Literary Criticism (redirected from Crit lit)

literary criticism

Discipline concerned with philosophical, descriptive, and evaluative inquiries about literature, including what literature is, what it does, and what it is worth. The Western critical tradition began with Plato's Republic (4th century BC). A generation later, Aristotle, in his Poetics, developed a set of principles of composition that had a lasting influence. European criticism since the Renaissance has primarily focused on the moral worth of literature and the nature of its relationship to reality. At the end of the 16th century, Sir Philip Sidney argued that it is the special property of literature to offer an imagined world that is in some respects superior to the real one. A century later John Dryden proposed the less idealistic view that literature must primarily offer an accurate representation of the world for “the delight and instruction of mankind,” an assumption that underlies the great critical works of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. A departure from these ideas appeared in the criticism of the Romantic period, epitomized by William Wordsworth's assertion that the object of poetry is “truth…carried alive into the heart by passion.” The later 19th century saw two divergent developments: an aesthetic theory of “art for art's sake,” and the view (expressed by Matthew Arnold) that literature must assume the moral and philosophical functions previously filled by religion. The volume of literary criticism increased greatly in the 20th century, and its later years saw a radical reappraisal of traditional critical modes and the development of a multiplicity of critical factions (see deconstruction; poststructuralism; structuralism).

---

Literary Criticism 

(literaturnaia kritika), the evaluation and interpretation of literary works; the exposure and affirmation of the creative principles of a given literary movement; a form of literary creativity.

Literary criticism proceeds from the general methodology of the study of literature (literaturovedenie) and bases itself on the history of literature. In contrast to literary history, criticism deals primarily with contemporary literary movements and interprets the classical heritage from the viewpoint of contemporary social and artistic concerns. Literary criticism is as closely related to an era’s life and social struggle as it is to its philosophical and aesthetic ideas.

The word “criticism” derives from the Greek kritike, the art of analyzing and judging. Critical judgments about literature arose almost simultaneously with literature itself, originally as the opinion of the most respected and learned readers. Already a professional pursuit in classical Greece and Rome and ancient India and China, literary criticism nevertheless was long considered an “applied” form of writing in comparison with the other creative genres, intended only as an overall evaluation of a work, as encouragement or discouragement of an author, and as a recommendation to other readers.

The theoretical definition of literary criticism must be approached historically. For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, in accordance with neoclassical aesthetics, criticism demanded only a dispassionate evaluation of a work, based on common sense, with some indication of individual “faults” and “beauties.” In the 19th century criticism evolved into a special genre of literature, and a writer was considered in relation to his times and to society.

The history of literary criticism in the West, which is closely related to the history of literary schools and movements and the development of literary scholarship, directly or indirectly expresses the social relationships and contradictions of its time. The most significant Western critics and writers advanced programs for the development of literature and formulated social and aesthetic principles (for example, Diderot and Lessing as early as the 18th century and de Staël, Heine, Hugo, and Zola in the 19th). In the first half of the 19th century, criticism in Europe won a place for itself as a literary profession. Critics who were influential in their time included C. A. Sainte-Beuve, H. Taine, and F. Brunetière (France), M. Arnold (England), and G. Brandes (Denmark). In the USA, the most notable achievements of literary criticism belong to the first half of the 20th century and are associated with the names of V. L. Parrington and Van Wyck Brooks.

In Russia the first literary critics were writers of the mid-18th century: M. V. Lomonosov, A. D. Kantemir, and V. K. Tredia-kovskii. The range and possibilities of criticism were expanded by N. M. Karamzin, who first lent it a social character. The Decembrist critics (A. A. Bestuzhev and others), proceeding from a revolutionary-romantic standpoint, upheld the idea of the narodnost’ (the reflection of the people’s ideals and desires, by the art) and uniqueness of Russian literature. N. I. Nadezhdin, in many ways the predecessor of V. G. Belinskii, approached a recognition of the principles of realistic criticism. The first high models of Russian literary criticism appeared in the critical prose of A. S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol, who made subtle judgments about the purposes of literature, realism, and satire and the nature and aims of literary criticism.

In the criticism of V. G. Belinskii, who advanced the concept of critical realism, the evaluation of a work was based on its interpretation as an artistic whole, in the unity of its ideas and images; the writer’s work was viewed in relation to the history of literature and society. Not satisfied with evaluating a work in the light of its author’s concept, N. G. Chernyshevskii and N. A. Dobroliubov made the main task of literary criticism the evaluation of life itself with its processes and social types, based on the truthful testimony of the artist as revealed in his work. The fundamental innovation of their approach, which expanded the very concept of criticism, lay in interpreting a realistic work in a way that would reveal the genuine depth of its true-to-life content.

