468369

Some Observations on Method in Literary Studies Author(s): D. W. Robertson, Jr. Source: New Literary History, Vol. 1, No.
1, New and Old History (Oct., 1969), pp. 21-33 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468369 . Accessed: 01/10/2013 02:10
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Some Observationson Method in LiteraryStudies D. W. Robertson,Jr.

a a work of architecture, of literature, or,indeed, of two in either or a is statue, painting usually approached ways. It may be presentedas a "work of art" embodying elements that appeal more or less spontaneouslyto the of student.Its relevancemay be explained on the basis of the insights are that and the teacherregarding form, structure, thought techniques of as belonging to the province of all art. On the other hand, the historicalinformastudentmay be led to examine sources,traditions, tion of relevance to the work in question, and othermattersthought to have a subsidiaryvalue in appreciatingthe work of art. Roughly, those who employ the first approach are called "critics"while those has led who employ the second are called "scholars."This difference deal To avoid of debate.1 the unpleasantnessarisingfrom to a great and perhaps, with some sense of creating a kind of controversy, many scholarsnow like to be thoughtof Hegelian "highersynthesis," and criticshave in some instancesmade certain as "scholar-critics," to scholarship. concessions agreeswith the Usually, the "scholar-critic" criticthat human nature is a constantand that thereare qualities of art that may be said to have a universalappeal. The deliberatecultivation of exotic art,eitheras "primitive art," or as art fromgeographically remote places, during the early years of this century,together of interest in humanity forits own sake, regardless with an increasing has given a tremendous cultural traditions,2 its specific impetusto the it has become studyof all formsof human expression.Most recently, or visual, to theirelemenfashionableto reduce worksof art,literary
WORK
i At a recent conferenceof humanistic scholars held at Princeton in connection with the series Humanistic Scholarship in America: The Princeton Studies the divergence between "critics" and "scholars" or their equivalents in a variety of fields became surprisinglyevident. The "critics" seem in general to have fared better than the "scholars" on this occasion. 2 For an interestingdiscussion of this phenomenon, see Luis Diez del Corral, The Rape of Europe (New York, 1959), esp. Ch. vii.
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of content.These structures are felt to be tary structures, regardless as "aesthetic" somehow valuable in themselves, manifestaespecially tions of a kind of universalhuman reality. There is some evidence of a growinguneasinesswith this posture. In the firstplace, an ingrained historical optimism has led many persons to assume that privilegedmen of the past "transcend"their time in such a way that theyare able to "look forward"to ideas and attitudes we now think of as being more or less self-evident. The in such a way as to make scholar has frequently adjusted his "history" possible accolades of "great artists"in the past as prophets,and the critichas welcomed such interpretations of universal as confirmation human realities.Each new criticalschool has been quick to adopt all the more admirable artistsof the past as worthypredecessors of its own views and attitudes.However,rapid changesin attitudesince the early years of this century,in spite of the continuityof a certain substratum in of opinion, make it clear that what was "self-evident" 1920 is no longer "self-evident" today.Are the attitudes"self-evident" to Chaucer, Shakespeare,or Pope the attitudesof 1920 or those of obvious 1968?It is clear thattheycannotbe both,and it is increasingly that theycannot be either,and that,moreover, Chaucer,Shakespeare, and Pope did not share the same attitudes. Meanwhile, we have learned a great deal since 1920o about history, so that much of the historicalreconstruction of a generationago now of the scholar-critics seemsnaive and factually unacceptable.Not onlythat,but "aesthetic" ideas have changed as well, so that what appeared to be "universal art" in 1920 mustnow be made "universal"on quite othergrounds, if, such all. at indeed, it is possible to formulate any grounds solutionto the problemwas thatadvanced coherent Perhaps the first of the visual arts,who have developed,chiefly under the by historians Heinrich of a of The W6lfflin, guidance concept "stylistic history."3 aims of stylistic were at rather first modest: to history studychanging modes of apprehendingthe visual world. However,it was realized at the outset that these modes of vision imply "the bases of the whole world pictureof a people," and it has become apparent that stylistic historydoes not lose its validity when the visual arts themselves abandon the "visual world" as it is ordinarilyunderstoodentirely. It became clear that what is "good" in termsof one artisticstyleis not that each style necessarily"good" in termsof another,and, further, the tastes of a at a representing given population given time has an to certain attitudes and whichare much ideals, appeal peculiar specific more "basic" than the visual stylesseem to be when we regard them
seminal study, available in English as Principles of Art History,was 3 W61ffiin's firstpublished in 1915-
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON METHOD IN LITERARY STUDIES
