My class "The Literature of War" has now moved on to WWI. Most of the students freely admitted that they knew almost nothing about it. That's not surprising, considering that even during the recent 100-year commemorations of the war, there was almost no mention of it in the American media. In Europe, the war was front and center in people's minds from 2014…
A couple of months ago I received an email from Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture contributor, asking me to participate in a poll of non-UK critics to determine our views on the best British novels of all time. As an American Studies Ph.D. and American literature professor, I must admit my opinions about British literature are pretty subjective. I love reading it but haven't had the…
I am revisiting my trip to follow in Constance Fenimore Woolson's footsteps almost exactly three years ago. My first stops were Salisbury and Wells, England, which I discussed in my last post. From Wells, via Bath, I visited Cheltenham, the spa town in which Woolson lived for about two years in 1890 and 1891. She was never happy there, so I didn't stay…
On a recent trip to New York I had another close encounter with Woolson when I least expected it. On my trip to England and Italy, I was specifically in search of her, and at three precise moments I felt very close to her, as if I had come upon her in the real world, and not merely in the pages of her…
Today I have been writing about Constance’s and Henry James’s visit to Stonehenge, in the autumn of 1884. It was so cold and blustery that they could barely speak to each other. On the way back to her lodgings in Salisbury, their carriage had to pull off the road and cower in a ditch for a half hour while the wind roared overhead.…