Occasional Essays
Hearing
the Sonnet A brief
introduction to the Shakespearean sonnet, and a study of how,
in poetry and beyond, order enables the expression and enunciation
of freedoms.
Dickens and Kafka: the unconscious
made public An informal look at the Court of Society in the
first writer and the Court of the Self in the second. A connected
essay, A first encounter
with Franz Kafka, details just that.
‘The hand comes little, clenched’
A few barely conscious paragraphs on how permanence is only possible
when seen from the standpoint of an evanescent existence.
Deconstruction,
avant la lettre
A few thoughts on how
the drive to construct interpretative systems precedes (and obstructs)
interpretation itself.
Author
of Alice - Lewis Carroll
A look at the thought of Charles Dodgson and of the artists who
illustrated his work. (Many graphics)
World, self and change How playing
the violin at night in the lunatic wing of a mill-town workhouse
settled the ghosts.
Personal
thoughts on The Tao Te Ching I was requested to write this by the London
Times, but in the end it was not published.
Philip
Larkin: Arrival One
of Philip Larkin's unusual metaphysical poems, with a brief note.
Poetic Anxiety looks at the
uneasy apprehension of mortality that dwells at the rim of existence,
and how this apprehension finds expression in the work of Philip
Larkin and Franz Kafka. The essay then takes a tentative look
at the notion that my sense of I may be a defensive
illusion rather than an entity.
The Mirror's Gaze a chance meeting
with a stranger is recalled: the two discuss a story written
by Walter de la Mare, Miss Duveen.
Becky
Sharp of Vanity Fair: A Brief Character Study a few lines
on one of the most intriguing women in English fiction.
An encounter with Rebecca de Winter (via the Narrator). An essay on another Rebecca, another intriguing woman.
Kara a review of the film released in 2012 by Quantic Dream