'An Unknown, Powerful, and Awful Truth'

“It is extraordinary how jargon intimidates; how prone we are to dismiss as irrelevant or dated that which comes unpackaged in the cellophane of current phraseology and images, and has nevertheless to represent those of a totally different era.” Another symptom of “presentism”: unwillingness to acquire at least a working knowledge of a new language by a writer from the past. “Acquire” is misleading. It’s not like learning Russian as an adult. “Adapt to” or “become comfortable with” are closer. A lazy reader will object to anything he is unable to instantaneously comprehend. More than fifty years ago one of my English professors complained that most of her students were unable to read anything written before Hemingway’s arrival. This came in the context of reading Tristram Shandy, which several classmates were complaining about. The passage quoted above was written by the American poet Josephine Jacobsen (1908-2003) in “The Masks of Walter de la Mare,” published in the Fall 1978 issue…