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The Death of Picasso
ByPublisher Description
“Davenport writes with equal imagination and verve about the tanginess of an orange, the mystery of love, quantum physics, music, and a lashing rainstorm.” —Booklist
Featuring both short stories and critical pieces, The Death of Picasso exhibits the versatility and innovative thinking that drives all of Guy Davenport’s work. As a critic, he takes on topics such as Ruskin’s life and influences and Benson Bobrick’s history of English versions of the Bible, through which Davenport explores how translation has affected the text’s interpretation for centuries. Both his fiction and essays contribute to the eternal conversation on how the arts reflect, inform, and influence the human experience.
In his short stories, Davenport vividly evokes entire worlds—such as that of a regatta on the Thames or an air show in Northern Italy—with an eye for telling details that typically go unnoticed. Fact and fiction combine and shift forms throughout the collection, for instance, in “The Concord Sonata” when the author manipulates time and space to put thinkers like Thoreau, Wittgenstein, and W. E. B. Du Bois in conversation. Davenport’s uninhibited imagination and singular gaze reveal both the commonplace and the sublime in a new light.
Featuring both short stories and critical pieces, The Death of Picasso exhibits the versatility and innovative thinking that drives all of Guy Davenport’s work. As a critic, he takes on topics such as Ruskin’s life and influences and Benson Bobrick’s history of English versions of the Bible, through which Davenport explores how translation has affected the text’s interpretation for centuries. Both his fiction and essays contribute to the eternal conversation on how the arts reflect, inform, and influence the human experience.
In his short stories, Davenport vividly evokes entire worlds—such as that of a regatta on the Thames or an air show in Northern Italy—with an eye for telling details that typically go unnoticed. Fact and fiction combine and shift forms throughout the collection, for instance, in “The Concord Sonata” when the author manipulates time and space to put thinkers like Thoreau, Wittgenstein, and W. E. B. Du Bois in conversation. Davenport’s uninhibited imagination and singular gaze reveal both the commonplace and the sublime in a new light.
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About Guy Davenport
Guy Davenport (1927–2005) was an American writer, artist, translator, and teacher who was best known for his short stories that combined a modernist style with classical subjects. Originally from South Carolina, Davenport graduated from Duke University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, where he wrote his thesis on James Joyce. After earning a PhD from Harvard, he taught English at Haverford College from 1961 to 1963 before accepting a position at the University of Kentucky, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. In 2012, the university appointed its inaugural Guy Davenport Endowed English Professor. Davenport won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his literary achievements and an O. Henry Award for his short stories. He was also a visual artist whose illustrations were included in several of his books. His works include Da Vinci’s Bicycle, Eclogues, Apples and Pears, and The Jules Verne Steam Balloon.