This collection of engaging and informative essays persuades readers that English is equally worthy of serious academic study as science or philosophy. With a discussion of literature's abstract means of definition and value, Enright points to Lawrence's statement, that literature or literary criticism are "concerned with values that science ignores." These essays cover subjects such as the challenges of literature and poetry in translation, Japanese women diarists, the devil, Johann Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Thomas Mann, Musil, Bertold Brecht, and Robertson Davies.