Friday, May 06, 2022
Criticism
Robert Conquest, "The Abomination of Moab,"
Encounter (May 1970) 56-64 (at 58):
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Criticism nowadays all too often tends to resemble phrenology—a sophisticated methodology with an erudite jargon, dealing with material on the face of it closely connected with the subject, but in reality almost totally irrelevant to the main questions. This would not matter, perhaps, were it not usually in the service of the vicious or absurd. As Housman remarked in another context:Hat tip: John O'Toole.The old unscientific days are everlasting; they are here and now; they are renewed perennially by the ear which takes formulas in, and the tongue which gives them out again....
