An annotated edition of Eliot's previously unpublished lectures formulating the influential theory of metaphysical poetry and the ``dissociation of sensibility'' with which he is associated. The volume consists of the eight Clark lectures delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1926, and the three Turnbull lectures delivered at Johns Hopkins, 1933. Before an audience of Victorian gentleman scholars and young rebels such as William Empson and I.A. Richards, Eliot offered a reading of European poetry that located its value in the yoking of thought, feeling, and object, a view of human experience uniting the spiritual, intellectual, and sensual. His claim: Such unity occurred at only three points in Western culture—in the 13th century with Dante; in the 17th with Donne, Crashaw, and Cowley primarily; and in the 19th with Laforgue. These rare ``metaphysical moments'' were lost in the subsequent secular ages, which saw the diversification of knowledge, the ``disintegration of the intellect'' (the proposed title of his critical trilogy), and the decline of religious faith. In place of the clarity, authority, and objectivity that Eliot valued, poets expressed (and critics admired) ambiguity, individualism, and subjectivity. In his copious and detailed footnotes, Schuchard (English/Emory Univ.) identifies Eliot's encyclopedic allusions, corrects what has been called his ``creative misquotations,'' translates his many foreign citations, and explains the subtleties of his argument. His introductions, lucid and ranging, place Eliot in the context of the critical debates of the '20s and provide enough biographical information to humanize the otherwise priestly lecturer. One especially charming scene: Eliot in Baltimore walking into the sunset with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although Eliot's taste seems precious, obscure, and forbidding in some ways, the lectures are timely and relevant. The theories that helped initiate modernism have curious analogues in postmodern criticism, especially deconstruction, and require only a mind as capacious as Eliot's to elucidate them.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100096-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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