Resurrecting John Keats
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph By Lucasta Miller. Knopf, 2022. Hardcover, 368 pages, $32.50. Reviewed by Paul Krause. John Keats wrote to his brother on October 14, 1818, “I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.” Those prophetic...
The Traditions That Gave Us Homer
Hearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry By Robert Kanigel. Knopf, 2021. Hardcover, 336 pages, $28.95. Reviewed by J. L. Wall. It can be difficult to escape the image of Homer as blind bard and near-inventor of human literature. Just glance at...
All That’s Left is This Foundation Stone
The Commonwealth: Poems By Dan Rattelle. Little Gidding Press, 2022. Paperback, 34 pages, $9.99. Reviewed by Joshua Hren. Wordsworth’s complaint in the Lyrical Ballads Preface (1800) might well have been written last Tuesday at 2:00 a.m. (lost already among too many...
Found in Translation: Capturing the Sublime with Ryan Wilson
Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-2020 By Ryan Wilson. Franciscan University Press, 2021. Paper, 224 pages, $15.00. Reviewed by Patrick Callahan. Ryan Wilson’s new collection of verse translations, Proteus Bound, dazzles when you try to grasp it. The whole...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.