{"id":12527,"date":"2010-06-15T12:50:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T16:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=12527"},"modified":"2010-06-15T12:50:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-15T16:50:32","slug":"the-function-of-criticism-at-the-present-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/15\/the-function-of-criticism-at-the-present-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"walrus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The July\/August issue of the Walrus has a piece called “The Long Decline<\/a>” by Andr\u00e9 Alexis<\/a>. \u00a0In it, he argues that there’s been a marked degeneration of criticism in popular fora. \u00a0He suggests, strikingly, that Frye’s work was one of the principal “catalysts” against which critics reacted to move away from taxonomy to \u00a0personal opinions and something more akin to the stock market of authors’ worth. \u00a0The attack \u00a0Alexis makes is in some ways predictable — there has been a marked decline in both the quantity and the quality of mainstream book reviewing — and in other ways fascinating. \u00a0Among other questions Alexis raises, we might ask is John Metcalf really the primary culprit in the changes in Canadian criticism? \u00a0Is James Wood’s How Fiction Works<\/em> <\/a>a way forward out of a criticism too limited to individual\u00a0assessments\u00a0of worth? \u00a0Has Alexis captured something of what the anti-Frye reaction is all about? \u00a0I think this piece might stimulate our own debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The July\/August issue of the Walrus has a piece called “The Long Decline” by Andr\u00e9 Alexis. \u00a0In it, he argues that there’s been a marked degeneration of criticism in popular fora. \u00a0He suggests, strikingly, that Frye’s work was one of the principal “catalysts” against which critics reacted to move away from taxonomy to \u00a0personal opinions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[50,68,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frye-contemporary-criticism","category-frye-reviews","category-review"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Function of Criticism at the Present Time? 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