Robin,
You say:
“I'm not sure it *was* said that Veronica Forrest-Thomson was "a conservative poet" [N1], more that her criticism (though reference seems to have been mainly to articles *about* it, rather than to _Poetic Artifice_ itself) was conservative, in that it reflected or paralleled I. A. Richards in _Practical Criticism_ -- itself a stupendously dubious assertion on a variety of levels.
“
This is more or less approaching what I say in the article. I say in the article that "her views on poetic interpretation are surprisingly conservative. Despite her interest in “non-meaningful” elements of language, she still regards the text as the ultimate arbiter of meaning". I do conclude, though, by saying: “Whilst I am not trying to draw a direct parallel between Richards’s poetic and Forrest-Thompson’s, I do see a common trajectory towards an attempt to stabilise poetic texts.
Only the latter part of the article is critical of her, the first part is in praise. I hope Peter Riley realises that.
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