“... however, makes good sense with the obsolete meaning of a moral or application ... Vaughan may have been impressed by the sight of a storm at sea under a reddish sky, and moralises thereon. There is no missing referent for ‘he’ and ‘his’: they refer to sea. Marsh’s proposed emendation has been accepted, but it is unnecessary, and Vaughan’s ...”

“... as a precursor, is said to be meaningless except when in opposition to something else, which may be true but is not very defiant. I notice in passing that the wartime New Apocalypse gets a mention, though none of its poets rates an individual entry unless, like Barker and Watkins, they made it elsewhere on their own. Poetry London, the only magazine to ...”

“... every disadvantage, and in the letters one hears only of the disadvantages and desperation. It may be useful to disentangle from within the letters the positive ideas that lie behind the ranting, and that also lie behind the still vivid fiction of this period, sometimes interrupting and often spoiling the longer fiction, but also constituting part of its ...”

“... to not much purpose (‘something very taking about this poetry’), until he bethinks him of what may be called a thermal poetics: ‘seems to me better (than Ted Hughes) – warmer ... ’ Easily placated though he is, Ted Hughes will hardly be pleased to think that grounds for comparison could be found, even from the oblique standpoint of Edinburgh. A more ...”

“... never the slightest suspicion of obscenity or profanity in the dialogue. Here again, no doubt, we may detect the hand of R.C. Sherriff, for Brickhill makes clear that Squadron Leader Guy Gibson was married, and that the men under his command had normal heterosexual interests. One of the neatest touches in the screenplay comes when Gibson and his chief bombing ...”

“... proved a highly instrumental and rational political practice. The Leninist conception of the party may mark a gross caricature of Marx’s political vision and by now a sharp distortion even of Lenin’s own views: but it has certainly furnished an extremely helpful ideological and practical formula in the struggle for state power and an even more attractive ...”

“... in a small town than a large one,’ a would-be mentor assured the author, ‘but please God it may light a fire under you.’ If that didn’t, something else ...”

“... Still, Roud’s is a book worth having, if only to argue with. Its opinions, however wayward, may serve as a time-capsule from the cultural world of the late Seventies in parts of Paris, London and New York. Even scholastic critics, in fact, have some insights to offer. As Richard Roud puts it, ‘the Marxist/materialist point of view, with its awareness ...”

“... of profligate oriental luxury circulating in Western Europe. The palace of the Ibelins in Beirut may have been decorated with mosaic and marble. But such conceits were rare even in the richest cities. In rural areas the land was tilled by the natives, mostly Moslems, with some eastern Christians all on the margins of penury. There was hardly any Latin ...”

“... this point, and has decided to present his opinion in the form of puns, thus: ‘The Havana night may be dark and full of Zorro’s but Joyce cometh in the morning.’ Or: ‘Despite the myriad influences, Cabrera Infante certainly paddles his own Queneau.’ Also necessary is a list of Subjects Impossible to Discuss in this Notice for Reasons of Space. These ...”

“... presumably, and therefore incomers, are referred to as ‘aboriginal’ settlers, but that may be just part of the general inexactitude in the use of words. Connoisseurs of phoney history will find a rich selection of different types here. There are some statements well-known to be false, such as the assertion that the Scots at the time of Bannockburn ...”

“... of a noble mayoralty, or the coming of age of a scion of the family, any genuine feeling that may have existed? Nor is the periodisation of the popular image of the urban aristocrat offered here altogether convincing, if indeed a periodisation that would hold good for all or most towns ever existed. But the discussion of the role of the large ...”

“... who, as Boime points out, had many friends in common with Couture. Unconventional the mural may be, but in a sense that is humanitiarian, pious and consoling, as was appropriate for the biggest church in one of the poorest quartiers of Paris. Boime’s conclusion, therefore, that Couture succeeded in finishing this one commission because its negative ...”

“... for substantial sociological theorising. The trivial activities of often evanescent groups may not merit serious analysis, even when exhaustive observation is possible (which is not the case with the NF): with such an insubstantial group, the background of its members and the rivalries among its élite are likely to tell us relatively little of general ...”

“... at least, the best popularisers have themselves been scientists is that, however interested they may be in politics or history or philosophy, their first love is science itself. Stephen Gould is deeply aware of the social setting in which scientists work, but he does really care about the science they do. Like me, he fell in love with dinosaurs when he was a ...”