Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Singapore Jade sent me this wonderful Hugo von Hofmannsthal  letter  purportedly written by Lord Chandos, the younger son of the Earl of Bath, to Francis Bacon, explaining his abandonment of literary activity. "What is man that he is full of plans?" he asks, and then proceeds to describe in ecstatic detail the literary projects he envisioned in his youth: a history of Henry VIII, a key to ancient fable, a compendium of maixims. In those days, he "divined that all was an allegory, that each creature was a key to all the others; and I felt myself the one capable of seizing each by the handle and unlocking as many of the others that were ready to yield."

I've just finished reading Stapleton's chapter on Moore as a literary reviewer. In discussing Moore's approach, Stapleton says something very true and just of the task of a literary critic: For a critic to praise justly, and without exaggeration, is hard; it may be harder still, when praise is due, to make it relevant-- to make it mean anything specific in reference, and specifically alive in statement. This difficult art goes to the root of criticism. For praise that counts is not encomium, is certainly not compliment, but attempts identification. It no longer adds a mere plus (or when not bestowed, a minus sign); it ceases to refer primarily to the writer, and becomes the predicate attaching itself to the work in question. Because Marianne Moore exemplifies the reserve and the "immunity to fear" of the true writer, her praise of the work she admires suggests the outline of her poetics. [bold emphasis mine] The predicate metaphor is beautifully apt. The liter...