The Role of the Critic

[Artemis Noir]

While doing a degree in French literature many years ago I often became extremely frustrated by the value placed on literary criticism and critics generally. I graduated with my BA in the early 90s, and I suspect it was this more than anything else that stopped me from pursuing a post graduate degree in literature.

I do recognise the importance of theory and criticism, don't get me wrong. I can even "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" if required. However, I do not believe it to be the "Be all and end all." In my view, all too often the writings of critics are placed on a higher pedestal than the works they are actually critiquing, and I feel this is wrong.
Critics often seem to lack any sense of a creative spirit, and they sometimes tend to reduce a work of the imagination to a flea beneath a microscope... Or sometimes, they claim they know better than the author what s/he intended...

As a result, my view of literary criticism, and post structuralism in particular, is quite cynical.

Thoughts? Flames? (;)) Comments?

[Woland]

Hmm I dont think an author can be trusted to analyze his/her own work and all statements from an author about motivation should be suspect. That being said, I dont think analyses by critics are NECESSARILY any more valid.

There some critical schools I dont care for, especially when they applied to literatures from certain eras in history, Freudian analysis of Shakespeare for example. My favorite critic is probably Northrop Frye.

[SheykAbdullah]

Hmm I dont think an author can be trusted to analyze his/her own work and all statements from an author about motivation should be suspect. That being said, I dont think analyses by critics are NECESSARILY any more valid.

There some critical schools I dont care for, especially when they applied to literatures from certain eras in history, Freudian analysis of Shakespeare for example. My favorite critic is probably Northrop Frye.

An author can't be trusted to say what he wrote? Who would know better? What arguments can possibly justify the idea that an author cannot analyse his own writing. After all, he knows what's on the page and what it means, he put it there!

If you presume the author cannot analyse his own work than who can, and further, who can be trusted to interpret what the work actually means, or do you propose to say that no single work has a single meaning? If such is the case, than everything can mean anything and why even bother analyzing literature at all.

[Geoff Shipley]

I understand where this is comming from. I have no problem with literary crticism. It does sometimes hinder people from finding their own meaning in works though. If people maintain there own views i think its healthy to consider various perspectives, and can even help people to articulate their own feelings.

By no means should a critic be elevated above an author. The contrast is like that of man and God. I can talk about how beautiful a tree is, or what that tree represents to me, but how insignificant are those thoughts put to the idea that this tree was created.

[RachelUofM]

I really think you've got literary criticism all wrong. To say a literary critic lacks in creativity is by far the worst injustice done in this forum. For one thing, it takes as much craft to closely-read and interpret a text, then apply it to historical, cultural, and theoretical backgrounds as it does to write a poem or a novel. There is just a different thinking pattern. I would argue that there is "free-writing" and "critical writing," but both are creative. For textual support, I would look to the brilliant Eighteenth-Century writer, Alexander Pope, who first shed light on the idea of the Poet-Critic--one who can both be the free writer and the critical writer. Pope masterfully proves a critic can be as creative as a poet by critiquing contemporary issues in verse.

Also, the whole point of criticism is to shy away from aestheticism. The whole idea of "what does this text say about me?" or "is this text beautiful?" only came about after Wordsworth and Coleridge published the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The text is not about you and it's not about me--the more important thing to read for is how does the text say something? More specifically, how does form mirror content? If you just base the study of literature on everyone's feelings, you get into a completely subjective, irrelevant, "Oprah Book Club" realm. A literary critic is crucial to literary studies because the critic recovers what was previously lost about texts before the rise of modernism, and the critic attempts to establish the meaning of a text through supportive textual evidence.

And yes, the critic should not be elevated above the author on whom he/she writes--the critic, instead, should be seen as a completely separate entity. Gilbert and Gubar revolutionized the way we view Victorian society through their study of such writers as Bronte and Eliot, but they are, in themselves, brilliant writers. They cannot be elevated above Bronte just because they wrote about her--instead, they should be elevated by their own work and craftsmenship.

Aestheticism is for the masses. Criticism is for the scholarly.

