A Shelf of One's Own

I believe them now: Robert Frost WAS cranky: INTERVIEWER Well, you once said in my hearing that Robert Lowell had tried to connect you with Faulkner, told you you were a lot like Faulkner. FROST Did I say that? INTERVIEWER No, you said that Robert Lowell told you that you were a lot like Faulkner. (Whole interview here )

An arresting title from Aquinas' Summa Theologica: Article 6. Whether penance is a second plank after shipwreck? This is surely the title of a poem. Apparently it's from St. Jerome.

Will you come and visit me next year? I shall undoubtedly have a large circle of witty and interesting friends by then and life will be on a very high plane – elegant, literary, and in perfect order… On the roofs of the brick houses and on the island in the pond there will be all sorts of romantic musicians, and supper will be served on the island too – strung with lanterns. It will be very pleasant, reminiscent of Venice, and the Last Days of Rome and the Chinese Emperors, with a bit of Coney Island thrown in. - Elizabeth Bishop to Frani Blough, 1934

Music do I hear? Ha, ha! Keep time: how sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! - Richard II

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o the puddin'-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye worthy o' a grace As lang's my arm. Robert Burns' Address to the Haggis

'Harriet has made a contrapuntal composition, so intricate she is unable to play it. What can be played sounds post Schoenberg, but that may be due to her faulty command of what Allen would call traditional skills.’ - Robert Lowell on his daughter to Peter & Eleanor Taylor

Blessing for someone using the Bodleian libraries: May everything you want be there in the right order.