Criticism QuotesI am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.  According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value. Scientific dogmatics must devote itself to the criticism and correction of Church proclamation and not just to a repetitive exposition of it. Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated. I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists. Literary criticism, now almost entirely confined to the universities, thus moves against talent by moving against the canon. Academic preferment will not come from a respectful study of Wordsworth's poetics; it will come from a challenging study of his politics - his attitude to the poor, say, or his unconscious 'valorization' of Napoleon; and it will come still faster if you ignore Wordsworth and elevate some (justly) neglected contemporary, by which process the canon may be quietly and steadily sapped. Sometimes I pick up a magazine and read a piece of film criticism to the end only if I like it. I don't like those which are too free with praise because their reasons seem wrong and that annoys me. Critics who attack me do so for such contradictory reasons that they confuse me, and I am afraid that if I am influenced by one, I will sin according to the standards of the other. |