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in isolation fromtheir cultural contexts.In so far as literary studies are concerned, variousefforts have been made to demonstrate parallels but since the betweenstylesin the visual arts and stylesin literature, whole subject of stylistic historyis still new, and since appropriate of specific descriptions stylistic periodsare not alwaysavailable, a great deal of work still needs to be done.4 A new impetus to sharperhistoricalperspectives has arisen in two disciplines unrelated to art history.The fact that these disciplines seem at firstunrelated to literarystudies should not deter us from paying careful attentionto their conclusions,since these conclusions will undoubtedlyexerta profoundeffect on such studiesin the future. In the first who belong, roughly,to the place, certain psychologists, "phenomenologicalschool" in Europe, mostnotablyDr. J. H. van den Berg,5have developed a concept of "psychologicalhistory."Much of theirworkhas a verysound basis in observation, and it is by no means necessaryto be a disciple of Husserl in order to appreciate the value of some their conclusions.Having observedthat different social structuresin the modernworld profoundly affect the psychicconstitutions of those who participatein them,these psychiatrists have reached the very plausible conclusion that historicalchanges in social structure produce marked alterations in "human nature." That is, "human nature" in one kind of social environment is likelyto be verydifferent from "human nature" in a second social environment differing signiin structure fromthe first. This general conclusionhas already ficantly influenceda numberof historicalstudies.6Techniques for employing it varyamong scholars,and the resultshave not always been convincit is evidentthat the idea, here statedonly in a very ing. Nevertheless, has enormous and that its form, simple possibilitiesfor development, will affect our attitudes toward disciplined application profoundly the literatureof the past. Beginning with far different assumptions,largely derived from
4 No adequate historyof the Baroque style is as yet available. For the Rococo, there are suggestiveobservations in Arno Sch6nbergerand Halldor Soehner, The Rococo Age (New York, 196o). Literarymaterials are used effectively in connection with the nineteenth century by Werner Hofmann, The Earthly Paradise (New York, 1961). Effortsto distinguish the effectsof Romanesque and Gothic styles in literature appear in Paul Zumthor, Langue et techniques podtiques a l'dpoque romane (Paris, 1963), and in the present author's A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton, 1962). There are highly suggestive materials in the recent works of Marshall McLuhan. 5 Dr. van den Berg's most famous work, The Changing Nature of Man, is available in English (New York, 1961). Certain of his other studies, notably Het menselijk lichaam (Nijkerk, 1959), are also relevant. 6 See the review article by R. van Caenegem, "Psychologische Geschiedenis,"
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, LXXVIII (1965), 129-149.
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theoriesof "structural announced in Prague in 1928, linguistics"first and philosophers like like Professor Livi-Strauss anthropologists Michel Foucault,7 have sought to show that careful "synchronic" studies,or studies in depth of a given culture at a given time reveal adequate and reasonable "universesof discourse"suited to the structuresof earlier or more primitive societiesthat should not be naively criticizedfromthe point of view of our own, and, at the same time, that historicalchange is somethingfar more complex than we had assumed it to be. Again, the resultsof thesestudiesmay be ordinarily appreciated even by those who do not share all of the assumptions upon which they are constructed.That is, the conclusions are not offensive to linguiststrained in the school of the "Young necessarily scholarslike Streitberg, Grammarians"who have learned to reverence Meillet, and Kieckers.The new studieshave shown that a given idea or institution may play a far different r6le in one societythan it does in one immediately followingit in precedingit or in one immediately time. This fact becomes more apparent when a societyis viewed as a but as an "system,"not, that is, as a rigorous artificialstructure, interintegratedwhole in which the various "parts" are sufficiently in all that in concomitant a one so implies changes change dependent the others. The metaphor "organic structure"has sometimesbeen used in this connection, but, although it may be revealing and helpful,it should be consideredas a tool ratherthan as a descriptive that these ideas are contemporary epithet. Perhaps it is significant been developed in other fields.In has as it with "systems analysis" toward old the "historyof ideas" frequently the attitude event, any distorts the actual situation or beforeus in the historical oversimplifies evidence, since it tends to neglect the shifting position of the ideas a within the social whole. studied structure as being Disturbed by the usual naivete of diachronicstudiesin thisrespect, ProfessorFoucault has developed a concept of historical "archaeolon the basis of attiogy." That is, he has set out to show,specifically tudes toward language and money, that a substratumof common underliesapparentlydivergent contemopinions set forth assumptions in and that a this substratum given society, undergoes poraneously radical shiftsat certain periods in the course of history.Although
7 For a brief account of the early development of structurallinguistics,see Emile Benveniste, Probldmes de linguistique gdndrale (Paris, 1966), Ch. viii. Professor LUvi-Straussis best known to English readers for The Savage Mind (Chicago, 1966). The book reveals a fondness for outmoded Marxist polarities and is tinged with romantic neo-primitivism.Its author dislikes stylistic history. Nevertheless, some of the results are extremelyuseful. Foucault's relevant work is Les mots et les choses (Paris, 1966). His earlier work on madness tends to be sensationalistic and the scholarship is unreliable.
