The Mission of the Literary Critic

BOOKS NEW AND OLD

BY GAMALIEL BRADFORD, JR.

LITERARY criticism can hardly be said to stand in very high repute in the United States. Perhaps this is because we have so much of it, done, naturally, for the most part, in a rather perfunctory and superficial manner. To criticise criticism, to discuss the object and methods of so insignificant an art, seems to most persons “a wasteful and ridiculous excess.” Anybody can criticise a book. Everybody does. What is there more ?

In France it is different. Says the most charming of French critics: “Criticism is the latest of all literary forms; it will end, perhaps, by absorbing all the others. It is admirably suited to a highly civilized society whose past is rich and whose traditions are ancient. . . . It is derived at once from philosophy and from history. It has required for its full development a period of absolute intellectual liberty. It replaces theology; and if we seek the universal doctor, the St. Thomas Aquinas, of the nineteenth century, do we not think of Sainte-Beuve first of all ? ”

The English and American mind grasps with difficulty the seriousness of the French in these literary matters. In something which concerns directly neither our bread and butter, nor even our eternal welfare, why should we be so deadly and desperately earnest ? Why fight over theories of the beautiful ? Why have theories at all about things which are intended only to amuse us ? The wild fury which animated the classics and romantics in their battles over the production of Henri III and Hernani is wholly inconceivable in a New York or London theatre. So, the acrimony which French critics display in the discussion of their art, or their vocation, seems to us but a waste of wild and whirling words Yet if we examine it a little more closely, we may find some profit in it, if not for the classification of criticism, at least for the better loving of literature.

Sainte-Beuve, who has long been regarded in France, and is gradually coming to be regarded elsewhere, as the greatest critic that ever lived, wisely refrained from too strict a formulation of his methods. Much interesting theoretical discussion may be gleaned in different corners of his vast work; but his broad and ample insight and foresight took in too clearly the immensity of the field to be covered for him to make any rash attempt at mapping or systematizing. His followers have had something less of modesty, besides the advantage of his extensive foundation to build upon.

Of the three schools of criticism which fought the battle in France during the last quarter of the last century, let us take first the dogmatic. Put crudely, the principle of the dogmatists is what burly Ben Jonson said of one of his own plays: —

That is to say, a work pleases or displeases the critic, for reasons which he can, or cannot, explain, and therefore it must please his readers also. Ingenious minds have elaborated various finespun theories on which to give their personal preferences a broad and human basis. Other ingenious minds have knocked over said theories and substituted new theories of their own. From Aristotle to M. Brunetière, the learned have tried to impose their taste on mankind in general — and failed lamentably. Even when they have sought to extract a taste of their own from the accumulated conventional likings of that unstable thing, the public they find their laborious product slip from under them on some sudden wave of popular fancy. An acute observer and man of the world once wrote: “Your sentiments . . . I believe to be perfectly just, because they perfectly accord with my own, and that is, you know, the only standard Heaven has given us by which to judge.” This may be heretical in morals; but it is not without value in art. That hero and model of classicism and the rule-and-line theory, Racine, says, in the preface to Bérénice: “ The principal rule is to please and to touch the emotions : all the others are made but to wait upon this.”

The great stronghold of the dogmatists is the universal consent of mankind. As if there were such a thing in literary matters! Perhaps the best satire on this view is the conventional cry of critics at the present day: Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare are the summit of all literature; no other is to be compared with them, forever, and ever, and ever. Well, but Homer has had his ups and downs. There have been times when Virgil has been thought much his superior; and to-day there are persons not uncultivated — but that is another story. As for Dante, he is an invention of the nineteenth century; and even so, Goethe, who was the nineteenth century personified, is said to have found him tedious and a little barbarous. The extravagant worship of Shakespeare is also an invention of the nineteenth century, made in Germany; and there are signs that it may not endure, in its extreme form, another hundred years.

