If he is no longer able to judge of the general tendency and teaching of a play, and if he is no longer able to regard it æsthetically, what can he do but analyse the playwright's grammar, and seek out the latter's split infinitives, his insufficient use of the subjunctive mood, his Cockney idioms and Cockney solecisms?
We agree with Mr. Clutton Brock that ... "the public has no concern with the process of production but only with the product"; and that "if Art were in a healthy state[53] the public would know this and would not ask for technical criticism." We also agree that "the critic's proper business is with the product, not with the process of production; to explain their own understanding and enjoyment of the meaning and beauty of works of art, and not the technical means by which they have been made."[54]
But, while we agree with all this, we cannot help sympathizing with the late R. A. M. Stevenson and his admirer Mr. Frank Rutter; for their dilemma is unique.
When Monsieur Domergue of the French Academy assured his friend Beauzée confidentially that he had discovered that Voltaire didn't know grammar, Beauzée very rightly replied with some irony: "I am much obliged to you for telling me; now I know that it is possible to do without it."[55]
And this is the only reply that ought to be made to any criticism which analyses the technique of a real work of Art; since it is obvious, that if technical questions are uppermost, the work is by implication unworthy of consideration in all other respects.[56]
[50] Principles in Art, p. 4.
[51] H. A. H., Vol. II, Aph. 164.
[52] The Academy, August 24th, 1907. Article, "The Pursuit of Taste."
[53] The italic are mine.