🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Dec.11.15.24.48.1992.2096@ruhets.rutgers.edu>, 
bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
|> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal F Lillywhite) writes:


|> >I consider Mermin's writing about his friend Mozart evidence to the
|> >contrary.  A glance at a few of these articles convinces me that he 
|> >is a better creative writer than 90% of the literature scholars 
|> >around today.  
|> 
|> OK, I'll call you on this.  Name five literature scholars (you can name 
|> five who write worse than Mermin, or five who write better, I don't care,
|> but they should be of approximately equal prominence in their fields as
|> Mermin is in his.)  Do you really know that or are you just saying it?

Well, you weren't addressing me, but I can't resist.  Here's my list, to 
permit me to play:

1) John Hollander
2) J. Hillis Miller
3) Harold Bloom
4) Marjorie Garber
5) Dorothy Mermin  (I don't know if she's as prominent as her husband, but 
	what the heck).

Many literature scholars, especially the best ones, write very well; many 
do not.  A lot of criticism is dreary, self-important prose that I suspect 
is modelled, ultimately, on science writing.  If that's true, than the 
science community has even more blame to bear.  On the other hand, 
deconstructionists deliberately write very, very badly, and that's 
entirely their own fault.

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.