854
PARTISAN REVIEW
cals it protects. Of course liberal pluralism is boring and middle
class, lacking in the dramatic extravagance and charisma that the
"literary" temperament traditionally craves.
Reading over what I've written, I see that this account of my
views makes little reference to the concerns usually associated with
the teaching of literature. This sort of thing angers some of my col–
leagues, who believe that the present crisis in literary studies can be
attributed to literature professors' meddling with politics and culture
instead of tending to their traditional critical business of producing
interpretations of literary works. In response to this complaint, I
would point out that it is only very recently that the interpretive
function of literary criticism has been detached from broader moral,
cultural, and political functions. The narrowing of criticism to tex–
tual explication is not "traditional" in any valid sense of the term, but
a professional deviation from the tradition of Sidney, Dryden,
Johnson, and Arnold.
If
I've developed any credo in the twenty
years since I started having "literary, political, or cultural views," it
is that the first of these terms is inseparable from the other two.
Gerald Graff, the author of
Literature Against Itself
(University of
Chicago Press, 1979), is Professor of English at Northwestern University.
Clement Greenberg
ART AND CULTURE
Whether the country and its culture have changed "enor–
mously" over the past fifty years, I wonder about. I'm not being cap–
tious. Continuity in this country has gotten to be underestimated.
I wouldn't say that my "literary" or "cultural" views have
changed all that much during the same time. Maybe they've evolved
or been revised- I hope so. I would also hope they've been ex–
panded. But
changed:
no.