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the evidence adduced is sometimesrather fragmentary, especially in not always and Foucault is the treatment Professor of the Renaissance, adduces aware of the backgroundof some of the ideas he (like that, for example, of convenientia), the results are extremelyimpressive in a general way. He makes it obvious that "truths"concerninglanguage and money in the nineteenthcenturyare not the "truths" concerning these mattersin earlier societies,and that we have no "truths" about these justificationfor projecting nineteenth-century matterson the Baroque or Renaissance past. Meanwhile,although he in any systematic did not employthe evidenceof stylistic way, history the "periods," or chronologicaldivisions of relative stabilityin the of thought, substratum that he proposesare roughlythe same as those in the studyof the visual arts.At the same historians used by stylistic time,with minor exceptions,theyare generallyconsonantwith conclusions we should expect from studies in "psychologicalhistory." in stylistic That is, scholarsinterested changes,alterationsin "human nature," and shiftsin the substratumof thoughtare occupied with it is highly similarphenomena.In thisconnection, what are essentially have the basis been reached on similar that conclusions significant kinds of premisesand workingmethods.It is obvious of verydifferent and other definitions, that, leaving aside all quarrels about premises, we shall, featuresof what mightbe called the tools of investigation, in the future,need to be much more thorough in our synchronic of past strucin the past. The integrity studies of cultural structures of isolated classesof phenomena and histories turesmustbe respected, must be writtenwith a careful eye to the shifting position of those Above all, it that them. within the structures produce phenomena seemsobvious thatwe shall need to exhibitfargreaterreluctancethan about ideas we have usually shown to impose our own formulations of the past as thoughtheywere uniand institutions on the structures versal truths.8 Perhaps the key to any helpful understandingof earlier cultural and institutions, is the realization that human formulations structures without our are own, any indecontingentphenomena including of For exists own. their only in the example,language pendentreality
8 In 195o in "Historical Criticism," English Institute Essays, z95o (New York, 1951), I wrote that the historical critic "looks with some apprehension on the tendency of the literary critic to regard older literature in the light of modern aesthetic systems,economic philosophies, or psychological theories. He feels that such systems . . . do not exist until they are formulated." This statement was inspired by a reaction to some remarks by P. W. Bridgman in The Nature of Physical Theory (Princeton, 1936), and was felt to be harmonious with views acceptable in the field of "general semantics," a subject that was then popular. However, the statement has frequentlybeen deplored. I have not abandoned it, and the present essay may serve to make it more comprehensible.
