Expository Writing

by Mervin James Curl

This method, like the historical, makes against superficiality, for it necessitates real knowledge of the class to which the object of criticism belongs, the purposes of the class, its bearings, and then a sure survey of the individual itself. And in forcing the critic to examine his standards to determine their fairness and soundness it makes against hasty judgment. Properly used, this method should result in something like finality of judgment.

c. The Appreciative Method

There come occasions when you are not primarily interested in the historical significance of the subject of criticism, and when you are indifferent to objective standards, when, in fact, you are almost wholly interested in the individual before you, in what it is or in the effect it has on you. You rather feel toward it than care to make a cold analysis of it; you are moved by it, are conscious of a personal reaction to it. In such cases you will make use of what is called appreciative criticism. This method consists in interpreting, often for one who does not know the work, the value of the work, the good things in it, either as they appear to one who studies or as they affect the critic. After reading a new book, for example, or attending a concert, or driving a wonderfully smooth running automobile, or watching the team work in a football game, you are primarily interested in the phenomena shown as they are in their picturesque individuality or in your own emotional reaction to them. In the following example George Gissing makes an appreciative criticism of English cooking, not by coldly tracing the historical influences that have made this cooking what it is, nor by subjecting it to certain fixed standards to which admirable cooking should attain, but rather by telling us what English cooking is and by giving us the flavor of his own emotional delight in it.

As so often when my praise has gone forth for things English, I find myself tormented by an after-thought—the reflection that I have praised a time gone by. Now, in this matter of English meat. A newspaper tells me that English beef is non-existent; that the best meat bearing that name has merely been fed up in England for a short time before killing. Well, well; we can only be thankful that the quality is still so good. Real English mutton still exists, I suppose. It would surprise me if any other country could produce the shoulder I had yesterday.

Who knows? Perhaps even our own cookery has seen its best days. It is a lamentable fact that the multitude of English people nowadays never taste roasted meat; what they call by that name is baked in the oven—a totally different thing, though it may, I admit, be inferior only to the right roast. Oh, the sirloin of old times, the sirloin which I can remember, thirty or forty years ago! That was English, and no mistake, and all the history of civilization could show nothing on the tables of mankind to equal it. To clap that joint into a steamy oven would have been a crime unpardonable by gods and men. Have I not with my own eyes seen it turning, turning on the spit? The scent it diffused was in itself a cure for dyspepsia.

It is a very long time since I tasted a slice of boiled beef; I have a suspicion that the thing is becoming rare. In a household such as mine, the "round" is impracticable; of necessity it must be large, altogether too large for our requirements. But what exquisite memories does my mind preserve! The very coloring of a round, how rich it is, yet how delicate, and how subtly varied! The odor is totally different from that of roast beef, and yet it is beef incontestable. Hot, of course, with carrots, it is a dish for a king; but cold it is nobler. Oh, the thin broad slice, with just its fringe of consistent fat!

We are sparing of condiments, but such as we use are the best that man has invented. And we know how to use them. I have heard an impatient innovator scoff at the English law on the subject of mustard, and demand why, in the nature of things, mustard should not be eaten with mutton. The answer is very simple; this law has been made by the English palate—which is impeccable. I maintain it is impeccable. Your educated Englishman is an infallible guide to all that relates to the table. "The man of superior intellect," said Tennyson—justifying his love of boiled beef and new potatoes—"knows what is good to eat"; and I would extend it to all civilized natives of our country. We are content with nothing but the finest savours, the truest combinations; our wealth, and happy natural circumstances, have allowed us an education of the palate of which our natural aptitude was worthy. Think, by the bye, of those new potatoes, just mentioned. Our cook, when dressing them, puts into the saucepan a sprig of mint. This is genius. No otherwise could the flavour of the vegetable be so perfectly, yet so delicately, emphasized. The mint is there, and we know it; yet our palate knows only the young potato.[72]

Appreciative criticism may on the one hand approach criticism by standards, since, for example, to praise a pianist for melting his tones one into another implies that such melting is a standard. It may, again, consist largely in telling what the thing is, as to say that the Progressive Party was one that looked forward rather than backward, planned reforms for the people, insisted on clean politics, etc. It may, in the third place, consist in giving a transcript of the writer's feelings as he is in the presence of the subject of criticism, as one might picture the reaction of inspiration to a view from a mountain peak, or express his elation in listening to a famous singer, or show his wild enthusiasm as he watches his team slowly fight its way over the goal line. In all three of these cases the criticism answers the question, "What does this work seem to be, what do I find in it, and wherein do I think it is good?" That is appreciative criticism.

Now since you can adequately estimate in this way only when you are aware of the qualities of the subject, the first requirement for success in this kind of criticism is keen and intelligent sympathy with the work, an open-minded, sensible hospitality to ideas and things. If I am quite unmoved by music, I cannot make reliable appreciative criticism of it. If I have no reaction to the beauty of a big pumping station, when asked for criticism of it, I shall perforce be silent. If my mind is closed to new ideas, I can never "appreciate" a new theory in science, in sociology, in art or in religion.