That charming critic, Mr. Augustine Birrell, speaks as a dogmatist (who does not occasionally ?) when he says: “Is substantial injustice at this moment done to a single English writer of prose or verse who died prior to the year 1801? Is there a single bad author of this class who is now read?” This seems to me rather naïve for so subtle and keen a thinker. What does it mean ? Who is to settle the justice or injustice ? Who are the good and who the bad authors ? Those who please and those who displease Mr. Birrell ? Or those who are and those who are not read ? I myself think Sir William D’Avenant a very good poet, better than either Goldsmith or Gray, who are read by thousands; but I cannot discover that any one but myself reads D’Avenant. I recognize a personal idiosyncrasy; and do not assert that injustice is done.

The dogmatists also support themselves by extra-artistic considerations, and undertake to judge literary work by its moral and immoral tendencies. It is a good idea, and in theory they are a thousand times right. But their practice is so far from satisfactory that one is almost compelled to give them up as hopeless. In the first place much of art is fortunately, not connected with morals at all, or connected with them only very indirectly. It is hard to judge color and rhythm and imaginative expression from any moral point of view. But even in regard to what is obviously concerned with morals doctors disagree so woefully! Is it moral to represent the whole of life as it is, simply because truth is truth and cannot be harmful ? Is it moral to inject a tincture of idealism into the bald facts of life, so that they may become elevating and instructive ? Is it moral to avert one’s gaze from half of reality and to be entertaining, soothing, and false ? Where is our moral standard in all these perplexing difficulties and many others ?

The dogmatic and academic view of criticism has its value and usefulness, nevertheless. It is possible to deduce from the past delight and profit of mankind generalizations which are, if not laws, at least guides, for both production and judgment. The instinct which leads us to seek authority in art, as in other things, is a natural one, whether it can be satisfied or not. Neither Sainte-Beuve, nor Matthew Arnold, nor Lowell can oblige me to enjoy what I find dull and tedious; but if they interpret an author for me, I may come to see in him what I should never have seen for myself; and I feel more confidence in approaching a book on their recommendation, than on that of John Smith or Mary Jones.

The impressionist school of critics exists chiefly to make war on the dogmatic: that is the French way. “The chief dogma of intolerance is that there are dogmas ; that of tolerance, that there are only opinions,” said Edmond Scherer. But the impressionist is shy of anything even so stable as an opinion. “My impression of a book is so fleeting!” he cries. “It shifts from day to day, from hour to hour. I read Victor Hugo when I am in the mood for him, full of life, of enthusiasm, of exuberant philanthropy, and I find him the greatest of poets. I read him when I am dull, tired, and cynical, and he seems to me the emptiest of charlatans and the noisiest of demagogues. At times Shelley utters all my soul, at other times he seems a mass of windy nothingness. What I liked ten years ago seems now stale and unprofitable. What I railed at then, today seems good, sound meat, and full of common sense. Others may be constant in their preferences, or may force, or trick themselves into thinking that they are so. But what stability, or permanence, or solemn objectivity of judgment can there be for me ? ”

It will be said that this makes every man his own critic and disposes of criticism. It certainly does dispose of formal judgments and stilted ex cathedra classifications. But the impressionists say that, while the method of criticism is altered, the substance of it is only made a thousand times richer and more varied. Instead of a dry, impersonal ranking and ticketing of books and authors, we get the effect which they produce on different minds, and so, an infinitude of possible affections of our own. In other words, criticism is not an end, it is a beginning. Its object is to spur us, to inspire us, to open out before us wide vistas of passion and thought and beauty, which we had not discovered for ourselves. In giving us his own personal impression of a work of art, a critic is simply giving us one of a thousand possible interpretations, each of which has its own interest and value. The more personal, the more himself he is, the more singly he keeps his eye fixed on his own impression as distinguished from the traditional opinion of others, the more he helps us, not because we are necessarily to follow him, but because we are thus led to think and feel and perceive for ourselves. When M. Anatole France writes: “The critic ought to say: ‘Gentlemen, I am going to speak of myself à propos of Racine, or of Pascal, or of Goethe. It is a delightful opportunity,'” he seems to be very egotistical. In reality, as all his readers know, there is no critic less so. While M. Brunetière, the champion of dogmatic and impersonal criticism, is egotism personified.