[barbara0207]

I really think you've got literary criticism all wrong. To say a literary critic lacks in creativity is by far the worst injustice done in this forum. For one thing, it takes as much craft to closely-read and interpret a text, then apply it to historical, cultural, and theoretical backgrounds as it does to write a poem or a novel. There is just a different thinking pattern. I would argue that there is "free-writing" and "critical writing," but both are creative. For textual support, I would look to the brilliant Eighteenth-Century writer, Alexander Pope, who first shed light on the idea of the Poet-Critic--one who can both be the free writer and the critical writer. Pope masterfully proves a critic can be as creative as a poet by critiquing contemporary issues in verse.

In Germany, the famous 18th century poet and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing discussed the issue in a similar way. He says the work of the poet and of the critic are complementary (ideally). He adds: "Not every critic is a genius, but every genius is a born critic" - not of his own work, but the work of other poets. Lessing compares criticism to a magnifying glass through which you look at a beautiful butterfly. You can see all the details the butterfly is made up of. But if you take away the glass, you can see the butterfly as a whole again. So criticism need not hamper enjoyment, but it can serve to understand the details better. Moreover Lessing wants poets to pay attention to criticism in order to improve their work.

Thus one might say that criticism of the classics can enlighten us in terms of cultural, historical and philosophical background. Criticism of modern works may also have an impact on the writers themselves - if they are prepared to listen - which I think many of them are not.

One the other hand, as the quote from Lessing also shows, there are also bad critics, just as there are bad writers. Perhaps it is these people that put the whole profession in an unfavourable light. I was more than once annoyed about critics who only wanted to show off their scholarly learning - without doing the literary work they reviewed any justice.

[PeterL]

I think there is a lot to be said for both sides of this discussion. Authors know more about what they write than critics possibly can know. Authors often insert personal jokes or references to their own experience that isn't even noticed by critics. Of course, the general themes of a work can be understood by anyone, and critics work at discussing that, but the author knows more about the specific application of the theme.

When it comes to technical details, critics can sometimes point to problems that the author doesn't notice.

[RachelUofM]

"Authors know more about what they write than critics possibly can know."

That's not necessarily true, if you view text from a Psychoanalytic standpoint. Psychoanalytic literary critics argue that in writing, a person is making the interior (what is in the mind) exterior (writing it on the paper). I think transferring something from the mind to paper is making the interior exterior and is difficult to argue against, so that first claim, we must agree, is correct. Secondly, Psychoanalysts argue that in making the interior exterior, bits of our unconscious comes out--parapraxes (Freudian Slips). The critic, therefore, becomes like a therapist, telling the text--and ultimately the author--what it didn't know about its own unconscious.

[FrozenDuchess]

Just a general reply: being in grad school now, I fully relate to the frustration evoked by literary criticism and theory in general.

But I would have to say that literary criticism is a process we cannot escape from: indeed 'a value judgment'(as Leavis points out). We all have opinions, likes and dislikes that imply a critic in all of us. What better and more valuable to literature than an attempt to inform our opinions.
I realize however that this is a minor consolation to those who have to study Plato and Leavis and all the rest. In fact, I have quite often had to resist the temptation to eat gunpowder and then swallow a burning cinder.
The opinion of the author can be very useful (but often very frustrating). If we keep Tolkien in mind, he who insists no allegory is present in his texts, we see how the opinion of the author can interrupt our conclusions rather violently.

[PeterL]

"Authors know more about what they write than critics possibly can know."

That's not necessarily true, if you view text from a Psychoanalytic standpoint. Psychoanalytic literary critics argue that in writing, a person is making the interior (what is in the mind) exterior (writing it on the paper). I think transferring something from the mind to paper is making the interior exterior and is difficult to argue against, so that first claim, we must agree, is correct.

