The social role of poetry has always been a question, but it has not always been posed explicitly as a question.

Machado’s Posthumous Memoirs are a de-composition, so to speak, a gnawing of the source material that their author had encountered both in literature and in society.

Anne Carson conquers Euripides’ radical attempt to destroy and redeem his culture and history, but for modern times and modern men — modern men who suffer from an overfullness of experience that impoverishes them.

Two girls set out to live life. They adapt themselves to different roles within girlhood, but never attain to a fullness of any role.