Sunday 7 September 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill
Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests


And another thing

Are famous writers accident-prone? Some are

Wednesday, 31st October 2007

Paul Johnson on what one should and should not know about a writer

I don’t want to know too much about writers. The endless revelations about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes have put me off their poetry. Nothing can shake my love of Keats’s Odes but I don’t have any desire to see his full medical records. Nor do I care to learn anything more about Byron’s club foot (though I am fascinated by the fact that the painter John Glover, who founded the Australian school of art, and whose masterpiece ‘Dovedale at Dawn’ I possess, had two club feet). We know quite enough about Shakespeare personally, and I am happy he is still surrounded by mysteries. Of course, if his diaries were suddenly to appear, or autographed letters, that would be another matter.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5  Next page 

More articles from: Paul Johnson | this section

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately


In this section

Shared Opinion

Hugo Rifkind

A new cold war means spies. But what can Russia offer Oxbridge graduates these days?

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

High-pitched buzzing from the booksy girls and boys

Status Anxiety

Toby Young

Why Kirsten Dunst banned me from the set of the film about my life

Ancient and Modern

Peter Jones

Peter Jones on what we can learn from bees

The Wiki Man

Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland's fortnightly column on technology and the web

Related articles

Escapist froth

James Delingpole

Lost in Austen (ITV1)

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

A leisure class can accommodate the workaholics of wisdom

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

Human beings and pigs have a very peculiar relationship

Literary juggler

Lloyd Evans

Afterlife
Lyttelton

Dickens Unplugged
Comedy

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

‘Mr Pont, may I introduce you to Miss Austen?’

Spectator recommends

Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month

Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other