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presenceof one human being addressingeitheranotherhuman being, himselfas though he were another human being, or an imaginary audience, includingany inanimateobjects to which he may choose to speak. It has no realitybeyond one of these situations,and it has no "nature" independent of the nature imposed on it by the speaker and his audience, real or imaginary. The sounds that are the vehicle for language do not constituteits nature, since they have no significance as language except by virtue of a common understanding between the speaker and his audience, real or imaginary.If, as the historiansinsist,human nature undergoeschanges,it is psychological clear that language must undergo changes also, not only of the kind usually discussedunder the heading "linguistic change,"but also more in its nature. of language in one the nature profoundchanges Again, different from its be nature in another societymay society.In quite connectionwith this last consideration, Foucault seeks to show that but that in the Baroque language was essentially"representation," nineteenth century language became "expression." The only sane answerto the question as to whether or is language is "representation" that must be was for "expression" language "representation" speakers during the Baroque period and was "expression"for speakersduring the nineteenthcentury.To say that language is expressionand has always been expression,or, as more recentlinguistsare likelyto say, language is "a systemthat embodies a reproductionof reality" is to posit an independent existence and nature for something merely contingent.It is also true that the assumptionof any absolute stand on the natureof language will inevitably preventus fromunderstandthe of it the as in literary survives and otherdocuing language past ments.This is not to say thatformulations of the kind "Language is a system"are not useful. They may be very useful indeed so long as theyare regardedas tools and not as absolutes.But in our studiesof or Pope (each of whom used a language approChaucer, Shakespeare, to his and time priate place), we should constantly keep beforeus the fact that the language employedby any one one of them is not "the same thing" as the language we employ today.The tendencyto read literary texts from the pre-nineteenth-century past as though the was essentially"expression"has language in which theywere written in our criticism. given rise to enormous distortions This caution concerninglanguage should be extended to other ideas and institutions as well. For example, the Oxford neo-positivists have frequentlyadduced ideas from Hume, Kant, Hegel or other earlier philosophersas thoughthose philosophers were writingtoday. This proceduresimplyfails to recognizethe fact that a statement by Hume means quite a different thing taken in isolation today from what it meant in the contextof the societyto which Hume addressed
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himself.What is worse,the same neo-positivists have not infrequently subjected the termsused by earlier philosophersto semanticanalysis in an effort to show that theyare meaningless.It may be quite true that a termused by Hume or Kant has littlemeaning in the stylistic in which we move,but thisdoes not implythat the term environment was meaninglessat the time it was used. That is, a statement may be valid at one time and meaninglessat another.Again, as I have sought to show elsewhere, the system of "principal vices" popular during the late Middle Ages may be largely irrelevantin the societyof today, but it played a functionalpart in medieval society,where it had a The same kind of considerations apply genuine operational validity.9 to more complex institutionslike marriage. It is obvious that the institutionof marriageplays an entirelydifferent part in our society value of the contract with its egalitarianideals, where the sacramental is usually merely formal and its functionis largely personal, from that it played in an hierarchicalsociety organizedin small groupslike scholarshave not hesitatedto that of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, attribute"modern" attitudestoward marriageto Chaucer, who lived in a society where such attitudes would have been absurd.10The initial assumptionthatmarriageis "the same thing"in the fourteenth centuryas it is today is, of course, erroneous. Generally,the categoriesby means of which we analyze our own societymay sometimesappear in earlier societies.When such coincidences occur, as they do in the examples cited above, we should be in the past may be willing to recognizethe fact that theirsignificance in the different from their significance present,and, moreover, very in the presentwill undoubtedlychange in the that theirsignificance alteraof societyand concomitant futurewith changesin the structure into account in "human nature." That unless we take tions is, changes in the course in the positionsof institutions withinthe social structure of time, our studies of subjects like "the historyof marriage" are bound to be misleading.The common assumption that institutions, attitudes,and ideals display a "linear development"in the course of in the evidence of historyitself.And the historyhas no justification furtherassumption that the present representsa kind of glorious fruitionof linear developmentsamounts to nothingmore than what might with some justice be called "historical anthropomorphism" inheritedfromromanticphilosopherslike Hegel. In addition to preserving old categories, but in altered form,new
9 Chaucer's London (New York, 1968), pp. 5-8, 68-69, 218-20. io The claim for Chaucer's "modernity"in this respect is usually made in connection with "The Franklin's Tale." But as I shall seek to show in a forthcoming article this interpretationrests on dubious premises.
