You think you've read drivel? You haven't read drivel until you've read this

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I really dislike "commentaries" like the JSTOR piece, picking apart old literature, songs, and poetry for the purpose of holding them up to a modern interpretation that allows them to sneer derisively at the "unenlightened" of long ago.

Lewis had a great term for it: "chronological snobbery." And he was referring to that sort of thing when it had some whiff of actual merit, not counterfactual codswallop like this piece.