Description

Instead of a Critic brings together pieces written over twenty years or so in search of whatever links them. The topics range from Anglo-German cultural relations and the refugee flight from Nazi Europe to myth, pictorial art and the 'Two Cultures' question. It touches on performance, whether in cinema, dance, 'straight' theatre or the American Musical. Above all, it expresses an enthusiasm for literature and what literature can do.

Contents: Introduction - Aldous Huxley: Between Art and Science - Rupert Brooke - Bloomsbury - Rosamond Lehmann - Katherine Mansfield and Germany - Kafka: The Significance of Clothes - Franziska zu Reventlow - Rilke and Cézanne - On Translating Poetry - Three Poems by Hofmannsthal - Hofmannsthals in Exile - Egon Wellesz - The Gender of Mr W. S. - Nancy Cunard Sees Josephine Baker - Hedy Lamarr - Louise Brooks - Wedekind in English - Sondheim at 90 - Mitford Connections - Myth: Its Manufacture and Recovery - Blood for the Ghosts - Newton and Supermac - The Two Cultures - About the Author.