Perhaps modern discussions on criticism aren’t ever going to
go anywhere. The July 1994 issue of the The Times Literary Supplement was devoted to critical theory, but I
read only the essay, Doing Things with Words, Criticism and the attack on the subject" by Denis Donoghue all the way through. The other articles and
essays dealt with the modern (and I guess it is still modern) critical argument
that literature and art ought to be political. A poet arguing for
revolution in a Latin American country is good. A poet like Wordsworth who
wrote whimsical unpolitical poems for the most part is bad. The TLS
reviewers were uncomfortable with the need to politicize literature, but did
not (as far as I could tell by skimming the articles) actually defend poets who didn’t have political goals in mind when then
wrote.
Arguing against the consensus of that TLS issue, as Denis
Donoghue summarized, criticism has to be ancillary and subsequent to
literature. Years ago I read a lot of poetry that adhered to the
Communist Party Line. It was awful stuff. I think Harold Bloom
would argue that any poetry adhering to any party line must of necessity be
awful stuff. It can’t have been inspired by the poet. It must have
been inspired by the Party Line with the poet doing his or her best to do
something good with it.
Of course there is always the poet who says, in effect, “I
really do believe in the Party Line (of whatever) and so my poems are inspired
by me (however a poet is inspired) and not the Party Line. I’m not
convinced by that argument, but one can’t really argue with the poet who is.
The critic I am most impressed with in these later modern
times is Helen Vendler. Unlike I. A. Richards she does close readings,
and she is very good. She has no grand system or philosophy
of literature that I’ve read her arguing thus far, but she will argue that a
particular poem of Wallace Stevens is excellent, and proceed with a close
reading that will probably convince you that she is right. I appreciate
her sort of criticism.
I have read a number of critics in the past who take a
different approach, who do promote systems and philosophies (i.e., party lines) of poetry, and
while I can’t be sure that none of that sort of thing (especially the ideas of
T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound) isn’t stuck in my psyche some place, I can’t at
this moment bring a single bit of it to mind.
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