The revolutionary-democratic critics of the 1860’s and 1870’s (such as Chernyshevskii, Dobroliubov, D. I. Pisarev, and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin), who continued the traditions of Belinskii, succeeded in blending literary activity with ardent protests against serfdom and autocracy and with calls for the freedom of the people. Their work was forged in the ideological and literary struggle with the liberal tendencies of “aesthetic criticism” (represented by A. V. Druzhinin, V. P. Botkin, and others), which attempted to sever art and literature from social life. They also struggled with the nonsocial interpretation of literature’s narodnost’, found in the criticism of the pochvenniki (“grassroots movement,” exemplified by A. A. Grigor’ev and N. N. Strakhov). Many works by the aestheticians and pochvenniki possessed undoubted virtues and gave a worthwhile analysis of individual literary works, but on the whole they represented a negation of the progressive movement of the Russian revolutionary-democratic critics.

A new, genuinely scientific methodological basis for literary criticism was provided by K. Marx and F. Engels in their teachings revealing the fundamental laws of sociohistorical development and in their statements on questions of art and literature. Marxist criticism in the West, which arose in the second half of the 19th century, was represented by such outstanding men of letters as F. Mehring (Germany) and P. Lafargue (France), who were the first to treat the problems of art from the standpoint of historical materialism.

A new stage in the development of Russian critical thought was begun by Marxist criticism, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries took over and developed the best traditions of revolutionary-democratic criticism; it was forged in the struggle with populist literary criticism (represented by N. K. Mikhailov-skii) and decadent criticism (A. Volynskii). The works of G. V. Plekhanov both set forth and carried through the principle of the historical-materialist approach to literature and its evaluation from a class standpoint.

The articles and speeches of V. I. Lenin were incalculably important in the development of Marxist literary criticism. In a cycle of articles on L. N. Tolstoy, Lenin expounded the “theory of reflection” as it applied to literary creation. Lenin’s principle of literature’s partiinost’, or party-mindedness (which he advanced in the article “Party Organization and Party Literature,” 1905), his attitude toward cultural heritage, and his defense of the realistic traditions of classical literature greatly influenced the formation of Marxist literary criticism in Russia. Its development is associated with such names as V. V. Vorovskii, A. V. Lunacharskii, and M. Gorky.

Lenin’s works were a cornerstone of the methodological basis of Soviet literary scholarship and criticism.

After the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia and particularly as a result of the mid-century growth of the socialist camp, Marxist literary scholarship and criticism became a leading international movement; it is represented by the total body of criticism in socialist countries and by many Marxist critics in the bourgeois states of the West and East—for example, R. Fox and C. Caudwell.

Marxist criticism examines a literary work in all its aspects and qualities from a viewpoint combining sociology, aesthetics, and ethics. Literary criticism, like literary creation itself, is a means for both perceiving and acting upon life, and like literature can be part of the humanities, “the study of man.” Thus criticism must live up to its lofty responsibilities as a medium of ideological and aesthetic education.

Criticism points out the virtues and failings of a work to the writer, thus helping him broaden his intellectual horizons and improve his technical mastery. Addressing himself to the reader, the critic not only elucidates the work for him but also actively engages the reader in the mutual apprehension of the work on a new level of understanding. A critic must be able to view a work as an artistic whole and to place it in the perspective of literary development.

Modern literary criticism is written in a variety of genres, including the article, review, survey, essay, literary profile, polemical statement, and bibliographical annotation. In any genre, the critic must be, in a sense, a political thinker, sociologist, and psychologist, as well as a literary historian and aesthetician. The critic must also possess a talent that is similar, but not identical, to the talents of both artists and scholars.

In Soviet criticism the partiinost’ of critical pronouncements and the soundness of the critic’s Marxist-Leninist education are growing in importance. The Soviet critic is guided by socialist realism—the basic creative method of all Soviet literature. The Central Committee of the CPSU in its resolution On Criticism of Literature and Art (1972) noted that it is the critic’s obligation, while profoundly analyzing the laws of the modern artistic process, to contribute in every way to the strengthening of the Leninist principles of partiinost’ and narodnost’, to struggle for a high ideological and aesthetic level in Soviet art, and to consistently combat bourgeois ideology.

Soviet literary criticism, in alliance with the criticism of the other fraternal socialist countries and Marxist literary criticism in the capitalist countries, takes an active part in the international ideological struggle and combats the bourgeois aesthetic formalist conceptions that attempt to exclude literature from the life of society and to cultivate an elitist art for the few. Soviet literary criticism also combats the revisionist concept of “realism without shores” (represented by R. Garaudy and E. Fischer), which calls for peaceful ideological coexistence, that is to say, capitulation of the realistic schools to bourgeois modernism. Finally, Soviet criticism combats leftist-nihilistic attempts to “liquidate” cultural heritage and do away with the cognitive value of realistic literature. In the second half of the 20th century, the progressive press of many countries has been surveying with greater endeavor V. I. Lenin’s views on literature.

One of the pressing issues of contemporary literary criticism is its attitude to the literature of socialist realism. In foreign criticism this method has both its defenders and its implacable foes. The pronouncements of the “Sovietologists” (such as G. Struve, G. Ermolaev, M. Hayward, and J. Rülle) on the literature of socialist realism are directed not only against an artistic method but, essentially, against the social relationships and ideas that determined its genesis and development.

