User:Mango Masala/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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If some postwar critics are loth to consider the literary work merely as an object, they are equally reluctant to believe that contemplation is the sole reaction to it. Beyond testimony, beyond participation or dialogue, the critic now wishes to entertain in the possibility that ''action'' maybe a legitimate response to art. By this, of course, I do not mean that he rushes to the barricades after reading ''The Conquerors'', or that he develops tuberculosis after reading ''The Magic Mountain''. I mean that the experience of a literary work does not leave him unchanged. To the extent that he is altered in the recesses of his imagination, indeed of his being, to that extent he must act differently in daily life. For if literature is both cognitive and experiential, as we have been so often told, then how can new knowledge but prompt new action? We may have accepted the Thomist notion of ''stasis'' in art much too uncritically. The counter-statement is boldly presented in Sartre's essay, “ Qu’est Ce Que la Littérature? ” “Parler c’est agir:” Sartre claims, “tout chose qu'on nomme n’est déjà plus tout à fait la même, elle a perdu son innocence.” Sartre continues: “L'oeuvre d’art est valeur parce qu’elle est appel.”{{sfn|Sartre|1948|p=72, 98}} The appeal, above all, is to that act of self-definition which the work persuades its reader to perform, an act of definition and also of freedom. For in a sense, the work itself is “created” by the freedom of the reader to give it a concrete and, ultimately, personal meaning. The work, that is, finally enters the total existence of a man, not simply his dream life or aesthetic consciousness, and in doing so, it becomes subject to the total judgment of human passions. This is precisely what an existential writer of a different breed, Camus, meant when he wrote, “To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing...”{{sfn|Camus|1961|p=251}} But if the writer must create dangerously these days, the critic cannot afford to criticize timorously. Dangerous criticism assumes that final and somewhat frightening responsibility which some critics naturally resist; namely, the willing suspension of aesthetic judgment in the interests of right action.
If some postwar critics are loth to consider the literary work merely as an object, they are equally reluctant to believe that contemplation is the sole reaction to it. Beyond testimony, beyond participation or dialogue, the critic now wishes to entertain in the possibility that ''action'' maybe a legitimate response to art. By this, of course, I do not mean that he rushes to the barricades after reading ''The Conquerors'', or that he develops tuberculosis after reading ''The Magic Mountain''. I mean that the experience of a literary work does not leave him unchanged. To the extent that he is altered in the recesses of his imagination, indeed of his being, to that extent he must act differently in daily life. For if literature is both cognitive and experiential, as we have been so often told, then how can new knowledge but prompt new action? We may have accepted the Thomist notion of ''stasis'' in art much too uncritically. The counter-statement is boldly presented in Sartre's essay, “ Qu’est Ce Que la Littérature? ” “Parler c’est agir:” Sartre claims, “tout chose qu'on nomme n’est déjà plus tout à fait la même, elle a perdu son innocence.” Sartre continues: “L'oeuvre d’art est valeur parce qu’elle est appel.”{{sfn|Sartre|1948|p=72, 98}} The appeal, above all, is to that act of self-definition which the work persuades its reader to perform, an act of definition and also of freedom. For in a sense, the work itself is “created” by the freedom of the reader to give it a concrete and, ultimately, personal meaning. The work, that is, finally enters the total existence of a man, not simply his dream life or aesthetic consciousness, and in doing so, it becomes subject to the total judgment of human passions. This is precisely what an existential writer of a different breed, Camus, meant when he wrote, “To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing...”{{sfn|Camus|1961|p=251}} But if the writer must create dangerously these days, the critic cannot afford to criticize timorously. Dangerous criticism assumes that final and somewhat frightening responsibility which some critics naturally resist; namely, the willing suspension of aesthetic judgment in the interests of right action.


I quite realize the enormity of this assertion. For one thing, it brings the critic dangerously close to the posture of the censor—the commissar, the propaganda helot, the prurient chief of police—who requires that every work of art display its social credentials or else stand convicted. No doubt, the redemption of man is a more momentous task than the creation of beauty, and virtue and goodness are not to be scoffed at. Yet redemption, one suspects, does not lie in the grasp of regulators; nor does virtue depend on the degradation of art by power. How, then, can the critic hope to transcend the aesthetic domain of literature without seeming to capitulate to dogma or authority, without seeming to endorse a vulgar or repressive utilitarianism?
