In Defense of Extravagance
Author: Jennifer Holberg, associate professor of EnglishPerspectives
Posted on: Nov 24, 2009
Several years ago I was in England, researching the life of a very minor Modernist poet. I had dutifully made the rounds of libraries far and wide, and finally, after about a month, I had arrived at the very last one on my list. My reward when I was done was to be my first trip to France with my brother, who lived in England at the time. To be honest, I was only visiting that particular library out of a sense of scholarly thoroughness (I refuse to say obsessiveness) and because the manuscripts in question involved the über-Modernist T.S. Eliot, albeit eight of Eliot’s letters to my poet’s sister. I told you I was thorough.