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and R .D. Laing. The effect of th eir allempt to transvalu e va lues
(thro ugh eroti c revo lution and th e va lidati on or auth enti cating of
insanity ) is to destroy the authority of
character.
But the redu ction of
S in cerity and Authenticity
La a polemic against the counterculture fails
La acknowl edge the extraordin ary modul ations of the argument.
Trilling's last book reads as if h e wanted
to
res ist his own will La
annihilate the adversary, for the effect of Trilling's historical p erspec–
tive (including among others Rousseau , Diderot, Goethe, and J ane
Austen ) is to allow the adversari al vi ew its full claim upon u s. Un–
like Stalinism, modernism remained an obj ect of deep ambi val an ce
for Trilling.
Chace concludes his study of Trilling with an obliqu e disp arage–
ment of a tendency in contemporary criti cism, tha t has in effect put
inLa ques tion the achievement of "old-fashi oned " cr iti cs like T rilling
and Edmund Wilson. Trilling "reminds us all , and h as reminded me
for many months in writing this book a bout him, of something we can
never wholly forget : literature is important by virtue no t of its textu al–
ity but of its entry inLa our moral li ves."
It
is true th a t Trilling rarely
appli ed himself to a text in an exh austive exegetical manner as if all
th at ma ttered was th e full es t p oss ibl e understanding o f wha t a text
meant or did. Trilling perceives an old adversary in " the mas ked will "
of text: its attempt La domina te th e reader through its implicit demand
for a susp ension of disbeli ef, a full immersion in the tex t as it
understands itself. In his essay "On the T eaching of Modern Litera–
ture," Trilling speaks of the intimidation by th e text. Modern criticism
"has taught us how to read certain books; it has no t taught us how to
engage them . Modern litera ture (it need scarcely be said aga in ) is
directed toward moral and spiritual renovati on : its doctrine is damna–
tion and salvation.
It
is a literature of doctrin e, whi ch althoug h o ften
concealed is very aggressive. The occasions are few when criti cism h as
met this doctrine on its own fi erce terms. Of modern criticism it can be
said that it has instructed us in an intelli gent pass ivity befo re the
benefi cent aggression of literature. Attributing La literature virtuall y
angeli c powers, it has p assed the word
to
readers of literature tha t the
on e thing you do not do when you meet an angel is wres tl e with him. "
Trilling's style with its practiced hes ita tions, its self-regarding convolu–
tions, its capacity La crea te di stance as well as engage is an express ion of
resistan ce to textual domin ation . Works of litera ture became occasions
for speculative understanding about th e n ature of litera ture and life,
though it should be said th a t T rillin g 's literary tact match ed and
surpassed the cap acities o f mos t profess ional close readers.
