He is a great artist. He may be the finest artist among American writers since William Faulkner and Henry James. There's the endless variety of modes he works in. His style, his stance, his point of view. |
How To Read and Why. |
I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist. |
I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike , and I don't think there really is a distinction between the two , are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female, of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked. |
I saw the Oxford English Dictionary there for the first time. |
I think that's not reading because there's nothing there to be read, |
I'm talking in the millions. I can't tell you one, two, three or 10. I'm just saying that it's in the millions. |
In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read. |
It's hard to think of a rival, |
Nobody has ever seen the 'Ur-Hamlet,' |
the best living poet. |
The real 'Hamlet' is of course later, first performed in 1600, then performed with revisions in 1601, and eventually included in the First Folio after Shakespeare's death, ... It really has more in common with the two major works it comes between, the two great comedies 'As You Like It' and 'Twelfth Night'. |
There are a lot of possibilities. |
They include all kinds of fifth-raters. |
We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. |