128
Eliot has remarked that we can–
not expect the writer at the mo–
ment of composition to repair the
experience of a lifetime. Shapiro
wants the writer not only to repair
the effects of his own experience
but of the whole of his culture.
Yeats is criticized for using a con–
structed set of beliefs as against
Dante's use of received beliefs; an
advantage of Dante's culture,
which Yeats could not have pos–
sibly called into existence for his
time by the most strenuous exer–
cise of his own private will. Un–
able to confront the work of art
at any point with its society,
Shapiro is obsessed by the timeless
view of literature: he speaks of
Shakespeare and the Elizabethans
as surviving "the idiom of their
time"-where one would have
supposed they survived
through
that idiom. He exhorts against "the
nervousness of genius in our era"
-as if genius could escape being
nervous in the era of the dissolu–
tion of Europe, the worldwide
triumph of Stalin, and the per–
manent world war. The artist is
lectured against his "self-imposed
exile"-as if the artist chose it
himself and were very happy about
it.
The poet's beliefs happen also to
be in his time. The leap of faith
may be possible at any time, but it
is more difficult and rare at one
period than another. Why single
out the literary man as the scape–
goat, the guilty unbeliever in mod–
ern society? Has anyone shown
that there is a greater percentage
of religious unbelievers among liter-
PARTISAN REVIEW
ary men than among philosophers,
scientists, and other intellectuals in
our society? The "belief" Shapiro
is trying to lobby vaguely past his
readers seems to be Christian faith,
though the information comes only
in the backhanded way of a re–
proof (always the tone of elegiac
querulousness!) of the modern
writer's "purely literary use of
Christ." Now Christ may be used
in a variety of ways that are not
literary, and we are still in the
dark as to what particular Christian
faith
(if
any) is being urged upon
us for our salvation. From the par–
ticular unction of the references to
Eliot as a religious figure we might
guess it is some form of Catholic–
ism. Eliot's example and prestige
are used as a buttress for Shapiro's
own belief (whatever it be). But
the reader will sense a difference
greater than any similarity: Eliot's
faith was a positive commitment,
Shapiro carries on a flirtation but
leaves the back door unlatched.
If
Shapiro has some definite belief, he
is unfair to his reader in not re–
vealing it; if he is without a defi–
nite belief, the reader has been
doubly put upon, since Shapiro
has written a criticism of the mod–
ern intellectual from the point of
view of someone with a definite
belief. We would like to believe,
if we could, that Shapiro is not
simply following a bandwagon,
since of all possible bandwagons
the religious strikes us as the most
shameful.
At times this invocation of Eliot's
example becomes excessive and
embarrassing, as when Shapiro at-
