BOO K S
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he
is strong where an Augustan training is in place, and his limitations
appear when the training begins to manifest itself as unjustifiable re–
sistance. That 'unjustified,' of course, will involve an appeal to one's
own judgement. I myself judge that Johnson discriminates with some–
thing approaching infallibility between what is strong and what is
weak in the eighteenth century." This is an illuminating observation
on Johnson, and it suggests a close analogy between him and Mr.
Leavis. Mr. Leavis' training seems to us to be wider and deeper than
Johnson's, enabling him to appreciate Johnson's limitations as well as
his virtues. The fact that he does have a training gives him strength
and sureness of touch, but in his work also I feel from time to time
an "unjustified resistance" which seems to show limitations in the
training (and the art) of his "modern criticism."
Take, for example, two of Mr. Leavis' treatments of Shakespeare.
He has four essays largely devoted to Shakespeare, all good; but in
all of them he stops at the very point where I should like to see him
continue, as though something in his conception of criticism, or even
in his style, resisted further investigation. His starting point in "Tragedy
and the 'Medium' " is Santayana's comparison between Macbeth's "To–
morrow and tomorrow" and Piccarda de Donati's celebrated
uE'n
la
sua uoluntade
e
nostra pace,"
from the
Paradiso.
Santayana had written,
"In Shakespeare the medium is rich and thick and more important
than the idea; whereas in Dante the medium is as unvarying and
simple as possible, and meant to be transparent.... A clear and trans–
parent medium is admirable when we love what we have to say; but
when what we have to say is nothing previously definite, expressiveness
depends on stirring the waters deeply, suggesting a thousand half–
thoughts. . . . The medium then becomes dominant: but can this be
called success in expression?
It
is rather success in making an impres–
sion,
if
the reader is impressed." To which Mr. Leavis retorts, "The
critic who falls so complete a victim to the word 'medium' as Mr.
Santayana here shows himself, doesn't, it is plain, understand the
poetic-and the essentially dramatic- use of language that Shakespeare's
verse supremely exemplifies. He cannot, then, understand the nature
of the organization that goes with that use of language: he cannot
appreciate the ways in which the themes and significances of the play
are dramatically presented." I think Mr. Leavis is right, and Santa–
yana wrong. Mr. Leavis must be seeing
Macbeth
more adequately and
judging it more truly; but what then
is
the organization of the play
which Santayana missed, and what are some of the essentially dramatic