Apart from both dogmatism and impressionism, and hostile to both, stand the scientific critics; and, without doubt, their attitude expresses more truly the spirit of the nineteenth century than does that of either of the others. Personal æsthetic judgments, says the scientist, are an impertinence; impersonal judgments are difficult, from the ordinary dogmatic standpoint, of an ideal, ready - made standard, impossible and ridiculous. It may be that long and careful investigation of the sources of æsthetic enjoyment will at length develop some psychological criterion, which will have objective value and be subject to definite measurement. Meanwhile, the critic has other and far richer fields before him. Literature is not an arbitrary and artificial product. It grows and develops according to natural laws. It is the expression of human life and thought. It can be subjected to analytical study and the results stated in broad generalizations. Each great literary period has its peculiar character, which it stamps on all its representatives, no matter how intense their own individuality. Each literary period is connected with other literary periods; with those that precede, to which it owes something, either by direct derivation or by reaction; and, in the same fashion, with those that follow. Thus, the classicism of the eighteenth century was in large part a reaction from the excesses of the later Renaissance. The realism of the middle of the nineteenth century was a reaction from the violent romanticism of the generation before. In the same way, while certain general characteristics mark the whole literary work of a period, these are differently modified according to the nation in which they appear. The buoyant fullness, the splendid, unpruned luxuriance of the Renaissance suited perfectly the genius of the English; hence, in the Elizabethan age that race found its most complete literary expression. On the other hand, the tasteful and refined finish, the clear and prosaic simplicity of the eighteenth century served as the fittest medium for the polished sense and the keen intellect of France. It is the function of the scientific critic to study all these things, to trace the affiliations of different ages and different races, to show that, making always due allowance for individual genius, literary forms and products are a natural efflorescence, to be watched and systematized, like plants or birds, only with an infinitely more subtle and delicate discrimination.

This is not all. Literature is not only in itself a subject of scientific study. It is always and in all its forms an expression of the human life which produces it. The drama of Shakespeare, wonderful as a literary product, becomes far more so, viewed as a manifestation of the richest, the most glorious period of English history. The differences between that drama and the plays of Calderon correspond closely to the differences between the England and the Spain of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So, the drama of the Restoration, in all its coarseness and superficiality, reflects exactly the moral conditions of the society by and for which it was produced. Again, one cannot imagine a more interesting study than the connection between literature and history at the close of the eighteenth century, the influence of the earlier romantic writers, Rousseau, Macpherson with his Ossian, Schiller and Goethe, in the great political and social upheaval of the French Revolution; and still more, the influence of that upheaval on Byron and Shelley, Hugo and Musset, Manzoni and Leopardi.

But still wider and richer as a field for the scientific critic is the life and psychology of the individual author. Back of the book is always the man —or woman. The general outlines of national life and contemporary tendency, so strongly emphasized by Taine, form but a background, from which stands out the human personality, subtle, mobile, always hard to grasp and define, and all the more fascinating because of that difficulty. Of course, the amount of self-revelation varies with the author and with the form of expression. Diarists like Pepys or Amiel, letter-writers like Madame de Sévigné, essayists like Montaigne, lyrical poets like Byron and Heine, wear the heart upon the sleeve. They throw open the inmost secrets of their lives for the inspection of the curious observer. But even at the other extreme how much we can learn of writers of the sternest objectivity. Tacitus, Gibbon, Macaulay speak little of themselves; yet touches of their character are written on every page of their works. Thackeray is a novelist who constantly intrudes himself and his opinions and experiences on the attention of the reader. Flaubert is a novelist whose whole theory of art was to conceal himself. Yet I am not sure that Flaubert’s books do not give us a more genuine and intelligible impression of the man than Thackeray’s. Even the great dramatists, although never speaking to us in their own persons, somehow contrive to produce a distinct feeling of individual character. This is best seen by comparing them with one another. Take Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Molière: do we not derive from their purely dramatic works psychological impressions which enable us to separate the first from the other two, and those again, though less remotely, from each other ? It is this psychological study, this view of literature as an endless revelation of human life, endless in variety, endless in fascination, which make the basis and the charm of scientific criticism. Sainte-Beuve summed it up admirably in the often quoted saying: “I botanize, I herborize, I am a naturalist of souls.”

