It’s not quite Hegelian to maintain that each generation of
theorists reacts to the excesses of its predecessor. The flow chart of
criticism follows this principle. There are, of course, a few basic
equalizers. You either read Plato or are Plato. You are either male or
de Pizan or Wollstonecraft. The next large shift is simply a function of
whether or not you are going to pay attention to social tensions (a
product of economic tensions) as the governor of human action. If you
are, then you are going to be a Marxist, and if you are not, you are
either going to have to turn to created objects or the natural world.
The former will make you more interesting, the latter will make you
Wordsworth.
Criticism is neither meliorist nor dialectical. It is the
via negative, determining new theoretical movements based upon the
failures of Plato and then everyone else.
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