Do the Phaedrus and the Symposium leave anything to be said on the relationship of love and poetry? In the last analysis, probably not. The poet, however, is not one to keep silence because of a dearth of new philosophical conceptions. As he discovers, with ever fresh wonder, the power of love as muse, each […]
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Top 50 Raw Data
We thought we’d let you see the second part of our Top 50 List Creation. This is basically the raw data which is not all that easy to come by. We will also add the DOB and the circulation and some other factors and then we’ll have our new list. Hope you enjoy. Name B […]
American Literature in Exile by William Dean Howells
A recently lecturing Englishman is reported to have noted the unenviable primacy of the United States among countries where the struggle for material prosperity has been disastrous to the pursuit of literature. He said, or is said to have said (one cannot be too careful in attributing to a public man the thoughts that may […]
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Elliot
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Elliot Silly Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them—the frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of all these—a composite order of feminine fatuity—that produces the largest class […]
The Artist and his Audience by A. Clutton-Brock
The Artist and his Audience by A. Clutton-Brock According to Whistler art is not a social activity at all; according to Tolstoy it is nothing else. But art is clearly a social activity and something more; yet no one has yet reconciled the truth in Whistler’s doctrine with the truth in Tolstoy’s. Each leaves out […]
Michael Angelo’s Sonnets by John Jay Chapman
Michael Angelo is revealed by his sonnets. He wears the triple crown of painter, poet, and sculptor, and his genius was worshipped with a kind of awe even while he lived, yet we know the man best through these little pieces of himself which he broke off and gave to his friends. The fragments vibrated […]
The New Poets by Arthur Benson
There’s a dark window in a gable which looks out over my narrow slip of garden, where the almond-trees grow, and to-day the dark window, with its black casement lines, had become suddenly a Japanese panel. The almond was in bloom, with its delicious, pink, geometrical flowers, not a flower which wins one’s love, somehow; […]
Best Literary Magazines of 2010 (Part 1)
We are taking a look at the Literary Magazine that did the best in 2010. We looked at a lot of factors, and really a few indicators stood out. We have mapped 3 anthologies inclusions of literary magazine over the last year. The three anthologies we picked to give us the best idea are all […]
On Smoking by Mark Twain
As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is this—that there is a STANDARD governing the matter, whereas there is nothing of the kind. Each man’s own preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him. A congress of all the […]
Creating a Good Title for Your Short Story By Charles Raymond Barrett
Creating a Good Title for Your Short Story By Charles Raymond Barrett Too often the novice considers the title of his story a matter of no import. He looks upon it as a mere handle, the result of some happy afterthought, affixed to the completed story for convenience or reference, just as numbers are placed […]
Americanism by H. P. Lovecraft
Laureate It is easy to sentimentalise on the subject of “the American spirit”—what it is, may be, or should be. Exponents of various novel political and social theories are particularly given to this practice, nearly always concluding that “true Americanism” is nothing more or less than a national application of their respective individual doctrines. Slightly […]
On Publishing his “Dictionary” by Samuel Johnson
It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, […]
The Education of the Human Race by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
That which Education is to the Individual, Revelation is to the Race. 2 Education is Revelation coming to the Individual Man; and Revelation is Education which has come, and is yet coming, to the Human Race. 3 Whether it can be of any advantage to the science of instruction to contemplate Education in this point […]
To The Dead Robert Burns by Andrew Lang
Sir, —Among men of Genius, and especially among Poets, there are some to whom we turn with a peculiar and unfeigned affection; there are others whom we admire rather than love. By some we are won with our will, by others conquered against our desire. It has been your peculiar fortune to capture the hearts […]
Dickens as a Man of Letter by Alice Meynell
Dickens as a Man of Letter by Alice Meynell It was said for many years, until the reversal that now befalls the sayings of many years had happened to this also, that Thackeray was the unkind satirist and Dickens the kind humourist. The truth seems to be that Dickens imagined more evil people than did […]