102
PARTISAN REVIEW
interpretation means finding the single fixed meaning intended by the
writer:
At first glance one would think that the writer controls
throu~h
the
text the experience the reader has, but, if so, then the work of art
would be a fixed stimulus eliciting a fixed response, and simple
experience tells us this is not the case. . . . [The wri ter
1
cannot
prevent the reader from making the most dreadful hash of what he
has written.
Holland would have us believe that cnl1ClSm cannot be objective
only because every reading reflects the reader, and he goes so far
as to declare,
"If
criticism is objective, why should critics sign their
work"! Yet he does not altogether abandon the idea of determinacy,
for he speaks of the "dreadful hash" a reader might make of a
work, a contingency that clearly implies some standard of what a
relevant or reliable reading would be. And indeed, from time to time
in his books, Holland expli citly (and rather too agreeably) concedes
the need for standards of judgment, without worrying about the re–
sultant inconsistencies.
I find it curious that Holland should invoke Freud (whom he has
often written about) for his brand of subjectivism. Although Freud did
teach that our opinions are determined more than we realize by
unconscious biases, he also taught-and created a therapeutic method
on the basis of believing-that it is possible for us to observe ourselves
and to some extent correct our judgments. Yet Holland's reader
remains helplessly in the grip of his own fantasies.
If
Holland were
content to study his students' personal responses to literature only for
the sake of the psychological insight they afford, his 5
Readers Reading
would be easy enough to praise, because he has the trained psychoana–
lyst's ability to discover preconscious connections in associative speech,
and because the principles he formulates governing fantasy involve–
ment with a story or poem are psychologically plausible. But he
presents the responses as a contribution to criticism, and forces us to
say that they won't do. The encounter-group level of diction and
thought maintained by the students and endorsed by Holland is simply
bathetic in relation to the text. But how cou ld anyone write effective
criticism who is trying to answer the question "How do I feel about
this poem?" instead of "What does the poem mean?" (In another book
that features the personal responses of students, Walter Slatoff's
With
Respect to Readers,
the samples are no more impressive than Hol–
land's, but because Slatoff's aims are pedagogic rather than
