6"
PAR TIS
AN
REV lEW
puts on his Great Author suit I
think
one should point out it doesn't
fit. On every side counterfeit talents flood the exchange. To a certain
degree this was always so but -there were, in other times and places,
certain critics whose bite authenticated coinage. They are still with us,
but
hors de combat,
in the Academy.
I have often thought it would be a service to the audience
if
each
writer was forced to refer to himself in a certain style and manner
which would make clear what he is. Implicitly, each does but it is con–
fusing to all but a student of rhetoric. Mr. Arthur Miller (he is on my
mind because I have just read the preface to his collected plays) writes
of himself not seriously but solemnly. With paralyzing pomp, splitting
his infinitives, confusing number, he climbs the steps to the throne, the
enemy, syntax, crushed beneath his heavy boot: he is our prophet, our
king, our guide in the dark; the only thing wrong is he does not write
awfully well. Now in other times if one had made such a criticism it
would have ,been quite enough. But Mr. Miller is ready for that one
(and so are all the other hackers in the kindergarten). "We have had,"
he reminds those of us who were nodding, "more than one extraordinary
dramatist who was a cripple as a writer, and this is lamentable but not
ruinous." I suppose he could get out of that one by saying he meant
extraordinary to mean just that: extra-ordinary, though of course there
is nothing more ordinary than writer-cripples in our theater.
Now by needling the pretensions of Mr. Miller (whom I often ad–
mire as a writer-cripple) I don't mean to scout his rightful position
in the commercial theater-he is more good than bad as an influence
and as a fact- but to draw attention again to the lack of any sense in
our esthetic judgments. Mr. Miller-and all the rest-can get away with
just about any evaluation he wants to make of himself, and those who
know differently won't bother to straighten the matter out for an audi–
ence which seems perfectly content to receive counterfeit bills for checks
drawn in good faith. What we need are fewer ontological critics
(pace
Mr. Ransom) and more critics like Miss Mary McCarthy who will re–
mind the kindergarteners that though they can have as much fun as
they want, at some point the line between fantasy and reality must be
firmly drawn. No, you are
not
a poet; you are you. As it is now even
our abler commentators are so many Madame Verdurins, eager, shrewd
but confused as to true precedence. And the non-counterfeit artist must
either go into table last or make a fool of himself, much as the Baron
de CharIus did that curious afternoon.
I happen to like a number of playwrights as people. For some
reason they bring out my protective and pedagogic instincts. I like to
reassure them; to help them; to give them reading lists. In many ways
