My morning read ☕️ “In wit begins criticism, but there is nothing sneering or pushy or pretentious or doctrinaire about it. Wit is measured not by «mere jests» or by the demonstration of one’s cleverness at the expense of others. It is measured by the ability to «move passions» and to «make passions.» To make a passion is not to invent a feeling whole cloth, to conjure something out of nothing. It is the ability to take one’s initial perception or impression of an object and to subject it to the earnest, protean, and fleet-footed movement of consciousness; to expose what one has seen, heard, tasted, and touched to «the sun of the Brain,» so that it may receive its illumination and its fast-spreading heat. Wit «sweetens melancholy, dresses joy; it quenches fear, raiseth hopes, eases pains,» Cavendish lists. «It mourns with sorrow, mends faults; it moves compassion, begs pardon.» We should note that she describes both wit’s enhancements and, more ardently, wit’s compensations – that it can raise hope just as it can sweeten melancholy, quench fear, ease pain, and mend faults. In turning an object over and around, wit can change one’s perception of what the true nature of a thing is.” ~Merve Emre https://www.vinduet.no/engelsk-versjon/the-function-of-criticism-at-the-present-time-lecture-by-merve-emre/