Friday, January 05, 2024
An Obstacle to Scholarly Progress
Dorothy Whitelock (1901-1982), The Audience of Beowulf (1951; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 1:
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It sometimes happens that a well-argued theory, with the authority of a great scholar behind it, will, after a series of progressive repetitions by others who ignore the safeguards and reservations of the original propounder, acquire an axiomatic quality which that propounder would have been the first to deplore; and then, being handed on as incontrovertible fact, which it is not, it may block the line of advance and stand in the way of the true assessment of new evidence as this comes to light.Related posts:
