David Bromwich – författare

'A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale' Oscar WildeThe Turn of the Screw, James's great masterpiece of haunting atmosphere and unbearable tension, tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something, or someone, malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence, or a manifestation of something else entirely? Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by David Bromwich Series Editor: Philip Horne

More urgent than ever, two landmark essays by the legendary political theorist on the greatest threat to democracy, gathered with a new introduction by David Bromwich“No one,” Hannah Arendt observed, “has ever counted truthfulness as a political virtue.” But why do politicians lie? What is the relationship between political lies and self-delusion? And how much organized deceit can a democracy endure before it ceases to function?Fifty years ago, the century’s greatest political theorist turned her focus to these essential questions in two seminal essays, brought together here for the first time. Her conclusions, delivered in searching prose that crackles with insight and intelligence, remain powerfully relevant, perhaps more so today than when they were written.In “Truth and Politics,” Arendt explores the affinity between lying and politics, and reminds us that the survival of factual truth depends on the testimony of credible witnesses and on an informed citizenry. She shows how our shared sense of reality—the texture of facts in which we wrap our daily lives—can be torn apart by organized lying, replaced with a fantasy world of airbrushed evidence and doctored documents. In “Lying in Politics,” written in response to the release of the Pentagon Papers, Arendt applies these insights to an analysis of American policy in Southeast Asia, arguing that the real goal of the Vietnam War—and of the official lies used to justify it by successive administrations—was nothing other than the burnishing of America’s image.In his introduction, David Bromwich (American Breakdown: The Trump Years and How They Befell Us) engages with Arendt’s essays in the context of her other writings and underscores their clarion call to take seriously the ever-present threat to democracy posed by lying.

Gathered together for the first time, Walt Whitman's urgently needed prose writings on the democratic spirit and the soul of the nation. 12 short works encapsulate the American Bard's fiery passions and timeless wisdom for today.Here for the first time in a convenient pocket edition are all of Walt Whitman’s essential prose writings on democracy, including his unforgettable reflections on the roots on American division, the fearful legacy of the Civil War, and shining example of Abraham Lincoln. Few writers have been as harsh in their condemnation of America’s sins and spiritual shortcomings or as abiding in his faith in democratic ideals as Whitman. His clarion voice speaks to us with renewed urgency today.Gathered here are:“The Eighteenth Presidency!,” written during the 1856 presidential campaign, in which Whitman expresses his rage over the immediate prospects for American democracyDemocratic Vistas (1871), in which he dramatizes his role as poet-prophet of a better Americathe searing essay “Origins of Attempted Secession” and shorter extracts on democracy from the classic book Specimen Days (1882).In his introduction, acclaimed political observer David Bromwich examines Whitman’s political prose writings and highlights why they matter today.

Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker''s control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that ''poetry makes nothing happen'') together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on toproduce the result they intend.This volume studies examples from a range of speakers and writers and offers close readings of their words. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech-acts propounded by J.L. Austin. ''Speakers Who Convince Themselves'' is the subject of chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare''s characters and two by Milton''s Satan. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln come in for extended treatment in chapter 3, while chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in thepoetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justifythe banishment of one set of words in favour of another.

Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker''s control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that ''poetry makes nothing happen'') together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on toproduce the result they intend.This volume studies examples from a range of speakers and writers and offers close readings of their words. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech-acts propounded by J.L. Austin. ''Speakers Who Convince Themselves'' is the subject of chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare''s characters and two by Milton''s Satan. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln come in for extended treatment in chapter 3, while chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in thepoetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justifythe banishment of one set of words in favour of another.

Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker's control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that 'poetry makes nothing happen') together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend.This volume studies examples from a range of speakers and writers and offers close readings of their words. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech-acts propounded by J.L. Austin. 'Speakers Who Convince Themselves' is the subject of chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare's characters and two by Milton's Satan. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln come in for extended treatment in chapter 3, while chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another.

