“Though the enterprise of literary criticism is a vast and infinitely complicated one, it all begins in a very familiar and basic experience. I read a text, perhaps Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94 (“They that have power to hurt and will do none”), find a deep pleasure in doing so, and want to explain my experience to others, sometimes enabling one of them to find the same kind of experience. I believe that I understand Shakespeare’s poem, and I want to test my understanding against other people’s views, perhaps even to enrich it as I deepen my insights in response to theirs.” – Philosophy and Literature