The accusation that a particular critical remark is "irrelevant" to its object is one of the most frequently heard in discussion and debate among critics. Frequently heard because frequently correct: there has never been a dearth of criticism that carelessly relates a work to an artist's biography, or employs pointless historic speculation, or invokes inappropriate creative standards, or describes the critic's own fuzzy reveries to misdirect our attention and obscure the essential significance of the object before us. Relevance and precision are critical to criticism. This fact underscores our concern to find a correct method for doing criticism, a concern that has generated more controversy than any single commentator might hope to obfuscate with footnotes.