214 Quotes About Literary-criticism

The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities that make it precious and by indicating the angle of visions from which its beauties are visible. But many critics do not realize their function. They aim not to appreciate, but to judge; they seek first to draw lines about literature and then bully readers into accepting these laws.

Informative and understandable, even for non-techies like me...

It may be true that we all have a novel inside of us. Better in than out in the present case. Burning Ashes appears to have been typed rather than written. If so, it was a great deal easier to type than it is to read. Its tone is vulgar; it lacks invention. It is designed to thrill the repressed and soothe the subliterate, and no doubt they will be thrilled and soothed. Nature, I fear, did not intend Ms Lewis-Foster to write.

If you tell me bad things about someone, you're telling bad things about me behind me

Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.

[T]he new weird represents a productive experiment in fantasy fiction. The New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s arguably embodied science fiction's claim to literary 'seriousness.' This desire for seriousness is not snobbery, as sometimes suggested by folks who overemphasize the entertainment function of speculative fiction; it's about recognition of the vast possibilities within the field.

Each work of criticism is supposed to build on the body of work, to increase the total sum of human understanding. It's not like filling your house with more and more beautiful wicker baskets. It's supposed to be cumulative - it believes in progress.