Virginia Woolf and the Critic as Reader
Author(s): Mark Goldman
Source: PMLA, Vol. 80, No. 3 (Jun., 1965), pp. 275-284
Published by: Modern Language Association
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VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE CRITIC AS READER
BY MARK GOLDMAN
I. Reader and Critic
And Diana Trilling,in tryingto accountforVirginia
Woolf's critical position, also raises the
VIRGINIA WOOLF'S titleforthe twovolfamiliarchargeof aestheticismand subjectivity
umes of essays collectedin herlifetime,The
CommonReader,'has been takenfora descriptive in theessays. "And as we tryto understandwhy
image of the criticas impressionistor amateur someoneso richin appreciationwas so littlecapreader.In theprefaceto herfirstCommonReader, able of a true appreciationof greatness,we are
inevitablyreturnedto the subjective bases of
Mrs. Woolfexplainshertitleand epigraph,taken
Mrs. Woolf's literaryattitudes.... Art, Mrs.
fromDr. Johnson's"Life of Gray,"in place of a
Woolf
felt,mustbe freedfromits dependenceon
statementof purpose.Her descriptionis delibermaterial
fact: it mustnot sufferto be tied to the
ately casual and informal,but she provides a
commonfate of ordinaryhumanbeings;it must
structureand pointofviewforheressaysby adding that the commonreaderdoes wish to create createand celebratea beautywhichis largerthan
fromhisreading"some kindofwhole-a portrait 'reality'."5Mrs. Trillingconcludesherreviewby
formulating
VirginiaWoolfas a literaryessayist;
ofa man,a sketchofan age, a theoryoftheartof
writing."2Though Mrs. Woolf's deceptive re- and though she is somewhat less sympathetic
marks on the functionof criticismmay partly than Horace Gregory,both begin essentially
fromthe same premiseand so reflecta similar
accountforthepersistentviewofheras "reader"
ratherthan "critic" otherwritershave contrib- point of view.
uted to thestereotypeofVirginiaWoolfas an ocIt has oftenbeenremarked
ofVirginia
Woolfthatshe
on literature
ratherthana critic,
casional essayistand impressionist,
as a literary was a commentator
portraitpainterand miniaturist;or as an anti- morean antiquarianthana literaryanalyst.Now,
quarianrummaging
throughtheatticsofa rather as we readnotonlytheold essayswithwhichwe are
charmingbut peripheralpast. Unsympathetic alreadyfamiliarbut also the majorityof the new
is firmly
supreadershave carriedthebelletristic
imagefurther onesin 'The Moment,'the judgment
ported.Thereis no questionbutthatMrs.Woolfwas
and coupledit withthe conceptionof her fiction at herbest,and thatherbestwas
superlative
ofits
as a total immersionin pure subjectivityor (in
kind,whenshe was dealingwithlittle-known
figures
Sean O'Faolain's view)3as an exercisein thenovel
ofthepast whomshecouldre-create
outofscrapsof
as narcissism.Yet, in fairnessto reviewersofVir- lettersand journal,out of a remembered
morselof
giniaWoolf'sessays,it shouldbe notedthatboth
talkhereanda flashofscenethere,
ratherthanwhen
sheattempted
to takethefullmeaning
favorableand unfavorablecommentsseem to be
oftheworkof
an established
author.0
based on a similarconceptionof her as an appreciatoror impressionistratherthan a serious It is this basic premise,
then-the commonly
critic. Thus Horace Gregory,while presenting heldviewofVirginia
Woolfas thefamiliaressaywhat he feelsis a just and favorableestimateof ist or impressionist-that
leads inevitably to
VirginiaWoolfas an essayist,tendsto ignoreher
Mark Schorer'sconclusionabout herimportance
real value as a literarycritic.
I The CommonReader, first
series, 1925; The Common
In heressaysshewasmistress
ofwhatoftenhas been
Reader,
second series,1932. These have been supplemented
calledan 'outmoded'
andifoneadmitsthatthe
form,
familiar
essaywas amongthevehiclesof hergenius, by a seriesof posthumousvolumesedited by her husband,
Woolf(The DeathoftheMoth,1942; TheMomentand
one neednot concernone's selftoo deeplyoverthe Leonard
OtherEssays, 1947; The Captain's Death Bed,
Though
questionof herabilityin literary
criticism.
