COMMENT
346
On the subject of literature, Smith remarks correctly that
most of the new literary theorists have been so absorbed in the
problems of hermeneutics that they have neglected the question
of judgment. However, she goes on to argue, somewhat repeti–
tiously, that literary judgments are judgments of value and they
are all endlessly variable and contingent. She starts out by de–
scribing rather innocently how her judgment of Shakespeare 's
Sonnets
and her interpretations of them have varied over the
years, depending on her changing feelings about life , about her–
self, her changing situations, and her different readings of the
Sonnets.
This is by way of a personal prologue to the more abstract
consideration of the theoretical issues. But it seems to be little
more than an autobiographical statement, and proves simply that
Smith's responses to the sonnets changed over the course of her
personal and professional life. It has nothing to do with the qual–
ity of the
Sonnets
or the reasons for the continued appreciation of
that quality, unless one makes the patently false assumption that
the quality of literary works is somehow determined by the total–
ity of everyone's response to them.
On the larger question of value , Smith similarly defines it
functionally, assigning a value to a work of literature as though it
were an object, like any other, say, like a chair or a toothbrush.
And this conception of value , which is essentially that of use–
value, comes from the idea that literature's "function," as she puts
it, is to satisfy somehow people's needs. She underscores this no–
tion of value and of function by stressing that literature serves a
community and that it is judged by the value of this service to the
community. The community is never defined, and Smith occa–
sionally speaks of several communities. But she mostly seems to
have in mind the academic community, which she appears to
believe determines the value of art and literary works. And in
this respect Smith is reflecting the current view of how the cur–
riculum is to be revised by academic theorists and interest
groups.
Now, what is wrong with this solution to the problem of lit–
erary judgment? In my opinion, Smith's entire approach is in–
correct.
As
the positivists would say, she gets the wrong answers
because she asks the wrong questions. As a result, her special
theory of contingency and variability perhaps can explain per–
sonal differences, but it does not provide the slightest clue to the
