“... in any traditional sense. By ‘personal’ I mean that it is autobiographical, self-critical and self-indulgent. 4. The most important movements in contemporary criticism are feminism, Marxism and post-structuralism. By ‘post-structuralism’ I do not mean simply deconstruction, But a diverse and highly ...”

“... The celebratory shenanigans – the conferences, public lectures, biographies and privy pieces of self-promotion that in our wicked age accompany all major anniversaries – are over. But one key question remains unanswered. How is it possible to like Milton? There is certainly a great deal to dislike. Most people would think of him as an overlearned poet who ...”

“... in Paris in 1924, at the age of 19. He had already been bowled over by Hume’s argument that the self is an illusion, and he was fascinated by Nietzsche, describing him rather enviously as ‘a poet who had the bad luck to be mistaken for a philosopher’. He also took an interest in Karl Jaspers, contributing to a translation of a recent treatise on ...”

“... at its most respectable. The Antaeus piece is the jazzier and more anecdotal, though the level of self-exposure is modest (Davenport owns up to living by preference on fried baloney, Campbell’s soup and Snickers bars). The title is ‘The Anthropology of Table Manners from Geophagy Onward’, ‘geophagy’ being the eating of clay, something that Davenport ...”

“... officers were questioning five other men at the flat. Eight of the suicides have been cases of self-immolation. Israfil Shiri, a destitute Iranian asylum seeker, for example, set himself alight in the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester. These vivid cases account for only a fraction of the deaths Athwal lists. Here is a passage taken at random from the ...”

“... Miller was, in fact, like so many in those years, a sort-of-Marxist committed primarily to self-discovery and the ousting of Fascism, and the plays, where they are at their best, survive as artworks more for the self-discovery than the anti-Fascism. Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge and After ...”

“... insignificant bombing of Montmartre. But it’s in Normance that Céline first hits on this self-image: ‘I’m just a chronicler, that’s all! … all I have is a little talent for chronicling … it’s nothing but a mishmash? fine! but since it’s direct experience, what counts most is the chronicler’s integrity!’ And yet it isn’t clear what ...”

“... and reality, its mixture of rebelliousness and awe at authority, its blending of submission and self-assertion. Like the Brontës, children can be passionate and impulsive, but they also crave a certain discipline and appreciate the need for order. If they can be anarchic, they can also be brutally authoritarian. They like to know who is in charge, even if ...”

“... clanging vulgarity, corny clichés, cutenesses’, and poured scorn on ‘the intolerable self-indulgence of his tear-jerking, bourgeois sentimentality’. On the other hand, in recent years Jarrell’s concern for the helpless or voiceless or overlooked has elicited from critics such as Stephen Burt and Langdon Hammer and James Longenbach favourable ...”

“... interchangeable they share an underlying resignation, as if the low expectations and rueful self-knowledge of late middle age had permeated the psyche of a whole group, whether asleep, awake or on the borderline (‘dreamlike waking experiences’ are counted here as dreams). There are also various ‘stories’ and one ‘rant’ drawn from ...”

“... to itself, he insisted, must produce the best of all possible worlds, since a capitalist pursuing self-interest makes life better for everyone. ‘The study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to society.’ He is ‘led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part ...”

“... be a myriad modes of euphoria on display, while glumness would be unmasked as brittle, modish and self-indulgent. The only problem is that no publisher would touch it. Another Hegelian aesthetic which most modernism ditched was the kind of art in which personal relationships reflect deeper social forces. As the public sphere came to seem icily remote from ...”

“... to be doing in the portrait; and that in posing before the painter he or she was projecting the self-representation [he or she wanted to aim] at future observers. This is how a sitter staged herself (says a portrait, according to Berger), and then how she responded, easily or uneasily, to the sight of what the painter had begun to do with the staging. And ...”