Re: 'discarded like calendars'

This is a pretty compelling quotation on a number of levels, Kim. It
doesn't matter that the critics of one period are usually seen as wrong
by the critics of the next period (which is what I was trying to say
when I said that criticism is usually good for about 50 years) -- this
means that all critics are wrong, even though (according to the
quotation) they are highly regarded by their contemporaries.

That "high regard" is the important thing here: the value of critics is
that they are reflective of the attitudes of a specific period. They
don't have to last to the year 100,000 to be valuable. They are our own
voices, our own prejudices, our own assumptions -- understanding them is
to do archaeology on the way we think today. It's to understand
ourselves.

Jim

Kim Johnson wrote:

>"A good critic--we cannot help seeing, when we look
>back at any other age--is a much rarer thing than a
>good poet or a good novelist. Unless you are a critic
>in a hundred thousand, the future will quote you only
>as an example of the normal error of the past, what
>everybody was foolish enough to believe then. Critics
>are discarded like calendars; yet, for their year,
>with what trust the world regards them!"
>
>--Randall Jarrell, mid-20th century poet & critic
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Dec 18 12:03:13 2002