Kenyon College

Literary History vs. Criticism

Author(s): Cleanth Brooks, Jr.
Source: The Kenyon Review, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Autumn, 1940), pp. 403-412
Published by: Kenyon College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332194
Accessed: 11-10-2015 11:52 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Kenyon College is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Kenyon Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LITERATUREAND
TITE
PROFESSORS

I. LiteraryHistory vs. Criticism

By CLEANTH BROOKS,JR.

THE

modernEnglishdepartmentis notoriouslyeasy to attack;

and it is most obviously exposed to attack by the stupid,

or trifling, or plainly muddle-headedbooks, articles, dissertations,
and theses which its machinery commits it to turn out. Even
random quotation from these exhibits allows one to make out a
case against it. This is not the attack which I propose to make
here - not that I disparage it. I think that it is healthful to remind ourselves constantly of the amount of rubbish which we
produce. But there is a measure of justice in the obvious reply,
that no system is to be condemned by the incidental stupidities
of some of its proponents. A certain amount of waste, a certain
amount of folly, may be the necessary concomitant of the practical functioning of any plan of English studies. Be that as it may;
I am anxious to get at the system itself-and at its best, not only
as a matter of fairness but of strategy.
I suppose that it would be generally agreed that the late Professor Edwin Greenlaw was one of the ablest scholars that the
system has produced, and that his Province of Literary History
stands as one of the most intelligent defenses of the aims pursued
by our best departments. In that work, Greenlaw undertakes to

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

KENYONREVIEW

404

assess the rival claims of the criticsand the literaryhistorians.

The followingpassageis typicalof his position:
One looks upon the building of a modern cathedralsuch as St.
John the Divine in New York or Mount St. Alban in Washington.
To it he brings whatever gifts he may possess of interpretation.
It may seem merely an enormous church. That is the fact. He
may compare, if more instructed,its architecturewith that of the
cathedralof medieval Europe. That is the role of the critic. But
he may also, if he is instructedin minor personalitiesand out of
the way bits of history, rememberinghow few, after all, have survived in the memories of men, think of Raoul Glaber who nine
centuries ago looked upon the outburst of ecclesiasticalbuilding
in France and wrote that the world seemed everywhereto be discarding its old garmentsin order to put on a white vestmentof new
churches. Thus througheyes long turnedto dust one becomesaware
of that white vestment through which men have sotughtto express
brief human experience, and our contemplationof St. John's or
Mount St. Alban gives a new sense of the continuity of human
experience.

To providesuch a vision througheyes long turnedto dust,

then, is the functionof the historian. The critic'sfunctionis to
with that of otherchurches. It is obvicomparethe architecture
ous that in terms of this distinctionthe critic occupiesa rather
piddling role. One notes also that, though the critic must be
"moreinstructed"than the mere observerof the brutefact, the
historianmustbe furtherinstructedstill-to the point of familiaritywith "outof the way bits of history." The historianstands
at the top of an ascendingscale.
It is amusingto observethat Allen Tate, in a recentarticle
in whichhe too attemptsto definethe critic'sfunction,also uses
architecturefor his illustration,though presumablyunawareof
Greenlaw'spriorreferenceto it. For Tate, the critic'sfunction
is to understandthe cathedralas an architectunderstandsit, to
perceivethe functionand meaningof the variouspartsin rela-

