Donald Davie | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 5 pages of analysis & critique of Donald Davie.

Donald Davie | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 5 pages of analysis & critique of Donald Davie.
This section contains 1,395 words
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by E. P. Thompson

[A Gathered Church: The Literature of the English Dissenting Interest, 1700–1930] is a work of committed criticism. (p. 164)

But the points [of Davie's Clark Lectures collected here] are argued by indirection, allusion, and selection, and we are conducted in no recognizable discipline. Some part of each lecture is given over to rhetorical strategies designed to show that Professor Davie's judgements are endowed with a peculiar privilege denied to other critics. Historians, literary and especially social, are disqualified at the outset, as having no criteria relevant to aesthetic judgement. But much of this book is, quite simply, a rewriting of history, without an appropriate discipline to do so. Aesthetic judgements may be faulted if they conflict with doctrinal considerations, and vice versa. By another strategy ('I was there') Professor Davie assumes the privilege of personal association with the tradition…. A certain privilege we may allow. I do allow it: Professor...

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This section contains 1,395 words
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by E. P. Thompson
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Critical Essay by E. P. Thompson from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.