Changing Horizons

Changing Horizons

It was an interesting experience, rereading E. B. White’s Here is New York on 9/11. It reminded me how valuable a tool the concept of the horizon of expectations is for literary critics. Coined by the literary historian and reader-response theorist Hans Robert Jauss,...

E.B. and archy

In one of the passages from Here Is New York that Cyrus read during his lecture this morning, we find White wandering the city in his imagination, locating himself geographically and artistically in relation to NYC writers who came before him. At one point, recalling...

Dissing White

E.B. White’s Here Is New York will never suffer from a lack of fans. So I don’t feel bad (especially since we sell at least 100 copies a year for the old fellow) posting a link to a contrarian view, published in Salon back in the pre-9/11 era. According to...