I quite realize the enormity of this assertion. For one thing, it brings the critic dangerously close to the posture of the censor—the commissar, the propaganda helot, the prurient chief of police - who requires that every work of art display its social credentials or else stand convicted. No doubt, the redemption of man is a more momentous task than the creation of beauty, and virtue and goodness are not to be scoffed at. Yet redemption, one suspects, does not lie in the grasp of regulators; nor does virtue depend on the degradation of art by power. How, then, can the critic hope to transcend the aesthetic domain of literature without seeming to capitulate to dogma or authority, without seeming to endorse a vulgar or repressive utilitarianism?


There are many answers to this question, though all are equally provisional, for in this as in other literary matters, tact not theory comes to our aid. We can begin, however, by making two observations. First, serious literature offers great resistance to political expediency; other forms of propaganda are far more effective. The basic affinity of modern literature particularly is with vision and outrage. By vision, I mean neither doctrine nor even revelation, but simply a concrete projection of the imagination into the conduct of life. Henry Miller has such an idea in mind when he says: “The role which the artist plays in society is to revive the primitive, anarchic instincts which have been sacrificed for the illusion of living in comfort”; or when he says again: “I do not call poets those who make verses, rhymed or unrhymed. I call that man poet who is capable of profoundly altering the world.”[8] Both these statements reveal the artist’s conception of himself as visionary actor; both attest to his hope that prophecy may find its incarnation, beyond language, in action. Emboldened by such statements—and they are by no means restricted to Miller—the critic may feel Justified in participating in the action that the work initiates. This is to say that the critic becomes himself part of the devious process by which a writer’s vision penetrates culture. The character of this devious process is closer to the character of pedagogy than of social reform. This leads me to the second observation. Since the process is indeed devious, subject to all the ambiguities of modern culture, the critic cannot really maintain a purely pragmatic, a purely political view of literature. This is salutary for the activist critic who finds in the visionary or subversive power of literature an inner check on his propensity for dogma, his penchant for expediency. This critical ideal is not nearly as pretentious as it may sound, nor does it always require the critic to make his home in the midst of chaos. It may require him, however, to heed certain thematicquestions which were once considered beneath notice. A number of critical works of the last decade reflect this emergent concern. In The Tragic Vision, for instance, Murray Krieger pertinently asks, “But how, if we limit ourselves to technical literary definitions, can we find for the tragic any meaning beyond that of Aristotle? The answer is, by moving from formalistic aesthetics to what I would term 'thematics.'” Krieger’s analysis of that term cannot be summarized easily, but the implications of his method are stated succinctly enough. He concludes thus: “All of which is perhaps to say only that a literary theory must be adequate to the literary experiences for which it is to account and that we trust our way of experiencing literature only as it is adequate to the life out there, which cries for a way of being organized literarily that will yet leave it preserved intact.”[9] If the insistence on “the life out there” does not necessarily force the critic into a study of “thematics,” it does persuade him to dwell on precisely those formal matters that invoke the larger aspects of reality and may even engage religious thought. Thus the essays of James E. Miller, Jr., Karl Shapiro, and Bernice Slote, in Start With the Sun, explore the relation of Dionysian poetry to cosmic consciousness, mystery, and apocalypse. Miss Slote ends taking her cue from a noble phrase of Lawrence, “Perhaps then we may be absolved from the poetry of mirrors.[10] Parallel explorations of fiction lead R.W.B. Lewis, in his fine study, The Picaresque Saint, to distinguish between the generation of Proust, Joyce, and Mann, in whose world the aesthetic experience was supreme, and the generation of Silone, Faulkner, Camus, and Greene, in whose world “the chief experience has been the discovery of what it means to be a human being and to be alive.” Lewis continues: “Criticism, examining this world, is drawn to the more radically human considerations of life and death, and of the aspiring, sinful nature of man.”[11]
