Wayne C. Booth, in Ethics (Jan. 1988), Univ. of Chicago Press, PO. Box 37005, Chicago, 111. 60637.
A popular notion among academics is that it is not possible to determine the true worth of anything. In literary criticism, this dogma leads to the contention that any statement-e.g., "Dickens and Dostoyevsky were great writersv'-is simply an expression of personal preference.
"Nowadays almost no one believes in the possibility of objective or
'correct' literary judgments," Oxford's...