William Flesch

William Flesch teaches English at Brandeis. He is the author of, among other books, The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry: 19th Century (2009), and of many articles on poetic form.

Articles

Burning Pages: On Elisa Gonzalez’s “Grand Tour”
William Flesch reviews Elisa Gonzalez’s new poetry collection “Grand Tour.”...
William FleschSep 30
- Poetry
A Wilderness of Mirrors: On Javier Marías’s “Tomás Nevinson”
William Flesch reviews Spanish author Javier Marías’s final novel, “Tomás Nevinson.”...
William FleschJul 5
- Fiction
One Feels a Malady: On Robert N. Watson’s “Cultural Evolution and its Discontents”
William Flesch reviews "Cultural Evolution and its Discontents: Cognitive Overload, Parasitic Cultures, and the Humanistic Cure."...
William FleschJun 7, 2019
A Quotable Love Story
An Honest Ghost, a novel constructed of quotations from other novels, becomes nothing less than a powerfully moving story of love, and loss, and their precious remainders, or the story rather of how what you love is always at risk of becoming only the trace and remainder of itself....
William FleschJul 8, 2014
The Secrets of Consciousness and the Problem of God
I. LET’S SAY YOU WERE GOD. How could you know this? How could you be sure that you weren’t rather a mad person, thinking you were God? You’d be omniscient of course, so you would ...
William FleschMay 19, 2013
Sex Sells: Helen DeWitt's "Lightning Rods"
IF YOU'RE A TOP producer, and a heterosexual man, the testosterone that gives you your drive may also make you, well, reckless about how you approach female coworkers. Suddenly, your employer is faced with a sexual harassment suit. But Eros the ...
William FleschNov 16, 2012
Paradoxes of Altruism in the Digital Age
THE DRUDGE REPORT GETS about 30,000,000 hits a day, and has been long ensconced among the top hundred US internet sites. Other news sites in the top 100, rubbing digital shoulders with Google, Amazon, and Apple, include Fox News ...
William FleschAug 19, 2012
The Evil of Banality
ldquo;I'M BLIND, I’M BLIND” is the “inevitable cry” of the stricken in José Saramago’s great novel Blindness, as a strange milky-white opacity spreads among rich and poor, young and old, good and ...
William FleschJun 30, 2012
Liberalism in Flight: Cowboys, Fugitives, and Political Philosophy
This negative and lonely freedom allows the stranger to move through social groups while remaining free from their constraints....
William FleschOct 4, 2011