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societies constructnew categoriesof their own. These new formulations are likely to appear in fairlylarge numbersat about the same time, and their appearance on a large scale is accompanied by "changes in style,"or "changes in human nature," or, to put it in another way, "changes in the substratum of thought."Such changes occurred,for example, in the mid-twelfth century,in the fifteenth in the seventeenth century, early century,in the later eighteenth at and nineteenth the of the It is possible, century, beginning century. of course, and sometimesdesirable to subdivide the "periods" thus establishedstill further. Sometimestheseperiodscoincide with periods of linguisticchange as such change is describedby historicallinguists, of this coincidencehas neverbeen explored. although the significance The new categoriesdeveloped during these periods of change are concomitant with changesin social structure and have littlerelevance to social structures them. For preceding example, the later eighteenth "art" a of and "the artist" that has been centurydeveloped concept continued and modified since. But neither the eighteenth-century have any relevanceto earlier concept nor its subsequentmodifications societies where "art" meant somethingentirelydifferent and where the "artist" in the eighteenth-century sense did not exist. Thus for example, one studentof the Gothic cathedralhas seen fitto explain at some length that the cathedrals do not constitutewhat we call "art."" The same period witnessedthe developmentof an idea of whichwas deepened and strengthened in the nineteenth "personality," and twentieth but an was idea to lifewithin suited centuries, this,too, a new kind of social structurewithout relevance to life as it was lived in earlier centuries.12 The usual assumptionthat "art" as we understand it, or "personality" has "always existed" even though people did not "talk about it" in earlier timesmakes an unwarranted universalizationof purely contingentphenomena. In general, new categories should not be imposed on the past. Freudian psychology, for example, representsa series of generalizations based on the effects of a kind of social structure that developed the course of later the nineteenth The relevantsocial during century. conditionstogether with certainconcomitant attitudestowardsex did not exist in the eighteenth and are now rapidlydisappearing. century, Hence efforts to analyze earlier cultural phenomena in Freudian terms inevitablylead to false conclusions. This is not to say that Freudian psychology is or was "wrong,"but simplythatits truths have a date and locale attached to them. To put this in another way, Freudian psychologyis a part of a "universe of discourse" with a
See Jean Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders (New York, 1961), pp. 95-9712 Cf. Chaucer's London, pp. 5-7.
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nexus of relationships to otherelementsin that "universe."To insert it into an earlier universeof discoursewhere no such nexus exists is to create absurdities.That is, Freudian "complexes" have about as much place in discussionsof Shakespeareas have carburetors or semiconductors.It cannot be emphasizedtoo urgently that any age in the past can be understoodonly when we analyzeit in so faras is possible in its own terms.If we can begin to understandthose termsin their own context,we can begin to understandthe age, but if we impose our own termson it, we might as well be studyingourselvesrather than the past. of societyand the nature of language freChanges in the structure in quently imply changes verybasic attitudestoward reality,toward the location of reality,and toward its relation to space and time.13 forexample, therehas been a very Since the earlynineteenth century, marked tendency to locate reality within the individual. Croce's "intuition,"Ortega y Gasset's position that "Reality is my life," and Bishop Robinson's desire to locate God "in the depths of the personof a ality,"to cite only a fewrandom examples,are all manifestations common "stylistic"or "archaeologicallydiscernible"mode that is a of a societyin which the individual more or less natural concomitant This mode, with its is isolated in a complex of large group structures. to expressionconducive on at the time inner same is reality, emphasis and to istic attitudestowardthought, art, subjectiveevalualanguage, tions of space, and to a mistrustof the "past" and the "future."'4 But to impose various facetsof this mode or its logically felt conseof all quences on the past, as though it were generallycharacteristic both ouris to invite serious concerning humanity, misapprehensions selves and our ancestors. In the course of the above discussionI have used "the past" simply as a convenientexpression.Actually,we know very little about the which are always past beyond the dubious evidence of our memories, have before us instead of as students colored by the present.What we and documents existthe past itselfis a seriesof monuments, artifacts, as the a which are just as much part of present are ing in the present, or historian the student The or cola beverages. automobiles,neutrons, of the of literatureconcernshimselfwith the order and significance
13 For changing attitudes toward time, see Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time (New York, 1959). There are useful observations in Foucault, and in some of the writingsof stylistichistorians. Historians of the visual arts frequentlytreat changing attitudes toward space. 14 Modern thinkersoften seek to objectifywhat are essentiallysubjective evaluations of space, as Heidegger does in Being and Time (New York, 1962). On attitudes toward the past and the future, cf. Hofmann, The Earthly Paradise, p. 5o, and Chaucer's London, p. 120.
