Essays in Appreciation

In Essays in Appreciation, Christopher Ricks continues the work of his highly-praised The Force of Poetry, with lively and provoking essays on poets and poetry. In addition, Ricks puts his appreciative pen in the service of other literary figures and genres, including drama, the novel, history and philosophy, and a discussion of Victorian biographies. Ricks wraps up the collection with a series of critical questions on literature and theory; plus two notes--on the canon, and on Empson and political criticism. W.H. Auden once wrote of Christopher Ricks that "he is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding;" with this latest volume every scholar as well as serious reader will join the poet in finding much to appreciate.

This collection of lively and provoking critical essays attends to poetry by Donne, Crabbe, Hardy, and Lowell, as well as to other literary forms. Marlowe, the Earl of Clarendon, Austen, and Victorian biographies are discussed, along with critical and philosophical questions concerning literature and its relation to fact, literary principles and theory, and aspects of contemporary criticism.

Doctor Faustus and Hell on earth; John Donne: Farewell to Love; The wit and weight of Clarendon George Crabbe's thoughts of confinement; Jane Austen and the business of mothering; Victorian Lives: E. C. Gaskells Charlotte Bront?, Froudes Carlyle, Tennysons Tennyson, George Eliot: She was still young; A note on Hardys A Spellbound Palace; Racines Ph?dre, Lowells Phaedra; Austins swink; Literature and the matter of fact; Literary principles as against theory; Criticism at the present time: two notes: What is at stake in the battle of the books, William Empson and the loony hunters.