Although we know him as one of the greatest English poets, William Wordsworth might not have become a poet at all without the experience of personal and historical catastrophe in his youth. In Disowned by Memory, David Bromwich connects the accidents of Wordsworth's life with the originality of his writing, showing how the poet's strong sympathy with the political idealism of the age and with the lives of the outcast and the dispossessed formed the deepest motive of his writings of the 1790s."This very Wordsworthian combination of apparently low subjects with extraordinary 'high argument' makes for very rewarding, though often challenging reading."—Kenneth R. Johnston, Washington Times"Wordsworth emerges from this short and finely written book as even stranger than we had thought, and even more urgently our contemporary."—Grevel Lindop, Times Literary Supplement"[Bromwich's] critical interpretations of the poetry itself offer readers unusual insights into Wordworth's life and work."—Library Journal"An added benefit of this book is that it restores our faith that criticism can actually speak to our needs. Bromwich is a rigorous critic, but he is a general one whose insights are broadly applicable. It's an intellectual pleasure to rise to his complexities."—Vijay Seshadri, New York Times Book Review

The poems that are written about, in the essays found in this book, all stake a definitive claim for the modernist style and its intent to capture an audience beyond the present moment. Bromwich's essays offer readings of individual poets, as well as comparisons between poets and their style. Bromwich looks at the link between author and reader that gives language its subtlety and depth and makes the written word adequate to the reality that poetry captures. He also explores the moral and aesthetic considerations of poems, and argues that the excitement that poems draw on is at once primitive and irriducible. There is a look at the relationship between T.S. Eliot and Hart Crane and their work. Another essay takes a revealing look at W.H. Auden and traces the process by which the voice of a generation changed from prophet to domestic ironist. The essays attempt to make the reader think about what poetry is, and why it is still important.

Liberal education has been under siege in recent years. Far-right ideologues in journalism and government have pressed for a uniform curriculum that focuses on the achievements of Western culture. Partisans of the academic left, who hold our culture responsible for the evils of society, have attempted to redress imbalances by fostering multiculturalism in education. In this eloquent and passionate book a distinguished scholar criticizes these positions and calls for a return to the tradition of independent thinking that he contends has been betrayed by both right and left. Under the guise of educational reform, says David Bromwich, these groups are in fact engaging in politics by other means.Bromwich argues that rivals in the debate over education have one thing in common: they believe in the all-importance of culture. Each assumes that culture confers identity, decides the terms of every moral choice, and gives a meaning to life. Both sides therefore see education as a means to indoctrinate students in specific cultural and political dogmas. By contrast, Bromwich contends that genuine education is concerned less with culture than with critical thinking and independence of mind. This view of education is not a middle way among the political demands of the moment, says Bromwich. Its earlier advocates include Mill and Wollstonecraft, and its roots can be traced to such secular moralists as Burke and Hume.Bromwich attacks the anti-democratic and intolerant premises of both right and left—premises that often appear in the conservative guise of "preserving the tradition" on the one hand, or the radical guise of "opening up the tradition" on the other. He discusses the new academic "fundamentalists" and the politically correct speech codes they have devised to enforce a doctrine of intellectual conformity; educational policy as articulated by conservative apologists George Will and William Bennett; the narrow logic of institutional radicalism; the association between personal reflection and social morality; and the discipline of literary study, where the symptoms of cultural conflict have appeared most visibly. Written with the wisdom and conviction of a dedicated teacher, this book is a persuasive plea to recover a true liberal tradition in academia and government—through independent thinking, self-knowledge, and tolerance of other points of view.

Essayist, lecturer, and radical pamphleteer, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was the greatest of English critics and a master of the art of prose. This book is a superb appreciation of the man and his works, at once a revaluation of the aesthetics of Romanticism and a sustained intellectual portrait. Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism when it was first published in 1983, it is now reissued with a new preface and bibliography by the author.“Few literary figures in recent decades have seen their reputations rise as securely as Hazlitt’s. Now it will soar. David Bromwich’s book is the most persuasive and ambitious exploration of Hazlitt’s genius hitherto attempted.”—Michael Foot, New Republic“Hazlitt: the Mind of a Critic is an intellectual biography in the best sense of the word, and intellectual biography is the type of writing that shows Hazlitt in his truest light.”—Kenneth R. Johnston, Indiana University“Bromwich’s volume was first published in 1983, and its achievement has never been questioned. All Romanticists recognize that this is one of the great critical works in our field to appear in the post-war era. It aspires to (and achieves) a classical simplicity and elegance.”—Duncan Wu, University of Glasgow

A generous selection of poems by a major Victorian writer, a virtuoso of traditional forms who came to be recognized as a uniquely inventive and original voice in modern poetry  This selection of poems by Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), edited by David Bromwich, covers the range of Hardy’s extraordinary work: songs, ballads, and sonnets, dramatic monologues and elegies, along with poems that mark epochal events, such as the end of the Great War. This selection shows why Hardy has been admired as the most inward and personal of the moderns, yet also the most accessible and widely read.  Included here is the full and integral text of Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy, the final selection of his own work that Hardy chose to publish. Bromwich has selected more than one hundred fifty additional poems that cover the length of Hardy’s career, from Wessex Poems to Winter Words. His critical and biographical introduction sets Hardy’s achievement in the context of a career in prose and poetry that has no parallel.