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detritusof the past in the present,not with the past itself, which is or The of works or Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton unapproachable. exist today in libraries,in homes, or in the rooms of students.Why not treat them as though theywere writtenwithin our own generation? The critic, or even the scholar-critic, often shows a marked inclination to do this,either by stating,in termsof some currently fashionablecriticaldoctrine,that great art is universal,or by seeking to interpretthe evidence of the past in such a way as to make it conform to the conventions of the present. If modern audiences cannot appreciate the music of Bach played in a Baroque manneron of why not present symphonicarrangements Baroque instruments, Bach that make Bach sound like Tchaikowsky? There are a numberof valid answersto thisquestion,some of them quite simple. To begin with a simple one, it is fairlyobvious that Tchaikowskywrote much better music in his own style than Bach of an arranger of Bach are unlikelyto equal could, and thatthe efforts the efforts of Tchaikowskyhimself.If one wishes to listen to music in the style of Tchaikowsky,he would do much better to listen to Tchaikowsky'sown compositions.The idea that Bach's music transformedfor a modern symphony orchestrahas a "cultural value" is, therefore, specious. Moreover,the unpleasant prospectlooms that we shall some day hear Bach in the styleof Webern,or the later Stravinas Bach keeps up with the times.Much the sky,or even Stockhausen, same criticisms may be made of Chaucer, or Shakespeare,or Milton transformed in the classroominto "modern" authors. They are less good at theirnewlyimposedtaskthan are modernauthorsthemselves, and their "cultural" value becomes negligible. More seriously,the created during the literarycriticwho customarily employs tools first romanticmovementnow modified Crocean in its various aesthetics by modernforms, commits historical that blunders are obvious frequently to persons of no very great sophistication.15 Crocean aestheticsis, actually,little more than a rationalizationof the expressionistic style which seeks to turn all art into a lyrical expression of intuitively recognizedinner truths. Althoughit is well suited to worksproduced in this style, it has no relevanceto earlierstyles consonantwith social structures whereinthe conditionsnecessary to produce expressionistic attitudesdid not exist. If we are to compose valid criticism of works earlier in we must do so in terms of convenstylistic produced periods, tions establishedat a time contemporary with the works themselves. If we fail to do so, we shall miss the integrity of the workswe study,
15 The romantic origin of the fundamental attitudes of modern criticism has been amply demonstratedby M. H. Abrams in The Mirror and the Lamp (New York, 1958).
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not to mention their significance, frequentlyprofound, for their audiences. original a series of foreigncountries What we call the past is, in effect, inhabited by strangerswhose manners, customs, tastes, and basic attitudes even partially understood widen our horizons and enrich our daily experience. Concealed self-study through the inadequate us within the narrow confinesof medium of the past only stultifies The specious and easy "releour own naivelyenvisionedperspectives. vance" achieved by positing"universalhumanity"and then imposing our own prejudices on the past is not merelydetrimentalto understanding.It will soon become absurd in the light of a growingawareness of the complexityof historical processes. Finally, it is barely possible that the recognitionof valid realities established by earlier may lead us at least one small step away fromthat rancid generations solipsistic pit into which the major tendencies of post-romantic thoughthave thrustus.16 there are a number of ways in which literarystudies Specifically, In mightwell be improvedin the light of the above considerations. in colleges the first place, the usual "diachronic" coursesnow offered - courses in the historyof the epic, the drama, the and universities lyric, or other "genre" histories - should be recognized as being artificialand misleading.The "lyric" is one thing in the extremely thirteenth centuryand quite another in the nineteenthcentury.To with a "definition"of the lyric and then study its students present centuryto the presentis to engage in a "history"fromthe thirteenth artificial that has almost no educational value exercise completely that achieved accidentally by the presentationof occasional except works that one student or another may, for a short time, enjoy. an exercisefor which of tragedy, Similarly,to concoct a "definition" to make all "tragean unfortunate and then Aristotleoffers precedent, dies" - Greek,Elizabethan,romantic,and modern- conformto the of the student but definitionis not only to limit the understanding that has no to distortthe evidence of the past within a framework intellectualrespectability. If we are to make literary coursessignificant, and indeed comparable in sophistication with genuinelystimulating, historians courses now being offered of the visual we some arts, by shall need to emphasize "period" and "author" courses a great deal
i6 The fact that empirical attitudes,for all their vaunted objectivity,imply the reality of the nervous systemof the observerrather than that of anythingobserved is more often felt than faced squarely. The emphasis on the inner reality of the artist in modern art needs no special elaboration, since it is fairly obvious. However, for significantobservations on the subject, see, for example, Wallace Fowlie, The Age of Surrealism (Bloomington, 196o), pp. 29-30; Marcel Brion, Art abstrait (Paris, 1956), pp. 25, 27, 93-94, 139.
