Atlas

"The title of the collection, Atlas, is apt in the sense of travel, both physical and abstract. Alfred Corn's essays range from a reminiscence of a journey to Elizabeth Bishop's birthplace; to his exchange as a college student of letters with Flannery O'Connor, in which the renowned author writes to Corn about the nature of faith; to his reassessment of Auden's Christmas Oratorio; to his lively look at the Canterbury Tales; to Corn's retrospective consideration of Wordsworth. While many such essay collections limit themselves to the modern and contemporary periods, Corn's enthusiasm for Chaucer and Keats is as fresh and inquisitive as that which he holds for Bishop, Thom Gunn, or Derek Mahon."--Jacket.