The future of taboo

Backward at “The Forward”

Anthony Powell, 1905-2000

Poetry chronicle

Rewriting the history of the British Empire
by Keith Windschuttle

Five Yugoslav classics
by Stephen Schwartz

Roman holiday
by Karen Wilkin
On The Splendor of 18th-Century Rome at the Met

Seamus Heaney: redistributing the field
by Richard Tillinghast

The owner of the house
by Louis Simpson

Mole
by Wyatt Prunty

Quiet alarm, deep foreboding
by Alexander Coleman
Alexander Coleman's letter from Vienna

Period decadence, emotional truths
by Mark Steyn

Gallery chronicle
by Daniel Kunitz
On A State of Seeing: Drawings ofJohn Heliker at Kraushaar Galleries, New York, Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art at AXA Gallery, New York & Thomas Nozkowski: New Paintings, at the Max Protetch Gallery, New York

Looking about
by Jay Nordlinger
On recent performances by Deborah Voigt and Susan Graham

Concert note
by Jay Nordlinger
On Martha Argerich at Carnegie Hall.

The news from Olympus
by James Bowman

Meditations, good & bad
by Brooke Allen
Reviews of Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, Losing Nelson: A Novel by Barry Unsworth & Being Dead by Jim Crace

What the monsters know
by Jeffrey Meyers
A consideration of James Dickey upon the publication of Crux: The Letters of James Dickey & James Dickey: The World as a Lie by Henry Hart

Last bastion of reason
by James Franklin

Eager to hear and tell
by Carl Rollyson
On The Selected Letters of Rebecca West, edited by Bonnie Kime Scott