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This is probably the most unintentionally funny thing I have ever read in my life.

Had a really excellent time banging the Shakespearean tragic drum at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (⁦⁦Sydney Writers' Festival⁩).

Lovelt to see this in hard copy, too

Looking forward to these.

Another excellent new book delivery

NYC looking good yesterday evening.

FINALLY able to give the newest book by Rhodri Lewis the time it deserves… going through all the plays as they come up, by chapter. absolutely incredible stuff

Am amused by Kermode's response to being informed of E. H. Gombrich's opinion that a renaissance specialist he planned to hire at UCL was "not a scholar and never will be".

‘In Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, Rhodri Lewis explores how William Shakespeare was able to use the tragic form to interrogate those ‘fictions of order, stability, and perpetuity’ that humans deploy...’ David Rowland reviews ‘Shakespeare’s Tragic Art’ by Rhodri Lewis

Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/70095/…

I enjoyed the chance to revisit Muriel Spark while reviewing Frances Wilson's new life of her for Prospect. (Link in quoted tweet.)

Trying to figure out who this character from Kermode's autobiography was. "Paul H-F", undergrad at Liverpool in late 1930s. Ends up directing a molecular biology lab at Yale (or similar, I suppose, as Kermode may have been shielding). Have drawn a thoroughgoing blank. Thoughts?

Good to be back in here for a day.

Pleasing to learn that when Stephen Spender went to Paris to investigate the 1968 student revolt (staying with his friends the Rothschilds), he was repeatedly mistaken for Marcuse.

I suppose it's a good thing that Donne didn't realise that fleas are a vector for plague.

I've been lucky enough to have had some excellent discussions (podcast and otherwise) about Shakespeare's Tragic Art, but I think this set of questions may have been the best. christianhumanist.org/2025/06/christ…

In the realm of literary criticism, CS Lewis cannot match Frank Kermode, who was one of the most, if not the most, proficient literary critics in the English language.

The sheer energy that the Leavisites wasted in hating.

"When Adam won Eve's hand, / He wouldn't stand for teasin'. / He didn't care about / Those apples out of season." Ambushed by Cole Porter on the train. Pleasingly.

A fine pairing of road signs.