På tal om Hugh Kenner: New York Times nätupplaga är generös med arkivmaterial och har gjort ett flertal av den eminente, framlidne kritikerns recensioner tillgängliga. Här, till exempel, en skärskådning av Frank Kermode, "England's grooviest general-purpose critic":

Thus by page 65 of "The Classic" he is telling us how "What finally distinguishes the tone of Marvell from that of Milton is that he has some historical patience, a willingness to accept the unideal character of events; it may not be proper to call this Machiavellian, but it certainly is, in a recognizable sense, modern, if only in the way that Thucydides, in Arnold's notorious comparison, was more modern than Sir Walter Raleigh."

The first half of this sentence is exact and just. The function of the little carousel in the second half, on which figures of Machiavelli, Thucydides, Arnold, Raleigh, are rotated past our gaze, is to distract us from judging that what got said about Marvell and Milton was after all a touch platitudinous. That is one use of allusiveness.