You jumped to a conclusion with grossly inadequate evidence. Writing is the only one of the six semiotic systems use that is completely artificial and almost completely conscious, so there is no reason why the author wouldn't be completely aware of all facets of the written work. Admittedly there are figures of speech that are so common that people don't notice them, but they can insert a double meaning. It has been found that most psychological conditions are more related to brain chemistry than to anything that psychoanalysts have dreamed up, so it is likely that, at least some, of what psychoanalysts come up with are imbalances in neuro-transmitters. I don't consider psychoanalytic completely worthless, but I have grave doubts about it, unless we are talking about Jungian analysis. There are a great many images, situations, etc. that are deeply rooted in human experience through the millenia, and such images come through in literature. In fact, there are only a few general topics that humans are interested in reading about. Whether we should call that psychoanalytical or or something is a matter of opinion.



Secondly, Psychoanalysts argue that in making the interior exterior, bits of our unconscious comes out--parapraxes (Freudian Slips). The critic, therefore, becomes like a therapist, telling the text--and ultimately the author--what it didn't know about its own unconscious.

That may, or may not, be true. It looks like a hypothesis that was made without investigating. Authors, by and large, are fairly bright people. They often know more about themselves and others than they tell in a direct way. Without investigating specific items, that assertion is simply some words.

[rob91]

An artist's opinion of his own work shouldn't be taken seriously. I've heard of many great artists disowning some of their works, simply because they personally didn't like them, moved on to a different phase, whatever. And when it comes to discussing someone else's work, an artist has about as much credibility as you and me.

[Cassiel240]

I also share your frustration. I'm a grad student in English Lit struggling to find meaning for my work, and at the same time maintain integrity. Too much criticism seems to lack either. Here's what I've come across so far in regards to the question of criticism's value.
Authorial authority: there's the fact that some artists deliberately mislead their public. Janet Emig writes about this in her "Composing Process: Review of the Literature." She talks about how writers such as Hemingway used to say things to throw inquirers off the scent, in the fear that "conscious, explicit probing into their methods of work will...'spook' their writing." She also talks about DH Lawrence's comment "that all of the old American artists were hopeless liars: that only thier art-speech was to be trusted as an accurate revelation of their thoughts and feelings" - because writers are so rewarded for creating fictions. Then there's the fact that what an author says about a written work occurs after the work is finished. How much do you remember about how you wrote a given paper, much less a novel that might have taken years to write, and about which your thinking would have changed innumerable times before it was completed (and which thinking would change how you thought about your earlier thinking about the novel, even).
Authorial intention: Then there's Wimsatt's "Intentional Fallacy" - attention to the author appeals to the conclusion that the work actually does what the author intended, and thus the author's intent matters. In reality, we see lots of cases in which the text doesn't behave as the author says he or she meant it to: Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" is one I've recently done work with, in which critical opinion varies widely as to whether the book creates the meaning she says it does.
I'm almost through reading CS Lewis' book "An Experiment in Criticism," on which I can't comment as to quality since I'm not through but which might offer a helpful comment. Lewis suggests, among other things, that good reading (which is what most critics, I think, are trying to do: offer a good reading of the text) seeks to elucidate the work the author actually wrote, as opposed to the one that I write as I read it. For instance, if I read "Huck Finn" and understand it as a text about the evils of slavery, have I just written my own text using Mark Twain's words? Plenty of critics would argue so, that the meaning I have read is one I read into the text - not one actually put there by Twain. So the purpose of critics is to puzzle out what is nearest to the text's actual meaning - not necessarily the author's intended meaning or the one we perceive, but what the text itself says.

[barbara0207]

I agree, Cassiel. That is why I never ask my students what the author's intention was, but what they see in the text. And that is why there is often no right or wrong in literature studies. As long as students can offer convincing arguments - based on their analysis of the text - I will accept them, no matter what I think myself.

[Midas]

Just a few a few observations on the subject.

First let me say that it appears here to be assumed that all criticism has to be destructive. Destruction of anything tends to be a negative pursuit.

In the words of an old song, I prefer in life to 'accentuate the positive, and eliminate the negative'. Why? Because I have found it pays.

There is constructive criticism which can be helpful. In fact, though at first in many areas where I have received constructive criticism, I resented it at first, I have always found it most helpful once I calmed down and viewed it objectively.

Being divorced with no partner to point out my hair needs cutting, or something I was wearing didn't suit, I would be better wearing whatever..is something I once resented, but now by its absence, miss.

There is another point about criticism, literary or otherwise, it permits us to 'feel' we exist - that someone has taken notice of us, and cares enough to point it out.

The mistake in the case of literary critics is to accord any particular one the authority that he, or she, may be correct. They are merely commenting on how 'they' see it (or perhaps have been 'induced' to 'see' it by who is paying the piper).

We are all literary critics when we read, at least to ourselves. However, we sometimes allow our view to be overridden by the critics view, especially if it is the only one we have read, or it is a consensus of the opinion of a majority.

Noting others opinions whether it is from a professional critic, or just some other readers on a forum permits us to evaluate the work from a more informed, wider, perspective. We should welcome it. But in the end, it is how we see things that is important to us, but how 'they' see things which is important to other readers - this is important when we are the writer, and we want to sell our work.

If we are writers, seek as much critical analysis that we can. If we keep a calm open mind (yes, I know, easier said than done) we may, on reflection, find there may be a point, or points worth considering, when editing.

What should stimulate us is the number of writers who have defied their critics, and countless editor rejections to go on to publish international best sellers.

It's just a question of calming our sensitivity, and getting over the 'up your nose' emotion evoked by the very word 'critic' and its derivatives.

[Cassiel240]

Agreed - not all criticism must be negative. Pardon me for referring back to Lewis' book again, but he points out that it is not only much easier to do positive criticism but probably more productive. Easier because, in his example, it's much easier to say that there likely is a spider in the room than to say, without a spring cleaning,there is not. One way it's more productive is that if one of our ends in doing criticism is to ensure a long life to good literature, we are much more likely to bring people to read good books by praising those books than by insulting the bad books they already read in hopes of discouraging them from reading bad literature.

[mtpspur]

Being a simple hearted soul I read enough of a critic's review with really only one object in mind. Does the critic tell me enough to know what the basic plot is and whether I would gain anything by a thorough reading thereof. I look upon a critic as a knowledgeable shoe salesman attempting to match the shoe with the wearer. In other words I'm selfish about it. If I like the book it matters little to me what the world thinks otherwise. Hope this helps.

[stlukesguild]

Aestheticism is for the masses. Criticism is for the scholarly.

Really? I think I might say that criticism is for the scholar while aestheticism (appreciation of a work of art upon its own merits) is for the lover of reading... or perhaps for the none-so-common "common reader" as Virginia Woolf (no mean critic) termed them. Personally there are critics whom I greatly admire (Hazlitt, Samuel Johnson, Walter Pater, Coleridge, Harold Bloom, etc...) but I don't think that I would prefer any of them (except perhaps Pater) to a good novel, play, poem (I hate that term of the moment: "text") by a very good... "great" author. I'm not certain I get the notion of "aestheticism" as relating any way to Oprah's touchy-feely approach to literature. My take on "aestheticism" has always grown out of the fin de siecle "art pour l'art" concepts of Pater, Wilde, Baudelaire, Mallarme, etc... who sought to separate aesthetic judgments from non-aesthetic issues such as religion or morality. In other words is it valid to suggest that a work of art is a failure because it does not meet certain religious/theological standards? Personally I don't think a purely aestheticist/art pour l'art/formalist is satisfactory because a work of art is not completely self-contained. It refers to aspects from real life. On the other hand, I have absolutely no use for criticism which makes aesthetic judgments based upon external issues: race, gender, politics. I also greatly question the value of applying a critical cant greatly removed from the motives of the artist (ie. Freudian analytical criticism of Shakespeare, Marxist criticism of Dante). Certainly, this could possibly prove the basis of a original work of art... something quite in tune with J.L. Borges... but how exactly will a Marxist interpretation of Dante help me appreciate Dante, understand his intentions, or make any sort of aesthetic judgment of his achievements? Let us face it... you may think Gilbert and Gubar revolutionized how we view Victorian society... but outside of the hallowed halls of academia they are complete non-entities whose "brilliant" writings in no way equal Eliot or Bronte who will be remembered long after they are forgotten by the next generation of academics. By the way... one of the biggest problems with psychoanalytic criticism is that it approaches the artist as a patient, as it were. The art therapist, for example, imagines that the various images created by a patient reveal subconscious thoughts/desires/urges. The work of art, however, is the product of both distinctly conscious intentions and the subconscious. Not only is it next to impossible to discern which is which... but in the process of editing a work of art artists often make very conscious decisions to keep something which was initially added spontaneously... or very spontaneous/subconscious deciscions may be made to eliminate something that was the product of very conscious thought.

[Cassiel240]

Stlukesguild,
you touch on something here which I struggle with, myself. I am not a believer in "art for art's sake" - as a writer and artist myself, I don't necessarily create art just to make art, but because I think something should exist that doesn't. Particularly when I write something, I know someone out there will interact with my words and it will mean something to them, whether it's what I meant or not. Studying text without reference to its meaning seems like a sterile exercise, in the way I understand it. How do we do a criticism, though, that avoids the one (overemphasis on aesthetics) while not overindulging in the other (paying so much attention to work's "meaning" that attention to its value as art is lost)?
By the way, my experience of psychoanalytic criticism is apparently different from yours. I recently read a really interesting application of psychoanalytic criticism to Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," in which Jeffrey Grey writes about how the novel's weirdness is still believable becaus it appeals to our sense of the "uncanny" (the familiar yet unfamiliar, the idea of something completely new and foreign yet which we feel we have experienced before). In this instance it seems to me that Grey has used a human tendency Freud noted, the "uncanny," to explain why the novel is able to be realistic and also completely bizarre. He suggested little about O'Connor's unconscious, but I suppose he suggests quite a lot about her readers' unconscious (that we will have this experience of the uncanny, that is). I'm probably as cagey about this kind of criticism as anyone, but I don't think it's as single-track as you seem to suggest.

[Derringer]

hi! Lots of good points here. I think that criticism and theory is impossible to ignore unless you are a truly aimless reader. Even then an aimless reader will likely have some basis for critique. Likewise theory or philosophy is forced upon a text - that is, the reader's ideology- whether the reader is aware of this or not. The text responds to this (or the other way around). I like the theory because it can bring a whole new understanding to art & literature, but can be limiting.

If lit. theory was not so verbose and dense it would be thoroughly loved by all english students.

[stlukesguild]

Somewhere in my reading... it might even have been something posted here... I came across a short narrative describing a scene of an accomplished poet visiting a group of would-be-writers. I'm paraphrasing roughly from memory here but to the best of my recollection the narrative continued to describe how the famous poet began to querry the students as to why they wished to become writers/poets themselves. The first announced that she wished to use the power of the written word to confront various social issues... questions of race, gender, social and economic status, etc... She hoped that her writing might help change the world. The aged poet's advice was to immediately abandon her direction and instead go into politics or social work. The second student declared that his desire to become a great poet arose from his great love of the literature of the masters. He was enamored with the study of the works of the great authors and how literature as a whole had developed and evolved and he hoped to become part of this great narrative of master writers. The poet brusquely advised this second student that writing was not for him, rather he should become a literary scholar... a researcher... or teacher. Finally he asked the third student why she wanted to become a writer. She responded that she had no profound reason for wanting to become a writer... nothing deeply meaningful that she needed to convey to an audience... rather she simply loved the sound of words. She loved playing with words, inventing characters, making up narratives. The poet announced that this final student surely had the makings of a writer.

In some way I imagine that this illustrates an actuality for many artists. It is not a facination with the history of the artform and the artist, nor a desire to convey some "deep" meaning that draws most artists to an art form initially... rather it is a love of the elements of that art form... a love of playing with and inventing something new with those elements. As a visual artist myself I will admit that I often begin to create with no clear intention or set "meaning" in mind. In many cases the inspiration is no more than some formal goal I have set myself. As the work unfolds, the "meaning" or intention congeals... clarifies. I guess that I have a problem with criticism that leans too far one way or the other because I imagine art (whether we are talking poetry, novels, paintings, or symphonies) as something in which the meaning and form are intrinsically intertwined. Aesthetics or pure form without any meaning is but decoration, but meaning without the "beauty" of the form becomes merely pedantic or even loses the very name of "Art".