It is false to believe that the sun revolves around the earth, but it is not absurd.

Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm.

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.

With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.

Like all the best radical positions, then, mine is a thoroughly traditionalist one.

It is easy to see why a diversity of cultures should confront power with a problem. If culture is about plurality, power is about unity. How can it sell itself simultaneously to a whole range of life forms without being fatally diluted?

Scratch a schoolboy and you find a savage.