Professor Wellek is perhaps the most learned man now writing on literature—he has read, it seems, all European literature (in the original languages) and all the criticism on it—and it is humiliating to read his [Concepts of Criticism]. You may have thought, for instance, that you knew what 'baroque' meant—but you didn't. After you've read his essay 'The Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship' you will know about the history of the term (it appears there are two separate etymologies: baroco, a type of syllogism in scholastic logic, as well as the better known suggestion of barroco, an odd-shaped pearl); the sense in which every important critic has used it; and the arguments for and against each definition. Stylistic definitions will not do: if they merely mention the use of conceits they cover too wide a field, and Sydney, Shakespeare, even Montaigne become baroque writers...