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so smoothly that they tend to cancel each other. When one's view is
so all-encompassing, the distinctive point of view gets lost, or the cri–
ticism becomes so "literary" that it dare not speak its mind beyond
the confines of literature.
Interestingly enough, Mr. Kazin is frequently attracted by the
themes of anger, revolt, and madness in literature, by Blake's "wrath"
against the moral order, by the "painfulness" of D. H. Lawrence, by
Fitzgerald's "crack-up," by the "anger" of Flaubert and the "fury" of
Faulkner. But when he turns to these manifestations of literary
pa~tsion
and protest, he tends to interpret them primarily as an integral part
of the writer's own world. Thus Flaubert's furious outburst, "I can no
longer talk with anyone without growing angry, and whenever I read
anything by one of my contemporaries I rage" is seen as the anger of
a writer who, though "he had discovered he could do 'anything' with
language, nevertheless felt that he was not fully getting his say." In
short, it was Flaubert's problem, not the critic's, nor ours. Reading Mr.
Kazin one often feels as if the great literary rebels were
only
fighting
an inner struggle over the success or failure of their artistic visions and
aspirations, as if there were no enemies abroad. That renders the great
literary rages relatively harmless; it sets up an artificial division be–
tween the writer's intensely subjective imagination and personal anguish,
on the one hand, and the objective significance of his work, on the
other. Mr. Kazin's own profile as a critic would stand out more sharply,
and his achievement would be more lasting and influential, I believe,
if he could join more passionately and angrily into the artist's fight
against the public enemy-at the risk, to be sure, that anger and pas–
sion might reduce the marketability of the critic's product.
But if these be defects, they are the defects of Mr. Kazin's virtues.
It would be ungrateful, therefore, if one did not record in conclusion
that they do not seriously impair the contribution of a critic whose
articulate intelligence, natural humanity, and unpretentious, sensitive
response to life and literature express a "point of view" which is more.
congenial to my own than most contemporary criticism I read.
the hans hofmann school
52 west 8th street
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provincetown, mass.
new york city
Hans Meyerhoff
of fine arts
phone gramercy
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by mr. hofmonn
june I I -august
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