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more, and to enrichthesecourseswith more thoroughand intellectufromthe visual of relevantmonuments ally respectableconsiderations efforts and with to evalsocial with of arts, institutions, descriptions uate the worksbeing studied in a way that would have been comprehensible to their authors and their original audiences. The usual time forthe developmentof "genre" coursesdo not provide sufficient an adequate backgroundin the various stylesencountered. Diachronic studies of relatively brief periods in detail can be extremely helpful,since they reveal the gradual changes in attitude that culminate in more pronounced changes in style.However, such studies should not assume any kind of "progress"except that in time. As social institutions change there are concomitant changes in thought,language, and ideals, as well as changes in style.But these changes are betterregarded as adaptations within a systemthan as Ideas and formsof expressionapproillustrations of linear progress. priate to a later generation are not necessarilyappropriate to an earlier generation,so that there are little grounds for thinkingof But such studies can show veryclearlythe them as "improvements." interactionof various elementsin a societythat accompany changes in literary conventions.Studies of more extensive periods broken forexample, can like the eighteenth shifts, century, by major stylistic that may appear in serve to illustratethe kind of dramaticcontrasts the juxtapositionof two verydifferent styles. Undergraduate"survey" to presentin a simplified fashion a striking coursesafford opportunity conventionsand at the same time to of various stylistic the integrity modes to which we clarifythe essential peculiaritiesof the stylistic such coursesneed are accustomedtoday. But in order to be effective, to concentrate on a few selectedliterarytextsand to make far more use of the visual arts,music,and relevanthistoricalsociology.Stylistic more apparent in the visual artsthan theyare featuresare frequently in literature, since it is alwayspossible to read a textnaivelyin terms attitudes. of one's own stylistic in graduate trainAll this implies,of course,a new professionalism students are treated as though Too graduate today frequently ing. or novelists whose "sensibilities" need cultiwere they potentialpoets a for in a creative arts There is courses undoubtedly place vating. and certainlyno one objects to cultivatedsensimodern university, bilities.However, if graduate schools in English are to be professiontheymustprovidea more thorough groundingin period ally effective, sourcesin variety, and the cultivastudies,with emphasison primary tion of the kind of imaginationthat involves skepticism concerning the ability to see new relationships accepted secondaryformulations, relevantrelamaterials,and the impulse to formulate among primary tionshipsbetween those materialsand literarytexts.The old system
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thatrequired littlemore than thelearningof a long seriesof secondary of theirvalue, is now long out of date, conclusionsby rote,regardless and its futility is obvious, even to the studentsthemselves. It has led to academic conservatismof a most undesirable kind and to the of outmoded generalizations unthinkingrepetitionand transmission on a large scale. Literaryscholarsmust learn to welcome the prospect of new approaches and new ideas. At presentno group of university men is more resistant to change or more antagonisticto new developments that do not serve to confirm attitudespreviouslylearned than that made up of teachersof what are called the humanities. a literary textfroman earliergeneration The task of understanding We cannot,on the basis of as it was initiallypresentedis formidable. the evidence available reconstruct completelyany period in the past, will alwaysbe impeded to a certainextentby and our understanding but the conventionsof our own times,which change continuously, fromwhich no one can escape entirely.But this fact should act as a since it means that there will stimulus rather than as a deterrent, beforeus have done. The frontiers to be more be something always no limit.And we may be consoled by the factthat the more accurately we can describethe detritusleft to us by the past, the betterable we shall be to understandourselves.And if the "humanities"- a nineinvention- can help us in this task,theywill servea teenth-century useful and beneficialfunctionin our society.Meanwhile, the realization that our own attitudesare, like those of the past, largelycontingent may help to induce a certain equanimity and detachment.If studies are divorced fromthe larger concernsof cultural hisliterary tory they will eventuallywither away.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

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Some Observations on Method in Literary Studies Author(s): D. W. Robertson, Jr. Source: New Literary History, Vol. 1, No.

Some Observationson Method in LiteraryStudies D. W. Robertson,Jr.

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON METHOD IN LITERARY STUDIES

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON METHOD IN LITERARY STUDIES

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON METHOD IN LITERARY STUDIES

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON METHOD IN LITERARY STUDIES

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