The Privilege of Absurdity
Should we take literature seriously? I mean without laughing. I remember teachers who made me laugh, and not much…
A Visionary Infection: Georg Trakl’s Dream and Derangement
I To understand the Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914) it is helpful to illuminate what, for want of a…
Iraqi Treasures: Theft from Humanity
The plunder of Iraq’s museums and archaeological sites following the 2003 invasion has caused an irreparable loss to human civilisation
What Shall We Do with a Broken Soldier?
I saw the oddest of things at a dinner on Remembrance Day. The Newark Patriotic Fund held an evening…
‘And Now I Live, and Now my Life is Done’: The Literature of the Tower of London
The words ‘Tower of London’ summon up inescapably dark images. These ancient eighteen acres carved from London’s heart, capped…
Notes from Manchuria
Notes from Manchuria, 2011 is a diary that I kept during a fortnight’s tour of the Dongbei or north-east…
Partners in Devotion: Canada’s Group of Seven
On the morning of 8 July 1917 the Canadian painter Tom Thomson set out in a distinctive birch-bark canoe…
Too much of a Bad Thing
So many tears have been shed for sugar that by rights it ought to have lost its sweetness. –…
Confessing to a Murder: The Crisis of Faith and Identity in the Nineteenth Century
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers,…
‘The Barometer Readings of my Soul’: The Autobiographical Writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I have conceived of a new genre of service to render to man; this is to offer them the…
In the Shadow of Lorca
Some of the most important Arab poets in the twentieth century have paid homage to and evoked the memory…
The Arab Poet Laureate: An Appreciation of Adonis
Few can deny that the Syrian poet Adonis is a towering figure among contemporary Arab poets and that his…
The Thin End of a Hamburger-Shaped Wedge
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this…
Strange Incidents in Libya
Of all terrains in which I have operated the desert is the most mysterious. The vast empty distances seem…
W. B. Yeats and Sailing to Byzantium
Sailing to Byzantium did not come easily to Yeats. Notoriously fastidious and perfectionist in the practice of his art,…
Poet vs. Preacher: Milton’s Dichotomy in Paradise Lost
It was of course William Blake who famously said of Milton’s Paradise Lost, ‘The reason Milton wrote in fetters…
The Convivial Pepys
Based on an address given at the Pepys Commemoration service at St. Olave’s on 25 May 2011 On 26…
Rioting: A Very British Business
I do not know why anybody was surprised by the riots of August 2011. You had to be deaf,…
Literary Graves: The Sense of an Ending
The way to Avernus is easy; Night and day lie open the gates of death’s dark kingdom: But to…
The Predicament of the Press
Just two years ago journalists on my former newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, were feted for the extraordinary series of…
Faith, Science and Nature: Owen Jones’s Quest for a New Ornamental Idiom
Hal Swindall October / November 2011 Faith, Science and Nature: Owen Jones’s Quest for a New Ornamental Idiom . Few…
The Renaissance as the Birth of the Multifarious Self
Who would not admire this chameleon? – Pico della Mirandola My conscience is captive to the Word of God…
Our Barmy Bread
The appeal of exotic cuisines and esoteric diets has done little to diminish bread’s status as the primary foodstuff of the Western world.
The Contentions of Friendship: William Hayley, William Blake and the Writing of ‘Jerusalem’
Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache Pray be my enemy for friendship’s sake. In the literature…
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