Blast From the Past? How We Determine 'Good' Writing

ll never forget how my undergrad professor of 18th-century English poetry introduced the course to us: “The poetry of the 18th century is almost uniformly terrible.” We laughed; we thought he was joking. “No,” he said, “I’m serious. It’s really awful. Nobody wants to study 18th-century English poetry. You want to study the rise of the novel. You want to study the great age of nonfiction prose. This is the last thing you want to be studying. You really got screwed by the catalog this quarter.”
We students looked at each other, smiling, but now a little nervous. This tall, gangly fellow sporting a bow tie and round glasses was standing up in front of our entire class telling us that we were about to spend our time reading a fair amount of garbage. I think most of us recognized a bit of self-deprecating humor in there. Nevertheless, this was a dispiriting way to start the course for me. Even with financial aid, Stanford wasn’t cheap; I liked to believe I was studying things that might matter. What was wrong with this guy?