Like each of the other forms of criticism, the scientific has its obvious defect. After all, however we judge it, the charm of literature proper comes mainly from its appeal to our æsthetic sensibility. We esteem a poem or a novel because it pleases us and moves us, because it is beautiful. Now there may be very curious material for the study of human life, in general or in particular, in books which neither please us nor move us at all. The scientific critic, in his determination not to be influenced by æsthetic considerations, is too apt to neglect them altogether, to exalt writers and writings which have had little or no effect on mankind at large, or even on himself, simply because they offer new and striking facts, or happen to form an important link in some chain of literary deduction. Even Sainte-Beuve, though as little slave to systems as any man, did not always escape this tendency.

I have thus stated briefly the position of the three leading schools of literary criticism. To the practical American mind the question naturally occurs: Why are they not all in the right ? Why not use a combination of the theories of all three ? The ordinary reader will always look for authority somewhere, by whatever name it is called, will always respect and adopt the judgment of some one whom he considers, rightly or wrongly, better equipped than himself. On the other hand, the freshness, the vivacity of the impressionists are most valuable for tempering and softening dogmatic and academic severity. And surely no one will reject the added richness and significance which come from comparative study and psychological interpretation.

This is the remark of common sense, and it is hard to see why any one should disagree with it. But can we not do better still by putting aside all these formal watch words and establishing our criticism on a more natural and simple basis ?

Previous to the eighteenth century, criticism was either purely speculative, that is, it was a merely theoretical analysis of the nature and conditions of the beautiful, akin to any other scientific investigation, or it was undertaken for the benefit of authors. There were kindly people scattered about the world in considerable numbers, who had never, indeed, created anything themselves, but who knew exactly how the thing ought to be done and were willing and glad to communicate their superior wisdom to that humble and tutorable being, the creative genius. It is extremely doubtful whether these persons ever accomplished very much, except to gather a good deal of ill-will and some little reputation. Poets and dramatists who are worth anything do not generally change their methods in deference to critics, and perhaps it is well they do not. But since the immense development of journalism, all this is changed. There are still, of course, plenty of critics of the class just mentioned, more than ever, and more impudent than ever. We all know the oracle of some twopenny sheet who begins: “We are glad to see that Mr. Jones has profited by our remarks on his last novel,” or, “We think Miss Smith would have improved her acting of Juliet, if she had taken our advice last year as to her interpretation of the rôle.” There are even writers and journals of high standing which assume this tone and keep up their reputation by it. Nevertheless, the general task of criticism and its object have become different altogether.

The critic of to-day who writes in the great magazines or dailies speaks to hundreds of thousands. He neither knows nor cares anything about the author of a book as such. He has not the slightest desire to offer advice to that author about his business, any more than he would advise a hatter about the making of hats. His concern is with the book and with the public. It is the public that he has always in mind, that vast multiplicity of tastes, desires, passions, interests, which wishes information, suggestion, as to what it shall read. It does not wish to be told what it ought to like. It does not wish to be told that Brown’s play transgresses the unities, that Perkins’s novel is badly composed, that Williams steals his fiction, and Robinson invents his facts. It wants to be told what will touch it, please it, amuse it, help it. It wants to be inspired, if only for a moment, with the passion and the joy of literature.

