Category Archives: Criticism

Another Review of The Life of Words

In the July 2022 issue of Modern Language Review, a short review by Mia Gaudern. Gaudern is the author of the very good The Etymological Poetry of W. H. Auden, J. H. Prynne, and Paul Muldoon (OUP, 2020), published virtually at the same time by the same press, so she very much knows her stuff […]

20.07.2022 – 11:56 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Two reviews of The Life of Words

It has been almost two years since I published The Life of Words: Etymology and Modern Poetry, and even longer since I stopped working on it. A couple of reviews have come out, one just the other day. They’re by Barry Wallenstein (in Choice) and Stephanie Burt (in Modern Philology). The latter is free to read without […]

25.02.2022 – 09:34 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

Paul Muldoon’s Soundprint

Paul Muldoon’s virtuosity with rhyme is often commented upon by critics (“virtuosity” is a frequent epithet where his rhymes are concerned, as are “bravura”, and “high-wire act”). One grand old man once wittily remarked that Muldoon could rhyme “cat” and “dog”, which is nice because while on the surface it suggests some kind of magical […]

09.04.2018 – 12:59 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Digital Humanities, Poetry | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Interview with Paul Muldoon

Here are some excerpts from an interview I did with Paul Muldoon a couple of years ago, which focused on dictionaries and etymology. A full .pdf version of the interview can be downloaded here: [Interview with Paul Muldoon]. PM: I’ve never really been into the OED Online. Maybe I should. I think I might even […]

09.09.2015 – 14:26 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Method as Tautology

Although it has been available for a while in the advanced access section of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, and before that Literary and Linguistic Computing, my article on digital methods in literary research has recently been published in its final version. The full bibliographic details are: Williams, David-Antoine. “Method as Tautology in the Digital […]

21.05.2015 – 11:42 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Digital Humanities, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Published: “Geoffrey Hill’s Etymological Crux”

I’m happy to say that Modern Philology has just published a longish article of mine on etymology in Geoffrey Hill’s work, called “All corruptible things: Geoffrey Hill’s Etymological Crux.” A self-archived copy of the article may be downloaded by clicking here. [Note that a revised version of this article appears in my 2020 monograph, The […]

29.01.2015 – 16:50 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Assessing Poetry Assessor

The web application called “Poetry Assessor” has had a second wave of attention since going back online recently. In this post I want to show why Poetry Assessor doesn’t assess poetry, and to make a broader point about the “Humanities” in “Digital Humanities”: that bad disciplinary training makes for bad interdisciplinary work. It’s a longish […]

06.11.2014 – 20:27 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (5)

Martin McDonagh Spam (?) Scam (?)

A couple of days ago, when someone called me from Pakistan to tell me  Microsoft wanted to disinfect my computer over the phone, an episode came back to me from my first term teaching in Canada. In December of 2010, I was the target of a very odd email fraud. Looking into it now, I […]

31.08.2014 – 15:20 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Language and Literature in Society | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Contending and Pretending with Etymology

This morning brought a FB cry for help: As I happen to have my American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (third edition) handy, I quickly came to the answer that English attend and content are indeed from the same root, although not exactly the same Latin root. That is, the historical semantic tree branches off […]

16.07.2014 – 13:42 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Language and Literature in Society | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

On the origins of bears, and words for bears

A poem by Simon Armitage called “The Great Bear” (from CloudCukooLand, 1997) has a few things to say about, and to, a bear – or bears in general. The poem is modelled as a set of ratifications (“it’s right… And right…” etc.) of ursine legends and myths, actual and invented:  [embedded from Google Books] The […]

29.06.2014 – 15:11 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (3)