I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

Tarset: Bloodaxe 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987. Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press 1974; London: Oxford University Press 1974.

Anne Stevenson (born January 3 1933) is an American-British poet and writer.