 Criticism consists of a related combination of features. While it is based on no prior rules, it is also open and receptive to the work it concerns. And it is through the engagement with the work that each critical judgment constitutes its own norms. Although we can and should legitimize our judgments of beauty and art, we cannot do so by appeal to any given concepts or norms that are external to the work at stake. The artwork, on this picture, is sui generis—it provides its own standards of appreciation: “Poetry is a republican speech: a speech which is its own law and end unto itself” (F. Schlegel, CF: #65). The critic should seek to express the work in a way that is faithful to its individual nature and be responsive to the specific norms that it constitutes: