William Pritchard has two gifts essential to a great critic.
Throughout the collection Pritchard urges the reader to engage with texts he has found particularly delightful and illuminating, taking us on a tour of the world as he has heard it through poetry, prose, music, and the voices of people he has known..
Also included are the series of letters Pritchard wrote to his students in the early months of the COVID pandemic in 2020, meant to offer commentary on four English writers--Dryden, Swift, Pope, and Samuel Johnson.
United by Pritchard\'s philosophy of literature, which he calls ear training, pieces on subjects from John Updike to Emily Dickinson to Frank Sinatra to the soap opera The Young and the Restless urge us to consider how literature sounds and how a sense of play in our approach to the world can uncover buried truths and meanings.
Pritchard has selected some of his favorite shorter pieces on a wide range of topics.
Known for his long career as a professor and writer of critical biographies, for this collection William H. --Christopher Benfey, author of A Summer of Hummingbirds Ear Training gathers thirty Essays and reviews by one of America\'s most playful critics.
Pritchard is a great critic with perfect pitch.
He has refined his ear for music in tune with his love for poetry and prose.
He has a third gift, however, his solid anchorage in another art form.
Second, he is always eager to be surprised, and to revise his opinions accordingly.
First, he has read everything.
William Pritchard has two gifts essential to a great critic
