But don't worry if you're not a literary scholar.

As a journalist - he never called himself a critic, let alone a literary scholar - he wrote to be read and to influence common readers.

For a literary scholar who rightly prides himself on his engagement with historical evidence, this resolute nescience deserves attention.

He became known throughout the world as a leading literary scholar, educator, author, book critic and preacher.

In a couple of articles published at this time, the literary scholar described the phenomenon as a form of unmediated or improvisational speech.