Ich lese im Moment wieder Laurence Sternes The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Hat damals die Kritiker die Wände rauf getrieben, weil Sterne alle Konventionen über Bord schmeisst und seine Geschichte so erzählt, wie er es für effektiv hält. Seine Antwort:

— And how did Gar­rick speak the so­lil­o­quy last night? — Oh, against all rule, my lord, — most un­gram­mat­i­cally! be­twixt the sub­stan­tive and the ad­jec­tive, which should agree to­gether in num­ber, case, and gen­der, he made a breach thus, — stop­ping, as if the point wanted set­tling; — and be­twixt the nom­i­na­tive case, which your lord­ship knows should gov­ern the verb, he sus­pended his voice in the epi­logue a dozen times three sec­onds and three-fifths by a stop-watch, my lord, each time, — Ad­mirable gram­mar­ian! — But in sus­pend­ing his voice — was the sense sus­pended like­wise? Did no ex­pres­sion of at­ti­tude or coun­te­nance fill up the chasm? — Was the eye silent? Did you nar­rowly look? — I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord. — Ex­cel­lent ob­server!

[…]

— Grant me pa­tience, just Heaven! — Of all the cants which are canted in this cant­ing world — though the cant of hyp­ocrites may be the worst — the cant of crit­i­cism is the most tor­ment­ing!1