By the time they have read the multiple and incompatible versions of Schlesinger's 'stand' on Vietnam, and seen how it has fluctuated over the years, they will have learned to appreciate that the job of the court historian, so subject to abrupt changes in fashion, is a queasy-making one at best. Mastering old Arthur's shifty positions on Cuba is a simple matter by comparison, though Mervyn Jones should probably not have attempted it merely by relying on the evidence of his own ears and eyes. I have never seen any attempt by Schlesinger to reply to Chomsky's close reading of his hilariously sinuous record, but I am pleased to learn that your correspondence columns are still open. I read with pleasure Zachary Leader's Diary in your 16 April issue until I saw his assertion that the Huntington Library possessed the 'finest collection of early editions of Shakespeare's works in the world, including four first Folios'. While Catholic admirers have chosen to overlook More's apparent slide from truth-telling humanism into apologetic Papalism, Wood condemns More equally for his cruelty and for his resistance to Reformation doctrine.
Wood is certain of the 'rightness' of the Protestant cause.
Wood's tendentious and traditional Protestant misunderstanding of the availability and popularity of the Bible in the later Middle Ages, his Anglican misunderstanding of justification by faith alone, and his anachronistic condemnation of More for failing to live up to the standards of free speech in a liberal democracy all betray the work of a skilled journalist, not the trained historian who might have written a more analytic review of Ackroyd's important book. From the contexts, I'd guess the semantic focus is on something close to guilt, guile or surreptitiousness. But it's obviously versatile, and so is James Ellroy, who can flip it three ways - as a verb, a noun and an adjective. This poem actually contains a good deal of sense - as once explained by the generous Allen Tate. It deals with a wake in a brothel of the most humble sort.