The effect of reading literary non-fiction that matters most to me is when the coin drops, and this happens in the company of the great, mercuric, encyclopedic minds: Empson, Kenneth Burke, Northrop Frye. — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
The mantra of the new historicists was "we have betrayed ourselves." Since their emergence, there have been more or less interesting paradigm shifts having… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
The rhetoric of theory is always in a bind. It pronounces ideas and denounces failures to accept or grasp them while insisting that there… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
I beg my reader to consider the "evidence" I provide for my case and perhaps feel persuaded as a result. Beyond that I make… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
I make a distinction between theory and methodology, the latter being the practical deployment of a premise. Theory on the contrary may well be… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
Criticism is concerned with evaluation. There may be evaluative principles implicit in this or that form of theory, but theory in and of itself… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
Both the 18th and the early 20th centuries, however, feature brilliant attacks on originality, and it's no doubt one of the hallmarks of romanticism… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
I'm not only a romanticist but a romantic myself. I take it for granted the originality matters. — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
Although I don't disagree that utterances express desires and try to make complexities precise, I actually don't think at all that any of our… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
The basic change in the landscape since my salad days started with the defensive rediscovery of history and politics by all the theoretically-oriented academics… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
I don't think theory adds to criticism. (Methodology does, for better or worse.) Theory's function is to make criticism self-conscious, maybe even a little… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
Authors we are in danger of accepting as gospel, whereas founders of discursivity provide permeable ideas that we can elaborate upon in a tradition… — Paul Fry Copy Share Image
