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litical pawns and objects for philosophers to play with . The fact is
that poststructuralism and Lacanian approaches, which are not lit–
erary criticism but esthetic and eccentric psychoanalytic theory, and
the application of Marxism, which is also not literary criticism but
political theory, do not contain within themselves any criteria of
literary quality . They simply assume the place of works in the tradi–
tion of literature that has been assigned to them by a consensus of
writers and literary critics . The history of art is not an academic-or
political- preserve; it is the history of the transformation of art by
artists and critics. The New Critics, for example, tried to compen–
sate for this lack of criteria by talking about paradox and ambiguity
as though they were touchstones of literary quality, but it soon be–
came clear that these aspects of poetry could not be measured and
that they were present in some degree in all poetry. Nor could this
method be applied to novels, as was evident in the writing, for exam–
ple , of R . P. Blackmur on fiction .
As for mass education, it would be necessary to resist populist
notions of democracy by separating those students who require more
elementary educational procedures from those ready for a more so–
phisticated study of literature . This would obviously eliminate the
elaborate strategies - that usually do not work - now resorted to for
teaching students not prepared
fo~
complex studies .
These are radical- probably utopian - proposals . But they at
least can be debated. Why not?
I am aware that, as Graff points out, all ideas about literature
rest on some theory, implicit if not explicit.
In
this respect , my own
suggestions are based on an antitheory theory - on the idea that ex–
traneous theories, however
intere~ting
in themselves, should not in–
vade literary studies.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS
