CRITICISM
23
mrolutionary
noveli~ts,
the working class, with all its thousands of occu–
pations, habits, psychological relations-in short, its very life-is still the
unexplored continent of fiction. What Balzac did for many strata
of the bourgeoisie, what Joyce did in Bloom for the lower middle
class
and in Stephen for the sensitive intellectual, still awaits the genius
of proletarian artists. American writers are now becoming aware of the
proletariat as a distinct social class. Though it is true that middle class
attitudes still prevail among workers, their economic orbit separates their
day-to-day existence from that of the bourgeoisie.
A
workingclass panorama
of types and individuals of the scope of
Ulysses,
for example, would un–
cover new layers of literary material for revolutionary writers and start a
fresh traditio"n in American literature. In novels like
The Land of Plenty
and
The Disinherited
we get a sense of thematic exploration that suggests
the immense possibilities ahead of us.
The mechanical conception of utility, however, takes its toll in criticism
by foisting upon writers formulas that prevent originality and boldness
of conception. Some critics are clamoring for satiric writing, others for
poetry in the form of mass recitation, ballads or songs that can
be
put
to music, and so on. There is no denying that some new types of poetry
would enrich our literature, but no one type can be made into a norm.
Revolutionary literature is not the literature of a sect, like surrealism or
objectivism; it is the product of an emerging civilization, and will contain
the wealth and diversity which any cultural range offers. In this sense,
we shall have poets who will have learned much from Eliot and Crane,
as
well as poets who will have learned more from Joe Hill. The various
types of poetry will fulfil various functions, some more and some: less
important. But to conceive of one as excluding the other is to narrow
the cultural expression of the revolutionary movement. Similarly in criti–
cism, there is no one type of critic who exhausts the functions of Marxian
thinking in this field. Some will concern themselves mainly with the more
conceptual problems, others with specific writers, still others with the
literary past; but the attitude which selects only one type of critic as
relevant is either fickle or sectarian.
Usually this attempt to formularize methods of writing represents a
break with literary tradition. When we said that our poets witt learn
both from Eliot and from Joe Hill we implied that it is possible to learn
from both not because we believe we can learn from
anybody,
but because
there is a variety of fruitful influence in )VOrld literature, past and present,
which revolutionary writers may select for their individual purposes.
Some critics have denied, directly or indirectly, a usable tradition in post–
war poetry. Their argument is that this poetry is obscure and pessimistic,
and that it expresses private sorrows and personal methods. We quote