Well, the critic who is to act as high priest in this sacred function must have, especially, two qualities. First, he must love literature himself, he must be, in the beautiful phrase of Erasmus, litterarum mystes religiosissimus, no hack, no jackof-all-trades, who turns to reviewing in the barren intervals of law or politics. Secondly, he must have the instinct, almost the passion, of imparting his love to others. There are some who cherish their literary joys in silence and solitude, and feel that sharing them diminishes them. But the true critic, in our sense, is not content, unless others enjoy his pleasures with him. Books have brought him the greatest delight of life: he wishes to make the delight universal. He wants his favorites known and loved as he loves them. Perhaps, when he tries to talk of these things, he is chilled by the lack of response. People whom he meets in society are barred off from him by social conventions and trivial cares. He must talk to them of their daily interests and little personal concerns. He cannot dwell on the mystery of Shelley, or the passion of Heine, or the gayety of Meilhac. But when he takes his pen in hand, he instantly sees a sympathetic auditor before him, and proceeds to pour out the enthusiasm of his heart.

This is the true spirit of criticism. You may enrich it with the most varied learning and adorn it with the most brilliant and powerful expression; but without love, all these things are but as sounding brass and as a tinkling cymbal. In short, the critic is an artist just as much as the creative writer; and, as it is the function of the latter to reveal to us new meaning and new beauty in the world of real men and women, so the critic reveals to us new beauty and new meaning in the world of books.

The critic’s true mission, then, is in the attempt to communicate to others his own infinite delight in books. Does this mean that he is always to praise and never to find fault ? Far from it. The love of literature is more than the love of any author. That critic is worth little who cannot enjoy the most opposite excellencies, who lets his delight in Scott blind him to Scott’s careless and slipshod style and observation, and does not recognize the perfection of workmanship in a writer like Flaubert, who totally lacks Scott’s romantic and human charm. The spiritual glory of Shelley is wholly wanting in Leopardi; but Leopardi’s unequaled delicacy and finish throw a sad light on Shelley’s blundering improvisation. In his passion for every kind of beauty the critic overlooks none of these things; though he dwells lightly on the shadows, and, above all, avoids, with the most watchful scrupulousness, that worst failing of his order, — cheap self-glorification obtained by displaying others’ defects.

There is, however, one distinction worth making in regard to this matter of fault-finding, an expression which, alas, is too apt to be used as synonymous with criticism. The usual habit of critics and reviewers is to accept standard authors at the traditional valuation, and to treat new candidates for popular favor with at best a contemptuous patronage. It is the easiest method of proceeding; but I think there would be much profit in reversing it. A severe review advertises a worthless book, almost as much as a favorable one. Let such things alone altogether. And for what attracts the critic, let him help it along. Let him make his reserves, if he likes, and if he is afraid of discrediting himself with posterity; but let him dwell chiefly on what pleases and profits him and may please and profit others.

On the other hand, let him treat the classics as if they were just out. There is no surer method of getting people to read and appreciate them. Books that have stood the test of a thousand, or five hundred, or a hundred years will not suffer much from any severity of his. But if he is to help and guide others, he must be himself and himself only. If the Iliad, with all its dust and blood and fleshly deities, bores him, let him say so. His readers will open the Iliad with an interest they have never felt before. Whether they agree with him or not is of no consequence whatever. All that he wants is that they should read and feel for themselves.

Oh, these literary idols! How dangerous it is to meddle with them, even to lift a corner of the robe or touch the pedestal! How little real love there is in the world’s reverences, how much convention! How often any one who discusses literature honestly feels the truth of Professor Saintsbury’s noble though somewhat arrogant words: “From the outset of his career the critic has to make up his mind to be charged with ‘ungenerous,’or ‘grudging,’ or ‘ not cordial ’ treatment of those whom he loves with a love that twenty thousand of his accusers could not by clubbing together equal, and understands with an understanding of which — not, of course, by their own fault but by that of Providence — they are simply incapable.”