A defense of individual judgment as the core of humanistic study  Why do some works of art and thought speak to us for generations while the vast majority are quickly forgotten? What insights do we gain from our experience of exceptional literature, philosophy, and art? How are we changed by our encounters with those works? Professional scholars in the humanities have lately grown uncomfortable, even embarrassed, about judging and asserting the human value of the works they love. In ten experimental and wide-ranging essays, this book seeks to restore value and taste as legitimate bases for judgment, and to illustrate how scholars can pursue wisdom by reflecting on works they judge worthy of serious attention and searching criticism.  Includes essays by Benjamin Barasch, Akeel Bilgrami, David Bromwich, Elizabeth Bruenig, Michael Clune, Maria DiBattista, Michael Fried, Bryan Garsten, Uday Mehta, Roosevelt Montás, and Helen Small.

David Bromwich’s portrait of statesman Edmund Burke (1730–1797) is the first biography to attend to the complexity of Burke’s thought as it emerges in both the major writings and private correspondence. The public and private writings cannot be easily dissociated, nor should they be. For Burke—a thinker, writer, and politician—the principles of politics were merely those of morality enlarged. Bromwich reads Burke’s career as an imperfect attempt to organize an honorable life in the dense medium he knew politics to be.This intellectual biography examines the first three decades of Burke’s professional life. His protest against the cruelties of English society and his criticism of all unchecked power laid the groundwork for his later attacks on abuses of government in India, Ireland, and France. Bromwich allows us to see the youthful skeptic, wary of a social contract based on “nature”; the theorist of love and fear in relation to “the sublime and beautiful”; the advocate of civil liberty, even in the face of civil disorder; the architect of economic reform; and the agitator for peace with America. However multiple and various Burke’s campaigns, a single-mindedness of commitment always drove him.Burke is commonly seen as the father of modern conservatism. Bromwich reveals the matter to be far more subtle and interesting. Burke was a defender of the rights of disfranchised minorities and an opponent of militarism. His politics diverge from those of any modern party, but all parties would be wiser for acquaintance with his writing and thoughts.

Spanning many historical and literary contexts, Moral Imagination brings together a dozen recent essays by one of America's premier cultural critics. David Bromwich explores the importance of imagination and sympathy to suggest how these faculties may illuminate the motives of human action and the reality of justice. These wide-ranging essays address thinkers and topics from Gandhi and Martin Luther King on nonviolent resistance, to the dangers of identity politics, to the psychology of the heroes of classic American literature. Bromwich demonstrates that moral imagination allows us to judge the right and wrong of actions apart from any benefit to ourselves, and he argues that this ability is an innate individual strength, rather than a socially conditioned habit. Political topics addressed here include Edmund Burke and Richard Price's efforts to define patriotism in the first year of the French Revolution, Abraham Lincoln's principled work of persuasion against slavery in the 1850s, the erosion of privacy in America under the influence of social media, and the use of euphemism to shade and anesthetize reactions to the global war on terror.Throughout, Bromwich considers the relationship between language and power, and the insights language may offer into the corruptions of power. Moral Imagination captures the singular voice of one of the most forceful thinkers working in America today.

Spanning many historical and literary contexts, Moral Imagination brings together a dozen recent essays by one of America's premier cultural critics. David Bromwich explores the importance of imagination and sympathy to suggest how these faculties may illuminate the motives of human action and the reality of justice. These wide-ranging essays address thinkers and topics from Gandhi and Martin Luther King on nonviolent resistance, to the dangers of identity politics, to the psychology of the heroes of classic American literature. Bromwich demonstrates that moral imagination allows us to judge the right and wrong of actions apart from any benefit to ourselves, and he argues that this ability is an innate individual strength, rather than a socially conditioned habit. Political topics addressed here include Edmund Burke and Richard Price's efforts to define patriotism in the first year of the French Revolution, Abraham Lincoln's principled work of persuasion against slavery in the 1850s, the erosion of privacy in America under the influence of social media, and the use of euphemism to shade and anesthetize reactions to the global war on terror.Throughout, Bromwich considers the relationship between language and power, and the insights language may offer into the corruptions of power. Moral Imagination captures the singular voice of one of the most forceful thinkers working in America today.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.

William Hazlitt is viewed by many as one of the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period. This nine-volume edition collects all his major works in complete form.