literature

When readers in England recently were asked to name “the greatest book of the century,” they chose J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Many critics were scandalized, finding it incomprehensible that the public could honor a work the literary community had largely dismissed as old-fashioned, didactic, and escapist. Yet the survey was far from a fluke. Tolkien’s writings have Read More ›

A London music hall ditty of some years past goes, Shakespeare Sidebar — “Shakespeare dead? Poor old Will! Why, I never knew the old fellow was ill!” But he is ill, at least in a majority of the universities of America, where a new report shows that even English majors no longer are required to take a course on one Read More ›