“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.” ThinkingTryingMeanDesireSpeakEffortComplexityDisagreePreciseUtterance Author:Paul Fry
“I'm not only a romanticist but a romantic myself. I take it for granted the originality matters.” MatterGrantedOriginality Author:Paul Fry
“Both the 18th and the early 20th centuries, however, feature brilliant attacks on originality, and it's no doubt one of the hallmarks of romanticism to care about originality and suppose with a sometimes naive spontaneity that it's all that matters.” SometimesMatterCareDoubtCenturyBrilliantFeaturesNo DoubtOriginality20th CenturyNaiveSpontaneityRomanticismHallmark Author:Paul Fry
“Every original poet has a new insight, or rather introduces a new power.” PoetOriginalsInsightIntroducing Author:Paul Fry
“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.” FeelsResultsCasesReaderEvidenceClaims Author:Paul Fry
“I make a distinction between theory and methodology, the latter being the practical deployment of a premise. Theory on the contrary may well be applied, hence becomes methodology without a hitch, but isn't necessarily practical at all.” WellsMayTheoryContraryPracticalsDistinctionLatterPremisesMethodologyDeployment Author:Paul Fry
“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.” ThinkingLittlesDoeSelfTheoryConsciousCriticismFunctionAddExesSelf ConsciousMethodology Author:Paul Fry
“Criticism is concerned with evaluation. There may be evaluative principles implicit in this or that form of theory, but theory in and of itself is not prescriptive.” MayFormPrinciplesTheoryConcernedCriticismEvaluationImplicit Author:Paul Fry
“I do identify the escape hatch through which Foucault eludes the charge that he himself is an author/authority, hence a tyrant. He establishes the category of "founder of discursivity" for the authors he likes. Slippery, perhaps, but you can see what he means.” MeanAuthorityLikesCategoriesTyrantsFoundersSlipperyElude Author:Paul Fry
“Authors we are in danger of accepting as gospel, whereas founders of discursivity provide permeable ideas that we can elaborate upon in a tradition of constructive dialogue.” IdeasAcceptingDangerTraditionDialogueFoundersConstructive Author:Paul Fry