Walt Whitman Isn’t America’s Greatest Poet
Why Walt Whitman was more the father of empty celebrity than of the Democratic spirit.
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My Possessions
‘Like sterile seeds cast among weeds: cheese boards and socks, earrings and clocks... ’
Land and Demagogy in Africa
An author’s up-close view of how disregarding property rights entrenches misery.
Robert Alter’s Monumental Translation of the Hebrew Bible
Sarah Ruden reviews The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, by Robert Alter.
Unreal Fictions
The difference between the old and the new fiction is astonishing.
Voice of Anger
In his latest of many books, the expatriate Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o tells of an episode from the colonial era in which he grew up.
Poetry
A PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY
Flowers and weeds together spill,
Careless and drizzly, down the hill
In a long back garden that’s anywhere
Outside London. I am living there
Beside the window, no longer ...
A Composer in the Shadow of the Commissars
Are American minds, however impressed by Russian artistry, unable to penetrate Russian reasoning and suffering?
A New Christian
Just a few things are widely known about Augustine of Hippo (354–430 a.d.), whose designations are as lofty and sweeping as saint, doctor (= “teacher”) of the Church, and the ...