John Jones

John Jones reported football for the Observer and was later Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

Leigh Hunt was a poet, playwright (tragic and comic), masque composer, translator (from Latin, French and Italian), satirist, anthologist, biographer and autobiographer, magazine editor, political journalist, theatre and literary critic, occasional essayist, philosopher of religion. He was also a jailbird and redcoat volunteer, flautist and War Office clerk, dandy (blue frock-coat and orange...

Diary: Iris, Hegel and Me

John Jones, 18 December 2003

I’ve beenbasking in a warm glow from A.N. Wilson’s recent book about Iris Murdoch* – I mean its way of holding Plato and Kant not quite on a level with each other but far above everyone else except Hegel, about whom more later, in its account of her attention to the classical masters. This is a big merit, and a needful one because others, including her official biographer,...

Letter

Point of Substance

7 March 1996

In his generous review of my Shakespeare at Work (LRB, 7 March) Frank Kermode challenges the opinion that ‘And that’s true too,’ in reply to the famous ‘Ripeness is all,’ ought not to be counted among Shakespeare’s second thoughts in King Lear. The criticism is misdirected. What Kermode is questioning here is Peter Blayney’s view, not mine. I think the correction is worth making since...

Improving the Plays

Frank Kermode, 7 March 1996

John Jones, sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford, has written a number of good, idiosyncratic books on topics as diverse as Greek tragedy and Wordsworth, together with an excellent novel, The...

Read more reviews

Shatost

John Bayley, 16 June 1983

Most novels, if they come off, are orgies of self-congratulation, shared between the writer and the reader, who unconsciously understand both what is going on and what is needed. To enjoy a novel...

Read more reviews

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences