A new essay by Andrea Actis
on Laura (Riding) Jackson and
'seriousness' in literature
Notes on “Seriousness”
By Andrea Actis
"Most things in the world have by now been denaturalized; and most things, once they have been denaturalized,
will register as inadequate or pernicious ideas to us until our new ideas themselves become naturalized and we are compelled
to begin taking some of the old ones seriously again. One of these things is the sensibility—both possible and impossible to periodize, a variant of aesthetic judgment but necessarily discrepant from it—of “seriousness” itself."
[Opening paragraph of Andrea Actis' essay.]