New Criterion articles from February 2006

New Criterion archives from February 2006

Notes & comments: February 2006.
February 1, 2006... The Peter Principle at Wabash? People looking around for bright spots in American higher education often mention Wabash College, a small, well-to-do liberal arts institution for men in Crawfordsville, Indiana. With 850 male students, an...

Muslims: integration or separatism?
February 1, 2006... Down the many centuries, Muslims have seen themselves inhabiting the Dar al-Islam, and in this exclusive House of Islam they are to have their way in all matters great and small. Conquest delivered into their hands the unbelievers of many...

The poet in his dungeon.(The Wit in the Dungeon: The Remarkable Life of Leigh Hunt)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... There are certain people who have exerted considerable significance in the history of letters without having been great writers themselves: Gertrude Stein, for instance, and in our own era, George Plimpton. They have served as a species of...

Dumas gastronomique.(Alexandre Dumas)(Critical essay)(Biography)
February 1, 2006... In 2004, at long last, the remains of Alexandre Dumas were interred in the Pantheon in Paris. The Pantheon, once a church in the Latin Quarter of the French capital, serves now as a secular temple honoring France's heroes and her famous dead....

Shakespiracy theory.(books on William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... I often wonder whether those who espouse conspiracy theories are ever themselves called upon to organize a conspiracy of any complexity--on the order of, say, a surprise party. The difficulty of even the most mundane collaboration is a powerful...

Yes.(New poems)(Poem)
February 1, 2006... Yes Yes, your childhood now a legend of fountains -Jorge Guillen Yes, your childhood, now a legend of dust, knows the gray road setting out to cross the desert of the past. And how, always just ahead, the gray...

Valentine.(New poems)(Poem)
February 1, 2006... Valentine for Doug Knight, 1921-2005, on belatedly hearing of your death and burial Cut out my heart for me Who cannot see to aim the scissor. The one who'd send you love must send it farther, For where you're now,...

Psalm for a sugarhouse.(New poems)(Poem)
February 1, 2006... Psalm for a sugarhouse Here in the creak and the dark, Take heart and mouth your clouds: Be it ever so ice-locked, You're ringed by maple woods. Let that be your pure thought Here in the numb and the gloom: ...

Wilde, Synge & Orpen.(Dublin journal)(Oscar Wilde, John Millington Synge, William Orpen)(Critical essay)
February 1, 2006... Old Dublin is hard to locate these days--that city Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Flann O'Brien, and Patrick Kavanagh wrote about, with its tobacco-brown pubs, drizzle, and the sound of the Angelus on the radio every day at noon and six p.m. The Angelus...

That most awful poem, the Aeneid: a translator's tragic alliance.(Reflections)(Critical essay)
February 1, 2006... When I was reading Virgil's Aeneid for the first time, in translation, for a Great Books course at the University of Michigan, I heard in lectures what I believe are the usual criticisms. The epic about the founding of Rome is an aluminum-sided...

Antonello da Messina at the Met.(Art)(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
February 1, 2006... Looking up Antonello da Messina in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, you learn that he was "a person of good and lively intelligence, of great sagacity, and skilled in his profession," and that,...

Gallery chronicle.(Richard Tuttle, Joe Zucker, Biala, Robert S. Neuman)
February 1, 2006... Ad Reinhardt was on to something when he declared, "You have to choose between Duchamp and Mondrian." It was a good distinction. One might prefer Matisse to Mondrian, but why quibble. The point remains the same, and it was a point that most...

Condescending respect.(The media)
February 1, 2006... The New Year began in Britain with an initiative from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, designed to combat what many Britons see as an epidemic of anti-social behavior, particularly on the part of young people. Titled "Respect Action Plan" or...

Enforcing a "mood".(Books)(Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... It ought to be a major intellectual event in constitutional law when a Justice of the Supreme Court comes forward publicly to explain his theory of judging. Explanation is needed, for by now nobody familiar with the work of the Court believes...

What "Dark Ages"?(The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... Rodney Stark The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Random House, 304- pages, $25.95 If you hold the following three propositions, the massive evidence marshaled in this book asks you to...

Ain't misbehavin'.(On Theater: Criticism 1974-2003)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... John Simon On Theater: Criticism 1974-2003. Applause, 837 pages, $32.95 Most theater critics deal in perishable wares. Their work serves its turn; then it can be laid to rest, never again to be revisited (except, perhaps, by theater...

Autumnal heart.(Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel)(Book review)
February 1, 2006... Jerome Charyn Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel. Random House, 213 pages, $24.95 The best Soviet writers were extinguished tinder Stalin. Osip Mandelstam died in a prison camp; Marina Tsvetayeva, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and...

Know when to fold 'em.(Notebook)(Critical essay)
February 1, 2006... The first casino I ever went to was destroyed by guerrillas shortly afterwards. It was called the Elephant Hills Casino, and it was near Victoria Falls in what was then still called Rhodesia. It was an easy target for mortar and rocket fire,...