Talk:The Moral of the Story: A Story with No Moral/@comment-172.56.13.174-20140520231352/@comment-24942168-20140521213321

Maybe "belittle" was a poor choice of word. I definitely agree that her praise of incandescent literature isn't rooted in the skill of the writer - she explicitly states that she thinks Charlotte Bronte was a better writer than Jane Austen. But she nevertheless makes the point that "anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Bronte the novelist". I think it's fair to say that she sees incandescdent literature as somehow "better" than literature rooted in anger and actually engaging real world issues. Perhaps it would be better to reframe the issue as literature dealing with abstract, universal truths vs literature dealing with specific issues instead of literature with or without a moral - she definitely has a greater appreciation for the former precisely because it is less rooted in real moral issues and more focused on universals. With regards to your last point, I think it's important to note that her notion of incandescent literature applies primarily to fiction whereas this work is more of a polemical essay. I think it's unlikely that she would view this particular work of hers as any sort of literary ideal.