Historical Determinism Is A Recipe For Political

Literature Transforms And Intensifies Ordinary Language, Deviates Systematically From Everyday Speech. If You Approach Me At A Bus Stop And Murmur Thou Still Unravished Bride Of Quietness, Then I Am Instantly Aware That I Am In The Presence Of The Literary.

Post-structuralism Is Among Other Things A Kind Of Theoretical Hangover From The Failed Uprising Of ‘68, A Way Of Keeping The Revolution Warm At The Level Of Language, Blending The Euphoric Libertarianism Of That Moment With The Stoical Melancholia Of Its Aftermath.

Most Poetry In The Modern Age Has Retreated To The Private Sphere, Turning Its Back On The Political Realm.

A Truly Common Culture Is Not One In Which We All Think Alike, Or In Which We All Believe That Fairness Is Next To Godliness, But One In Which Everyone Is Allowed To Be In On The Project Of Cooperatively Shaping A Common Way Of Life.

Most Students Of Literature Can Pick Apart A Metaphor Or Spot An Ethnic Stereotype, But Not Many Of Them Can Say Things Like: 'the Poem's Sardonic Tone Is Curiously At Odds With Its Plodding Syntax.