She was Mr. Woolfannounced,in the Editor's note to1950).
The Captain's
I
not, believe,vastlydisturbed
by problemsof the DeathBed, that thiswould be thelast posthumouscollection
intellect,
andbecauseshewasnot,onemayfindoneof ofessays,anothervolumeappearedin 1958 (withan explanaseveralreasonsforlack of ease in the presenceof torynoteby Mr. Woolf)entitledGraniteand Rainbow.
2 "The Common Reader," in The Common
Coleridge.
Sheexerted
an influence
inliterary
matters
Reader, first
1925 (London, 1951), p. 11.
becauseofhergiftsand herintelligence,
and because series,
I Sean O'Faolain, "Narcissa and Lucifer,"in New World
her artistryembracedthe arts of persuasionand
x (November1956), 161-175.
Writing,
charm.It is onlywhenhercriticism
appearsto be
4 Horace Gregory,"On VirginiaWoolfand Her Appeal to
incidental
to theportrait
of a literary
figurethatit
CommonReader," in The Shield ofAchilles(New York,
becomesconvincing
to theeye,and whentheportrait the
1944), p. 192.
is lacking,and whenthecriticism
takestheformofa
6 Diana Trilling,"Virginia Woolf's Special Realm," The
setargument,
theillumination
fades,and wehearonly New YorkTimesBookReview,21 March 1948,p. 28.
6 Ibid.
theringing
ofsmallbells.4
275
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276
VirginiaWoolfand theCriticas Reader
as a literarycritic."What one reads is no less a
portionof one's experiencethan any otheractivity; of presentpoint is the fact that Virginia
Woolfapproachedher reading,in her criticism,
as she approachedthe wholeof experiencein her
novels: withaggressivecuriosity,a refinedsensibility,but an exaggeratedsense of the relevance
ofimpression.. . . What is lacking,finally,is the
sense of value."7
It is obvious fromthe tenorof these critical
judgmentsthat the specterofimpressionism,
the
subjectivetaint of the Pater-Wildeinheritance,
stillhauntsthemoderncritic'simagination.It is
also this fear of impressionismor subjectivity
that lies behind the modern critical ideal of
scientific
objectivity.Yet by thistime,ofcourse,
boththefearofthediseaseand thefantasyofthe
cure should have been dispelled.As a matterof
fact,ifwe look again at thatlandmarkofmodern
criticism,T. S. Eliot's The Sacred Wood (1920),
we can now see that Eliot is not merelyreacting
against the "aesthetic" or impressionistic
criticism of the recent past, but is attemptingto
reconcileimpressionism
or "appreciation"and a
so-called "intellectual" criticism.Almost forty
yearslater,disturbedby the tremendousshiftin
the directionof objective or scientificcriticism,
Eliot renewedhis plea for a balance or middle
way betweenthe extremesof"appreciation"and
"understanding."8
VirginiaWoolf's criticism,it will be seen, reveals a similarattemptto reach a via media,a
creative balance between reason and emotion,
senseand sensibility,
theindividualcriticand the
impersonalmethod. While denyingthe dichotomy betweena so-called objectiveand subjective literarycriticism,Mrs. Woolf'skind of impressionism
achievesa criticalobjectivity,even a
structure.As Mrs. Woolfsays, at the beginning
of her long essay on the novel, "Phases of Fiction": "Yet, ifnobodysave the professionalhistorianand criticreads to understanda periodor
to revise a reputation,nobody reads simplyby
chanceor withouta definitescale ofvalues. There
is, to speak metaphorically,
some designthathas
been tracedupon ourmindswhichreadingbrings
to light."9Even AllenTate, one of theleadersof
the Southerngroupofanalystsor "New Critics,"
has emphasized,in theprefaceto a newcollection
of his essays, the need to preservethe critic's
pointofview,whichalone can lead to thehighest
and mostgenuinekindofliterarycriticism.
