August 9, 2002

A Literary Critic's Journey to the Culture at Large

By ILAN STAVANS

I have reached an age when I am sometimes asked how I became a literary critic. That question is usually followed by a more complicated one: What is it that critics do? I have thought about such matters a great deal, and the answers I have come up with have to do with my own life -- and with the crossroads at which literary critics find themselves today.

I remember the first time I wrote a piece of criticism. I wasn't conscious of embarking on an intellectual path. It was in the '80s,

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