SOURCE: “The Love of Reading/The Work of Criticism: F. O. Matthiessen and Lionel Trilling,” in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 31, No. 3, Fall, 1990, pp. 373-82.

In the following review of William A. Cain's F. O. Matthiessen and the Politics of Criticism, Bove praises Cain's reading of Matthiessen's work.

What magnanimity!

—Daniel O'Hara

When the historical sense reigns without restraint, and all its consequences are realized, it uproots the future because it destroys illusions and robs the things that exist of the atmosphere in which alone they can live. Historical justice, even when it is genuine and practiced with the purest intentions, is therefore a dreadful virtue because it always undermines the living thing and brings it down: its judgment is always annihilating.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

It is not self-evident that contemporary critical intellectuals who are serious about their role in culture, politics, and society should devote their best energies to writing...