Book Reviews

What is a poem? That is the question Gabriel Macedo (University of Liège in Belgium) tackles at the outset of this book. While the ancient Romans left us few theoretical definitions, the one that seems […]

In this book on the futility of longing for the dead, Professor Emily Austin of the University of Chicago explores the reaction of Achilles to the loss of his compatriot Patroclus. The text is, of […]

Proving that poetry is the path to eternity, we have here a large book on Simonides. While most of the leaders and military generals of that long ago time when he lived (born in 556 […]

The built environment is something we often take for granted. For example, if you were born in London anytime in the last century, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace would be seemingly timeless landmarks. […]

This book could have been subtitled The Many Faces of Diderot. Like the 1957 film Man of a Thousand Faces, even the world expert on Diderot, who authored this, can’t fully explain him. As editor […]

In lively prose that transforms an otherwise dull subject into an exciting adventure story, Dr Bruce Hunt of the University of Texas in Austin has written a book on how undersea cables were developed in […]

There are several landmarks in the study of British/English literature. The latest of these is a 3-volume set published by Cambridge University Press. Covering the period 1557-1714 in an expansive 1,165 pages, a host of […]

The title of this book is very provocative; one must read the subtitle to realise it is actually about America’s great poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). More than just a biography, it relates how Poe […]

To quote playwright Alan Bennett: “If not quite a platform, a play is certainly a plinth, a small eminence from which to address the world, hold forth about one’s concerns or the concerns of one’s […]

I do not think Harold Bloom believed in immortality, only long life (he died at age 89 in 2019).  What he called poetic immortality was merely extreme longevity, for even Shakespeare will lose literary relevance […]