Category: Lit & Crit

You know, those were different timesYou know, those were different times

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 2:43 pm

“The decade 1840–1850, preceding the rush to the gold-diggings, was an important period in the history of Australian poetry. The development of New South Wales brought about an increase in the number of newspapers, and the newspapers gave opportunities for the publication of verse.” — from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, Ch. XII

We call them our elected representativesWe call them our elected representatives

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 3:10 pm

“Sir Thomas Gresham, writing on the coinage, lays it down as a principle that, if you have in a country good coins and deteriorated coins of the same metal current side by side, the bad will drive out the good, and Gresham’s law may often be applied to literature, to art and, especially, to journalism. The largest circulations have often been attained by newspapers not exhibiting the highest characteristics; indeed, newspapers have been known suddenly to reach enormous sales by publishing articles describing the careers of notorious criminals.” — from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, Ch. IV

There’s building and there’s growingThere’s building and there’s growing

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 3:20 pm

“Whereas aestheticians from Aristotle on have insisted that figurative language should redouble and underline the thrust of the anecdote, it turns out that exactly the opposite is what often appeals to us in great works of art, a strange and even mystical discrepancy between the natural drift of the story and the contradictory impulses of the metaphors and similes and descriptions.” — Edmund White, “The Strange Charms of John Cheever”

Regarding Words of Manipulative DissimulationRegarding Words of Manipulative Dissimulation

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 12:03 pm

“We should never underestimate our predisposition to believe whatever is presented under the guise of an authoritative report and is also consistent with the mythological structure of a society from which we derive comfort, and which it may be uncomfortable to dispute.” — Kermode, “What Precisely Are the Facts?”, The Genesis of Secrecy

Just the facts, ma’amJust the facts, ma’am

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 5:33 am

“If so many causes act in concert to ensure that texts are from the beginning and sometimes indeterminately studded with interpretations; and if these texts in their very nature demand further interpretation and yet resist it, what should we expect when the document in question denies its own opacity by claiming to be a transparent account of the recognizable world?  In practice we may feel that we have no particular difficulty in distinguishing between narratives which claim to be reliable records of fact, and narratives which simply go through the motions of being such a record.  But when we think about it, as on occasion we may compel ourselves to do, the distinction may grow troublesome.” — Kermode, “What Precisely Are the Facts?”, The Genesis of Secrecy