Criticism: A small warning for Mormons who engage in ethical criticism

And that's pretty much all of us (and it should be, I think, but how it should be is open for discussion).

I've begun reading Wayne Booth's "The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction." It's much too early for me to have much of an opinion of the work, or even for me to engage any of his ideas.

But it's not too early for me to indulge in pedantry and pull a quote from pages 51-52 and wave it around like a terrible banner:

"All critics are tempted to over-generalize, but ethical critics have seemed especially open to the temptation. Having experienced some artistic gift that feels unquestionably valuable, they have leapt to proclaim it the only true gift. Having experienced some offering that feels unquestionably threatening or harmful to the spirit [nudge, nudge -- Wm], they have hastened to damn it as the unfailing source of all artistic evil. The step from intense, ineluctable, personal experience to the proclamation of the truth about art is all too easy.

Anyone who comes to known, in hear or gut, that 'this thing here before me is good (or evil)' is almost certain to want to share the good (or protect those from evil)." (italics original except those between the brackets).

Word.