And they wonder why they're no closer to the clouds

Any diligent student of writerly posterity--and none was more diligent than Eliot himself--might have seen it coming. Giants must be cut down to size; icons must be toppled. In Eliot's case, the literary-industrial complex that sprang up in order to explain him now seems to exist largely to vivisect him, intent on exposing him as all too human.

Whatever happened to standing on their shoulders?

(Via A&L Daily)