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“... to say that, for most writers, greedy to learn and emulate, this is the only important question. Randall Stevenson’s volume in the Oxford English Literary History, which provides an account of 1960 to 2000, prompts these thoughts, because his book has no interest in aesthetic intention and no interest in aesthetic success. It is a purely academic ...”

“... definitely say that he’s ‘sceptical’ about ‘grand narratives’. You could even say, as Randall Stevenson does in The Last of England?, the final volume of the Oxford English Literary History, that England, England ‘exactly illustrates’ the ideas of Jean Baudrillard – although Barnes is as ironic about Parisian rhetoric as he is about ...”

“... volume of the Oxford English Literary History covering the period 1960-2000 (published in 2004), Randall Stevenson complained of what he saw as the Movement’s parochialism and unadventurousness, and lamented ‘the extent and longevity of its influence over English poetry in the decades that followed’. As all this indicates, the ground which Zachary ...”

“... Larkin as could be imagined, was made public when a broadsheet responded to large claims made by Randall Stevenson in The Last of England. Prynne, in black corduroy jacket, orange tie, had his image snatched as he rode through Cambridge on his bicycle. Soon afterwards he began to make extended visits to China. By 2000, thanks to new political ...”

“... for a 1987 BBC television film called Life’s Story, in which Franklin was played by Juliet Stevenson. She gave a remarkable performance, and Crick’s impression was that she was ‘not only the true centre of the film – she is almost the only person who really appears to be doing science.’ Here was the beginning of a revaluation of Franklin’s ...”

“... similarly accomplished essay in the Dantesque); from Pauline Rainford, Monica Ditmas, Anne Stevenson (two) and John Whitworth; from Aidan Carl Mathews (another besides ‘Severances’); from Thomas Shapcott (who may be Australian – we aren’t told) and from Peter Bland (probably, by the same token, a New Zealander); and from U. A. Fanthorpe ...”

“... less common. Why, though, has it been so difficult for people just to see that she’s great? Randall Jarrell did, clearly enough, when in a 1956 review of the Poems he wrote: ‘Occasionally you meet someone and feel in astonished joy: “Well, this is what people ought to be like”; this is what poems ought to be like.’ For Jarrell, evidently, it was ...”

“... themselves and the world, and to enter into history without illusion. In The Golden Age Adlai Stevenson, another loser, is likened to Hamlet: ‘Yes,’ Peter Sanford comments, ‘he couldn’t make up his mind but at least he had one to make up or not.’ Empire is almost six hundred pages long. In draft, under the title ‘Manifest Destiny’, it was ...”

“... seemed, was ceded pride of place, the ‘most important American poet now at work’. Lowell and Randall Jarrell, roommates at Kenyon College in the 1930s, and to a lesser extent Berryman too, were big on rating and ranking: the top three poets, the top three oyster houses or second-basemen, the three best Ibsen plays – they seemed especially to like the ...”