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

HISTORYVS. CRITICISM

405

tion to the whole fabric,to know the cathedralas an integrated

organism.
Mr. Tate writesas a poet and criticbut presumablyhe would
not demandthat the studentdemonstratehis knowledgeby building a cathedralof his own, humancapabilitiesbeing what they
are. Rather,he evidentlymeans to suggest that the studentof
the cathedralshouldtry to see it as the architectwould see it, and
indeed,can only understandit as architectureby seeingit in these
terms.
Now I do not intendto driveeitherTate or Greenlawinto an
absurdantithesisof the other's position. Obviously,Mr. Tate
would not denythe value of being able to place the objectin its
historicalcontext,just as Greenlawdoes not deny the value of
criticalcomparisons. But it is perfectlyapparentthat the critical disciplinefor ProfessorGreenlawis far more limitedand dry
than it is for Mr. Tate. Criticismdeals with comparisons;the
architect'svisiondoes not appearin his schemeat all. Evidently,
he assumeseitherthat such knowledgeof inner structureis perfectly obviousor that it comesas a matterof coursefrom a thorough acquaintancewith history. But the inner structureof a
great deal of literatureis not obvious;and it does not come of
itself from a studyof literaryhistory.
The averageEnglishprofessorbearsliving testimonyto this.
He has been trained (if he comes from one of our better universities) in linguisticsand the historyof literature. He possesses a great deal of information,valuable and interestingin
its own right, and of incalculablevalue for the critic. But he
himself is not that critic. He has little or no knowledgeof the
innerstructureof a poem or a drama(this is not to say that he
does not know the past criticalgeneralizationson it!); he is ignorantof its architecture;
in short,he often does not know how
to read. The chargeis a graveone and ought to be documented
up to the hilt. Unfortunately,until one of the largerfoundations
is willing to equip a sufficientlydeterminedparty of explorers

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

406

KENYONREVIEW

and to furnish them with sufficientcredentials,it probablycannot

be documented,at least in a fashion sufficientlyobjective to satisfy the hard-bittensceptic.
Short of this, and for the purpose in hand, one may be content
with a more modest point: namely, whatever his own attainments
in the art of reading literature, the average professor has not
been able to teach his students how to read. (This has been documented up to the hilt.) I hasten to disavow for the English professor the good offices of the teachers colleges of the country. It
is not out of their armories of psychological gadgets and contrivances that he is likely to be equipped. I suggest that this is to
be accomplished by critical training in the architectonicsof literature rather than by mere training in literary history.
The location of the "mere" is important; for it is hardly possible to have training in criticism without training in literary
history. Literaturecannot be taught in a vacuum. Literaryhistory we shall scarcelyavoid if we are to read the literatureof the
past at all. On the other hand, it is possible to have literary
history and no critical discipline; as a matter of fact, that is what
we now have.
The real question, then, is not whether we shall study the
history of literature,but rather: about what center will this history be organized? About the study of literature as an art? Or
will the history be a history of social customs, or of literary fashions, or of literary personalities, or even of particular editions?
There are many histories.
We may be sure that scholarly conscience will see to it that
the facts gathered are facts and that the presentationis objective.
But the scholarly conscience of the historian qua historian can
hardly guarantee that they will be referred to any center; and the
center of reference is all-important. A few years ago one of our
learned journals printed a scholarly article on animals in modern
poetry. The animals were there, and were duly classified and
counted, the wolf, the stallion, the beaver, and even the fabulous

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

HISTORYVS. CRITICISM

407

unicorn. But the elaborate statistics functioned in a void. How

each animal got into each poem and what he did there - whether
the poems were good, bad, or indifferent, and what mite each
animal contributedto the sum - these questions, perhaps wisely,
were not raised. The article is typical of hundredswhich in their
subjects are not so patently ludicrous. (I believe that in the social sciences such studies are sometimes referred to as exercises
in man-hole-covercounting.)
Professor Greenlaw is obviously not interested in counting
man-hole-covers. His concept of history provides as a center of
reference an interest in the human spirit. But his scheme seems
to me at once too wide and too narrow: on the one hand, he proposes nothing less than a history of human culture which will use
literature as its material but surely must also make use of philosophy, political history, economics, theology, etc. On the other
hand, he seems to proceed continually on the assumption that
the specificproblem of reading and judging literatureis completely met in the process of learning the meaning of words, the political and philosophical allusions, the mental climate in which the
poem originated, etc., etc. In other words, if I read him correctly, Greenlaw would have us "get" an Elizabethanpoem by a total
recovery of the whole Elizabethan menage of which the poem is
a part. This is magnificent. It is a doctrine of perfection, and
is thus a tribute to the scholar who insisted upon it. But there
is a measure in all things. As a practical matter, few students
of literature will be able to recover the whole scene. Moreover,
if we grant that the student has recovered much of it, still it is
possible that he may know self-consciously much more about the
period than Shakespeare or Campion ever knew and yet know
nothing about the problems of craft which alone would enable
him to understandwhat Shakespeareand Campion were up to. So
much for the best young scholars.
When we come down to the bastardizationsof the method,
we find, of course, man-hole-cover counting in plenty. Finally,

