April 20, 2024
Literature and Power
Sometimes we of the English-teaching profession must wonder whether our social function is anything more than pious—whether we are expected to do more than perform levitical chores in the temple […]
April 20, 2024
The Graduate Student in English
Though many of them are utterly unaware of the conflict which Mr. Tate has helped to bring into focus, the graduate students of English are as concerned with it as […]
April 20, 2024
If We Care Enough
The good thing about English teaching in America these last thirty years is a kind of mellow reasonableness and balance. Gushing over masterpieces has not been much indulged; the wizard […]
April 20, 2024
Scholars as Critics
The basic function of the literary scholar was clearly indicated by Dr. Johnson when he remarked that “all works which describe manners require notes in sixty or seventy years” if […]
April 19, 2024
Literary History vs. Criticism
The modern English department is notoriously easy to attack; and it is most obviously exposed to attack by the stupid, or trifling, or plainly muddle-headed books, articles, dissertations, and theses […]