Poetic Obituaries: [Frank Kermode] had little time, for example,

for Thomas Hardy. Why? Because he felt Hardy gave up his meanings too easily. The modern poet Kermode most respected was Wallace Stevens--never a writer who yields to the reader without a struggle. Once at Edinburgh in the 1960s (I was there), he mischievously asked the audience if they wanted his easy or his difficult lecture on Stevens. We stuffily opted for "difficult" and tried, desperately, to keep the bamboozledom off our faces over the next hour. Kermode was hard to keep up with in those days.

from The Guardian: Fierce reading
also The New York Times: Frank Kermode, 90, a Critic Who Wrote With Style, Is Dead
also New Statesman: Frank Kermode, 1919-2010 [with interview]
also The Washington Post: British literary critic Frank Kermode dies at age 90

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