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

408

KENYONREVIEW

considerthe studentwho is proceedingto his B. A. - who is not

to be trainedto be an Englishprofessorin orderto teachother
studentsto be Englishprofessors. It is easy to understandwhy
he shouldlearn,even from the best of orthodoxinstructors,little
or nothingaboutliterature. The recoveryof pastculturebecomes
spreadratherthin in the pages of a "surveycourse." The literature gets lost in the process;it becomesmerelyan illustrationof
certainculturalprocesses,or survives,if it survivesas literature
at all, in termsof the instructor's
personalenthusiasms.So much
for the consequencesof teachingliteratureas history.
This emphasison historyoccasionallytakes an extremeform
by insistingon a completelyrelativisticpositionon values. (I do
not mean,by the way, to saddlethis specialvariantupon Greenlaw.) The question:is this a good poem, becomesa nonsense
relativistwill
question. Good for whom? The well-accoutered
undertaketo explainwhatthe various18thCenturycriticsthought
of the poem and why, what the 19th Centurycriticsthoughtand
why. But he has no opinionof his own. If one askswhat the
20th Centurythinksof the poem,he is glad to supplythe answer
by meansof the questionnaireand the comptometer.He exhibits
all the admiredimpartialityof the scientist.
But completerelativismis a positionat once too heroicand
too doctrinaireto appealto the averagememberof the profession.
He prefersto use relativismprimarilyas a meansof refugefrom
criticalattack. Actually,he cheerfullyentertains,though often
in the kitchenit is true, whole congeriesof literaryjudgments.
For example,he is happy,when discussingthe Elizabethansonnet,
to insist that we take into account"the spiritof the age," "the
vagariesof Elizabethantaste,"etc. But Shelley'spoems,for example, are real poetry,with no nonsenseaboutit; and modern
poetry, when occasionallyit swims into his ken, is judged by
Romanticstandardsquite as a matterof course. If he brought
his own unconsciousaestheticup into the light for inspection,
he might have a higherregardfor trainingin aesthetics.

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

HISTORYVS. CRITICISM

409

I have spoken respectfully of Professor Greenlaw's defense

of historical scholarshipbecause I do respect it. But even Greenlaw has confused the issues in making his case by gratuitous references to "scientific learning," "minute research," "mastery of
fact." For his implied equation of literary history with "science"
remains at the level of metaphor. His flirtation with scientific
terminology, consequently, has its importance in revealing a significant state of mind.
The desire to imitate the objectivity of science permeates the
whole profession. It dogs even those sporadic attempts to treat
literature as an art. For example, consider that remarkablebook,
New Methods for the Study of Literature. The first chapter
states its purpose frankly enough: "We have, then, a curious
situation. While the study of the environment of literature is
conducted on the most modern scientific principles, the study of
literatureitself, as distinct from its environment,has not developed." The New Methods, of course, are to be scrupulouslyscientific. As Professor J. M. Manley explains (in the preface which
he contributes): " . . . in all the sciences of organic life analysis
is a necessarypreliminaryand an indispensable aid to the understanding of the complete functioning of the organism as a whole.
Certainlywe shall never learn the secrets of style by merely mooning over them or by ejaculatingadmiration." This is true enough;
but the effort to shy away from "mooning" has been so violent
that it has carriedthe book over into a fake scientificmethodology
of the most elaborate kind. We get plans for statistical graphs
of thought patterns, correlations of the use of monosyllables by
Shakespeare and by Marlowe, methods for cataloguing the kinaesthetic images in Shelley and the thermal images in Keats.
Method for method's sake is here completely out of control. For
Professor Greenlaw's history of the cathedral, the New Methods
proposes nothing less than a molecular analysis of the limestone
and glass of which the cathedral is built.
Here, for example, is an illustration of the machineryprovided

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

KENYONREVIEW

410

to treat the disposition of vowels and consonants in the line, "So

all day long the noise of battle rolled." (I dispense with the
chart.)
s
4b......1

Total

u
........S

2....
..--..-----0-.
N .
M....0....1
C -- - -- - - - 2 ( 1 ) --------------------------F -- - - -- - - 3 --- --- --- --- -- --- --- --- --- --- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - ... 4.
S . ... ..4(.)....

