SOURCE: Davie, Donald. “Sixteenth-Century Poetry and the Common Reader: The Case of Thomas Sackville.” Criticism 4 (April 1954): 117-27.

In the following essay, Davie argues that although it may be difficult for the modern reader to appreciate Sackville's poetry, if one considers Elizabethan tastes the poet deserves the critical praise he received.

In fact of course he is a very uncommon reader indeed. He may even be extinct, and in a strict sense perhaps he never existed. But if he does not exist it is necessary to invent him; or if he has become extinct it is essential to pretend that he has not. For without him criticism must die. He is the reader that every critic addresses; and the best of critics fall short of the common reader in their reading. For the common reader is the reader without bias, the critic without an axe to grind, the reader...