I recently spent a semester teaching writing at an elite liberal-arts college. At strategic points around the campus, in shades of yellow and green, banners displayed the following pair of texts. The ...

Wilson came to dislike the “all too conscious American literary self-glorification which is a part of our American imperialism.” He caustically noted the behavior of onetime radicals rushing to ...

In the fifth century B.C., the philosopher Democritus proposed that all matter was made of tiny and indivisible atoms, which came in various sizes and textures—some hard and some soft, some smooth and ...

What a sensible idea of Ashbery’s, I thought, and modest—to direct attention away from himself. It also worked to his own benefit; he was more interested in exploring these other poets and ...