The Tone of a Terrible Century

Some criticism, notably an elucidative 3,500 words on his use of Petronius; much platitude, redeemed if not exhilarated by feeling; one most memorable sentence, a Sophoclean cry from his old colleague in Rapallo, “Who is there now for me to share a joke with?”: and anecdotage, Lord, Lord, anecdotage, all of it defining a sweet, aloof, baffling man – a great personality, tough, responsive, wise, even had he not been so eminent a man of letters, and, at his moment in history, so decisive a poet.

But of course the great personality was the great poet, the two for the first time publicly united now that he is dead.

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Hugh Kenner

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Some criticism, notably an elucidative 3,500 words on his use of Petronius; much platitude, redeemed if not exhilarated by feeling; one most memorable sentence, a Sophoclean cry from his old colleague in Rapallo, “Who is there now for me to share a joke with?”: and anecdotage, Lord, Lord, anecdotage, all of it defining a sweet, aloof, baffling man – a great personality, tough, responsive, wise, even had he not been so eminent a man of letters, and, at his moment in history, so decisive a poet.

But of course the great personality was the great poet, the two for the first time publicly united now that he is dead.