Specimens of modern English literary criticism

Front matter

Glass.

Book.

SPECIMENS

Preface

This book belongs to the realm of rhetoric rather than that of literature or literary history. It aims to use critical writing, more Completely than is done in any existing text-book of selections, a> an agent in rhetorical study and intellectual discipline. . Books of specimens of the so-called forms of discourse, narration, description, exposition, and argumentation, are abundant, as well as useful- The present volume is less a complete illustration of a form of discourse than an analysis of a fair variety of pieces that would commonly be called literary criticism, but it is hoped that it also will be useful — at least to those moderately advanced students for whom it is intended.

The point of view in the editing of these selections is one from which literary criticism is regarded, rhetorically, largely as a form of exposition and argumentation, and, as a matter of fact, as a body of more or less particular theses and opinions. Selections, therefore, are given without abridgment, and the important points all along brought out relate to the dicta of each critic and his reasons for holding his opinions. The safest way to begin the study of literary criticism and the surest progress toward a sound knowledge of that art is, in my opinion, to be found in the examination of actual critical production. It is certainly wholesome to treat works of criticism like any other body of facts, as well as an illustration of some theory or other of the universe. Supplying material for analysis and some direction for study is, therefore, as far as this book attempts to go.

In arrangement, the essays proceed from the simplest, most matter of fact, and most easily demonstrable, to the more general, more abstract, and less easily provable. The arrangement is as follows : the first eight essays deal with particular men ; numbers q and 10 have to do with special topics; and the last five are illustrative of general discussions — from highly different points of view — of literary art and morality. For any of the essays here an infinite variety of substitution and supplementation may, of course, be made, according to the preference of the teacher. I have chiefly tried to get as large a variety as possible within the limits of literary criticism, to avoid repetition of type, to present well-contrasted views and methods, and to avoid essays of too difficult a character. These reasons will

VI PREFACE

account for the omission of most earlier modern critics except Dryden and Johnson, and that of such later modern critics as Hazlitt, De Quincey, Carlyle, and Lowell. The introduction is a definition of criticism, and it contains also suggestions for the study of the form as a matter both of intelligent reading and of training in composition. The notes and questions are analytical rather than explanatory of the text; bracketed footnotes in the shape of translations of phrases not clear from the context are the only additions that I have made to the body of the book. I have also added a list of the books that I have cited in the course of the introduction and the notes, and an index of names and of topics. Any one who wishes to pursue the subject of criticism more exhaustively is, of course, referred to Professor ■ Gayley and Professor Scott's invaluable bibliographies in their Introduction to the Materials and Methods of Literary Criticism. j If the view held in the following introduction be correct, that literary criticism is a corpus of opinion about literature deriving its ultimate sanction from personality and the general and lasting acceptation of its dicta — it would follow that any collection of good critical essays would form a suitable and desirable subject for rhetorical study. Such valuable collections as Professor Saintsbury 's Loci Critici, Mr. Yaughan's English Literary Criticism, and Mr. Payne's American Literary Criticism, despite a trifling emphasis on national rather than critical issues, are well fitted for such analytical study as I have here indicated, and I have profited greatly by them. With them, however, the historical point of view, the desire to show criticism as something of a growth, complicates the question, and this, in my opinion, serves to darken the counsel that is of prime importance for students at the outset of the study of literary criticism. Soundly and surely to trace the real history of any body of literary opinion is a delicate and complicated task, too hard, unquestionably, for most college students. What is of fundamental importance, I repeat, is for the student first to understand what the critic is saying and then to discern the sanction for the faith that is in him. These questions", at the outset, are best kept clear of theories about development and generalizations about the history of the art. The present book may be termed, in short, an introduction to the study and practice of literary criticism. W. T. B.

Columbia University, July 12, 1907.

Contents

PAGK

Introduction ix

Essays I

Introduction

I

The once common and popular notion that criticism is faultfinding, more or less direct and pointed, more or less elaborate, is so far passing out of use that it may be dismissed with a word. A less easily disposed of matter remains. It confronts alike the serious student and the trustful seeker for authority. No one who has read treatises on art and literature or essays and reviews of authors and plays and books from the hand of eminent masters of the theory and practice of criticism, can fail to be struck with the fact that critics, like other doctors, frequently disagree in their judgments. The result is confusing. A prospective theatregoer, for example, sees in reviews of the first night very divergent opinions about a particular play, and he may "shudder, and know not how to think " — or where to go. Or a modest seeker for finality, disdaining all forms of criticism that, like the foregoing example, hold a taint of commercialism, and seeking the repose of certitude in the words of high-minded masters of the critical essay and the acknowledged arbiters of literary taste, will be struck by the fact that whereas Arnold, 1 for example, assigns to Byron a place second only to Wordsworth, among the poets of the last century, Mr. Swinburne a regards Byron as no more than low second rate and wholly inferior to Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and others. Who shall guard the guardians of literature ?