There are many answers to this question, though all are equally provisional, for in this as in other literary matters, tact not theory comes to our aid. We can begin, however, by making two observations. First, serious literature offers great resistance to political expediency; other forms of propaganda are far more effective. The basic affinity of modern literature particularly is with vision and outrage. By vision, I mean neither doctrine nor even revelation, but simply a concrete projection of the imagination into the conduct of life. Henry Miller has such an idea in mind when he says: “The role which the artist plays in society is to revive the primitive, anarchic instincts which have been sacrificed for the illusion of living in comfort”; or when he says again: “I do not call poets those who make verses, rhymed or unrhymed. I call that man poet who is capable of profoundly altering the world.”{{sfn|Miller|1939|p=156}} and {{sfn|Miller|1939|p=38 ff}}  Both these statements reveal the artist’s conception of himself as visionary actor; both attest to his hope that prophecy may find its incarnation, beyond language, in action. Emboldened by such statements—and they are by no means restricted to Miller—the critic may feel Justified in participating in the action that the work initiates. This is to say that the critic becomes himself part of the devious process by which a writer’s vision penetrates culture. The character of this devious process is closer to the character of pedagogy than of social reform. This leads me to the second observation. Since the process is indeed devious, subject to all the ambiguities of modern culture, the critic cannot really maintain a purely pragmatic, a purely political view of literature. This is salutary for the activist critic who finds in the visionary or subversive power of literature an inner check on his propensity for dogma, his penchant for expediency. This critical ideal is not nearly as pretentious as it may sound, nor does it always require the critic to make his home in the midst of chaos. It may require him, however, to heed certain thematic questions which were once considered beneath notice. A number of critical works of the last decade reflect this emergent concern. In The Tragic Vision, for instance, Murray Krieger pertinently asks, “But how, if we limit ourselves to technical literary definitions, can we find for the tragic any meaning beyond that of Aristotle? The answer is, by moving from formalistic aesthetics to what I would term 'thematics.'” Krieger’s analysis of that term cannot be summarized easily, but the implications of his method are stated succinctly enough. He concludes thus: “All of which is perhaps to say only that a literary theory must be adequate to the literary experiences for which it is to account and that we trust our way of experiencing literature only as it is adequate to the life out there, which cries for a way of being organized literarily that will yet leave it preserved intact.”[9] If the insistence on “the life out there” does not necessarily force the critic into a study of “thematics,” it does persuade him to dwell on precisely those formal matters that invoke the larger aspects of reality and may even engage religious thought. Thus the essays of James E. Miller, Jr., Karl Shapiro, and Bernice Slote, in Start With the Sun, explore the relation of Dionysian poetry to cosmic consciousness, mystery, and apocalypse. Miss Slote ends taking her cue from a noble phrase of Lawrence, “Perhaps then we may be absolved from the poetry of mirrors.[10] Parallel explorations of fiction lead R.W.B. Lewis, in his fine study, The Picaresque Saint, to distinguish between the generation of Proust, Joyce, and Mann, in whose world the aesthetic experience was supreme, and the generation of Silone, Faulkner, Camus, and Greene, in whose world “the chief experience has been the discovery of what it means to be a human being and to be alive.” Lewis continues: “Criticism, examining this world, is drawn to the more radically human considerations of life and death, and of the aspiring, sinful nature of man.”[11]


Perhaps I have spoken long enough of certain interests of postwar criticism, though I feel I have spoken of them only tangentially. If one were to search for the theoretical basis of these interests—a task which I must leave to more philosophical critics one might be inclined to develop a view of literature that does not put the idea of form as its center. By this I do not simply mean a redefinition of the concept of form so that it may account, say, for the plays of Beckett or the novels of Burroughs. I would plead for a more radical view. From Kant to Cassirer, from Coleridge to Croce and down to the New Critics, the idea of organic form has been a touchstone of value and a cornerstone of theory in literary study. We assume, and indeed we believe, that the imagination incarnates itself only as an aesthetic order, and that such an order is available to the analytic mind. We believe more: that aesthetic order defines the deepest pleasures of literature and conveys its enduring attractions. I am not at all secure in these beliefs. Indeed, I am willing to take the devil's part and entertain the notion that “structure” is not always present or explicable in literary works; and that where it reveals itself, it is not always worth the attention we give