AMERICAN literature, excellent as it is by way of its poetry, is excellent much more by way of its prose. Received opinion, however, stands for the converse. Conscious that in emotion, invention, and ...

IN all study of English literature, if there be any one axiom which may be accepted without question, it is that the ultimate standard of English prose style is set by the King James version of the ...

From these disparate parts, the contours of a single idea emerge. Roughly, this is it: “VN’s happiness is a singular way of seeing, marveling, and grasping, in other words, of netting the light ...

A fine prose style, if we are veteran readers, and equal to it, affords one of the most delicious experiences in the whole world of art. It is so subtle and fastidious that it must be considered very ...

In Experience , the memoir he published last year, Martin Amis confessed to a sad truth: “A writer’s life is all anxiety and ambition.” The memoir was more concerned with other matters-his father, the ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

THE BUCKLEY PROSE STYLE...Andrew Sullivan on William F. Buckley: I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dead — but am I the only person who found Buckley close to unreadable a lot of the time? I never ...

Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible by Robert Alter (Princeton University Press, 2010) Invisible Conversations: Religion in the Literature of America edited by Roger Lundin (Baylor ...

Your support goes further this holiday season. When you buy an annual membership or give a one-time contribution, we’ll give a membership to someone who can’t afford access. It’s a simple way for you ...

Good reporters go hunting for nouns. They want the odd verb too, but the main thing is the nouns, especially the proper ones, the who, what and where. The thing British schoolchildren call a ‘naming ...