To make clearer the fact of this discrepancy a few pregnant remarks as to the nature, the function, and the value of criticism may be quoted. "Criticism," says Mr. Collins, 3 "is to literature what legislation and government are to states. If they are in able and

1 Essays in Criticism, Second Series. Wordsworth.

Miscellanies. Wordsworth and Byron. 1 Ephemera Critica p. 26.

X INTRODUCTION

honest bands, all goes well; if they are in weak and dishonest hands, all is anarchy and mischief." Arnold, in a frequently quoted passage, says, 1 "I am hound by ray own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known ami thought in the world." Pater's theory is summed up in these words,- "What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects." Mr. Robertson's method is somewhat more argumentative: 3 "It is the getting behind spontaneous judgment, the ascertaining of how and why we differ in our judgments, that the critics so-called have left mostly unattempted." All these men, though at odds over method, evidently regard criticism as a high function. On the other hand, listen to Mr. Howells, 4 " Every literary movement has been violently opposed at the start, and yet never stayed in the least, or arrested, by criticism: every author has been condemned for his virtues, but in nowise changed by it." And again,"' "Criticism has condemned whatever was, from time to time, fresh and vital in literature; it has always fought the new good thing in behalf of the old good thing; it has invariably fostered the tame, the trite, the negative that survived." Leslie Stephen, out of sorts with his life-long profession, wrote to Mr. Thomas Hardy (May 16, 1876):" "My remark about modern lectures was, of course, 'wrote sarcastic,' as Artemus Ward says, and intended tor a passing dig in the ribs of some modern critics, who think that they can lay down laws in art like the Pope in religion, e.g., the whole Rossetti- Swinburne school. Hut if you mean seriously to ask me what critical books I recommend, I can only say that I recommend none. I think that as a critic the less authors read of criticism, the better. You, e.g., have a perfectly fresh and original view, and I think that the less you bother yourself about critical canons, the less chance there is of your becoming self-conscious and cramped. 1 should, indeed, advise the great writers — Shakespeare, Goethe, Scott, etc., etc., who give ideas and don't prescribe rules. Sainte- Beuve and Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics who seem to me worth reading — perhaps, too, Lowell. We are generally a poor lot, horribly afraid of not being in the

1 Essays in Criticism, p. 38. 2 The Renaissance, p. xii.

* New Essays towards a Critical Method, p. 4. * Criticism and E id ion, p. ;q.

INTRODUCTION xi

fashion, and disposed to give ourselves airs on very small grounds." Stephen's father was even more contemptuous. Writing to John Venn (August 25, 1838), he said: ' "Reviewing is an employment which I have never held in great esteem. It is generally a selfsufficient, insolent, superficial, and unedifying style of writing, and I fully persuaded myself that I should never be enlisted among the craft." The most scornful opinion is that of one of the "Rossetti -Swinburne school," William Morris:'- "To think of a beggar making a living by selling his opinion about other people! And fancy any one paying him for it !"

In short, criticism is one thing to Arnold and quite another thing to Mr. Howells and Morris, and their views are perhaps no more opposite than those of Pater and Mr. Robertson. What to Arnold is noble and elevating, at least ideally, is to Mr. Howells, in practice at least, impotent, and to Morris an affair of commercial convenience. Whereas Pater holds faith in the sensitive individual judgment, Mr. Robertson deems such judgments merely data for further analysis. In the face of so great a divergence of opinion as to the function and the potency of criticism it is well to inquire what such views have in common and how criticism may be defined.

II

The most obvious answer to the foregoing query is that each of these writers is expressing what is for him a reality, or truth, or fact, with regard to the theory of criticism or, in its application, to a particular author or book. Furthermore, for every one of the opinions quoted above there is abundant historical evidence, and it remains true that criticism should be "disinterested," that it should be "in able and honest hands," that it should "endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world," that "the critic should possess ... a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects," that it should "get behind spontaneous judgment," that it is as a whole impotent in the presence of genius, and that many critics are merely commercial.

All this means that criticism is, in the first instance, merely the

1 Maitland, Life of Leslie Stephen, p. 14.

8 J. W. Mat kail, The Life and Letters of William Morris, Vol. I, p. 134.

Xll INTRODUCTION

expression of opinion about authors, books, and theories of art generally. The opinion is usually expressed dogmatically; that is, it is expressed as if it were a fact, a reality. It is a reality in so far as it has existence in the mind of the critic who utters' it; it is a fact of what has been happily called the "existential" sort. 1 In this sense, any chance saying about an author or a book is criticism: it states a fact, a reality, a truth present in the mind of the speaker. That opinion may be modified by further reading and by the clash of opinion with opinion, but the resulting judgment, if sincerely held, will be true, as an "existential" fact. ^ This* primary conception of criticism as an expression of personal Opinion is admirably phrased by Professor Saintsbury in his History of Criticism, when, speaking of the object of his work, he says, "In the following pages it is proposed to set forth . . . what Plato, Aristotle, Dionysius, Longinus, what Cicero and Quinctilian, what Dante and Dryden, what Corneille and Coleridge, with many a lesser man besides, have said about literature." ' These words supply a handy definition of literary criticism; it is talk about the things of literature, haply with a view to stating what seems to the critic to be true. This definition is, of course, very vague; it does not distinguish good criticism from bad criticism, except in respect to sincerity. One must, therefore, inquire further into the matter. Before taking up that task one or two general observations may be made by way of clearing the ground. The most evident cause for the discrepancies noted in the foregoing paragraphs lies in the diversity of the human temperament. No two men will be struck by precisely the same thing, by the same body of facts, in precisely the same way. Just as no two critics write about the same set of objects or authors, so no two critics would hold identical views with regard to a book that they happen to be treating in common. The principle is a very obvious one, but it is so often lost sight of that it seems necessary to exploit it once more; for people are prone to cling to the word of distinguished critics and catchpenny reviewers as if it contained final, universal, and unexpugnable truth. Such things the opinion of any critic does not and never can contain; indeed the moment a dictum becomes a dogma, the moment an opinion, though uttered with, is found really to contain, finality, it ceases to be interesting ; for the history of literary criticism shows

1 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 4. "Vol. I, p. 5.

INTRODUCTION xiii

that method of human expression to have thriven on variousness of belief.

Since, then, no two men's interests or ideas of value are just the same, it is a good practice in studying critics, to sec on what ideas they lav stress. It is always the proper method of procedure in observing people to note what things they love, hate, fear, and cherish. It will he seen that the opinions heretofore quoted have body and existence as reality of different sorts: some concern themselves with what is loosely called impression, as with Pater; others, like those of Arnold, relate to moral value and significance: for Mr. Howells good criticism is, by implication, that which lends the helping hand to the next generation of writers; had, that which is practically impotent.

Another very obvious reason for the discrepancy under discussion lies in the pleasing vagueness of some of the major terms vagueness is often a source of disagreement as well as of peace. What, for example, are "beautiful objects"? What is "the best that is known and thought in the world"? What, so to speak, are the finger-marks of the "able and honest hand"? What is the "spontaneous judgment" and by what subtle by-path may one "get behind it"? Over such questions much discussion naturally arises. Mr. Chesterton l would undoubtedly say that they are part and parcel of the common sense, and are therefore understood by everybody, without thinking. They are like our own names, which seem the most familiar and appropriate things in the world — until we begin repeating them and revolving them in our minds, when they lose all semblance of rime and reason. The moment one begins to ponder these terms they become vague. It is the task of each critic to illustrate his conception of these terms by his essays: but the fact remains that no two critics would agree in their illustrations of the general idea or in their special examples of beauty and the best.

For these and other reasons too numerous to mention a deal of disagreement and conflict is the by-product of literary opinion. We are all, let us repeat, literary critics whenever we express an opinion about general or specific literary things. Some of us are ready and proud to abide by our opinion in the face of the whole world, nay, even more, are eager to air our differences; others are keen to cover ourselves with the cloak of authority and to take

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refuge in an ex cathedra personality. A study of the origins of criticism would be very interesting, but this is not the place for so pregnant a piece of illustration. Suffice it to say that there has in all probability been in criticism, as in all human affairs, a connect between liberty and authority. 1 The timid must always have sought refuge in the dicta of some more expressive and powerful personality; others, more independent, have been the iconoclasts and heretics of literary opinion, have claimed the right to say plainly what they felt. In the nature of things, a body of opinion about literary matters would arise, this tradition would be perpetuated by men who found in that a profitable way to gain their livelihood or who had real zeal for the cause, and in time the class of professional critic would emerge from chaos — of the tribe held in disesteem by the author of The Earthly Paradise.

