October 1, 1948
The Resurrected Romans
“We suffer not only from the living but from the dead. Le mort saisit le vif!” —Marx, Preface to Capital. In the past history had been at the mercy of poetry, […]
July 1, 1948
The “Portrait” in Perspective
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer. —T. S. Eliot. Faites votre destin, âmes […]
July 1, 1948
Francois Mauriac: Catholic and Novelist
Margaret of Cortona, a 13th Century Franciscan saint, had been a great sinner and was the mother of a son. When, after her lover’s murder, she became converted and entered […]
July 1, 1948
The Meaning of Robert Penn Warren’s Novels
If an author makes a deep impression there comes a time when you are no longer content merely to read his books as they come out. You want to re-read […]
July 1, 1948
The Literary Criticism of Aristotle¹ (Reconsiderations, No. 10)
If there were a subtitle, I should like it as follows: The literary criticism of a man of letters who had become a pedagogue, and of an idealist who had […]
July 1, 1948
A Letter to a Frenchman
Dear B.: You have summed up accurately the feeling expressed in my letter from Paris: that France in the autumn and early winter of 1947 was still very beautiful, but […]
July 1, 1948
Movie Letter: Film Form and Ritual As Reality-Principle
The subconscious ingenuity of commercial film-makers is a theme to which the present writer has devoted many thousands of words. As we know very well, the conditions of the commercial […]
July 1, 1948
Aesthetic of Revolution: The Marxist Melodrama
The world of Dickens, we agree, is constructed upon a dualism of values that, aesthetically, are the values of melodrama: the good people and the bad, the proud and the […]
April 1, 1948
Yeats as a Playwright
It cannot be said that Yeats has much of a reputation as a playwright. Literary critics speak of his plays at best as something that helped him to write poems. […]
April 1, 1948
Beyond Personal Frustration: The Poetry of Bertolt Brecht¹
Poetry has played a lesser role in modern German literature than prose. Bertolt Brecht, beyond a doubt the greatest living German poet and possibly the greatest living European playwright, is […]
April 1, 1948
Yeats as an Example
One drawback, and not the least, of practising any art is that it becomes very difficult to enjoy the works of one’s fellow artists, living or dead, simply for their […]
April 1, 1948
The Psychological Novel¹
My title sounds in these days like a cliché and in all days it is, I think, a tautology; a cliché because for so long now there has been so […]