#criticism

I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism. ↗

— Bell Hooks

#criticism #cultural #dealing #ending #feminism

Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#classism #social-criticism #food

Old English poetry also contained a wide range of conventional poetic diction, many of the words being created to allow alliterative patterns to be made. There are therefore numerous alternatives for key words like battle, warrior, horse, ship, the sea, prince, and so on. Some are decorative periphrases: a king can be a 'giver of rings' or a 'giver of treasure' (literally, a king was expected to provide his warriors with gifts after they had fought for him). ↗

— Ronald Carter

#literary-criticism

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. American novels, answered Lord Henry. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#bad-reviews #books #humor #literary-criticism #novels

Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#gossip #hypocrites #judgement #low-self-esteem #gossip

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#criticism #writing #writing-advice #writing-advice

History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness. ↗

— James Fenimore Cooper

#history #love

The Renaissance did not break completely with mediaeval history and values. Sir Philip Sidney is often considered the model of the perfect Renaissance gentleman. He embodied the mediaeval virtues of the knight (the noble warrior), the lover (the man of passion), and the scholar (the man of learning). His death in 1586, after the Battle of Zutphen, sacrificing the last of his water supply to a wounded soldier, made him a hero. His great sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella is one of the key texts of the time, distilling the author's virtues and beliefs into the first of the Renaissance love masterpieces. His other great work, Arcadia, is a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs. ↗

— Ronald Carter

#death

Later, Hobbes will stress the notion central to Augustan thinking, the binary of passion and reason: The Passions that encline men to Peace, are Fear of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them. And Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These Articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature. ↗

— Ronald Carter

#death

Hardy classified A Pair of Blue Eyes among ‘Romances and Fantasies’. A favourite of Tennyson, its melancholy treatment of youth, love and death is expressive of late nineteenth-century susceptibilities. Not unnaturally in an early novel, Hardy draws freely on his own life. ↗

— Geoffrey Harvey

#death