April 20, 2024
Concerning the Symposium
Papers for the symposium, “Literature and the Professors,’’ appearing in the current issues of this Review and the Southern Review, were received in greater numbers than it was possible to […]
April 20, 2024
The Ivory Tower on Wheels
Andre Maurois once remarked that the artist takes to artistic creation as “une consolation de ne pouvoir vivre” This brilliant (though unoriginal) bit of psychology is intriguing alongside what is […]
April 20, 2024
Literature and Power
Sometimes we of the English-teaching profession must wonder whether our social function is anything more than pious—whether we are expected to do more than perform levitical chores in the temple […]
April 20, 2024
The Graduate Student in English
Though many of them are utterly unaware of the conflict which Mr. Tate has helped to bring into focus, the graduate students of English are as concerned with it as […]
April 20, 2024
If We Care Enough
The good thing about English teaching in America these last thirty years is a kind of mellow reasonableness and balance. Gushing over masterpieces has not been much indulged; the wizard […]
April 20, 2024
Scholars as Critics
The basic function of the literary scholar was clearly indicated by Dr. Johnson when he remarked that “all works which describe manners require notes in sixty or seventy years” if […]
April 19, 2024
Literary History vs. Criticism
The modern English department is notoriously easy to attack; and it is most obviously exposed to attack by the stupid, or trifling, or plainly muddle-headed books, articles, dissertations, and theses […]
April 19, 2024
Karl May: Hitler’s Literary Mentor
The Wild West is still wild and wonderful and very far away—for the boys in Leipzig, Breslau and Hanover. The names of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Rio Grande, Sierra-de-los-Organos, Rianca […]
March 13, 2024
Two Breaths
You would not believe in the existence of a manta ray until you’ve seen one. She’s nearly a creature of mythology, with underwater arms that can span twentyish feet from […]
March 13, 2024
The Scarlet Macaw: A Note
The Kenyon Review · Two Poems and a Note by Sandra Meek To see a scarlet macaw in flight, long tail feathers fanned out, streamlined scarlet body brilliantly set off […]
March 13, 2024
The Virgin and the Pelican: A Lyric
Early evenings in that season—a season that felt like one long evening with different variations on the moon—I walked through back alleys to a church that kept its labyrinth well […]
March 2, 2024
Music Chronicle: The Alceste
Touching, through its tragic pathos attained by chaste means, pure and shapely as an antique statue, Alceste by Gluck received its first New York performance the evening of January 24th. […]