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Criticism

CriticismThe Colophon

“The best that is known and thought”: On rereading Matthew Arnold in 2023

February 3, 2023February 4, 2023

Today, Arnold's ideas seem deeply unfashionable. They also seem pressingly relevant.

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CriticismThe Colophon

Saving criticism from the critics

January 19, 2023January 19, 2023

John Guillory is best known for his 1993 book Cultural Capital. That book, which was published at the height of...

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CriticismNon-fictionThe Colophon

Tell me a story: Two recent books examine the human impulse toward narrative, for better and worse

November 21, 2022November 22, 2022

"Never trust a storyteller," Gottschall warns, although he also points out that we do, all the time, and it's probably inevitable.

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CriticismNon-fictionThe Horror Show

In It Came from the Closet, queer writers reflect on the horror movies that have influenced, enticed, or repelled them

October 31, 2022October 31, 2022

Together, these essays provide a justification and rationale for queer readings of what may in fact turn out to be one of the queerest genres around.

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CriticismInternational LiteratureThe Colophon

“This will cut down on my reading”: The three types of books Dorothy Parker never wanted to encounter again

September 13, 2022September 13, 2022

"When the author gives me a scene of wild young passion, then I can no longer slog through the immediate follow-up of a tender description of the bendings of wheat in the breeze."

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CanLitCriticismPoetryThe Colophon

Flight paths: Susan Glickman’s selected essays address poetry, criticism, and taking up art study in her sixties

March 3, 2022June 14, 2022

Glickman’s focus on technique on a granular level reveals her to be a deeply knowledgeable and highly erudite reader of a wide range of poets.

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CriticismThe Colophon

“Trauma-creep” and literature: does a single minded focus on trauma diminish literary characters?

February 4, 2022June 14, 2022

The reduction of literary characters to a history of trauma is too often used as convenient shorthand, robbing us of the pleasure found in complexity and ambiguity.

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CriticismFilmThe Colophon

“Seriously flawed and morally questionable”: Guillermo del Toro, German expressionism, and the nature of noir

December 16, 2021June 14, 2022

A noir sensibility finds its origins in German expressionism and creates a neurotic environment in which the borderline between good and evil is nonexistent.

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CanLitCriticismNon-fictionThe Colophon

The subtle art of selling out: Adam Hammond investigates DIY gaming culture in his new book The Far Shore

December 3, 2021June 14, 2022

Hammond has written a text that is frankly unclassifiable: part biography, part critical exegesis, part hipster manifesto.

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CriticismThe Colophon

Critiquing the critics: Parul Sehgal on 125 years of the New York Times Book Review

March 3, 2021June 14, 2022

The New York Times literary critic surveys the history of the newspaper’s book review to discover what has, and what hasn’t, changed in the last century.

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