Evil Is Often Supposed To Be Without

Most Students Of Literature Can Pick Apart A Metaphor Or Spot An Ethnic Stereotype, But Not Many Of Them Can Say Things Like: 'the Poem's Sardonic Tone Is Curiously At Odds With Its Plodding Syntax.

With Fiction, You Can Talk About Plot, Character And Narrative, Whereas A Poem Brings Home The Fact That Everything That Happens In A Work Of Literature Happens In Terms Of Language. And This Is Daunting Stuff To Deal With.

There Is No Way In Which We Can Retrospectively Erase The Treaty Of Vienna Or The Great Irish Famine. It Is A Peculiar Feature Of Human Actions That, Once Performed, They Can Never Be Recuperated. What Is True Of The Past Will Always Be True Of It.

In The End, It Is Because The Media Are Driven By The Power And Wealth Of Private Individuals That They Turn Private Lives Into Public Spectacles. If Every Private Life Is Now Potentially Public Property, It Is Because Private Property Has Undermined Public Responsibility.

Writing Seems To Rob Me Of My Being: It Is A Second Hand Mode Of Communication, A Pallid, Mechanical Transcript Of Speech, And So Always At One Remove From My Consciousness.