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force in American life; "much of America still longs for-indeed, ex–
pects again to see-a return of the older individualism and the older
isolation, and grows frantic when it finds that even our conservative
leaders are unable to restore such conditions." Perhaps his most impor–
tant implication is that since the New Deal this nostalgia, no longer
linked with Progressivism, has mostly assumed overtly reactionary forms.
This should make possible a healthy clarification of the political scene,
but so far the most conspicuous result has been that American liberalism,
having abandoned the Jeffersonian myth that gave it so much of
its
dynamic appeal, no longer advocates any positive program with much
sense of conviction. Present-day liberals, as Mr. Hofstadter says, "find
themselves far more conscious of those things they would like to pre–
serve than they are of those things they would like to change."
Henry Bamford Parkes
A CRITIC'S POINT OF VIEW
THE INMOST LEAF. By Alfred Kezin. Hercourt, Brece. $4.75.
Metacriticism-the critical review of critical reviews-is an
arid discipline. Its resources are soon depleted, whether it be in mutual
admiration or envious recrimination within the small circle of a critical
elite. In either case, metacriticism, criticism upon criticism, usually is
a barrier, rather than a gate, to the enjoyment and communication of
literature. The best one can do, therefore, with critical essays and re–
views like those collected in the present volume is to convey some im–
pression of the "point of view" (to use a favorite expression of Mr.
Kazin's) from which the critic approaches his work and to suggest
what kind of criticism results from this individual point of view.
The present volume provides a good basis for plotting Mr. Kazin's
position on the map of contemporary criticism. It contains 28 con–
tributions, of which all but two are relatively brief essays (from 5 to
10 pages), which were written, during the last 15 years, for various
magazines, both middlebrow and highbrow. The two exceptions are,
first, excerpts from an Italian journal (dated 1947) and, secondly, a
long critical essay of 50 pages on William Blake, reprinted from Mr.
Kazin's introduction to
The Portable Blake.
This
is
a substantial body of work. And one's first impression is
