on 11/12/08 10:41 AM, Dominic Fox at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> His interpretations of individual poems were often--well--off. Look, for
>> example, at "The Visionary Company" (very early book on the Romantics). Or
>> don't: it's irritating. He loves to pronounce in large terms, finesse the
>> details.
>>
> I believe the term is "strong misreading". Strong critics rationalise
> their own weaknesses. And rationalise this rationalisation as critical
> strength.
>
> Dominic
You're right. I'd forgotten. Operating under the influence not of anxiety
but of the great Europeans (Spitzer, Curtius, etc.), I quarreled with Bloom
in his seminar on the Romantics until I ran out of patience. He quarreled
indulgently with young women then, no "School of Resentment" allusions.
Susan H.
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