38
PARTISAN REVIEW
Again, by failing to see "technical factors" as a part of
'form
and their
connection with sensibility, Hook is led to bring in the bogey of irre–
ducibility. Marxism, of course, is certainly not a method of reduction,
though Hook seems here to imply that some Marxists use it as such; but
the sensibility of the writer can be seen to be conditioned and generated
by the sensibilities of his time.
Robert Cantwell, a much more sensitive critic of literature, and a
writer who is close to the aims and problems of revolutionary literature,
has however, overestimated the usable elements for revolutionary literature,
1
believe, in the work: of Henry James. In a recent article in
The New
Republic,
Cantwell says:
(Henry James') "deepest meaning is reserved for those who
hold more revolutionary philosophies. They can understand
his attitude toward his own class, and perhaps add the in–
dignation that he never expressed; his 'hierarchizing' of char–
acters according to their individual awareness is close to
their own concepts of class and political consciousness. The
question of technique is another matter, but it can be said of
him, as it cannot be said of Proust and Joyce, that the tech–
nique he developed is equally good for both sides."
I fail
to
see how James' "hierarchizing" of characters is close to rev–
olutionary concepts. But aside from that, though it is undoubtedly true
that a note of indignation toward the class James described is one element
of a revolutionary treatment of the leisured bourgeoisie, it is hard to see
how this distinguishes the cont1ibution of James from Proust or any other
writer who treated the upper middle-class. Certainly the sensibility of
James is removed by many gaps of perception from that of revolutionary
writers to-day. That there are some links, as there are to every important
work of the past, no one can deny, but the links to James are not especially
significant. And the suggestion that the technique of James "is equally
good for both sides" ·again uses "technique" in its most superficial sense.
If
verbal methods are meant, we should demur on the ground that James'
style is ill adapted to the kind of events that Dos Passos, let us say, or
Cantwell, himself, are writing about.
If
the insight of James into people
is meant, this precept would hold as well for Balzac, Stendhal, Dostoyev–
sk:y and so on. Had Cantwell approached the sensibility of James as the
clue to a writers' relation to a new literary tradition, I doubt whether he
would have reached these conclusions.
Ultimately, the relation of form to content and sensibility is a matter
for .special analysis of individual literary works. Only in this way can
the precise balance in each instance be seen. But the question cannot even
be approached, as I have tried to show, unless there is some agreement
on basic definitions, and on the general theoretic relationships of the ele-
