Read Deeply, Not To Believe,

All That A Critic, As Critic, Can Give Poets Is The Deadly Encouragement That Never Ceases To Remind Them Of How Heavy Their Inheritance Is.

We Can Be Reluctant To Recognize How Much Of Our Culture Was Literary, Particularly Now That So Many Of The Institutional Purveyors Of Literature Happily Have Joined In Proclaiming Its Death. A Substantial Number Of Americans Who Believe They Worship God Actually Worship Three Major Literary Characters: The Yahweh Of The J Writer (earliest Author Of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), The Jesus Of The Gospel Of Mark, And Allah Of The Koran.

How To Read "harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, Very Quickly, To Begin With, And Perhaps Also To Make An End. Why Read It? Presumably, If You Cannot Be Persuaded To Read Anything Better, Rowling Will Have To Do.

What Matters In Literature In The End Is Surely The Idiosyncratic, The Individual, The Flavor Or The Color Of A Particular Human Suffering.

No Poem, Not Even Shakespeare Or Milton Or Chaucer, Is Ever Strong Enough To Totally Exclude Every Crucial Precursor Text Or Poem.