writing
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Defending The Western Canon, vol. II (Aesthetic value & Kafka)
As a staunch defender of the Western Canon as it has been characterised by the likes of Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Harold Bloom, George Steiner, Frank Kermode, among many other of our classic, canon-centric critics, I find—as I have done before, see vol. I—that it is necessary to illuminate the notion of “aesthetic merit” as… Continue reading
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From Alvin Feinman’s: Corrupted Into Song (1990)
Alvin Feinman may very well be one of the most underrated, yet powerful, modern poets I have had the pleasure of reading. I found Feinman—not wholly unsurprisingly—through Prof. Harold Bloom, whose The Western Canon, Anxiety of Influence, How to Read Poetry, among many other works, I have read and still reread incessantly. Few critics (and… Continue reading
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Rainer Marie Rilke: Song of the Sea
I have finally taken to reading Rilke’s poetry in German, by no means an easy task, as I am still very much in the infancy of learning the language. Nevertheless, having studied German for long enough to be able to read Kafka and Mann, and being fortunate enough to have a partner whose mother tongue… Continue reading
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Tennyson’s Ulysses seen through Wallace Stevens’s: Prologues To What Is Possible. A perspective on the Tennysonean Ulysses
I have admired and read Wallace Stevens for years (see my appreciation of Stevens here), and just the other night, while re-reading my way through Harold Bloom’s exuberant A Map of Misreading (1975), in which Stevens is a central figure, I took to my Complete Poetry & Prose edition of Stevens (The Library of America… Continue reading
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From Philip Levine’s: The Simple Truth (1994)
Here’s an excerpt from one of my most treasured poets, Philip Levine, and his exuberant ‘The Simple Truth’, written in 1994, for which he won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Like other modern poets such as Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell and James Schuyler, among others, Levine is included in Harold… Continue reading
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From Robert Lowell’s: For Lizzie And Harriet (1973)
If there is a poet with whom I find myself connected, perhaps more so than any other, it is Robert Lowell. While his Pulitzer-winning books of poetry Lord Weary’s Castle (1946) and The Dolphin (1973) are best known among readers (and these are indeed magnificent works), it is, quite consistently, his ‘For Lizzie and Harriet’… Continue reading
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Dissecting Dickinson: From Blank to Blank —
This is the third “Dissecting Dickinson” issue; for the previous two, see The Guest is gold and crimson and My wheel is in the dark!, of which the links have been provided. Poem 761: From Blank to Blank — dated about 1863 — is possibly one of my favourite Dickinson poems, and I share Harold… Continue reading
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A Short Story: The day I went for a walk with Montaigne in a French village
It was around two years ago; I am sorry to confess I don’t remember the exact date (sometime in mid-July), when I, along with my mentor Michel de Montaigne, went for a contemplative walk in a small village some ten kilometres outside Bergerac. The village, which could be said to be more of a hamlet… Continue reading
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In Appreciation of Wallace Stevens’s Poetry
This summer I have spent in a rather mixed topography, from the picturesque, desolate, sunlit, arid deserts to the watery, mountainous, wooded landscape; from Texas to Copenhagen, from Vienna to Sweden — from Austin’s sprawling music scene to Enchanted Rock’s stone-spotted hills; to a red-coloured, two-storey cabin in the midst of the quiet, Swedish woods;… Continue reading
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Read Thoreau’s Walden before it is too late
While the title of this essay may come across as rather dystopic, I feel I can express it with no less urgency nor importance than now, as we are heading into the second quarter of the 21st century: Thoreau’s Walden seems more important than ever. If you are yet to read Walden; this fantastic, beautiful,… Continue reading
The Western Canon 