From a Washington Post review by Michael Dirda headlined “‘Journeys of the Mind’ is an enthralling account of a scholar at work”:

Back in the 1970s, I was a graduate student in comparative literature at Cornell University enamored of medieval European literature. With excellent teachers, I studied Old and Middle English poetry, chivalric romances written in medieval French and Middle High German, Icelandic sagas — not the most obvious preparation for a future literary journalist.