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course between Jameson, who is treated as a central, authoritative figure,
and Lyotard, who is given equal rating. Apparently, Greenblatt believes
that art both reflects basic economic and social conditions and to some
extent takes on a life of its own. The formulation is not startlingly
original or illuminating. Elsewhere, in pursuing the same question,
Greenblatt says works of art are characterized by wonder and resonance.
Wonder seems to be a synonym for wonderful, magical, beautiful,
overwhelming; resonance a synonym for social context, for meanings that
relate art to nonesthetic factors. This is another high-flown formulation
for obvious aspects of art. But, in addition, it is another academic version
of the power and lasting nature of art. It is a totally static view of the
origin and influence of works of art.
Greenblatt also has a lengthy disquisition on the differences between
the new historicism and the old one . He says the new historicism is dis–
tinguished by the idea that man can influence history; that it makes value
judgments; and that it does not "venerate the past." This distinction is
not only invalid; it simply restates old Marxist cliches.
The essays also contain a number of left political reflexes. For ex–
ample, there are several jibes at Reagan as an imperialist, a warmonger, a
cold warrior, and some knee-jerk remarks about the evils of conservatism.
Generally, it must be said, Greenblatt's politics are not very sophisticated,
and they tend toward the politically correct.
This is not necessarily to disparage Stephen Greenblatt's scholarly
achievements in an area, in which, as I said, I am not an expert, but to
call attention to the pervasive influence of Marxism in the academy, de–
spite its demise in those countries where Marxism had been the official
doctrine for so many years.
Hitchens's Trotskyists
Christopher Hitchens is not only a slick
journalist but also a slick thinker. He should be a valuable contributor to
the popular magazines, but, unfortunately,
The New York Times , The
Times Literary Supplement,
and
The London Review oj Books
utilize his
talents. He is also a regular columnist for
The Nation,
where he lends a
spark to the old-fashioned radicalism that persists after it has been
pronounced dead.
Fortunately for Hitchens, he has a fund of doctrines that he can
draw on from the politically correct arena. One of his recent efforts ap–
pears in
The London Review oj Books,
where he ostensibly reviews yet an–
other in the long line of books about the New York intellectuals - this
one titled
Critical Crossings
by Neil Jumonville (University of California
Press). This latest account is not as ideological as most of its predecessors.
But it assigns different roles to the main actors, inflating some,
diminishing others, thus creating a somewhat skewed picture of the
