Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

A Defense of Ardor: Essays

Adam Zagajewski

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Ardor, inspiration, the soul, the sublime: Such terms have long since fallen from favor among critics and artists alike. In his new collection of essays, Adam Zagajewski continues his efforts to reclaim for art not just the terms but the scanted spiritual dimension of modern human existence that they stake out.

Bringing gravity and grace to his meditations on art, society, and history, Zagajewski wears his erudition lightly, with a disarming blend of modesty and humor. His topics range from autobiography ; to considerations of artist friends past and present ; to intellectual and psychological portraits of cities he has known, east and west; to a dazzling thumbnail sketch of postwar Polish poetry.

Zagajewski gives an account of the place of art in the modern age that distinguishes his self-proclaimed liberal vision from the "right-wing radicalism" of such modernist precursors as Eliot or Yeats. The same mixture of ardor and compassion that marks Zagajewski's distinctive contribution to modern poetry runs throughout this eloquent, engaging collection.

Language: English

Pages: 208

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Release: October 19, 2005

ISBN: 0374529884

ISBN 13: 9780374529888

A Defense of Ardor: Essays

Adam Zagajewski

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Ardor, inspiration, the soul, the sublime: Such terms have long since fallen from favor among critics and artists alike. In his new collection of essays, Adam Zagajewski continues his efforts to reclaim for art not just the terms but the scanted spiritual dimension of modern human existence that they stake out.

Bringing gravity and grace to his meditations on art, society, and history, Zagajewski wears his erudition lightly, with a disarming blend of modesty and humor. His topics range from autobiography ; to considerations of artist friends past and present ; to intellectual and psychological portraits of cities he has known, east and west; to a dazzling thumbnail sketch of postwar Polish poetry.

Zagajewski gives an account of the place of art in the modern age that distinguishes his self-proclaimed liberal vision from the "right-wing radicalism" of such modernist precursors as Eliot or Yeats. The same mixture of ardor and compassion that marks Zagajewski's distinctive contribution to modern poetry runs throughout this eloquent, engaging collection.

Language: English

Pages: 208

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Release: October 19, 2005

ISBN: 0374529884

ISBN 13: 9780374529888

More books from Adam Zagajewski

Without End: New and Selected Poems

4.3/5 ( ratings)

The Poetry of Rilke

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Eternal Enemies: Poems

Mysticism for Beginners: Poems

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Unseen Hand: Poems

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Asymmetry: Poems

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Canvas: Poems

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?