Robert Graves recently followed Auden into the Poetry Chair at Oxford, and now we on our side of the Atlantic can be grateful too- for his University lectures, collected here, are delightful reading with a classic felicity. Mr. Graves' prose, though far more involuted than his verse, in elegant and engaging. Nothing that the supreme gift is humor, the ability to grasp the identity of opposites, he then comments on gold medals, American cultural pomposities and Spanish manners. Before that- in a devastating (if you don't like him) malicious (if you do) essay he dethrones Virgil, calling him an Apollonian antipoet, one who never invented where he could borrow, a pederast and a politicker. He throws garlands to John Skelton, exemplar of the dedicated poet, inveighs against "the foul tide basin of mlernism", having never liked Eliot or Pound (his real superiors, incidentally), denounces the emotional tranees of pseudo-poets, reflects upon Wyatt, Donne and English love, salutes the Arabic word Baraka meaning blessedness, and praises the intuitive certitude of the Mse who, not the God of Reason, has inspired the world's great art.. While Mr. Graves is personal in his views and sometimes arguable in his opinions, the eclectic reader will be interested and stimulated.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0855949724
Page Count: 129
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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