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 in the late seventies and eighties.

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 efforts to speak and mean things are ultimately why we speak.

Every original poet has a new insight, or rather introduces a new power.

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 in the late seventies and eighties.

The mantra of the new historicists was "we have betrayed ourselves." Since their emergence, there have been more or less interesting paradigm shifts having mainly to do with Habermas and the increased focus on media studies, but the talismanic word has never ceased to be "history."

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 sheepish, about its ex cathedra pronouncements.

I beg my reader to consider the "evidence" I provide for my case and perhaps feel persuaded as a result. Beyond that I make no claim.