A critical
skepticcannotentirely
imaginetheuse ofa
in whichthecritictakesthedeisticpartof
criticism
absenteeexpositor.
To takethisroleis topretend
that
a methodcan accomplishwhat the responsible
inis aloneable to do. The act of criticism
telligence
is
analogous to the peripetyof tragedy;it is a crisisof
recognitionalways, and at times also of reversal,in
whichthe wholepersonis involved.The literarycritic
is committed,like everybodyelse, to a particular
stance,at a momentoftime;he is governedby a point
of view that method will not quite succeed in dispensing with. After the natural sciences began to
influenceliterarycriticism,scholarsheld that a point
of view withouta methodled inevitablyto impressionism.This need not follow;it is obvious why I
preferto thinkthat it need not.... I should like to
think that criticismhas been written,and may be
again, froma merepoint of view, such as I suppose
myselfto be possessedby.10
My purpose is to examine Mrs. Woolf's essays
on the art of reading rather than her criticism of
various writersor specific works of art. This approach is necessary, in view of what has been
said earlier, in order to reach some understanding
of her aesthetic or critical position; to arrive at a
more balanced or complex view of the common
reader as literary critic. Though the essays on
reading stress the need for sensibility over system, we can see Mrs. Woolf moving quickly from
individual perceptions to a critical position, from
the stance of a reader to the status of a critic.
As early as 1916, in an essay entitled "Hours in
a Library," Mrs. Woolf celebrated the delights of
7 Mark Schorer, "Virginia Woolf," The Yale Review,
xxxii (December1942),379.
8 "The Frontiersof Criticism,"in On Poetryand Poets
(London, 1957).
9 "Phases ofFiction,"in Graniteand Rainbow,ed. Leonard
Woolf(London, 1958), p. 93. This seriesappeared originally
in The Bookman,April,May, and June,1929. Though many
of Mrs. Woolf'sessays are fugitivepieces,or wereoriginally
reviews,some of the most importantcriticismderivesfrom
deliberatelyconceived critical essays (such as "Phases of
Fiction," which was originallyplanned as a book on the
novel). One can discoveran underlyingformor design by
tracingdominantthemes throughthe essays,and it is possible to arrangeMrs. Woolf'sessays in chronologicalor historical order so that her experimentalinterestsare seen
against a traditionalframework,revealingthe artist-critic
consciousoftheneed to createfromthe realityofthe present
whileconservativeof the values of the past. Her conception
of reality(see n. 15) leads to the concernfora literaryform
adequate to the modernsensibility,and thus to her many
essays on the novel and the art of fiction.Even theseessays
may be seen in historicalsequence,as a kindof surveyof the
novel. From this larger perspective,one finds that Mrs.
Woolf'sapproach to modernfictionand to her own workis
more traditionalthan has generallybeen recognized.Her
interestin a possiblebalancingofproseand poetryin fiction
is incorporatedinto a more conservativetheory,or a new
synthesisforthe modernnovel. Her own fictioncan thenbe
seen as a morecomprehensive
progresstowardthissynthesis
rather than as an increasinglysubjective evolution that
reached its climax with The Waves and declined steadily
thereafter
in vain attemptsto repeatherearlierperformances.
10Allen Tate, "Preface" to The Man of Lettersin the
Modern World: Selected Essays; 1928-1955 (New York:
MeridianBooks, 1955), p. 7.
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MarkGoldman
readingand proclaimedthe freedomof the private readeragainsttheauthorityofthespecialist
or man of learning.
Let us beginbyclearing
up theoldconfusion
between
themanwholoveslearning
and themanwholoves
reading,and the pointthat thereis no connection
whateverbetweenthe two. A learnedman is a
whosearchesthrough
sedentary
enthusiast,
booksto
someparticular
discover
grainoftruthuponwhichhe
has set hisheart.If thepassionforreadingconquers
andvanishbeneathhisfingers.
him,hisgainsdwindle
A reader,
on theotherhand,mustcheckhisdesirefor
at theoutset;ifknowledge
learning
sticksto himwell
and good,but to go in pursuitof it, to read on a
to becomea specialist
system,
oran authority,
is very
apt tokillwhatit suitsus to consider
themorehuman
passionforpureanddisinterested
reading."
Her own ".pure and disinterested"passion for
books began at the age of fifteen,when her
father,the Victorianscholarand critic,Sir Leslie
Stephen,gave hertherunofhis large,"quite unexpurgated"library.The pains she takes to preserve her amateur standing and independent
spiritas a criticare also an inheritancefromher
father, as she reveals in her essay "Leslie
Stephen." "To read what one liked because one
likedit, neverto pretendto admirewhatone did
not-that was his onlylessonin the art of reading. To write in the fewestpossible words, as
clearlyas possible,exactlywhatone meant-that
was his onlylessonin the art of writing."'2
In an essay simplycalled "Reading,"'3 Mrs.
XVoolfagain reflectson the strange seductive
powerof books, this time indulgingher impressionistfancyas she ramblesover the rich landscape of Englishliterature.Here is the sense of
literatureas part of the Englishlifeand land, as
an old house and garden and rolling downs
stretchingtowardthe sea wherethe Elizabethan
voyagerstookship and sailed forthe new world.
The sense of historicaltraditionruns through
Mrs. Woolf'sessays,and shesees literaryhistory,
fromthe "Pastons and Chaucer"'4to thepresent
age, as an evolutionaryprocessin the discovery
ofreality.'5It is thishistoricalprocessor progress
thatmaybe foreshortened
in thepages ofa book,
read in an armchairby thewindowwiththelight
slanting over the shoulder and the sounds of
summerdrifting
in.
Thesewerecircumstances,
perhaps,to turnthemind
to thepast. Alwaysbehindthevoice,thefigure,
the
thereseemedto stretchan immeasurable
fountain,
avenue,thatran to a pointof othervoices,figures,
fountains
whichtaperedout indistinguishably
upon
thefurther
horizon.I couldsee Keats and Pope behindhim,andthenDrydenandSirThomasBrownehostsof themmerging
in the massof Shakespeare,
behindwhom,ifonepeeredlongenough,
someshapes
277
ofmenin pilgrim's
dressemerged,Chaucerperhaps,
and again-whowas it? someuncouthpoetscarcely
able to syllablehiswords;and so theydiedaway.'"
But the art ofreadingis also a criticalmatter,
as Mrs. Woolfdemonstrates
in theessayconcluding the second CommonReader, "How Should
One Read a Book?" Originallypresentedas a
talk, the audience must have realized that as
readerstheywere to be createdin Mrs. Woolf's
image. At the outset,she again admonishesthe
readerto followhisowncriticalconscience,in the
Cambridge-Bloomsbury
tradition of the individual against authorityand conformity.
To be
open-minded,to get rid of all preconceptions
about the authorand the workwhenwe read,is
the firststep not merelytowardenjoymentbut
understanding.
"Steep yourselfin this,acquaint
yourselfwith this,and soon you will findthat
yourauthoris givingyou, or attemptingto give
you,somethingfarmoredefinite.The thirty-two
chaptersofa novel-if we considerhowto read a
novelfirst-arean attemptto makesomethingas
formedand controlledas a building;but words
are more impalpable than bricks; readingis a
longerand morecomplexprocessthan seeing."'7
The reading process is intensified,
then, as we
turn to the familiarquestion of form.What is
clearly revealed here, and implicitthroughout
her essays,is a creativetensionin her criticism
betweenthe emotionalresponse,the impression,
the experienceof the work,and its rationalexplanation and evaluation-on formal grounds
and in termsof traditionalstandards.As a psychologicalnovelist,Mrs. Woolfwas committedto
the "unconscious"self,as she describesthe creativesource,as wellas to theequallyessentialtool
11 "Hours in a Library," in
Graniteand Rainbow,p. 24.
Originallyprinted in the Times LiterarySupplement,30
November 1916, the title of the essay is taken fromher
father'scollectionofessaysand reviews.
12
"Leslie Stephen,"in The Captain'sDeathBed,p. 72.
13 In The Captain's Death Bed.
14
In The CommonReader,firstseries.
15 A discussionof
Mrs. Woolf'sconceptionofrealitywould
requirea separateessay. It would be possible,as a matterof
fact,to arrangeherownessayschronologically
fora surveyof
literatureseen fromthe perspectiveof her ideas on reality.
Mrs. Woolf'sapproach to the real in literaryhistoryresembles Erich Auerbach's,in his book Mimesis; The Representation of Realityin WesternLiterature,trans. Willard Trask
(Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957). Though much of Mrs.
Woolf'scriticismis an attemptto deal witha specificwork,
she is also concernedwith the age in which the workwas
writtenand how it influencedthe author's perspectiveor
view of reality. As an experimentalnovelist,however,she
subscribedto an evolutionarytheoryof the real leading to
the moderntriumphof the innerspiritover externalmatter,
therealovertherealistic.
16"Reading," p. 141.
17 "How
Should One Read A Book?" in The Common
Reader,secondseries,p. 259.
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278
VirginiaWoolfand theCriticas Reader
for the writer,the criticalintelligence.Though
her faithin sensibilitymay also be part of her
feminine
characteristic
protestagainstmasculine,
academic authority,the critic's emotional responseto theworkofart was integral,as we shall
see, to the Bloomsburyaesthetic.
Mrs. Woolf'sargumentis furthercomplicated
whentheidea offormis associatedwithfeelingor
emotion,a point to be exploredin connection
with her essay "On Re-reading Novels." In
"How Should One Read a Book?" she refersto
the idea of perspective,a recurrentcriticalterm
in her essays relatedto the writer'sapproachto
realityand thus to the formof his work.If the
readerwould turnwriter,Mrs. Woolfobserves,
of imposingform
he would realize the difficulty
on the fleetingimpressionsoflife,of creatingart
out of the chaos of experience.For the great
writers,thoughthey see the worldin as many
waysas theirbookssuggest,submitto thedimenconsistentworldthatis
sionsof a self-contained,
the single work of art. "The maker of each is
carefulto observethelaws ofhisownperspective,
and howevergreat a straintheymay put upon
us they will never confuseus, as lesser writers
twodifferent
kinds
frequently
do, by introducing
ofrealityintothesame book."'8Mrs. Woolfconsidersa numberofgenresin the essay on reading
a book, and in her discussionof poetryquotes
froma seriesof poems forpurposesof comparison. Reading involves comparison,she says,
whichleads inevitablyto the finalact of evaluationor judgment.Merelyby givingshape to the
book, by imposingformon those emotionsexperiencedby the passive reader,one begins to
exercisethefunctionof the criticand the judge.
"The firstprocess,to receive impressionswith
is only half the prothe utmostunderstanding,
cess ofreading;it mustbe completed,ifwe are to
get the wholepleasurefroma book, by another.
We mustpass judgmentupon thesemultitudinous impressions;we mustmake of thesefleeting
shapes one that is hard and lasting."'9The most
difficulttask for the reader is the necessityto
compareand judge; to read, as it were,without
the book in frontof himin orderto pinpointthe
qualitiesofa workand determineits finalworth.
He must"train his taste" not onlyto read creatively,withinsightand imagination,but to read
critically;to evaluate a workin termsof its internallaws and againstthegreattraditionwhich
was thefinalstandardforVirginiaWoolf.
It is interesting
to compareMIrs.Woolf'scritic
as impressionist-judge
withherfather'sviews on
the functionof criticism.Though a followerof
Arnold,Leslie Stephenwantedto go beyondthe
criticaltouchstonein orderto incorporatea body
of criticaljudgmentsinto a kindofliterarycaselaw. Yet even the positivist-minded
Stephenreserveda place forthe critic'semotionalresponse,
as he makes clear in the essay "Thoughts on
Criticismby a Critic." "This vivacityand originalityof feelingis the firstqualificationof a
critic.Without it no man's judgmentis worth
having." And again, fromthe other direction:
"A good critic can hardly express his feelings
A
withoutimplicitlylayingdown a principle."20
modernhumanistcritic,Norman Foerster,has
also stressedthe twofoldresponseto the workof
art, even whilestatinghis case fora revitalized
ethical criticism."He will read it in two ways,
firstone way and then the other,or else in two
One way we may speak of
ways,simultaneously.
as 'feelingthe book,' the otheras 'thinkingthe
book'."21Leslie Stephen and Norman Foerster
may be regardedas humanistsmakingsome allowance for impressionism;and VirginiaWoolf
as an impressionistmerelyacknowledgingthe
judicial functionof the critic.Yet the same conflictbetweenimpressionand judgment,thought
and feeling,has been notedin the earlyessays of
T. S. Eliot. The rejectionof Arnoldand Pater
(and hisfollowers)was behindEliot's attempt,in
The Sacred Wood, to deny the dichotomyof
thoughtand feeling(dissociationof sensibility),
whichhe feltencouragedimpressionism
(and abstract scientism). Eliot's position is actually
close to Mrs. Woolf'snotionofa fusionofcritical
functions,thoughhis intentionis morerigorous
and programmatic
in thelightofhispoeticaims,
as we can see fromthe earlyessays.
Such considerations,
cast in thisgeneralform,may
But I believethatit is always
appearcommonplace.
to callattention
to thetorpidsuperstition
opportune
that appreciationis one thing,and 'intellectual'
criticismsomethingelse. Appreciation
in popular
is one facultyand criticism
psychology
another,an
arid clevernessbuildingtheoretical
scaffoldsupon
or thoseof others.On the
one's own perceptions
the truegeneralization
is not something
contrary,
ofperceptions;
the
superposed
uponan accumulation
perceptions
do not, in a reallyappreciative
mind,
accumulateas a mass, but formthemselves
as a
and criticism
is thestatement
in language
structure;
of thisstructure;
it is a development
ofsensibility.22
Paradoxically,forMrs. Woolf,the readermay
18 Ibid., p. 260.
19Ibid., p. 266.
20 "Thoughtson Criticism
by a Critic,"CornhillMagazine,
xxxiv (November1876), 564.
21 "The Esthetic Judgment
and The Ethical Judgment,"
in ModernLiteraryCriticism,ed. Ray B. West (New York,
1961), pp. 215-216.
22T. S. Eliot, "The PerfectCritic," in The Sacred Wood
(London,1920; UniversityPaperbacks,'1960),p. 15.
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MarkGoldman
279
at last turn to the great writersand critics,to
Woolfseems to avoid the dichotomousmonster
authority,afterhe has servedhislongapprentice- by approachingthe questionfromthe point of
shipin theart of reading.It is onlythenthathe
view of the readerratherthan the writer.In her
can profitfromthe decisionsof a greatjudge, a
essay "On Re-readingNovels,"26Mrs. Woolfgets
Dryden,a Samuel Johnson,or a Coleridge."But
at the crucialquestionof formby way of Percy
Lubbock's nowclassicwork,The CraftofFiction.
