THE STATE OF CRITICISM
New Criticism to Structuralism
BARBARA ROSECRANCE: I'd like
to
welcome you a ll
to
the
Part isan
R eview
conference on the sta te o f critic ism . I'm Ba rba ra Rosec rance,
a member of the editoria l boa rd . William Phillips, the edito r of
Partisan R eview,
will speak first. He will
be
fo ll owed by one
commentator, Lawrence Graver, professor of Eng lish a t Willi ams
College, who has written on Conrad, Beckett, and o ther modern
writers.
William Phillips
It
is no secre t tha t ma ny nove lists and poets, as well as
prac ticing critics, fee l tha t a good dea l of critic ism has become an
academi c exerc ise.
In
fac t, since the fo rties critic ism has divided into
two streams : into prac tica l, soc ia ll y o riented critic ism , represented by
such fi gures as Trilling, Leavis, Howe, Wil son , Pritchett, Kaz in , and
into litera ry theory , which has been pu rs ued by Ma rxi sts, by the New
Critics, by maverick sys tema tizers like Frye and Bloom , by compara –
tivists like de Man , Ha rtman , a nd Sa id, and mo re recently by the
structura lists.
The gap between these two tendencies has steadil y widened, to
the point where we now have a lmos t two distinc t profess io ns, with
the "experts ," who mostl y domina te litera ry studies in the univers i–
ties, (l ess so in France where theory pres umabl y has a public), and
who usua ll y promo te a favo rite doc trine, on the o ne side; and o n the
The conference on Ihe sta le o f criticism wa, held o n Sepl ember
1,1
a nd
15. 1979,
<II BoslOn
University. T he conference was made pos, ib le
by
a g-ra nl flO1ll the NalOna l [ ndow1llC'nI
for Ihe H U1lla nities. T hree add ilio nal sess io ns will be p ll blished in a , uh,equent i"ue of
Partisan R eview.
