Overall, a vital contribution to modern poetics.
A rich smattering of essays on American poets from one of this country’s most important critics.
Topics in this latest collection by Bromwich (Disowned by Memory, 1998, etc.) range from studied close readings of great and lesser-known works by Stevens, Moore, Ashbery, and other well-known figures to provocative discussions of the aesthetics of modern poetry and the morality of taste. The essays themselves date from the mid-1970s to the present, and it’s interesting to chart the author’s critical tack across that period—especially as he self-consciously checks his maleness at the door when interpreting the work of Bishop and Moore in 1990. Bromwich is a master of drawing lines between artists (seen here most clearly in his essay on Crane and Eliot) and amplifying poetic resonances: of seminal interest to Stevens scholars is his exploration of the shift in Stevens’s pragmatism from Nietzsche to William James. For students of modernism, the author’s smart claim that the most compelling aspect of modernist aesthetics arises from what he terms a “rhetoric of understatement” should open countless doors for further poetic inquiry. But of most general appeal in this eclectic mix of refined literary thought are the author’s notions of the function of the critic. In various spots, he argues that a good critic “need never do more than point,” and point Bromwich does, with remarkable precision and lucidity. His sentences are lithe and supple, although one wishes he’d occasionally remove his gloves and let the passion driving his scholarship through; even the recounting of an incident involving his son (an experience that in part fuels the charged question of how moral is taste) is handled with uncanny reserve. It seems that Bromwich’s prose at times succumbs to the lure of understatement he so rightly identifies in his subjects.
Overall, a vital contribution to modern poetics.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-226-07560-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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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