This difficulty of looking honestly at the consecrated sanctities of tradition gives a peculiar interest to the writers of the past about whom dogmatism has not made up its mind. Euripides, for instance, is one of the most fascinating of poets because he has never been ticketed in any cut-and-dried position. For twenty-three hundred years he has been discussed and quarreled over; and his admirers and detractors are to-day as far from agreeing as those of Browning or Kipling. Well, the critic should try (it is impossible to succeed, but he should try) to approach every literary idol with the same freedom with which he approaches Euripides. Only thus will he be really stimulating and helpful.

Doubtless, Shakespeare is the greatest idol of Anglo-Saxondom. Is it possible that any of us, crammed as we are with ages and pages of laudation, should ever read Shakespeare with an independent spirit ? Certainly not. We can never have the pleasure of knowing what a man of the highest nineteenth - century culture, an Arnold, a Lowell, would think of Shakespeare on first reading him, without ever having heard of him before. Yet no writer can be placed with impunity on such an altitude as Shakespeare occupies. He is too far off to be felt. He is so crusted over with secular adoration that the ordinary reader never gets at the real work itself. How few people actually read him! How few truly care to see him acted! Study the character of Shakespeare audiences. They are entirely different from the habitual theatre - goers. Certain of these, of course, always flock to Irving as Irving; but they prefer Louis XI to Hamlet. The Shakespeare audience is largely composed of those who go to the theatre twice a year “to see Shakespeare,” — teachers and their pupils, college girls, children who are taken because it is educational. Ask a lover of the modern stage about this and he will say that he likes to read Shakespeare, but not to see him. Push the matter a little farther and you will find that he reads Shakespeare about as often as the Bible. Even when he is read, it is, with so many people, because he is the proper thing; that is, with dull eyes, a dull brain, and a mind turning constantly elsewhere.

It should be the aim of the critic to change this state of things, if only a little. Let him try, at least, to present Shakespeare as he actually finds him for himself. Shakespeare is not perfect. He is not even perfect as many other writers are perfect. He is uneven and unequal. He is lazy, clumsy, and careless in the management of his stolen stories. He leaves his characters at loose ends, unworked out and unexplained. He is the sport of his own fancy and lets words run away with him. He is difficult and obscure, pompous and pretentious, sometimes even exceedingly dull. Let the critic who feels these things say them; and when he also says that Shakespeare’s imagination has given him more delight than anything else on this green earth, people will believe he means it.

After volumes of German philosophizing, the following observations of M. Jules Lemaître (who, it should be said, does not read English) on Hamlet are very refreshing : “ The first three acts appear to be exceedingly beautiful; but I will frankly confess that the last two, no longer filled with Hamlet himself, seemed to me extremely tedious. The conduct of Claudius is absurd. The Queen is null and absolutely passive. The gravediggers’ scene, perfectly useless to the action, is a lugubrious sort of comedy, which has grown to be terribly commonplace. Much the same is true of Ophelia’s madness. It is amusing in the text because of her songs; but as it is played at the Comédie Française, it is a scene of keepsake and cheap romance; you think you are looking at a chromo.”

Yet through all this the true critic will remember that his mission is essentially and always positive. He has found sources of infinite joy and delight in life which others may not be aware of, or not so fully as he. These sources are the simplest, the cheapest, the most permanent, the most accessible that exist; apparently they are slighted for that very reason. The enjoyment of the other arts — music, painting, the theatre — is obtainable only with fatigue and toil such as often diminish it or destroy it altogether. You stand for two hours in a cold and crowded gallery, with vulgar sights and noisy people about you, till you wonder what any one can find in pictures. You pay a great price, long beforehand, for a theatre or concert ticket; and when the day comes you have a headache, the weather is dreary; narrow seats, bustle, and chatter annoy and tire you, till you wish you were at home. All the time, at home, you have within reach the loveliest art in the world, always ready, always waiting, taking a thousand different forms for every different mood and taste, absolutely independent of the vexing and distracting presence of the crowd. Well, it is the mission of the literary critic to keep this door open and the attention of his readers called to it, to point out gently, insinuatingly the infinite treasures he has found there, and, so far as in him lies, to help others to find and profit by the same.