Analogies are like lies.
Roman PayneTags: lies literary-criticism analogies
Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is.
Philip PullmanTags: writing literary-criticism fantasy metaphors tolkien epics
Die Kunst des Rezensierens besteht nicht zuletzt darin, selbst über langweilige Bücher fesselnd zu schreiben.
Thomas AnzTags: literary-criticism theory
A novel, in which all is created by the author's whim, must strike a more profound level of truth, or it is worthless."
"And yet, I have heard you say that any novel that relieves your ennui for an hour has proved its usefulness."
"You have a good memory. It must have been ten thousands of years ago that I uttered those words."
"And if it was?"
"In another ten thousand, perhaps I will agree with them again."
"In my opinion, the proper way to judge a novel is this: Does it give one an accurate reflection of the moods and characteristics of a particular group of people in a particular place at a particular time? If so, it has value. Otherwise, it has none."
"You do not find this rather narrow?"
"Madam—"
"Well?"
"I was quoting you.
Tags: literary-criticism stories novels
Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of plutocracy, oligarchy, and mounting theocracy that rule our state? How do we address the self-inflicted catastrophes that devastated our natural environment? So large is our malaise that no single writer can encompass it. We have no Emerson or Whitman among us. An institutionalized counterculture condemns individuality as archaic and depreciates intellectual values, even in the universities. (The Anatomy of Influence)
Harold BloomTags: literary-criticism
For more than half a century I have tried to confront greatness directly, hardly a fashionable stance, but I see no other justification for literary criticism in the shadows of our Evening Land. Over time the strong poets settle these matters for themselves, and precursors remain alive in their progeny. Readers in our flooded landscape use their own perceptiveness. But an advance can be of some help. If you believe that the canon in time will select itself, you still can follow a critical impulse to hasten the process, as I did with the later Stevens, Ashbury, and, more recently, Henri Cole.
Harold BloomTags: literary-criticism
While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw—that of outright unreadability.
Martin AmisTags: literary-criticism bad-reviews don-quixote miguel-de-cervantes
...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed feelings about that. At one end of the spectrum is Thoreau, wishing to immerse himself in swamps for the positive vibrations; at the other end is Benjamin Franklin, who didn't like Nature. [p.91]
Margaret AtwoodTags: literary-criticism nature native-americans
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their mind.
Susan SontagTags: literary-criticism sex religion fiction pornography
The enduring rapture with magic and fable has always struck me as latently childish and somehow sexless (and thus also related to childlessness).
Christopher HitchensTags: sexuality literary-criticism sex literature magic fable fantasy-literature childishness childlessness
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