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Camille Paglia is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is the author of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson; Sex, Art, and American Culture; and Vamps & Tramps: New Essays. She has also written The Birds, a study of Alfred Hitchcock. She lives in Philadelphia.


From the Hardcover edition. [Edit review] [Delete review]

Introduction

1. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
2. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
3. William Shakespeare, The Ghost's Speech
4. John Donne, “The Flea”
5. John Donne, Holy Sonnet I
6. John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV
7. George Herbert, “Church-monuments”
8. George Herbert, “The Quip”
9. George Herbert, “Love”
10. Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
11. William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper”
12. William Blake, “London”
13. William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much with Us”
14. William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”
15. Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”
16. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
17. Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
18. Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
19. Emily Dickinson, “Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers”
20.... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]

America’s most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis and appreciation to bear on the great poems of the Western tradition, and on some unexpected discoveries of her own. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia refreshes our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73” to Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” from Donne’s “The Flea” to Lowell’s “Man and Wife,” and from Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” to Plath’s “Daddy.”

Paglia also introduces us to less-familiar works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut–and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn will excite even seasoned poetry lovers, and create a generation of new ones. [Edit review] [Delete review]

“She flies as high as you can go. . . . Bold and convincing. . . . Exemplary. . . . A rich book.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“The chapter on Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’ will take the top of your head off!” –James Wolcott

“As entertaining as it is dazzingly erudite, Break, Blow, Burn is capable of re-energizing any reader’s engagement with poetry.”
–Francine du Plessix Gray, The Week

“I hope a lot of people read this book. . . . There wasn’t a commentary where I didn’t learn something about the poem in question, no matter how familiar the poem was.” –Philip Marchand, Toronto Star

“It will have students storming the walls of tomorrow’s English departments, mad for poetry again.” –St. Petersburg Times

“Dazzling. . . . Bursts with her ingenuity. . . . Brilliant insights . .... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]

one

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 5

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away;

Death's second self that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 10

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The sonnet was a medieval form perfected by the Italian poet Petrarch, who was inspired by the... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]