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Rhodri Lewis

@rhodrilewis.bsky.social

2K followers 1.6K following 280 posts

Literature, ideas, history, the arts | Reading & writing & teaching | Shakespeare's Tragic Art out now from @princetonupress.bsky.social | Writing a life of Frank Kermode | bit.ly/2vbBoIN

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Reposted by Talia Schaffer, Rhodri Lewis, Mary Burke

Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 7d

Delightful doodles of some pipe smoking Georgians found by Maddock Fellow Danielle Magnusson on the works of Ben Jonson, printed in 1616 #Readers #Epigrams

Bottom corner of a 17th century book showing drawings

Title page of 'Epigrammes' by Ben Jonson, showing doodles at the bottom of the page

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Sep 11

The young David, per Vignon, looking uncannily like Helena Bonham-Carter

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Sep 11

Lovely to see this in a sort of hard copy

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Sep 4

1,174 pages and 69 chapters…but Ron Chernow’s massive Twain biography still manages to miss the mark, says @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.

How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark

This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 23

Ron Chernow has written biographies of Rockefeller, Washington and Hamilton—the latter of which inspired the famous musical. But his new book on Mark Twain is sub-par, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.

How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark

This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 19

Ron Chernow’s blockbusting biography tells us everything about American literature’s founding father, Mark Twain—except that which makes him interesting, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.

How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark

This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 16

How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark

This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Aug 15

Thank you!

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Aug 13

Thank you!

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 12

Ron Chernow’s blockbusting biography tells us everything about American literature’s founding father, Mark Twain—except that which makes him interesting, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
www.prospectmagazine...

How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark

This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 30

Four stages of an archive trip. 1. Excitement/fear at all the new stuff you might find. 2. Relief that all is actually quite manageable. 3. Surely there’ll be something to show for my two days sifting these uncatalogued boxes? 4. It is what it is.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 30

So, if any of you have spotted typos in Shax's Tragic Art, I'd love to hear of them. (Am doing corrections for the paperback, and only have eight so far; there must be many more.)

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 12

Only thought crime!

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 11

"When Adam won Eve's hand, / He wouldn't stand for teasin'. / He didn't care about / Those apples out of season." Ambushed by Cole Porter on the train. Pleasingly.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 8

Ended up being murdered, curiously enough...

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 8

Morris Shapira, “Critical Twiddle-Twaddle,” Delta 26 (1962): 10-21

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Jul 8

“‘Al’ is a marketing term. It doesn't refer to a coherent set of technologies. Instead, the phrase …is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their tech is similar to humans”
Excellent & uncompromising.
Read it!

A copy in my hand of The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 7

The sheer energy that the Leavisites wasted in hating.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 6

I've been lucky enough to have had some excellent discussions (podcast and otherwise) about Shakespeare's Tragic Art, but I think this set of questions may have been the best.
www.christianhumanist.org/2025/06/chri...

Christian Humanist Profiles 271: Shakespeare’s Tragic Art

Living among human beings gives an observant person plenty of occasions to think about delusion. Whether one watches the young revolutionary or the aging politician, the conspiracy theorist or the…

www.christianhumanist.org

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 1

Pleasing to learn that when Stephen Spender went to Paris to investigate the 1968 student revolt (staying with his friends the Rothschilds), he was repeatedly mistaken for Marcuse.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 1

Good to have reason to be back in here for a day.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 18

Trying to figure out who this character from Kermode's autobiography was. "Paul H-F", undergrad at Liverpool in late 1930s. Ends up directing a molecular biology lab at Yale (or similar, I suppose, as Kermode may have been shielding). Have drawn a thoroughgoing blank. Thoughts?

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Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Jun 18

“Muriel Spark led an implausible life,” writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.

Does Frances Wilson’s new biography, ELECTRIC SPARK, manage to capture the author’s complexity?
www.prospectmagazine...

Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark

The novelist’s 1940s and 1950s resonated with mystical echoes of her past and future. Can a new biography capture this complexity?

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Reposted by Valentina Bold

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 11

I enjoyed the chance to revisit Muriel Spark while reviewing Frances Wilson's new life of her for @prospectmagazine.co.uk.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/7009...

Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark

The novelist’s 1940s and 1950s resonated with mystical echoes of her past and future. Can a new biography capture this complexity?

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5

Love it!

Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5

Have tried and failed to figure it out, but her work was "partly in anthopology, partly in English". They didn't hire her in the end, as they gave the person then doing the job (a fixed-term lectureship) an extra year.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5

Am amused by Kermode's response to being informed of E. H. Gombrich's opinion that a renaissance specialist he planned to hire at UCL was "not a scholar and never will be".

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · May 31

NYC looking good yesterday evening.

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

Dr Joanne Paul @drjoannepaul.bsky.social · May 29

It’s publication day for Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England with Michael Joseph @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social!

Pop by your local bookshop or order now - uk.bookshop.org/a/12264/9781...

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