Theodore Mischel
"Bad Art as the 'Corruption of Consciousness'".
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 21, No. 3. (Mar., 1961), p. 396


For Collingwood regards the difference between good and bad art simply and solely as the difference between "truthful" and "corrupted consciousness." But if "truthfulness" to one's feelings, "sincerity," "candor," are understood in the usual sense - what I.A. Richards calls "the ordinary 'business' sense in which a man is insincere when he deliberately attempts to deceive, and sincere when his statements and acts are governed by 'the best of his knowledge and belief,'" - then there is little reason to doubt that the poetry of Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a sincere expression both of her feelings and of those of many of her readers. But there is every reason to doubt that this makes her a good poet.