A collection of 59 posts
Today, most of John Braine’s work is out of print and forgotten. But he was an underrated writer, unafraid to confront the complexities of masculine sexuality with terse precision, self-deprecation, and emotional candour.
Attending to Shakespeare on his own terms may allow us to reclaim the erotic warmth that is latent in our human condition.
1900–1950 was a golden age of literary eccentricity.
In his latest novel, Tom Piazza imagines the finest meeting of American minds never to have happened.
Philosophies of human cruelty, from Sade to October 7th.
Human beings need meaning, and a life in which all one’s needs were met by external agents would fail to provide it.
An Interview with Saul Bellow’s biographer Zachary Leader.
The Western canon was not an unchanging set of texts, but an ongoing conversation that lasted thousands of years—enabling each generation to build on the intellectual heritage of the past.
Few writers in our time were more committed to the novel or had more idealism about the heights the form could scale.
More than six centuries after The Canterbury Tales first appeared, the Wife of Bath still has lessons to teach about love, sex, marriage, and—yes—feminism
We live in a transitional period, when the possibility of being duped by incomprehensible intelligences—and thereby duping ourselves—has grown exponentially.
Most professors would rather watch it die than reform.
Routinely reviled by contemporary critics as a celebration of misogyny, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is among Shakespeare’s most misunderstood plays.
On art, artists, and the divided soul of comedian Russell Kane.
It is time to consider retiring awards segregated by the sex of the author.