The English Miscellany

Anaïs Nin Dedications, like Prefaces, are a neglected field in the study of book construction and creative composition. But they can reveal quite a lot about power and politics; authorship and authority; celebration and bitterness. In critical terms deconstructionists would argue that a preface displaces and defaces the text that follows, perhaps (humorously?) tripping it up, or tying it up in precursor knots.Often Jacques Derrida never got past the deconstruction of the preface, or a footnote therein, in order to make his 'point'. And you probably recall all the levels of ludicrous entrapment that Jonathan Swift employed in A Tale of a Tub (1704) ? Have dedications grown shorter and more ironic (or bitter) since the dec line of aristocratic patronage? Are they still a zone of praise or insult? What about this one, taken from Herman Melville's Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1854) TO His Highness THE BUNKER-HILL MONUMENT (Discu...

In this post Alexander Bain offers definitions and examples of the ludicrous. 108. The Ludicrous and the Laughable are names for what excites laughter. Among the causes of laughter we may name abundance of animal spirits, any sudden accession of pleasure, the special elation of power and superiority, or an unexpected diversion of the mind when under excitement. 109. The Ludicrous in composition is for the most part based on the degradation, direct or indirect, of some person or interest—something associated with power, dignity, or gravity. It is farther requisite that the circumstances of this degradation should not be such as to produce any other strong emotion, as pity, anger, or fear. Comedy took its rise from the jeering and personal vituperation indulged in during the processions in honor of the god Dionysus, or Bacchus. In the regular comedy, and in every kind of composition aiming at the laughable, the essential in gradient is the vilifying and degrad...

Robert Boyle The reflective essay on a variety of topics can be traced back to Montaigne (1533-1592). His essays display erudite wit and a slippery, speculative, anecdotal approach to a range of themes. In the course of reading his work we start to piece together fragments of his personality and we warm to his humane openness to life. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was also significant for his ability to compose meditative and inspiring short essays on any topic. Examples are The Christian Virtuoso (1690-91) and his Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects (1665) which included a defence of his methodology. The notion that ordinary, ephemeral topics were suitable for serious readers and profound spiritual reflection was most famously parodied in Jonathan Swift’s Meditations on a Broomstick (1701) But a Broom-stick, perhaps you'll say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man, but a Topsy-turvy Creature, his Animal Faculties perpetually mounted...