Ricks is one of the last of a dying breed: those who write about
literature with awesome intelligence and perception, but without
ever seeking the privileged territory of jargon and obscurity. Here
he brings together essays on Donne, Austen, Victorian biography,
fact and fiction, theory and principle, making every subject
vibrate with the intensity of his enquiry. But most of all Ricks
reminds us that books are about life and living. Commenting on one
critic's remark that a poem exhibits 'the familiar Donne fantasy
that love hurts or kills,' he remarks 'as if that were a fantasy -
has this man never noticed that love does hurt and kill?' Review by
Tim Parks, whose books include 'Destiny' (Kirkus UK)
The successor to the highly-praised collection of Christopher
Rickss The Force of Poetry, this collection of critical essays
still attends to poets and poetry: to John Donnes farewells to
love, George Crabbes constraints, Hardys readings of history, and
Robert Lowell as translator of Racine. But other literary worlds
are also appreciated in Essays in Appreciation. Drama: Marlowes
Doctor Faustus and the plague. History: the Earl of Clarendon and
composition. The novel: Jane Austen and mothering. Victorian lives:
E. C. Gaskells Charlotte Bronte, Froudes Carlyle, Hallam Tennysons
Tennyson, and George Eliot and her age. Philosophy: J. L. Austin
and his art of allusion. Finally, critical questions: literature
and the matter of fact, and literary principles against theory;
plus two notes on current critical issuesone on talk of the canon,
and the other on Empson and political criticism. literary criticism
of an intellectual zestfulness which makes everyone else in the
field look half asleep The Spectator Ricks's grasp of literary
detail is unequalled he has a microscopic eye for distinguishment
of shades of meaning, with their bearings on emotional definition
Anyone who has a feeling for literature will enjoy Essays in
Appreciation. If you have none, here are good reasons to cultivate
it. Times Literary Supplement
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