Aside from this tradition, best expressed in such a phrase as the history of taste, there have been many attempts, from before the days of Aristotle down, to rationalize the whole matter, to show what laws, what principles, what common human motive, underlie our critical ideas and are the sanction for authority. Not only have rules been given "for not writing and judging ill," but the problem of the fundamental law which shall enable us to know the truth has been, somewhat unsuccessfully, the object of search to many philosophical critics. 2 Abandoning as futile for our present purposes, though interesting, any effort to theorize along that line, let us turn to criticism as a body of specific actual fact, and illustrating the matter by a pretty wide variety of specimens from well-known English criticism of high quality, let us see what, in general, criticism means, what are the sanctions of critical opinion, what objective reality means in criticism, and what are some of the categories actually employed in this pleasing science.

Ill

Criticism is both a matter of process and a matter of form. As to the first of these, if the foregoing analysis be sound, criticism may be said, broadly, to aim at establishing fact; it is a method of demonstration. Viewed in this light, criticism may be applied

1 For an able statement of the essence and merits of this conflict, see W. P. Trent, The Author it v of Criticism.

• See, for example, C. T. Winchester, Some Principles of Literary Criticism, and W. J. Courthorpe, Life in Poetry, Law in Taste.

INTRODUCTION XV

to any branch of human thought or activity; any idea or process may be subject to it ; one may criticise the latest findings of astronomy or the making of armor-plate and automobiles, may criticise oatmeal as a food or Ossian as an oasis in an alleged age of prose. The object of the process is to approximate some reality underlying these institutions. Truth, that is what criticism is seeking. Criticism, then, like truth, may be classified according • to the material with which it deals. Literary criticism is one of these classes ; it enjoys the distinction of being at once the most conspicuous entity among the various branches of criticism and the most inaccurate and indefinite in the application of its tests. Literary criticism stumbles at the starting line in its attempt to define literature, and its tests are evidently not so precise as may be applied in a matter of natural or chemical science. For some expounders of literature will have it that the ideas are the main thing, others, that the expression of personality is what counts, still others, that one must seize the " inner" meaning and the spiritual significance. In the main, however, literary criticism, like other forms of criticism, seeks (i) to establish the facts of literature and (2) to pass judgment on the value and significance of those facts. Since passing judgment on the worth or value of a fact or body of facts is really nothing but establishing another fact, though in a different category, the aim of literary criticism may be defined as, broadly, that which we stated at the beginning of this paragraph — the establishing of facts, of whatever sort, so they be facts — that is, truths, realities — about literature. Like any intellectual process, literary criticism may therefore be defined by (1) the material with which it deals and (2) the methods which it used to establish its conclusions, the cogency of which varies greatly with the material.

Under the head of material, a large number of classes may be recognized and commonly are recognized. Textual criticism, for example, aims to establish the correctness of the text of an author; it employs, very usefully, much human energy. Biographical criticism tries to establish the facts of the life of an author and to show how they are related to his writing; Stephen's account of Swift's work in behalf of Ireland in this volume is an illustration of this sort of essay, and it shows the relation of criticism to biography. Akin to this are facts of personality, of temperament and the like. Facts of vogue are a source of material not to be neglected ; indeed, these facts, like those of the life of the

XVI INTRODUCTION

author, may almost be said to be the starting point for any good criticism whatsoever. Facts of vogue, of contemporary opinion, of what people have said, are, of course, the basis of all good historical criticism. In passing, however, it may be said that what has been called the " collective" estimate of books and authors receives, on the whole, too little attention from critics. Critics usually prefer theorizing and airing their own views to looking up the facts. It is one of Coleridge's claims to distinction as a critic that he makes the vogue of Wordsworth the starting point for his account, though he quickly becomes transcendental. Mr. Robertson's critique of Poe is largely an analysis of the collective estimate of Poe, with comments of his own. It is one of the best specimers of that type that we have. An even more matter of fact example is in Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of William Shakespeare, a chapter (20) entitled Shakespeare's Posthumous Reputation. Questions of influence, when treated as matters of fact, and other such topics come under this head. But one who looks into the matter will be amazed to see how little critical writing, comparatively, there is of this sort. Careful literary historians are usually much more concerned with their own views and those of their fellow-critics than with strictly contemporary opinion. Even modern critics, dealing with modern authors, go into the rationale, the aesthetics, the personality, or what not, to the exclusion of this important source of material. 1 This is a field in which an enormous amount of literary work remains to be done.