..-------2
.

.1

2 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 4

0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - 3
1 ( 1 ) ----------------------- 5
26

10 ------------------V

8----------------

.2.4.--4(1)

..2--Cn
12(2)

40 per cent (high)

Cii 19 per cent

16

Dominance: B; SL.----------------.-C-.
Distributionof Stressedand Unstressed
2 2 2 3/
/2

3
2 2

20

.
Patterns

B;
.....SL

R R R F/ r PR f Pr DF

Summary
Vocalic qualityis high; and 60 per cent of the vowels are back
vowels.
Voiceless consonants are low; one of the two being used to
give propulsiveforce at the beginning. Of the consonants,liquids
and voiced stops make up 62 per cent. The combinationof back
vowels with sound movement from voiced stop to liquid gives
sonority.
The stressed sounds are more than three times the unstressed,
which are only three slight interruptionsby groups of two. The
symmetryof grouping is interesting:S,2 2 2; 3 4 3 4; U, 2 2 2.
The patternsare not balancedbut massed: a group of three "R"
followed by "F" in the firstspeechgroup, all stressed;in the second,
"P R" and "P r." separatedonly by "f" and then "D F."

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

HISTORYVS. CRITICISM

411

Takingeachspeechgroupas a unit, we findin the firstmostof

the soundsin the upperhalf of the clef; in the second,more in
the lower. The invertedsymmetryin the last three groups is
curious.

The high-stressed
soundsare massedin threesand twos in the
firstspeechgroupand one at the end of the second.
Now no one knows better than myself (who have been guilty
of some rather extended analysis of eight-line poems) that it requires a good deal of space to try to point out in prose the ways
in which a poem gets its effects. What troubles me here, therefore, is not the bulk of the analysis but the trifling quality of the
results gained - and more important, sought. Surely one is
justified in feeling that this is monstrous; but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!
In fairness to the profession I do not think that these New
Methods for the study of literature are much practised. But the
book - it could have been produced only in an American University - is eloquent of two things which are typical enough of
the average English department: a cheerful sacrifice of imagination to objectivity and a fond over-confidencein the virtues of
method. Suppose we do correlate the auditoryimages of Toornai
of the Elephants with the gustatory images of that work. Perhaps
we shall have difficulty in showing the relevance of our statistics
to the "meanings"of the story. But never mind; at least we shall
have gathered facts. Humble though they be, we have added to
the ever-increasingpyramid of knowledge.
It is my considered opinion that the English department will
have to forego the pleasures of being "scientific." (This does
not mean that it has to divorce itself from intelligence or collapse
into impressionistic "mooning.") But it is high time for it to
give up its search for an easy way out of its problems. There is
no substitutefor the imagination (tainted with subjectivitythough
it may be); and there is no substitute for the inculcation of the
discipline of reading (a discipline that involves active critical

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

412

KENYONREVIEW

judgment). The uncriticalpursuitof "facts,"the piling up of

verified knowledge, the gatheringof historicaldata - these
things,howeverlaudablein themselves,are essentiallysidelines.
If the professionlacks an interestin literatureas literature,they
maybecomeblind alleys. Someof us feel that is what theyhave
alreadybecome.

II. Scholars as Critics

By ARTHUR MIZENER

THE

basic functionof the literaryscholarwas clearly indi-

cated by Dr. Johnson when he remarked that "all works

which describemanners require notes in sixty or seventy years" if
they are to be understood. The significance of a remarkof this
kind depends almost entirely on the conception of understanding
which lies behind it. For Dr. Johnson undestanding was a serious and adult act involving the whole man, an act of evaluation
and judgment. "The truth is," he said, "that the knowledge of
external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requires
or includes, are not the great or frequent business of the human
mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation,whether
we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong . . . . Prudence
and justice are virtues and excellencies of all times and of all
places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians
only by chance."
It is largely this involvement of the whole man which has
given Dr. Johnson his reputation for a kind of perverse critical
blindness. For him a work of art was a serious representation
of the human world; it had to be true. It is far more important,
for example, that he sought thus earnestly to evaluate the world
of Milton's poetry than that the judgment which resulted was, as

This content downloaded from 203.15.226.132 on Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions