“... Here, and elsewhere, the Anglophone reader may be reminded of the importance of this theme in English literature, as in Donne’s ‘The Good-Morrow’ (‘My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears’) or Shakespeare’s proto-structuralist joke about infidelity in The Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio, swearing his love to Portia, says, ‘I swear to ...”

“... with Metaphysical poetry a lowness of esteem which now seems puzzling. As the Cyclopaedia of English Literature explained in 1844, Marvel ‘is better known as a prose writer than a poet, and is still more celebrated as a patriotic member of parliament’. Benson rejected those priorities. He saw Marvell’s political involvement as a cause not for pride ...”

“... of Americans and himself a US citizen until his 39th year – being mistaken for the cousin of an English country squire. At times, often with a gleam of self-mockery, he confessed to social snobbery, indeed rather relished it: ‘One does feel a Swell leaving by sleeping car & walking up and down the station platform in a dinner jacket.’ This and other ...”

“... barefoot or otherwise. I then went to see K. B. McFarlane. My special subject in Schools was Richard II so I had been to McFarlane’s lectures on the Lollard Knights; I also had a copy of some notes on his 1953 Ford Lectures that was passed down from year to year in Exeter. I knew of his austere reputation and of his reluctance to publish from David ...”

“... Schurman began her Latin tract on Women’s Aptitude for Knowledge and Higher Learning (or, as the English translation subtitled it ‘Whether a Maid may be a Scholar?’) of 1641 by acknowledging that ‘few are fortunate to have parents who either want or are able to educate them themselves.’ On his deathbed, Van Schurman’s father, her first ...”

“... and Memoirs – had covers easily recognisable as ‘SF art’. The jackets were designed by Richard Powers, whose unmistakable paintings were usually found on Ballantine mass-market paperbacks by Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Clifford Simak and others. Powers’s designs screamed of the ‘paraliterary’, of druggy, trippy, sci-fi – just the boy’s ...”

“... of ‘crimes against taste’. David Lodge made him a twee subject of nostalgic research for the English hero of Small World, Philip Swallow, hopelessly outgunned by the vulgar but irresistible American, Morris Zapp. Lodge had got his significant detail wrong – Swallow should be a scholar of Charles Lamb (the ‘gentle-hearted’) – but the broad ...”

“... Stanford University, I was given the chance to spend a year in the Creative Writing Program in the English Department. I was not at all convinced that creative writing could be taught in the classroom, but I felt I could do with a year’s time to think and write. For two afternoons each week I and about ten of my fellow students would gather for two hours in ...”

“... point here: The term ‘outsider art’ was coined by the art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for ‘art brut’ (‘raw art’ or ‘rough art’), a label created by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates. While ...”

“... such negativity had all but drained away. ‘A new generation of Dadaists has emerged today,’ Richard Hamilton wrote in 1961, ‘but son of Dada is accepted.’ With Jeff Koons, the current maestro of the readymade, whose work is the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney in New York (until 19 October), acceptance has become affirmation, even ...”

“... siuzhet,’ Belknap continues, ‘is more Rabelaisian: the first ten words in the English translation produce an expectation of prating piety. The last two words frustrate that expectation.’ That’s putting it mildly. One could write another short book about the literary effects hiding in the word ‘frustrate’. Belknap puts in a good ...”

“... brought classical education under pressure from science, as well as from subjects such as English literature, which was beginning to construct its own canon and articulate its claims to represent the best of vernacular, national culture. Even at Oxford and Cambridge, the arrival of new notions of discipline and method (often imported from Germany with ...”

“... the seventh magic bullet and literally all Hell breaks loose. The playbill for a production at the English Opera House makes no mention of the music, which must have been inaudible, promising instead a ‘Storm and Hurricane’ during which ‘the Daemon of the Hartz Mountains appears, the Rattle of Wheels and the Tramp of Horses are Heard.’ The mounting ...”

“... to wobble somewhat as to the chops.)’ To this and other tips and observations the long-suffering Richard Ryder replied, poker-penned: ‘The contents of your correspondence have been carefully noted,’ and – doubts obviously stirring – returned Henry’s usual enclosure of £1 ‘with best wishes as always’. The Further Letters of Henry Root, in other ...”

“... of Francis Spufford’s engaging new book calls them, meaning above all Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins – believe in spite of all evidence that eventually the religious will see sense. And yet with their magical belief in the truth of science – their taking for granted a consensus about the value of scientific evidence – and their unspoken ...”