An Appetite For Poetry: Essays In Literary Interpretation

Frank Kermode is the preeminent practitioner of the art of criticism in the English-speaking world. As such his task entails the readiness to evaluate in general terms the widest range of texts, both ancient and modern, and also the ability to make public sense of the seemingly arcane debates about theories of literature as they pertain to the ongoing process of evaluation. It has been Kermode's distinction to make a virtue--as all the best critics have done--of the necessarily occasional nature of his profession. That virtue is evident in every page of this set of essays.