Brandon Watson on being a Competent Critic

Brandon Watson on being a Competent Critic October 1, 2014

Brandon Watson is always worth reading; here he gives an extended meditation on what is required of a competent literary critic.

Increasingly, however, I have come to think that one of the common characteristics, and perhaps the distinguishing feature, of incompetent criticism is not recognizing that skill is skill, that craft has the structure of craft. All skill or craft has goals in view; the whole point of skill is that it appropriately applies means to achieve goals and does so successfully. Over and over again I see in book reviews, incomments on blogs, in recommendations for people trying to do NaNoWriMo, and in a thousand other venues, a common failure to evaluate a literary work in terms of the only ways it can actually be evaluated as a work at all: the ends sought, the means used to accomplish those ends, and the many and various excellences in the way the author uses the means to accomplish the ends.

In short: What was the author trying to accomplish? Did he use appropriate means? And most especially, did it work, and why or why not? But read the whole thing; it’s well worth your time.


Browse Our Archives