The Spirit of England: Selected Essays of Stephen Medcalf
Stephen Medcalf, edited by Brian Cummings and Gabriel Josipovici
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010
- ‘One of the more extraordinary scholars of the late twentieth century... The range of these essays is the more astonishing at a time when most critics prided themselves on their specialisms rather than their diversity. Medcalf wanted us to see things that could only be understood against the whole gamut of European literary history... Brian Cummings and Gabriel Josipovici are to be congratulated.’ — Stephen Prickett, Times Literary Supplement 26 November 2010
- ‘A modern parable of birth and death, miraculous encounter and mysterious return, makes a fitting and beautiful conclusion to a book of which we can say, as we rarely can with such confidence, that it was written by a good and wise man.’ — Paul Dean, The New Criterion October 2010, 69-72
- ‘Cummings and Josipovici have performed a 'mitzvah', a good deed, in editing these essays, which display a brilliant, humane mind at work. It is to be hoped that more Medcalf will be collected for the benefit of subsequent generations.’ — William Baker, Modern Language Review 106.3, July 2011, 871-73 (full text online)
- ‘The value of this posthumous collection is that it acts as both a lament and a lantern of hope. All we have by way of a memorial are these esoteric essays – but what essays. They show a liberal humanism at its best, expansive learning worn lightly and a belief in teasing out the particularities of a panoply of works... In our bleak climate of fees and looming instrumentality for the humanities, such a voice as Medcalf’s, singing the value of thought and the non-paraphrasable nature of poetry, is as insightful as it is heartening.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.1, 2012, 115
- ‘Von solchen und literarischen Wundern berichtet das Buch, es sollte in vielen Inklings-Bibliotheken stehen und durch die Hände vieler Freunde der englischen Kultur gehen.’ — Elmar Schenkel, Inklings-Jahrbuch 29, 2011, 378-79
- ‘Medcalf’s reflections throw great light upon Kipling, Horace, and translation.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91, 2012, 765
Yeats and Pessoa: Parallel Poetic Styles
Patricia Silva McNeill
Studies In Comparative Literature 19•23 April 2010
- ‘A very worthwhile study which demonstrates how two poets from small, peripheral European nations reflected the Zeitgeist of their times in poetry which posterity has come to regard as among the most important produced in either nation or language.’ — Jean Andrews, Modern Language Review 106.3, July 2011, 840-41 (full text online)
Blake, Lavater and Physiognomy
Sibylle Erle
Studies In Comparative Literature 21•6 September 2010
- ‘Erle’s conclusion is that Lavater could be seen by Blake to be superficial, and that Blake was more interested in showing how identity was constructed through the body, rather than through a given soul: bringing back the body means showing how that is connected to historical and material circumstances and culture operating, for instance, in the 1790s, the decade of Blake’s creation myths.’ — Jeremy Tambling, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1132-33 (full text online)
- ‘By developing this art-historical context [i.e., of Henry Fuseli], Erle produces many informative analyses of the ways in which both Blake's poetry and his prints reveal an abiding interest 'in how the human form acquires its embodied identity and the pitfalls inherent in likeness-making'.’ — Joseph Bristow, Studies in English Literature 51.4, Autumn 2011, 927
- ‘Erle deserves great credit for returning the role of Lavater to Blake studies - especially as Blake’s interests in physiognomy remained with him all through his life, surfacing again in his late Visionary Heads—and her chapter on the editing that took place in transforming the Physiognomische Fragmente into the Essays on Physiognomy is a superb piece of scholarship on this often neglected text.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91.1, 2012, 673
- ‘Erle’s thorough knowledge of the German and British settings puts her in an exceptionally good position to elucidate a Blake connected to international literary, philosophical, and artistic circles, participating in collective publication projects that circulate knowledge between Britain and the Continent. Indeed, one of the most attractive features of the book is its attention to the intellectual exchanges and emotional bonds between men. In Erle’s view of the annotations to Lavater, we see a Blake who is, perhaps surprisingly, as eager to please, heartily agree, and find affinities as he is to denounce Error.’ — Tristanne Connolly, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly 47.4, Spring 2014
Rethinking the Concept of the Grotesque: Crashaw, Baudelaire, Magritte
Shun-Liang Chao
Studies In Comparative Literature 22•12 April 2010
- ‘There is much to admire in this stimulating and well-researched study, not least its invitation to reconsider the significance not only of the grotesque itself, but also of other influential and related aesthetic terms such as the sublime, the uncanny, and the fantastic.’ — Damian Catani, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1129-31 (full text online)
- ‘Succeeds in its aims to define the grotesque, give insight into its use of visual and verbal media, and demonstrate its progression through time... a well-reasoned and well-researched book that is a welcome contribution to the study of the Grotesque, as well as to the literature on Crashaw, Baudelaire and Magritte.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.3, June 2012, 357-58