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PARTISAN REVIEW
longer struggles for basic national existence . . . Instead, they are a
struggle to establish a truth . This courageous and experienced peo–
ple in the heart of Europe will never be calm until it is allowed to
solve its problems in a way which satisfies its own - very exact–
ing- sense of morality and fairness." One of the most important re–
cent successes of this "ethical mission," ifnot a total moral victory for
the Poles, is that Western opinion, as exemplified by these two
useful books, seems to have finally sensed the mission's validity and
purpose.
STANISLAW BARANCZAK
A DISPASSIONATE CRITIC
THE ORDER OF BATTLE AT TRAFALGAR AND OTHER
ESSAYS. By
John
Bayley.
Weidenfeld
&
Nicolson.
$15 .95.
John Bayley writes an urbane criticism with an acute
peripheral awareness of the comings and goings of the latest critical
fashions. His oblique glances at literary theory are incisive , though
without the responsibility of argument and refutation .
It
is enough
for him to discover an unappealing implication or to adduce an un–
acceptable analogy, distance himself from it , and suggest that we too
as intelligent readers of literature might do the same .
An example: Terry Eagleton's dismissal of literature as a bour–
geois concept, as "what gets taught" in Roland Barthes's denigration
of it, evokes in Bayley's mind "an old Marxist piety." "The separation
of literature from theory and teaching of it is like the 'alienation' of
the individual in bourgeois society ." Bayley is not intimidated by the
desire for unity. "Suppose what we like about literature is its distance
from us," and he quotes Bacon to the effect that we may desire
another world which satisfies the mind in the way the actual world
or, more strongly, "the nature of things" would deny . "In that case
modern literary theory must write us off as incorrigible ." This is
hardly decisive as an argument , but rather effective as an expression
of sensibility.
Yet Bayley is not content with the implication, "live and let
live ." The current situation of literature and criticism is deplorable
