CRITICISM
29
That these four problems are important no one will deny. There are
other problems, however, that also deserve discussion. Rahv and Phelps
have concerned themselves only with <esthetic theory, but there are other
essential elements in the Marxist critic's equipment. By the very fact of
its insistence on the relation between social life and literature, Marxism
places a heavy burden on the critic. Not only must he have a thorough
familiarity with the literature of the world; he must also have an adequate
knowledge of history and economics. The backwardness of Marxist his–
torical science in this country, furthermore, forces him to become a pioneer
in the analysis of the periods he deals with. And the acquisition of the
requisite knowledge, especially in the midst of the daily tasks of the revo–
lution, is not easy. Inadequate knowledge is, I believe, quite as often
responsible for our failings as inadequate theoretical foundation.
And there is still a different type of problem, perhaps the most im–
portant of all. This is essentially a problem of the critic's practical func–
tioning. There are three phases of it I should like to discuss:
1.
We-poets, novelists, dramatists, as well as critics,-have carried
over into the proletarian ·literary movement some of the worst habits
ot
the bourgeois literary world. These habits become particularly apparent
in criticism, but they are not limited to critics. There is a distressing
amount of the most uncomradely sniping and backbiting. We want self–
criticism, of course, and our criticism of each other should be frank and
full, but I think we need to ask ourselves whether, in criticizing one
another, we are entirely free from personal rancor and petty jealousy.
De we vent personal grudges, support little cliques, help this friend or
hurt that enemy?
If
we do--and I am afraid we do--we weaken our
movement.
2. \Ve also need to examine more closely our relations with the
poets, novelists, and dramatists. It is unfortunately true, as Rahv and
Phelps point out, that the writers often demand what, in the very nature
of criticism, critics cannot give.
It
is also true, I am afraid, that writers
som~times
allow personal vanity to dictate their judgments of the critics'
worlc. But we should look at our own faults. We make too little effort
to understand the writer's problems; we look too seldom through his eyes.
(Poets, novelists, and dramatists, when they turn critics, are, curiously,
usually as guilty of this failing as anyone else.) Moreover, we remain
almost purely negative; we seem unable to evoke positive literary achieve–
ment as the great bourgeois critics of the past sometimes succeeded in doing.
We not only fail to give anything directly to the writers; we rarely con–
tribute to the creation of the kind of audience that inspires greatness.
3. Finally, the critics must seriously consider their relation to the
revolutionary movement itself. The critic is always in peculiar danger of
