How the canon of literature (or art) is established, how it continues, and what critics do with it: a trio of remarkably cogent and stylish essays (originally the Wellek Library Lectures at the U. of California, Irvine). Kermode begins with a look at the 19th century's rediscovery of Botticelli, "in which, roughly speaking, one sees learning come belatedly to the maintenance of values established by ignorance." "Learning" refers to the work of two very different scholars, Herbert Home and Aby Warburg. "Ignorance" was the amateurish enthusiasm of people like Swinburne, Burne-Jones, and most notably Pater, who rhapsodized over Botticelli for silly reasons (The Birth of Venus reminded Pater of Ingres) or confused him with other painters. Thus not scholarship but chance or unenlightened opinion brought Botticelli into the canon. In his second piece, Kermode does a virtuoso survey of doubling in Hamlet through character (Hamlet-Laertes, Rosencrantz-Guildenstern, Cornelius-Voltemand), action (plays within the play), and diction (constant use of puns, echoes, hendiadys, etc.). The point of this catalogue is that it never occurred to and would probably have seemed trivial to earlier commentators, which only shows how canonical works live by giving rise to an endless and constantly changing "conversation." In the final essay, Kermode concludes that Dr. Johnson's ideal of forming a canon by distinguishing between what "is established because it is right" from what "is right only because it is established" is a forlorn hope, that we can never transcend our own historical standpoint (as Home and Warburg thought they could). Interpretation, as Paul de Man said, is only the possibility of error, and all interpretations are useful if they foster "certain necessary forms of attention." Effortlessly learned, brilliantly allusive, a model of critical self-reflection.
Pub Date: May 1, 1985
ISBN: 0226431754
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1985
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
