With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent? Part IV: The Sadia Shepard Incident
his is the final part of a 4-Part series of essays by the author, entitled “With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent?” Part Three can be found here. The New Yorker was founded in 1925 as a humour magazine with an arch, self-consciously sophisticated, cosmopolitan tone. It soon evolved into
With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent? Part III: The Spirit of the Age
This is the third part of a 4-Part series of essays by the author, entitled “With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent?” Part Two can be found here. Ben Lerner is arguably the most distinguished young writer in America, equally well-known as a poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His oeuvre
With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent? Part II: English as a Dead Language
This is the second part of a 4-Part series of essays by the author, entitled “With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent?” Part One can be found here. It would be fair to characterise poetry as dead, at least in English-speaking countries. Right now it might be easier to meet
With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent? Part I: A Cautionary Tale for Writers
This is the first part of a 4-Part series of essays by the author, entitled “With Stories Like These, Who Needs Talent?” Contemporary American literature has been transformed into a university-based activity which is increasingly alien to the needs, desires, or tastes of readers and audiences not directly involved in
Bald Men Fighting Over a Comb: Arguments About the Classical Tradition
Part II: A review of The Lesbian Lyre: Reclaiming Sappho for the 21st Century by Jeffrey Duban. Clairview Books (30th June 2016). The classical tradition in literature is essentially dead. The English poet Alice Oswald may be the only prominent contemporary writer who has read deeply in Latin and Greek
Bald Men Fighting Over a Comb: Arguments About the Classical Tradition
Part I: A review of Classics, The Culture Wars and Beyond by Eric Adler. University of Michigan Press (1st November 2016). Classics, the study of Greek and Latin literature, involves philosophical and historical texts as well as literary works. Classicists may also be interested in the systematic study of language
