ABSTRACT
According to Italo Calvino, a classic is any work of literature 'which constantly generates a cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off. Books, for Calvino, are curiously touchable, unbreakable objects. They attract opinions as the bookshelves that hold them attract dust, yet the lines and stories they are made of are somehow magically self-cleaning. Elizabeth Bishop's poetry can hardly be seen at the moment for the dust storm of articles, collections of essays and monographs that have gathered around it. This has not always been the case. Bishop is not recommending a canon of dull books in the poem, nor does she see all criticism as simply 'useless'. This apparently extreme position needs to be read within the context of her personal life and professional experiences. A number of critics have already followed Bishop's directions along the shore, setting up their own version of 'crypto-dream-house' in which books can be read again for form.
