“Of his earlier poems, many are very licentious; the later are chiefly devout. Few are good for much.”
Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe 1837
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities, poetry
“Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage, humor, music
“The commonplaceness of the story is not alleviated in the slightest degree by any glimmer of imaginative insight on the part of the novelist. A skillful writer would be able to arouse an emotional reaction in the reader but at no moment does he leave him otherwise than cold and unresponsive. One feature of the novel stands out above all–the figure of Clyde Griffiths. If the novel were great, he would be a great character. As it is, he is certainly one of the most despicable creations of humanity that ever emerged from a novelist’s brain. Last of all, it may be said that Mr. Dreiser is a fearsome manipulator of the English language. His style, if style it may be called, is offensively colloquial, commonplace, and vulgar.”
Boston Evening Transcript
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities, readings/research
(An old friend of mine who teaches at the college level emailed me over the weekend with questions about E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime. It has been more than 30 years since I read the novel, and my reading of it was no doubt colored and informed by the movie, which I saw before reading the book. In any case, her question sent me to my copy of Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia [Fourth Edition] for answers; I wrote it up, and post it here. This discourse also reminded me of Mr. Doctorow’s famously controversial commencement address at Brandeis University in 1989, which in our current political environment looks innocently prescient.)
“Ragtime (1975) A novel by E.L. Doctorow. Set in New York between the turn of the century and the beginning of World War I, the novel revolves around three interlocking groups of characters: a family of Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side, their upper-class WASP counterparts from New Rochelle, and a black piano player, Coalhouse Walker, and his wife. Walker, probably based on the character of rag composer Scott Joplin, is a proud black man who, as a result of racism and insults, is driven to desperate acts. The evocation of World War I is enriched by the the interaction of Doctorow’s characters with such real-life figures as Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Booker T. Washington, and C.G. Jung. Doctorow’s prose conveys a sense of his story by maintaining a contrapuntal, ragtime cadence.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, learning supports, united states history
“When I watch news footage of the day we entered the school guarded by the 101st soldiers, I am moved by the enormity of that experience. I believe that was a moment when the nation took one giant step forward.”
Melba Patillo Beals on the Integration of Little Rock Schools in Warriors Don’t Cry (1994)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, united states history
“Middlemarch is a treasure house of details, but it is an indifferent whole.”
Henry James, Galaxy
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities, readings/research
“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
“A hoary-headed and toothless baboon.”
Thomas Carlyle, Collected Works 1871
“Belongs to a class of gentlemen with whom we have no patience whatever–the mystics for mysticism’s sake. The best answer to his twaddle is cui bono?–a very little Latin phrase very generally mistranslated and misunderstood–cui bono? to whom is it a benefit. If not to Mr. Emerson generally, then surely to no man.
Edgar Allan Poe, in a chapter of autobiography 1842
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“A cliche anthologist…and maker of ragamuffin manikins.”
Aristophanes, The Thesmophoriazausae 411 B.C.
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, literary oddities
“A university’s essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism—a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.”
Richard Hofstadter in His Commencement Address at Columbia University (1968)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
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