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:
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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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: