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CHAPTER XII

AUTHORITY IN LITERATURE AND ART

In the preceding chapters an attempt has been made to set out the rules which govern the processes of artistic production, as they have been formulated by the several writers whose opinions have been cited. These rules differ only from observed uniformities in so far as they have been connected by each writer with some characteristic of the human mind. But since the human mind-that is, the sum total of man's conscious knowledge—changes with the development of the race, the rules of any one writer, of any one age, even when thus fortified, have only a partial and limited validity. When, however, we find a practical agreement on certain points between writers widely separated by intervals of time and circumstance, we are led to the conclusion that there are certain principles underlying these rules which have a permanent validity.

To exhibit this agreement, and these principles, has been one chief object of the analyses which have been submitted to the reader.

Broadly stated, the authority of the critic depends upon the fact of this agreement; and in order to

maintain his authority he must do two things: he must distinguish between the rules which are partial, and the principles which are permanent; and he must confine himself to an application of the latter.

This is the goal towards which criticism has advanced; towards which it is still steadily advancing. Its development exhibits a gradual limitation of the scope of its rules, and a gradual extension of the scope of its principles. In other words, the critic shows an increased and increasing capacity to discern what is amenable to his authority, and to confine himself to an examination of this element in the products of the special art which is the subject of his researches.

The

With Plato the critic is the legislator, who declares with the authority of the State both the subjects and the methods of the arts. With Aristotle he is the representative of Homer and Sophocles, who would make all epics Homeric, and all plays Sophoclean. Modern criticism commenced from this point. seventeenth-century critic was the exponent of the Poetics, and even Addison began with the notion that Paradise Lost could somehow be measured by Aristotle's canons. But Addison, as we know, emerged from this stage, and discovered a principle of poetic appeal which enabled him and all subsequent critics to transcend mere formal considerations, by substituting the 'power to affect the imagination' for the test of symmetry. In so doing he emphasized the fact that the achievement itself, and not the

means employed to secure that achievement, ought to be the first object of a critic's consideration. If Lessing returned to the consideration of processes rather than results, and devoted himself to distinguishing the respective methods and resources of the contrasting arts of the eye and ear, he was nevertheless guided in his researches by the realization of this same truth-that the appeal of the arts was in all cases not to the senses, but to the imagination through the senses. Similarly Cousin, starting with the same truth expressed in terms of philosophy -that it is the ideal and not the real which is the object of artistic presentation-traces in broad outline the mental processes which accompany and distinguish artistic activities, and indicates the place which the sense of beauty holds as part of the intellectual and moral faculties of man.

The result of this change of the point of view is to be seen in the practice of contemporary critics. An enlightened criticism no longer aims at directing the artist by formulating rules which, if they were valid, would only tend to obliterate the distinction between the fine and the mechanical arts. It allows him to work by whatever methods he may choose; and it is content to estimate his merit, not by reference to his method, but by reference to his achievement as measured by principles of universal validity. In this way it avoids the danger of pronouncing an opinion on what is variable, and applies itself to what is permanent.

The power of the artist is, as we say, a gift: poeta nascitur, non fit. To attempt to formulate a set of rules, or to decide the value of artistic products by reference to these rules, is to forget this elementary principle; and from this mistake, made so persistently and continuously, criticism is now at length emerging. It is unnecessary to go over the ground which has been traversed by Wordsworth in his 'Essay supplementary to the Preface' of his edition of 1815, and more recently by Mr. Dowden.' Criticism has failed because it has undertaken-or rather its selfordained representatives, the critics of the journals, have undertaken, on its behalf, a task beyond their powers. If there be one conclusion more forcibly pressed upon us than another,' says Wordsworth,

'by the review which has been given of the fortunes and fate of poetical works, it is this: that every author, as far as he is great and at the same time original, has had the task of creating the taste by which he is to be enjoyed; so has it been, so will it continue to be. . . . The predecessors of an original genius of a high order will have smoothed the way for all that he has in common with them; and much he will have in common; but, for what is peculiarly his own, he will be called upon to clear and often to shape his own road; he will be in the condition of Hannibal among the Alps.'

The critics have gone astray in the past, because in applying rules they have failed to make allowance in their estimates for this unknown quantity. What is original is ex hypothesi something for which known

1' Interpretation of Literature.' Contemporary Review, 1886.

rules, and existing works, provide no exact standards of measurement or comparison.

Criticism, then, has reached the stage in which it is beginning to distinguish between principles and rules. It places the technical element, which is covered by these rules, entirely on one side, or if it approaches that element, it does so with a full consciousness of the partial validity of the rules which it applies. But it investigates with increased energy and insight the permanent element of thought, the ideal element, which is produced in accordance with certain principles which have become part of the life of man, and which are capable of being universally recognised as such.

Let me try to make my meaning plain by an example. When Addison adopts the system of seventeenth-century criticism and writes: 'I have now considered Milton's Paradise Lost under the four great heads of the Fable, the Characters, the Sentiments and the Language, and have shown that he excels in general under each of these heads '—he is pronouncing a judgment which has only a limited validity. It is valid only for persons who are conversant with Aristotle's canons, and it is valid only so long as these canons are recognized as the supreme test of poetic excellence. On the other hand, when Matthew Arnold decides that Milton stands among the poets of the highest class, because his work displays the 'high seriousness of absolute sincerity,' he is deciding the value of his poetry by

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