“He did not see that there is no such thing as a standard for the
creative spirit; that no one great book must ever be separately
regarded, and permitted to domineer with its own uniqueness upon the
creative mind; but that all existing great works must be federated into
the fancy; and so regarded as a miscellaneous and Pantheistic whole. .
. .

—Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852.