Facts relating to the class or type of writer to which an author belongs are another well-recognized kind of material. Johnson's exposition of the metaphysical poets is an example of this interest. Many of the great classes or types have become more or less set, and we have the commonly accepted categories of epic, dramatic,

1 See, for example, Mr. A. C. Benson's Life of Pater in the English Men of Letters series. Mr. Benson devotes much time to summarizing Pater's works (a totally unnecessary thing for one who has read them and not very inspiriting for one who has not) and much time to comment on Pater's style, personality, etc. Perhaps Mr. Benson did not mean to give us more, and his attitude is surely worshipful and decorous, but one would welcome a word about Pater's actual influence. In contrast are to be named Professor Lounsbury's studies in the vogue of Shakespeare (Shakesperian Wars). A conscientious endeavour to state a method which shall account for all possible sources and hence be a "collective" criticism is to be found in E. Hennequin's La Critique Scientifique. This is summarized by Mr. Robertson in New Essays towards a Critical Method (The Theory and Practice of Criticism).

INTRODUCTION xvil

elegiac, lyric poetry, etc., and, in prose, such things as the essay and the novel. It is the aim of much modern criticism to study these types, and criticism characteristically goes beyond mere study of the form and tries to ascertain the further fact of the comparative value of each class, with a view to confining judicial comment to intra-, rather than inter-, class comparisons. Why attempt to compare a lyric and a novel ? They are in different media and are not susceptible of real comparison except as representatives of alleged higher and lower classes. Facts of treatment, of method, of art, of form, occupy a very conspicuous place in the history of criticism Modern rhetorical study, for example, is merely a practical application of some of the critical results obtained in the study of this medium. Of the essays in this volume those of Poe, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Robertson will be found, to contain material of this sort.

An exceedingly prolific source of actual critical commentary lies in the interpretation of an author's meaning. The love of literary interpretation seems to be deep seated in the human heart; the hidden meaning, the underlying mystery, is always a charming thing to conjure with, and it offers possibilities of interest and further mystification that no accurate scientific study can ever hope to equal. " Whole rivulets of ink," as Swift would say, have been expended in the yet unsettled question of what Shakespeare meant Hamlet to mean ; and an equally prolific study could be made of the different interpretations that have been put on Dante's Divina Commedia. Lowell's essay on Dante, 1 for example, is mainly one of interpretation, designed to convey to the then somewhat untutored American audience a proper conception of Dante's meaning and to correct some of the mistakes of interpretation of a preceding volume by Maria Francesca Rossetti. 2 A good example of not too solemn interpretation is Mr. Bernard Shaw's The Perfect Wagnerite, and it is a good subject for study in that the author gives evidence of an apparently definite sort for his interpretations. In general, the literary interpreter, like the critic who neglects the collective view, does not much trouble himself with a historical aspect of the subject, but reads his own meanings into it. Browning, perhaps, more than any modern Englishman has been the prey of interpreters, scientific, philosophical, theosophical, neoplatonic, symbolistic. The truth of the matter is that interpreta-

1 Prose Works, Vol. IV. 2 A Shadow of Dante.

xviii INTRODUCTION

tion is much more a matter of creation than of argumentative science, and hence it is one of the most winning forms that the critical process can follow.

Akin to interpretation is much of the criticism that seeks its material in moral values and in significance. It is, of course, about this attitude that the fierce discussions of art for art's sake have arisen. To some critics a writer like Poe is insignificant and meretricious because he did not in the least care to inculcate a moral and "significant" view of the universe, but preferred to work as skilfully from any premises that he chose to assume to a perfect conclusion from those premises. The comparative admiration that the French have for Poe, the scorn which those of us who are more used to Emerson and Hawthorne feel for him, is both an illustration and a proof of the fact that such differences of opinion are temperamental and racial rather than demonstrable and rational. Arnold, of the writers in this volume, most sternly held to the moral view of literature ; Poe to the artistic. Shelley, of course, is a critic who attempts to ground the morality of his position in the innate yearning of humanity for the ideal.

There are other sources of material, but the matter need be no further illustrated. Besides the material and the point of view from which it is approached, there are naturally a great many questions connected with the personality, the predilection, and the training of the critic. These all modify the result, so that, as a matter of fact, of the categories of material named above, not one can be found, actually, to exist in a pure state. A critic presumably writes what he feels, what he deems it good for people to know, and does not think of the categories. The combination of the elements just spoken of — the material, the personality, the point of view, the animus, the training, etc., of the critic — result, for purposes of convenience, in several classes or types of criticism. They should be called tendencies rather than types, since the line of separation between any two classes cannot be surely drawn. Though the classifications are not very satisfactory, some of the main types may be briefly indicated.