Enright is so witty, cogent and right-minded a commentator on literary practice, and believes so energetically in culture in a straightforward sense—'people listening to music and composing it, reading books and writing them'—that [in Conspirators and Poets] he offers a heartening view of what the endeavour is about. I would only say, too heartening. An inheritor of the Scrutiny tradition (one of the best pieces here is an unusually genuine appreciation of what Scrutiny gave us), he indicates that the distinguishing fiery spirit, the giant energy, of that magazine is not his…. One consequence of his geniality is that the old Scrutiny concern with the overall decline of culture gets played down. What remains is—along with a suspicion of criticism and literary fashion—a kind of 'man's unconquerable mind' theory of literary continuance….
Enright's famous inaugural at the University of Singapore … praises Robert Graves for his literary 'soldiering on', ignoring fashion to answer to the dark gods prompting literary creation. The debate about whether a 'culture' or autonomous creation produces art is old; Enright is not unsophisticated or obscurantist; but even soldiering on depends on the culture's letting it happen.
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