NOTEBOOK

Isn't there a certain basic antagonism between the very nature of a university and the very spirit of literature? The academic mind is cautious, tightly organized, fault-finding, competitive - and above all aware of other academic minds... Think of the whole idea of regarding literature as a discipline. Literature can be strenuous or difficult or deeply disturbing; it can be a hundred things - but a discipline is not one of them.

John Gross, The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters.