...repudiates the label of skeptic: "They accuse me- Me- the present writer of / The present poem - of- I know not what, - / A tendency to under-rate and scoff/ At human power and virtue, and all that" (VII, 3). These gestures ask further analysis. Some words of Gerald Bruns are apropos: "Is not skepticism,...

...things— but a show f Ш. They acense me— Me— the present writer of The present poem— of — I for me т*'; Not that I mean her bounties II wonder what they would be all I say no more than hath been said in Dante's Verse, and by Solomon...

...contemporary readers. They accuse me — Me — the present writer of The present poem — of — I know not what, — A tendency to under-rate and scoff...that; And this they say in language rather rough. (Vn, st. 3) In such cases - they are numerous - the act of writing makes itself one of the principal...

...response of his readers: "They accuse me — me — the present writer of/ The present poem of — I know not what — A tendency to underrate and scoff/ At human power and virtue and all that" (VH.3.1—4). Hemingway, too, fully expected his audience to condemn his work as immoral — hence...

...(9.17.129-36) Byron's double dubiety here recalls his earlier defense of himself against the charge that he has "A tendency to under-rate and scoff / At human power and virtue, and all that" (7.3.19-20), a charge he answers by citing some dozen predecessors who "knew this life was not worth...