Guy Davenport occupies an unusual position in contemporary American literature because his accomplishments cover so many diverse disciplines. Not only is he considered one of the most respected short-story writers; he is also one of the most influential literary critics, translators, book illustrators, and teachers. He has published over fifty stories, some the length of novellas, in six collections. For his first four collections, he created some distinctive black-and-white illustrations. He has also published poetry, in his Flowers and Leaves (1966) and Thasos and Ohio (1985). Davenport has published notable translations of Heracleitus, Diogenes, and the poets Sappho and Archilochus. He has also published two highly acclaimed collections of essays: The Geography of the Imagination (1981) and Every Force Evolves a Form (1987). These volumes contain sixty essays that cover such challenging thinkers as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Samuel Beckett, to name a few. In addition Davenport...