When Critics Become Professors

By A.O. Scott. In 1956, Yvor Winters, a poet, critic, and professor at Stanford, published an essay (later collected in a slim, quarrelsome book called The Function of Criticism) addressing "Problems for the Modern Critic of Literature." The first of these, he wrote, "is to find a mode of living which will enable him to develop his mind, practice his art, and support his family. The universities offer the obvious solution, but the matter is worth at least brief discussion." More...