 In January 1934 , Pound published a critique of A. E. Housman 's The Name and Nature of Poetry in the Criterion . As part of the critique , Pound offers an emendation to Housman 's claim that " the intelligence " of the eighteenth century involved " some repressing and silencing of poetry " . Pound replies that the root cause was the tendency towards abstract statements , which came about in part because eighteenth century authors " hadn 't heard about Professor Agassiz 's fish . " 
