“... was emphatic and unmistakable in Proust’s text, and had much to do with the cycles of reflective self-contempt and self-analysis that characterise his extended deliberations. But Rose’s Albertine, watching a pair of flamboyant Jewish sisters parading in a hotel ballroom, approves of their openly sexual display. She even ...”

“... to be very intelligent,’ Eliot intoned) were shown to have roots in complex and deliberately self-concealing theories – not only of literature, but of history and economics too. Irreverently probed by Eagleton and others, even the academic subject called ‘English’ began to own up to its stake in the political programme it had been invented to ...”

“... implausible – it isn’t surprising that he should want to hit the child, but would he lack the self-control and intelligence to restrain himself, especially since he knows he’s been set up? He has, after all, faced more formidable enemies. Questioned by the headmaster, Frankie supports Tony, claiming that the teacher hit him for no reason ...”

“... drums are not about to fly (as the line break initially suggests) into some sublime paradise of self-expression, but are threatening to lose the beat, which would strand the soloist in musical outer space. Somehow this doesn’t happen, but the energy of the music – and of much of Kleinzahler’s poetry – derives from a calculated flirtation with ...”

“... that genre persisted – is itself noteworthy, for it confirms that a modern sensibility of the self as something created through a combination of choice and circumstance was becoming part of their culture. There are too few of these stories for them to carry conviction as evidence, however. Appleby’s book, nearly as much as Butler’s, is a ...”

“... dangerous, it’s just as well we went to war. The thinking becomes circular and the prophecies self-fulfilling. Israelis are fond of saying: ‘The Middle East is a jungle, where only might speaks.’ See Qana, and Gaza, or Beirut. Defenders of Israel and its leaders can always argue that the US and Britain behave similarly in Iraq. (It is true that Olmert ...”

“... off to prison, having failed to dispose of an incriminating Porsche. Saunders likes parodying self-help routines and motivational speeches. He’s particularly obsessed with injecting bland menace into the word ‘super’, as in ‘“Super!” said Tom Rodgers’ or ‘Loyalty – it’s super!’ or ‘Robust Economy, Super Moral Climate!’ ‘Tonight ...”

“... are still in Mamarrosa, but the register and cast of the narrative have subtly shifted. Stanton, a self-absorbed expatriate English writer, hopelessly sidetracked by self-doubt and drink, has come to the village to write a novel about William Blake: ‘He read over the last few pages on the screen, making deletions and ...”

“... novel: it relies on an episodic structure to suggest that Lou is driven compulsively to repeat self-destructive actions without ever learning anything from them, and so risks treading the same ground more than once. But it sets out Hyland’s real skill, which is to create in her readers almost physically painful cringes of embarrassment and ...”

“... of his achievements by his son and the Duke of Buckingham. Stewart reads it as ‘a rare hint of self-knowledge’ in which the King recognised that he remained ‘an infant, an innocent for whom the harsh realities of kingship are still unimaginable’. Stewart makes the interesting observation that ‘James was strangely aloof from many of the phenomena ...”

“... private to public could be used to illustrate a point Spacks borrows from Habermas (‘individual self-contemplation prepared the way for the assumption of power’), though in the 17th century the public-private antithesis would have been expressed in terms of action and contemplation. As to the word’s second use, Milton, having described ...”

“... and the ‘baroque’. The first, which stresses prudence, thrift, individual morality and self-reliance, was typical of commercial and financial oligarchies from 17th-century London to 20th-century New York. The second emphasises the pastoral role of the state and its duty to create social harmony and exalt hierarchy through ‘a well-ordered public ...”

“... the oral judgment at base still represents the process of thinking aloud. A judgment which is not self-explanatory, like the arrêts of the French courts, is not a lot of help to others. It simply compels researchers to seek out the materials that went into it. But a judgment which goes round the houses is not a lot of help either. Keeping it short is a ...”

“... harpies. ‘The Death of the Lion’ is narrated in the first person by Paraday’s nameless, self-appointed protector, a journalist sent to poke around in his domestic life. He fails to produce the ‘personal’ (‘that dreadful word!’) exposé he has been commissioned to write. Instead, he falls under his subject’s spell and composes a ...”

“... just taken up that loneliest of occupations, doctoral research in the humanities: three years of self-exile in libraries and archives, hard-up and haunted by doubt. My girlfriend had gone to study in Russia, and I’d never felt more isolated or adrift. Every morning I’d cycle to my college and sit in the ancient library, situated above the ...”