it. Such works as Hamlet and Don Quixoteare not diminished by the discovery that their form, whatever it may be, is less organic than we expect the form of great works to be. Even that supreme artifact of our century, that total structure of symbols, puns, and cross-references, that city of words full of secret alleys and connecting catacombs, even Joyce's Ulysses, may prove to the keen, fresh eye of a critic more of a labyrinth, dead ends and ways without issue, than Dublin itself which encloses the nightmare of history. This is precisely what Robert Martin Adams concludes in his fascinating study, Surface and Symbol. Adams inspects minutely the wealth of details in the novel, and finds that many of them serve to blur or confuse rather than to sustain patterns: "The close reading of Ulysses thus reveals that the meaningless is deeply interwoven with the meaningful in the texture of the novel...It is a book and an antibook, a work of art particularly receptive to accident. It builds to acute and poignant states of consciousness, yet its larger ambition seems to be to put aside consciousness as a painful burden." </ref> Nothing catastrophic to the future of criticism is presaged by this statement. Quite the contrary: criticism may derive new vitality from some attention to the unstructured and even random element in literature. For is not form, after all, best conceived as a mode of awareness, a function of cognition, a question, that is, of epistemology rather than ontology? Its objective reality is qualified by the overpowering reality of human need. In the end, we perceive what we need to perceive, and our sense of pattern as of relation is conditioned by our deeper sense of relevance. This is why the aesthetic of the future will have to reckon with Freud, Nietzsche, and even Kierkegaard, who have given us, more than Marx himself, compelling economies of human needs. [12]
Perhaps I have spoken long enough of certain interests of postwar criticism, though I feel I have spoken of them only tangentially. If one were to search for the theoretical basis of these interests—a task which I must leave to more philosophical critics one might be inclined to develop a view of literature that does not put the idea of form as its center. By this I do not simply mean a redefinition of the concept of form so that it may account, say, for the plays of Beckett or the novels of Burroughs. I would plead for a more radical view. From Kant to Cassirer, from Coleridge to Croce and down to the New Critics, the idea of organic form has been a touchstone of value and a cornerstone of theory in literary study. We assume, and indeed we believe, that the imagination incarnates itself only as an aesthetic order, and that such an order is available to the analytic mind. We believe more: that aesthetic order defines the deepest pleasures of literature and conveys its enduring attractions. I am not at all secure in these beliefs. Indeed, I am willing to take the devil's part and entertain the notion that “structure” is not always present or explicable in literary works; and that where it reveals itself, it is not always worth the attention we give it. Such works as Hamlet and Don Quixoteare not diminished by the discovery that their form, whatever it may be, is less organic than we expect the form of great works to be. Even that supreme artifact of our century, that total structure of symbols, puns, and cross-references, that city of words full of secret alleys and connecting catacombs, even Joyce's Ulysses, may prove to the keen, fresh eye of a critic more of a labyrinth, dead ends and ways without issue, than Dublin itself which encloses the nightmare of history. This is precisely what Robert Martin Adams concludes in his fascinating study, Surface and Symbol. Adams inspects minutely the wealth of details in the novel, and finds that many of them serve to blur or confuse rather than to sustain patterns: "The close reading of Ulysses thus reveals that the meaningless is deeply interwoven with the meaningful in the texture of the novel...It is a book and an antibook, a work of art particularly receptive to accident. It builds to acute and poignant states of consciousness, yet its larger ambition seems to be to put aside consciousness as a painful burden." </ref> Nothing catastrophic to the future of criticism is presaged by this statement. Quite the contrary: criticism may derive new vitality from some attention to the unstructured and even random element in literature. For is not form, after all, best conceived as a mode of awareness, a function of cognition, a question, that is, of epistemology rather than ontology? Its objective reality is qualified by the overpowering reality of human need. In the end, we perceive what we need to perceive, and our sense of pattern as of relation is conditioned by our deeper sense of relevance. This is why the aesthetic of the future will have to reckon with Freud, Nietzsche, and even Kierkegaard, who have given us, more than Marx himself, compelling economies of human needs. [12]
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