No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves tr...
It is the one time Dante calls such explicit attention to the idea of contrapasso-a word for which we have no exact translation, no precise definition in English, because the word in itself is its def...
Believes the world is against him. Nothing
Lo giorno se n'andava - Day was departing... Dante slows his deliberation as he prepares to enter the infernal realms for the first time: ... e io sol uno - and only I alone... -how lonely he felt! He...
I don't like my birthday. I don't like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book.
Milton was the gold standard of religious poets for English and American scholars. But Milton wrote of Hell and Heaven from above and below, respectively, not from the inside: safer advantages.
A man's library opens up his character to the world.
What's the use of having eyes if we can't see the world we pass through?
There was still the temptation to believe the world was a mere trap for human sin. But sin, the way he saw it, was only the failure of an imperfectly made being to keep a perfect law.
He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death.
When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian.
That bookshops will one day disappear altogether and be replaced by mail order, that eventually books themselves would be finally and fully buried by that awful foe, so much cheaper and easier to carr...
I prefer the society of one faithful person to an association of rapid talkers, who more than anything else seek admiration from one another.
Obsession of a strong-hearted woman, Mr. Dolby, can be more dangerous than ten men.
When Christina would stop to examine an interesting insect or patch of moss, Gabriel would stand in an impatient pose and shrug, not seeing what was at all interesting about it. Sometimes when writing...
When I ply the cutlass and make the equivalent of sixpence, idiot conscience applauds me. But if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds by writing, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the da...
Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another.
I never fully realized how much a New England birth in itself was worth, but I am happy that that was my lot. I have felt it so keenly these last few days. Dear old New England, with all her sternness...
It is not when a man is at the end of his life, but when a man is at the end of his profession, that his soul shows itself.
Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will n...
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