From Criticism to Theory

The Anglo-American usage of the term “criticism” is broad enough to embrace what is known in German as “Literaturkritik” as well as “Literaturwissenschaft”. The demarcation line between academia and journalism is fluid. In this respect, the ups and downs of criticism become the concern not only of literary scholars but also a broader intellectual public. In its most mundane form, criticism addresses works of art, whereby aesthetic, philosophical, poetological, or sociological considerations, though implicitly relevant, are byproducts. Criticism, then, can at times wield an immense influence on society; it can become an effective instrument of public education, as critics like Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) and F.R. Leavis (1895-1978) have demonstrated. In societies sustained by written culture, literature is a paragon of spiritual and intellectual life. Literary criticism functions as a guardian of such healthy state of affairs. The controversy between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow on “The Two Cultures” in the 1960s was a battle for the supremacy of either literary or scientific culture.2 Yet for all the seriousness with which criticism associates its mission, good criticism never aspires to usurp the primacy of the work of art. Whenever the critic loses sight of his secondary role, the artist is usually quick in putting him in his proper place as “the parasite on the back of the artist. For all their presumptions of intellectual superiority and privileged judgment, critics are, at best, the subservient explicators of the ‘creative’ arts, at worse their resentful usurpers.”3 Be that as it may, great authors, though resentful of unjust criticism, do not reject it outright. Let us look back to Molière, for example, who in his Critique de l’Ecole des Femmes (1663) was fair-minded enough to let the opposing factions engage with each other in a debate (which led to no conclusion), although we know only too well what was at the back of his mind. But it was the prescriptive or normative criticism, represented by the Académie Française and later by the prescriptive L’Art poétique of Boileau, that made the secondary discourse an oppressive force in society. The Romantics, and especially the German Romantics, did change all that, especially with their “practical” criticism that restored Shakespeare and the Spanish “Golden Age” to their rightful places. These were august examples of how great literature could rise from the native European soil, examples propped by theoretical considerations that gave inspiration to many creative artists in the early 19^th century. “Boileau ou Monsieur Schlegel!” was the battle cry of the French Romantics.4

The effectiveness of the secondary discourse then is a happy equilibrium between practical and theoretical criticism. The dilemma we are facing today is due to our unwitting departure from the middle path. Nomenclature can be revealing at times. (Literary) criticism was considered inadequate, as it was probably tied to the journalistic routine of book reviews, and the preoccupation with mere individual works hampered the progress towards general principles and “poetics”, (supposedly a corollary of the “science” of linguistics). So “theory of literature” à la Wellek & Warren was a welcoming interlude, which soon had to be abandoned as it merely served literary studies as an assemblage of general principles and was not ambitious enough to rise to the level of theorizing (when Frank Kermode edited The Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot in 1975, he was still hesitant to apply the term “theory” to his “Essays of Generalization”). The subtle shift from “theory of literature” to “literary theory” reflected an advance in self-confidence that did not take long to do away with the adjective “literary” altogether, culminating in the sole hegemony of “theory”, which has been wielding immense influence on the human and social sciences (the trajectory described above can be followed in bookshops in North America and the United Kingdom, which have been relabeling their shelves accordingly).

It is a known fact that the inspiration for this self-assertive “theory” hailed from France5 and that its most fertile growth occurred in American academia. It has been pointed out that some leading American scholars were already producing works with succinct theoretical implications that preceded the advent of “French Theory”. Harold Bloom was the case in point.6 In the hands of scholars who master huge repertoires, theory has not been divorced from the criticism of artworks. In other words, the balance between primary and secondary discourse was not disturbed. In lesser hand — and they are in the majority — theory becomes a new creed, indeed religion, full of abstractions, turning its back on real life and even sometimes on the “primary” discourse, reveling in its own rhetoric of pseudo-philosophy. Its proponents preach and instruct, transmitting messages that sound like sermons. Its hallmark is loquacity.

The epidemic has, alas, reached our Far Eastern shores. New graduates from many Western universities are ineffective as teachers. They refuse to teach courses that lie outside their (sub)specialties, and they likewise refuse to supervise theses whose subject matter is not within the purview of what they have been taught in Western graduate schools. Their mastery of original works of art is minimal, and their rejection (or ignorance) of the “canon” makes them more of a liability. In seminars or conferences, they mostly present papers that narrate the standpoints of their theoretical master(s). When it comes to research, they only go in search of local materials that can substantiate Western theories. The students are those who suffer, and scholarship cannot advance, because there remain so many research questions that these young academics are incapable of answering or unwilling to do so.

A Return to Common Sense

In his seminal work, Le Démon de la théorie (1998), Antoine Compagnon pleads for a judicious balance between common sense and theory. The great masters of the Yale School have since regained their “common sense”. Harold Bloom, in his “Indian Summer”, has returned to the canon, Shakespeare, and the “genii” in history. The French expert in narratology, Philippe Hamon, made a confession that when he produced those incomprehensible theoretical works, “J’étais dans la folie!”7 (I was just crazy!). Thus, my compatriots are 20-30 years behind those heavy-metal theoretical movements.

Most scholars of German, somehow, have remained sober in the face of these critical-theoretical vicissitudes. They know their Büchner well. It is not sufficient to know just Dantons Tod. Woyzeck is also an imperative.

It is true that we are living in an age in which people tend to talk too much. The advent of the mobile phone has further precipitated us into the abyss of loquacity, as I have demonstrated in an earlier paper.8 Maybe the new mode of living has impinged on the conduct of artists as well as academics.

The extreme confidence in the supremacy of the secondary discourse may have led us astray. We need to temper the loquacious turn with a laconic shift: Let us get back to reading Woyzeck!

2. See: Chetana Nagavajara, “Education without the Concept of ‘Two Cultures’.” In: Cultural Heritage versus Technological Development. Challenges to Education. Singapore: Maruzen Asia, 1981. [↩]
3. Rónán McDonald, The Death of the Critic. London, New York: Continuum, 2007, p. 8. [↩]
4. Chetana Nagavajara, Schlegel in Frankreich. Sein Anteil an der französischen Literaturkritik 1807-1835. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1966, Chapter VIII. [↩]
5. François Cusset, French Theory. Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 2003 (the title is deceptive, for the book is written by a Frenchman in French). [↩]
6. Ibid., p. 128-129. [↩]
7. One of his most indigestible books is Texte et idéologie (1984). The confession was made privately to Prof. Tasanee Nagavajara, Professor of French, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. [↩]
8. Chetana Nagavajara, “Über Macht, Allmacht und Ohnmacht der Sprache: Von Mündlichkeit über Schriftkultur zu Medienherrschaft.” In: Weimarer Beiträge 3/2007, volume 53, pp. 381-397. In that paper I quoted the poem “All Aboard” by the English poet Charles Tomlinson, a hilarious description of a train journey in which the speaker tries, unsuccessfully, to avoid the ubiquitous cellular phone. [↩]