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on the autonomy of a work, its organic wholeness and compactness, its
"dialectical" reconciliation of opposites. He is writing also from the
other point of view that belongs quite as much to our own time as
this-the point of view according to which the understanding and the
valuation of a literary work can be immensely enhanced and enriched
by bringing to bear on the study of it
whatever
new knowledge is avail–
able and in any way relevant-psychological, anthropological, linguistic,
or what not. In short, Mr. Wellek is writing the history of modern
criticism from the point of view of what he has called Perspectivism,
which is of course a kind of eclecticism, not a "random" one surely, nor
a feebly academic one, but one (as the word itself ought to suggest)
that involves a catholic but not in any sense whatever an undiscriminat–
ing
choice
of approaches to understanding and judgment.
This has made it possible for
him
to survey the history of criticism
since the mid-eighteenth century with an instrument at once precise and
flexible, firm and yet elastic; and, in consequence, to enlighten incal–
culably our sense of what it is we have behind us, and how much of
it is still creatively present-dialectically transcended, to be sure, but
not merely "superseded"-in our own critical thought and practice.
What it comes to is that that thought and practice represent a certain
synthesis, a tentative and developing one, of neo-classicism (the "thesis")
and romanticism (the "antithesis"). So far as neo-classicism signifies
a strong sense of the whole tradition of literature, a belief in the pos–
sible objectivity and normality of critical values, and a preoccupation
with general standards of style and structure-to that extent, and even
farther, it being dead yet liveth. So far as romanticism signifies an im–
aginative sense of history (as distinguished from
tradition),
a deeply
philosophical conception of the imagination, a view of the work of
literature as an organic whole in which contrarieties are reconciled, and
an essentially new grasp of the meaning of metaphor, symbol, and
myth-to that extent, and much farther, it is not dead but alive. The
present age has gone beyond both the neo-classical and the romantic,
and has fortunately discarded much nonsense that was associated with
both. Our own nonsense will be sloughed off in due season, and mean–
while this history of Mr. Wellek's will make the whole task of keeping
our heads and sharpening our wits a great deal easier than it would
otherwise be.
Newton Arvin
