WHILE THE REPUTATION OF some critics is held aloft by their own wind, John Carey’s rests on sterner stuff. As a reviewer for the Sunday Times and the author of books about Dickens, Donne, and others, Carey is one of the cleverest and most entertaining critics in English. If asked for my ideal author for a book as ambitious as a “history of poetry,” even a “little” history of poetry, I would pick Carey with maybe one or two others.
He doesn’t showcase his wit in because wit depends on dilatory time, and he’s moving too fast: in fewer than 300 pages, he covers
