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PARTISAN REVIEW
thetic as though it were an intellectual issue and not just an occasion for
ranting, black or white. The value of Dickstein's sympathetic and con–
crete approach to the problem of black writing is that it takes it out
of the realm of abstract aesthetics, seeing it both in its own terms and
in relation to the whole of literature.
But the trouble with reducing a theoretical issue to a practical one
is
that it leaves the questions it raises hanging in the air, and by trying
to have it both ways is caught in a basic contradiction. I am not sug–
gesting that Dickstein or anyone else can be expected to solve at one
litroke a complex and tangled problem; nor am I arguing that criticism
can be any freer of contradictions than the experience it deals with.
But I do think Dickstein's piece, as interesting and intelligent as it is,
ends precisely at the point at which it began.
The question raised by Dickstein - and by the exponents of the
black aesthetic - is simply whether black writing is part of the same
tradition as white writing and therefore is to
be
judged in the same
way. As we know, the more militant black writers insist that their work
comes out of a different life, and hence cannot be judged by white
critics or by the white criteria of the western literary tradition. And
it is this question Dickstein sidesteps in concluding,
if
I understand
him,
that the fate of black writing is tied to the consciousness it reflects.
But when he gets away from theory, Dickstein takes a different
tack. For when he talks about specific works he applies almost as a
reflex the standards commonly used in discussing white books. When,
for example, he says Baldwin's novels are seriously flawed, or Wright
was not really a naturalist, he might just as well be writing about
white novelists. And when he notes that the younger black writers are
returning to more traditional forms, his terms and categories assume
a common idea of literature and a common critical language.
Though Dickstein hesitates to draw the conclusions implicit in his
practice, his instincts are clearly right. For even if in theory new move–
ments· affect old values, and different cultures enlarge our idea of liter–
ature, the fact is that we don't consciously set up special approaches to
Russian or Irish or Jewish writing. It goes without saying that Dostoev–
sky was a Russian of his period. But this does not mean that Dostoev–
sky must
be
approached differently from, say, Joyce or Mann. To
claim a separate aesthetic for black writing might have a political or
psychological meaning but makes no aesthetic sense. And such invidious
discriminations can be enforced only if white writers are willing to
deny their own objectivity and competence to judge or grasp any writ–
ing but their own. There are limits even to white self-denial, especially
in.1iterature, which should be free of inhumanity, and hence of guilt.
Delmore Schwartz.
I am unable to review the posthumous essays
of Delmore Schwartz, because I was until the last years of his life too
clos. to him. And being too close to Delmore meant not only a. kind
of protective fondness but an endless struggle against being too en–
tangled with one of the most active egos I have known. His strong
mind, his weak but avid psyche, his awkward, stubborn body . were
constantly reaching out and wrapping themselves around. an idea, a
