Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism

by F. V. N. Painter

6. Classic Writers. Our classic writers are those who have most nearly approached the ideal. The writings of Addison, Goldsmith, Irving, Lowell, and others, embody in a high degree excellence of matter and form; and in addition to this there is a pervading spirit that imparts an irresistible charm to their works. While the works of no one writer, whether ancient or modern, can be taken as an absolute standard of judgment, the perusal of classic works is exceedingly helpful. These works familiarize us with what is excellent in thought, expression, and spirit. They cultivate the taste; and at length it becomes impossible for the student to be satisfied with what is incorrect, slovenly, tawdry, or untruthful.

7. Requisites of Criticism. Many things are required for the best criticism. First of all, the critic ought to be a person of sound judgment. It is in a measure true that critics, like poets, "are born, not made." The critic should have the power to divest himself of prejudice; and, like a judge upon the bench, should decide every question by the law and the evidence. He should be a man of broad sympathies and wide culture; nothing that is human should be foreign to him. He should be able to enter into the feelings of every class and to appreciate the principles of every school. He should have a strong imagination to enable him to realize the conditions of other ages or of other social arrangements. Without these natural gifts of a sound judgment, broad sympathy, and vigorous imagination, the critic is apt to be limited, narrow, or unjust in his criticism. The history of literature reveals numberless critical blunders; indeed, almost every attempt to introduce new literary forms, as in the case of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, has met with bitter opposition from uncatholic critics.

8. Criticism an Acquired Art. Criticism is an art that may in large measure be acquired. The requisite faculties may be developed by a course of study. The principles that are to guide the critical judgment are provided in grammar, rhetoric, logic, æsthetics, and moral science. Wide reading in various departments will banish narrowness and provincialism. Study and experience will bring a cosmopolitan culture. Though few are capable of attaining to eminence as critics, it is possible for every one to acquire some degree of literary taste and to form an intelligent judgment of a literary work.

9. Diversity in Criticism. Diversity of judgment is a notable feature in the history of criticism. It tends to shake one's confidence in the critical art. It often happens that what one critic praises another condemns. This fact has been presented by Irving, with delightful humor. "Even the critics," he says in the conclusion of the "Sketch Book," "whatever may be said of them by others, the author has found to be a singularly gentle and good-natured race; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a total condemnation of his work; but then he has been consoled by observing, that what one has particularly censured, another has as particularly praised; and thus, the encomiums being set off against the objections, he finds his work, upon the whole, commended far beyond its deserts."

10. Sources of Diversity. This diversity of literary criticism, which at first sight tempts us to question the value of the art, is easily traced to its causes. These are found not in the nature of the art but in the manner of its application. Many reviewers nowadays do not take the pains to read the works they pass judgment upon. Their estimate is based on little more than a rapid survey of the preface and table of contents. This fact renders a considerable part of current newspaper criticism comparatively worthless. It is still worse when to this superficiality is added a flippant manner that seems intent on nothing but a display of the critic's smartness. Other critics write from the standpoint of a particular sect or school of thought, and undervalue or overvalue a work through a partisan spirit. Defective or erroneous principles are used as standards of judgment. Still others are impressionists; and instead of testing a work by recognized critical canons, they simply record how "it strikes them." Differences of taste and character naturally produce some diversity of view, but in general the painstaking and impartial application of critical principles to a literary work will yield pretty uniform results. The merits and defects of the work will be brought to light, and conscientious and broad-minded critics will be found in the main to agree in their praise or their censure.

11. Utility of Criticism. Criticism is not, as has sometimes been supposed, a parasitic growth on literature. It is a handmaid of literature; it belongs to the household of literature. Though it does not deserve to rank with the great creative forms of literature, such as the epic, the drama, or the novel, it is capable of a high degree of excellence. Some of the greatest English writers, as we have seen, have been critics. Not a few of the critical essays of De Quincey, Macaulay, Carlyle, Arnold, Lowell, and others, have an honorable place in the literature of the English-speaking world.

Literary criticism has a distinct value for three classes of persons. To the young student it gives a clear insight into literary form, and cultivates his taste for literary excellence. To the author it is at once a stimulant and wholesome restraint; it rewards him for what is good and chastises him for what is bad. To the public it is useful in pointing out what books are worth reading and in showing the principles by which a work is to be judged. It elevates the popular taste and intelligence.

12. Materials of Criticism. All literature is, in some sense, material for criticism. It may be examined, tested by critical laws, and its worth estimated in the class to which it belongs. But as a rule literary criticism is confined to literature in the narrower sense; that is to say, to literature that aims at artistic excellence. This includes the various forms of poetry and the principal kinds of prose,—history, oratory, essays, and fiction. These various kinds of literature, in their higher forms, aim at presenting their subject-matter in such a way as to minister to the pleasure of the reader.

13. Molding Influences. In criticising it is important to recognize certain general molding influences in literature. Among the most potent of these influences are race, epoch, and surroundings. We cannot fully understand any work of literature, nor justly estimate its relative excellence, without an acquaintance with the national traits of the writer, the general character of the age in which he lived, and the physical and social conditions by which he was surrounded. These considerations, independently of specific critical canons that determine intrinsic excellence, must be taken into account when the critic wishes to decide upon the relative value of a work. It is evidently unjust to demand in writers of an uncultivated period the same delicacy of thought, feeling, and expression that is required in the writers of an age of refinement and intelligence. The indecencies in Chaucer and Shakespeare are to be attributed to the grossness of their times.