Criticism Quote by Oscar Wilde

“Most modern literary criticism is literary and nothing else—that is, it concentrates on an author's style and thinks it rather vulgar to notice his…

— George Orwell

“Academic criticism often focuses on pleasing the examiners for various purposes. It lacks the aesthetic design, the nobility of purpose and the freedom to…

— Alok Mishra

I also encourage my students to read literary criticism that is deeply personal yet formally inventive and intellectually expansive... books that offer unorthodox ways…

— Rob Nixon

“Criticism is not a circumscription or a set of prohibitions. It provides fixed points of departure. It may startle a dull reader into alertness.”

— Ezra Pound

“Don't listen to critics. Their job is to critique. You're a writer. Your job is to write.”

— Ksenia Anske

“Criticism as a form of knowledge is capable of robbing literature not only of its own implicit and explicit ideology but of its ideas…

— Toni Morrison

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

— Anne Stevenson

“The text contains no literary criticism. I wanted to describe books, not to be clever at their expense.”

— Kenneth McLeish

Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to…

— V. S. Pritchett

Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

— John Fante

“Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them.”

— Flannery O'Connor

“Theory sometimes seems to me a way of taking revenge on literature—the critic masters the text and rewrites it in his own image, instead…

— Adam Kirsch