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  • The Paris Review

    The Complete Sentence

    by Jeff Dolven Oct 26, 2017 4 minutes

    In our new eight-part series, Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven will take apart and put back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence every week. Tom Toro will illustrate each sentence Dolven chooses. 

    Image © Tom Toro

    What is a sentence? But that is such a formal question. How about, what is a sentence ? Less formal, perhaps, but obviously impossible to answer, for sheer variety. There may be some human purposes that don’t find their way into sentences, but writers keep trying, and for any limit we experience there may be a sentence in waiting and a writer to

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