Books, Arts & Manners: No Degenerate Son

The Force of Poetry, by Christopher Ricks (Oxford, 447 pp., $29.95)

‘Every user of language, whatever his or her politics, is engaged not only in conversation but in conservation,” writes Christopher Ricks; yet “the extent to which the conservative interest within language predominates varies greatly from one society to another.” Since the deaths of Auden and Trilling, no one has written more judiciously and sensitively than Ricks about both English and American literature and culture and their relations. Consider a comment on attitudes toward language and change:

About the Author

M.D. Aeschliman

M.D. Aeschliman is professor emeritus of education at Boston University and author of The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism (3rd English-language ed., Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2019 and French-language rev. ed., Paris: Pierre Téqui, 2020).

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The Force of Poetry, by Christopher Ricks (Oxford, 447 pp., $29.95)

‘Every user of language, whatever his or her politics, is engaged not only in conversation but in conservation,” writes Christopher Ricks; yet “the extent to which the conservative interest within language predominates varies greatly from one society to another.” Since the deaths of Auden and Trilling, no one has written more judiciously and sensitively than Ricks about both English and American literature and culture and their relations. Consider a comment on attitudes toward language and change:

About the Author

M.D. Aeschliman

M.D. Aeschliman is professor emeritus of education at Boston University and author of The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism (3rd English-language ed., Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2019 and French-language rev. ed., Paris: Pierre Téqui, 2020).