“But not to be acquainted with what is happening in literary France is to feel disgraced, and in the pecking order of literary criticism a Frenchman can humiliate an Englishman just as readily as an Englishman can humiliate an American, and an American a Canadian. One of Canada's most serious literary needs at present is some lesser nation to domineer over and shame by displays of superior taste.”
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
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Robertson Davies 282
Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and nov… 1913–1995Related quotes

“Literary taste is often confounded with literary talent by others, quite as much as by ourselves.”
The Monthly Magazine

Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 3, 79

“A literary critic of experience never defines anything.”
Source: "Quotes", Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), p. 4

“The writer needs good works—good literary ones”
33
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)

“I still found literary criticism to be a suspect activity”
Source: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
“ ‘Very Graceful Are the Uses of Culture’ ”, p. 211
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Journeys to England and Ireland (1835).
1830s