THE NOVEL AGAIN
179
reading and analysis of poetic texts originally developed from a two–
fold interest- an interest in reclaiming for the present an important
tradition of English poetry that had lapsed, and an interest in the
new modern poetry which had itself established the first references
to that tradition. The New Criticism dramatically altered the nature
of reading and the nature of teaching literature in England and
America. It created a revolution and has had to suffer a successful
revolution's fate- institutionalization, assimilation to older, antitheti–
cal habits of thinking, and general dilution of potency. And no critic
in his senses, I think, will deny that our university departments of
literature, and even the tone of intellectual life in our universities,
have not been improved by it.* That the New Critical devices have
been directed to the novel recently should be obvious. Such a develop–
ment was to be expected, as was the fact that in the hands 'of the
New Criticism's epigones- the new technicians, we may call them–
the modern novel, in
all
its fearful symmetry, should seem to have
had its fangs drawn and become just another academic tabby cat.
Still what has occurred during the last decade and a half would
scarcely appear so plain and intelligible, I think, had not the novel
developed its own refinements and restrictions.
II
If
we examine the novels of interest written both in England and
America during the past fifteen years or so, certain diagnostic features
seem evident. Beginning with what may appear trivial, we can
observe that the length of the novel seems to have contracted. There
are, naturally, any number of exceptions, but until rather recently,
the usual optimum length of a novel was somewhere in the vicinity
of three hundred pages. Today that limit is closer to two hundred
pages. Such a reduction in size does not necessarily imply a diminu–
tion in intrinsic content; it does indicate, I think, a systematic win–
nowing out of related but extraneous matter, a disciplined effort of
*
As for the older, historical scholarship, as it continues to become increasingly
rare its virtues will continue to appear increasingly substantial. Its arrogant
disrespect for intellect, its stubborn and gratuitous overvaluation of fact, will
seem in comparison with what is replacing them to have had at least a semblance
of authentic masculine stupidity-and authority as well, authority having tradi–
tionally availed itself of the privilege of mindlessness.
