BOOKS
633
The fact is that most of the current literary theories do not relate to the ac–
tual writing of fiction and poetry; what they express are deep ideological
concerns. Compare a statement, for example, by a writer such as Milan
Kundera, that illustrates the working of the literary mind, with any of the
abstruse, jargonized theoretical exercises these days that have usurped the
place of literary criticism.
In
the Preface to
The Art of the Novel,
Kundera
says succinctly of his own practice as a novelist and of his relation to the
Western tradition offiction:
Need I stress that I intend no theoretical statement at all, and that the
entire book is simply a practitioner'S confession? Every novelist's
work contains an implicit vision of the history of the novel, an idea of
what the novel is; I have tried to express here the idea of the novel
that is inherent in my own novels.
Kundera's statement of his literary credo is also pertinent to the current
controversy over the curriculum, which involves the application of many of
the new theories to education.
In
contrast to those who dismiss what they call
the canon of Western thought and literature as an arbitrary and invidious
selection ofworks, Kundera indicates, as
T.
S. Eliot also did, that the Western
tradition exists in the mind and the bones of every serious writer. And it is to
the destruction of this tradition that many of the new theories about art and
literature are directed. Hence, the current crisis in criticism - for that is what
it is - concerns more than a theory of literature: it involves our cultural
identity.
These are some of the questions raised by Leitch's book. But the fact
that they are raised does not lessen the value of his study, which is not only
an exhaustive treatment of the history of modern American criticism, but
also provides the basis for a knowledgeable discussion of the issues.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS
