"A critic should have principles rather than aesthetics."

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Against-aesthetics-7682

SEPTEMBER 2013

Against aesthetics

by William Logan

Part of the burden of being a critic means that you should reject Aesthetic Statements.

"A critic should have principles rather than aesthetics. He should have tastes, though never at the cost of praising the bad book seductive to his taste rather than the good one that offends it. He should also have prejudices, but not ones that blind him to merit, not ones that have him shouting, every three books or so, “A miracle! A miracle!” Prejudices are often inverse principles, but a critic should hold his principles unless they contradict his reading, just as he should accept his prejudices until a poem forces him to war against them. By principles I mean that, for example, a poem should repay the labor of reading, that the content of a line should bear relation to its length (short lines bear a lesser burden of meaning than a long one), that diction and syntax should be natural except when artifice is more artful, that when a poet accepts the contract of form he should fulfill it—if he begins with exact rhymes, exact rhymes should follow unless he has better reason than a stutter of imagination."