ADP pp.26-27 Literature has usually advanced through the complementary absorption of, and reaction to, contrasting sensibilities. Think of Stevens and Frost misunderstanding each other's work. Yet they kept on writing according to their individual convictions and poetic vision. That's the way it should be. We need diversity, not the mentality of the police state.
Culture remains free, waiting to accept what is offered.
And if what is offered can engender a passionate response and give lasting pleasure, then that work will prevail, whether accompanied by the noise of proselytisers or the silence of Emily Dickinson's lonely room. For once a passion that will last Past what rusts and buckles, There with Walt in double grandeur, Mystery's odd couple. Yours was purer, truer, With those words that cauterise The mouthline's wounded murmur. If you look at those poems of Beckett you can see their sense of absence embodies the doubt that words can be trusted to convey meaning or truth. That's been a persistent idea in much twentieth-century literature and criticism.