A Dictionary of Literary: Gradus, A-Z'Common sense, ' the Romantic critics told us, was all that was needed to understand and interpret literary texts. Today, we know this is not generally true. Modern criticism has joined with pre Romantic criticism to expose common sense as appropriate (because simple minded), inadequate to comprehend and interpret verbal structures which are frequently 'non common]sensical, ' anti commonsensical, or even nonsensical. The difference between readers