Peter Montgomery wrote:

>Sounds to me like D.D. is imaginationless, and sententious.
>Probably one of the groupies in the bunch that wanted to
>bury Eliot because he became a Christian. Obviously Christians
>are not humanistic enough to write significant poetry.
>One has to be mythless (i.e. superstitionless) in order to
>handle myth properly.
>
>
>
>
Dear Peter,
    I don't know what in the confused tangle of DDs' words have led you
to your assumptions.  We've been given disorganized snippets from one or
more essays in criticism.  The quoters can't quite tell us who is being
quoted and you've built a case against either Denis Donoghue or Donald
Davie!  Not saying who you mean is even worse, that way you can claim
you meant someone else if challenged.  Well, Donoghue is alive; he can
defend himself.  As for Davie, he is not a groupie in any bunch.  He is
a well-respected poet and critic. You might not agree with his analysis,
but why do you assume he reads as superficially as you do, that is why
do you think he'd care more about Eliot's religion than about the words
in the poem, the subject of the snippets.  The biographical fallacy is
your failing, not Davie's.
    I hope no one thinks that what you've probablied is actually so.
Among Davie's honest and hard-thought critical works, I suggest _Purity
of Diction in English Verse_ and especially _Articulate Energy_.


Marcia