The political afterlife of Paradise Lost
From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.
ByNew Times,
New Thinking.
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of literature with our collection of articles, offering literary analysis, book recommendations, author spotlights, and thought-provoking discussions that celebrate the written word.
From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.
ByThe novel becoming a cultural accessory means to look like a reader, not be one.
ByIn Empire of the Sun, published 40 years ago, the great novelist turned his childhood experiences in a Japanese prisoner-of-war…
ByThe New Zealand author, born 100 years ago, was both tormented and inspired by her experience of mental illness.
ByWith departments in decline, the English professor has become a risible figure in the British novel.
ByGreat Irish literature is defined by dissent. So why do so many writers uphold the status quo?
ByAlso this week: My part in the great IT outage, and trying to impress Keir Starmer.
ByThe past three decades have seen the Everymanification of British politics.
ByIn cutting ties with the firm, literary festivals have fallen prey to the worst sort of playground bully.
ByThe American academic on finding fulfilment in Shakespeare, structuralism and dry-stone walls.
ByAlso this week: AI enters the classroom, and the British obsession with gardening vs Brexit red tape.
ByThe novelist on the threat to free speech, facing his attacker, and why writing Knife gave him back “the power”.
ByHis memoir Knife is a defence of free speech for a new age of intolerance. We should listen.
ByThe author behind American Fiction on rewriting Mark Twain, the evolution of racism, and his addiction to irony.
ByAlso this week: Underdressed in snowy New York, the beauty of book covers, and delighting in London’s diversity.
ByAs a former chair of the RSL, it is sad to see its mission being undermined by a new censoriousness.
ByHow the bluestockings used wit and learning to subvert a deeply misogynist culture.
ByWhy the 20th-century intellectual Ernesto de Martino believed that we should prepare for the apocalypse.
ByHow the violent upheavals of Seventies America helped forge the greatest historian of our time.
ByOn the tenth anniversary of the cultural theorist’s death an unpublished manuscript sheds new light on his thinking.
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