Such writers as M. Gorky and A. Fadeev have explained and defended the principles of socialist realism in Soviet criticism. Soviet literary criticism, carrying on an active struggle for the affirmation of socialist realism in literature, is called upon to combine precise ideological evaluations and profound social analysis with aesthetic exactingness and a nurturing attitude toward talent and fruitful creative experimentation. Convincing literary criticism can influence the course of literary development and the entire literary process by consistently supporting progressive tendencies and rejecting alien ones. Marxist criticism, founded on scientific techniques of objective research and on the vital interests of society, stands in opposition to impressionistic, subjectivist criticism, which considers itself free from consistent concepts, a holistic vision, and a conscious point of view.

Soviet criticism carries on a struggle with dogmatic criticism, which, based as it is on a priori judgments about art, cannot recognize the very essence of art and its poetic concept, characters, and conflicts. In the struggle with subjectivism and dogmatism, criticism that is social in nature, scientific and creative in method, analytical in investigative techniques, and in tune with the broad reading public is the one that will prevail.

Criticism’s responsibility in the literary process and the fate of both book and author raises the question of its moral obligations. The profession imposes weighty moral obligations on the critic and presupposes fundamental honesty in his argumentation, as well as understanding and tact in his attitude to the writer. Distortions, capricious quotations, “labeling,” and unfounded deductions are incompatible with the very essence of literary criticism. Outspoken and rigorous judgments of pulp literature are qualities that have been innate to progressive Russian criticism since Belinskii’s time. As the Central Committee of the CPSU pointed out in its resolution On Criticism of Literature and Art, there should be no place in criticism for a conciliatory attitude toward ideological and artistic rubbish, subjectivism, and group or “buddy” partiality. Articles or reviews should never “be one-sided, contain unjustified compliments, amount to a hasty summary of a work’s contents, or fail to convey its real importance and value” (Pravda, Jan. 25, 1972, p. 1).

Scientifically convincing arguments in conjunction with partiinost ’-oriented judgments, ideological commitment, and impeccable artistic taste are the basis for the moral authority of Soviet literary criticism and its influence on literature.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. O literature i iskusstve, 4th ed. Moscow, 1969.
Belinskii, V. G. “Rech’ o kritike.” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 6. Moscow, 1955.
Chernyshevskii, N. G. Estetika. Moscow, 1958.
Plekhanov, G. V. Literatura i estetika, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1958.
Gorky, M. O literature. Moscow, 1961.
Lunacharskii, A. V. Kritika i kritiki: Sbornik statei. Moscow, 1938.
Lunacharskii, A. V. “Lenin i literaturovedenie.” Sobr. soch., vol. 8. Moscow, 1967.
Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki i kritiki, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1950— 65.
Istoriia russkoi kritiki, vols. 1–2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958.
Riurikov, B. S. “Osnovnye problemy sovetskoi literaturnoi kritiki.” In Vtoroi Vsesoiuznyi s”ezd sovetskikh pisatelei. Moscow, 1956.
Fadeev, A. “Zadachi literaturnoi teorii i kritiki.” In his collection Za tridtsat’ let. Moscow, 1957.
Belinskii i sovremennost’. Moscow, 1964.
Ocherki istorii russkoi sovetskoi zhurnalistiki, vol. 1, 1917–32, Moscow, 1966. Vol. 2, 1933–45: Moscow, 1968.
“Aktual’nye problemy kritiki i literaturovedeniia.” Voprosy literatury, 1966, no. 6.
Kuleshov, V. I. Istoriia russkoi kritiki. Moscow, 1972.
Bursov, B. “Kritika kak literatura.” Zvezda, 1973, nos. 6–8.
Sovetskoe literaturovedenie i kritika: Russkaia sovetskaia literatura (obshchie raboty): Knigi i stat’i: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1966–70. (See the sections “Lit. kritika” and “Lit. diskussii.”)
Veiman, R. “Novaia kritika” i razvitie burzhuaznogo literaturovedeniia. Moscow, 1965.
Formirovanie marksistskoi literaturnoi kritiki v zarubezhnykh slavianskikh stranakh. Moscow, 1972.
“Zadachi i vozmozhnosti literaturnoi kritiki (Na mezhdunarodnom kongresse v Reimse).” Inostrannaia literatura, 1972, no. 9.
Teeter, L. “Scholarship and the Art of Criticism.” A Journal of English Literary History, 1938, no. 5.
Peyre, H. Writers and Their Critics. Ithaca, 1944.
Kayser, W. Das sprachliche Kunstwerk, 12th ed. Bern-Munich, 1967. (Bibliography.)
Wellek, R., and A. Warren. “Literary Theory, Criticism, and History.” In their book Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. New York, 1963. (Bibliography.)

V. L. MATVEEV