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who calls himself a "critical hurnanist"-believes that Symbolism
is
our
only alternative to Christianity in dealing with the dualistic view of
reality which
is
behind all our troubles. There is no space to examine
this
astonishing
claim,
except to point out that never for a moment does
Mr. Feidelson venture to challenge the interpretation of the cultural
history of the last three centuries on which the Christian "solution"
is
based. Consequently his easy acceptance of propagandistic simplifica–
tions (i.e., romanticism equals self-expression or solipsism) which have
served as the resort of literary demagoguery in our time, betrays him
in the end.
But Mr. Feidelson assures us that his "end is not pure theory but
practical criticism," and it would therefore be more just and more useful
to remove the discussion of his book from the plane of speculation. This,
however, is no easy matter, for his aesthetic theories impinge directly
upon his analyses of individual works. For example, he says of
The
Scarlet Letter
that it is "a kind of exposition of the nature of symbolic
perception. Hawthorne's subject is not only the meaning of adultery
but also meaning in general; not only
what
the focal symbol means
but also
how
it gains significance." In a sense this is true, but how im–
portant, after all, is the theme of "the meaning of meaning" to
this
particular novel? Does it have much, or anything, to do with our
exper–
ience
of the book? Mr. Feidelson seems to think that it has greater im–
portance than Hawthorne's "ethical concerns." For the fact
is
that he
is far more interested in Hawthorne as an epistemologist than as the
author of a great novel on what it is like to sin, to be proud,
to
be
tom between the demands of the self and the demands of society and
God, to be damned. The same speculative preoccupations lead Mr. Fei–
delson to make
Pierre
rather than
Moby Dick
the center of his discussion
of Melville. There must be something wrong with a theory that dis–
covers more support in a failure than in a masterpiece. Finally, the
theory leads him to attribute the kind of stature to Poe which will not
bear the first stirrings of critical questioning. On the other hand, he
does have some refreshing things to say about Emerson's philosophy–
which perhaps signifies where Mr. Feidelson's real ability lies.
The study of American literature is probably the most treacherous
of ,all testing-grounds for a critical theory. Unlike the Victorian novel,
say, whose strength was in its generally high level-the tradition itself
had vitality-the American novel, as Mr. Feidelson observes, was based
on a relatively immature tradition:
Considered as pure romantics
[sic],
they are minor disciples of Euro–
pean masters. Their symbolistic method is their title to literary inde-
