Description
Book SynopsisA selection of new and revised essays from eminent scholar and critic Professor Christopher Ricks.
Trade Review[Rick's] magisterially assured account of the heroic, in the English heoic line (or the iambic pentameter) and in the heroic writer, amounts to an affirmation of the supreme body of writers and readers, spanning the centuries with the ebb and flow of their subtly modulated exchanges. ... it is richly absorbing * Dinah Birch, Times Literary Supplement *
The depth and delicacy of Ricks's critical tracery -- he both traces allusions and weaves them together -- are enough to make one feel stupid for not having seen it all before. * Colin Burrow, London Review of Books *
Ricks corrects easy critical assumptions in ways that would entertain any literature lover [... ] Ricks' close readings go beyond mere opinion: he is showing you exactly what the poet was up to. * John Mullan, Prospect *
Ricks, our greatest living critic, restores a world to coherence that seemed to be dissolving into the Twittersphere * Lee Oser, Literary Matters *
Full of verbal fireworks, witty quick-changing tones, highly stimulating to say the least. * William H. Pritchard, Hudson Review *
Table of ContentsPrefatory Note 1: The Best Words in the Best Order 2: The Anagram 3: Dryden's Heroic Triplets 4: T.S. Eliot and 'Wrong'd Othello' 5: Congratulations 6: The Novelist as Critic 7: Henry James and the Hero of the Story 8: John Jay Chapman and a Vocation for Heroism 9: T.S. Eliot, Byron, and Learning Actors 10: Geoffrey Hill's Grievous Heroes 11: Norman Mailer, Just Off the Rhythm 12: Ion Bugan on the Iron Curtain 13: Heroic Work by Samuel Johnson and Samuel Beckett
