pages. $27.50 When you deal with Ibsen,” Stella Adler explains in her posthumous […]
July 1, 2000
The Powers and Pleasures of This Language
The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline by Robert Scholes. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. 203 pages. $20.00, hardbound. What is literature? What is its value? […]
July 1, 2000
Marketing Poetry
The Ghost of Tradition: Expansive Poetry and Postmodernism by Kevin Walzer. Ashland, OR: Story Line Press, 1998. 206 pages. $15.95. American poets have always had a vexed relationship to their […]
July 1, 2000
The Mirror Has No Depth
Trace Elements by Barbara Jordan. New York: Penguin, 1998. 64 pages. $14.95, paper. a different solitude between the mirror and the window —Geoffrey Hill, “Terribilis Est Locus Iste” In God […]
July 1, 2000
The Substance of the Island: W. S. Merwin’s Lyrical Epic
The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative by W. S. Merwin. New York: Knopf, 1998. 331 pages. $25.00. From the very beginning of his career, W. S. Merwin has been one of […]
July 1, 2000
Credentials
Review Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems by Rachel Hadas. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 1998. xvi, 234 pages. $35; $17.95, paper. Relations: […]
April 1, 2000
From the Carpathian Basin to Chicago: Review Two New Anthologies of Hungarian Poetry
In Quest of the “Miracle Stag”: The Poetry of Hungary, an Anthology of Hungarian Poetry in English Translation from the Thirteenth Century to the Present. Ed. by Ádám Makkai. Foreword […]
January 1, 2000
The Pastoral down Under
Review Poems 1980-1994. By John Kinsella. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe/Dufour, 1998. 350 pages. $22.95 paper. The Hunt. By John Kinsella. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe/Dufour, 1998. 96 pages. $18.95 paper. In the Australian painter Sidney […]
July 1, 1999
The Need to Know
Playing to the Camera: Film Actors Discuss Their Craft edited by Bert Cardullo, et al. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. xiv +345 pages. $30. Threads of Time: Recollections by […]
July 1, 1999
How Poetry Works
The Work of Poetry by John Hollander. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 318 pages. $40, hardcover. Whenever one becomes gloomy about the state of American culture, arts and letters, […]