Tag Archives: Oscar Wilde

“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde

“He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets.” – T.S. Eliot It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809. … Continue reading

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“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman

“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading

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“When I aim at praise, they say I bite.” — Alexander Pope

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! -— Alexander Pope, from “Eloisa to Abelard” Alexander Pope was born on this day in 1688. He was so huge … Continue reading

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“I find that I cannot exist without poetry—without eternal poetry—” –John Keats

I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know. Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. – James Joyce, Ulysses Born in 1795 on this day, John Keats was orphaned by the time he … Continue reading

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“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” — Oscar Wilde

It’s his birthday today. One of my heroes. His mother, Jane Speranza Francesca Wilde (aka Lady Wilde, aka “Speranza”) was an incredible woman – also in the canon of Irish literary history certainly, not to mention its politics and social … Continue reading

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Recommended: Biographies

For starters: My recommended Fiction books My recommended Non-Fiction books BIOGRAPHIES: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis I’ve written a lot about Joseph Ellis’ work here. While I love David McCullough’s work so much, Ellis is … Continue reading

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More 2018 Movies to See

So all this Top 10 stuff gets a little bit too competitive for me sometimes. There can’t be a “winner” anyway, in art. It doesn’t work like that. This has been a really good year and I’ve seen a lot … Continue reading

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October 2018 Viewing Diary

Supernatural, Season 11, episode 4 “Baby” (2015; d. Thomas J. Wright) This episode just grows in stature the further away we get from it. It’s quite brilliant. Mandy (2018; d. Panos Cosmatos) I went into Mandy not knowing much about … Continue reading

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For Film Comment: On The Canterville Ghost (1944)

This marks my third piece this month having to do with Oscar Wilde. My latest for Film Comment is a review of the film adaptation (one of many) of Wilde’s ghost story The Canterville Ghost. This one stars Charles Laughton. … Continue reading

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Review: The Happy Prince (2018)

The Happy Prince is Rupert Everett’s debut as a writer/director. He also stars, playing Oscar Wilde in the final 3 years of his life – a period which has always fascinated me (and haunted me). My review of The Happy … Continue reading

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