Very Close and Very Slow by Judith Hemschemeyer (review)

rank of Ph.D. If we place a copy of Hartman's The Fate of Reading and a copy of Cliff's Notes side by side, many of us reach the conclusion that die main business of criticism is to steer a middle course between two irresponsibilities, both of which are extremes. One is the arcane elitism emerging in the 1970's, and the other is the previous decade at its popularistic worst. As literary persons, we should not embrace everything in the world, nor should we turn our backs on it. In making a series of negative comments on Literary Meaning and Augustan Values, I have not meant to imply that there is nothing worthwhile in this volume. Well-organized and thoroughly learned, it furnishes a number of original insights into major eighteenth-century works and some valid criticisms of present-day tendencies in scholarship. More importandy, the book is thought-provoking; and if one of die functions of criticism is not so much to be "right" as to provoke thought, then Ehrenpreis has made a substantial contribution. Were it not for his propensities toward isolationism and reductionism, his contribution might have been even more substantial.