they are only able to help us if we come laden
withquestionsand suggestionswon honestlyin
ReviewingLubbock's book whenit appeared in
thecourseofourownreading.They can do noth- 1922,Mrs. Woolfdeclaresthat it is a step in the
ingforus ifwe herdourselvesundertheirauthor- directionof a seriousaestheticforthe novel. She
ity and lie down like sheep in the shade of a
agreeswithhis emphasison form,on the proper
hedge.We can onlyunderstandtheirrulingwhen readingof thenovelas novel,as pattern,as work
it comesin conflictwithour own and vanquishes of art. But she takes exceptionto his use of the
it."23 Mrs. Woolf'sessays,then,reveal a contin- term"form"itself.It is not only a questionof
ual effortto resolvethe apparentcriticalconflict wordsforMrs. Woolf,but goes deeper,"into the
betweenreasonand emotion,the individualand
veryprocessofreadingitself."She illustratesher
authority,abstractrulesand the concretefactof
argumentwitha close readingof Flaubert's"Un
the workof art. And it is clear fromthe conclu- Cceur simple." And her sense of the crucial
sion of her essay that thisexactingprogramfor points of the storyand the relationsset up bethe commonreaderis essentialto her own crea- tweenthesepointshas to do not withsomething
tivityas novelist,reviewer,or critic.If thereader seen but withsomethingfelt.It is the "moments
is not to fallvictimto the ordinaryreviewerand
ofunderstanding"
thatcount,evenin oursecond,
his weeklyabandonmentof criticismforadver- closerreadingofthe work."Therefore,the 'book
he must be able to maintainthosestan- itself'is not formwhichyou see, but emotion
tising,24
dards whichare the resultof the profounddisci- whichyou feel,and themoreintensethewriter's
pline describedin her essay. She aligns herself feeling the more exact . . . its expression in
oncemorewiththeprivatereaderratherthanthe
words."Thus, Mrs. Woolfadds, she has reached
professionalcritic,but the kindofreadershe enherconceptionof"Un Cceursimple"by working
visionsis one whoseinfluencewill be feltby the
"fromthe emotionoutwards" and "among all
writerand thusinevitablyby literatureitself.
thistalk ofmethods,bothin writingand in readIn
We mustremainreaders;we shall not put on the ing it is the emotionthat must come first."27
further
glorythatbelongsto thoserarebeingswho "How Should One Read a Book," Mrs. Woolfinare also critics.But stillwe haveourresponsibilities sisted that readingwas a morecomplexprocess
as readersand evenourimportance.
The standards than seeing. In this essay, "On Re-reading
we raiseand thejudgments
wepass stealintotheair
Novels," she clarifiesher point by discussing
and becomepart of the atmosphere
whichwriters formas an emotionalratherthan a visual patis createdwhich tern.To betterunderstandMrs. Woolf'sdefinibreatheas theywork.An influence
tellsupon themevenif it neverfindsits way into tionofformand herinsistenceon thatdefinition,
if it werewellinstructed,
print.Andthatinfluence,
andindividual
andsincere,
vigorous
mightbe ofgreat it would be instructiveto see the connectionbein abeyance; tweenMrs. Woolf'saestheticand the theoriesof
valuenowwhencriticism
is necessarily
whenbooks pass in reviewlike the processionof herBloomsburyfriends,the art criticsClive Bell
animalsin a shooting
and thecritichas only and RogerFry.
gallery,
one secondin whichto load and aim and shootand
Clive Bell had formulated his celebrated
may well be pardonedif he mistakesrabbitsfor phrase,"significant
form,"in 1914,in a book enor missesaltogether titledArt;28thoughRoger Fry had suggesteda
tigers,
eaglesforbarndoor
fowls,
and wasteshis shotuponsomepeacefulcowgrazing similaridea in 1909, in "An Essay in Aesthetin a further
field.If behindtheerraticgunfire
ofthe
presstheauthorfeltthattherewas anotherkindof
theopinionof peoplereadingforthelove
criticism,
23 "How Should
One Read A Book?" p. 269.
of reading,slowlyand unprofessionally,
and judging
24 Mrs. Woolf'sthoughtson reviewing,
and its relationto
withgreatsympathy
and yet withgreatseverity, criticism,
can be foundin an essay (originallya pamphlet)
mightthisnotimprovethequalityofhiswork?And called "Reviewing,"in TheCaptain'sDeathBed.
ifbyourmeansbooksweretobecomestronger,
richer,
2Z "How Should One Read A Book?" pp. 269-270.
11In The Momentand OtherEssays.
and morevaried,thatwouldbe an endworthreaching.25
II. SignificantForm
The concernforthe reader as criticleads inevitably to a discussionof form,though Mrs.
27 "On Re-readingNovels," p. 130. In discussingTurgenev'sfiction,Mrs. Woolfstates that he saw his novelsnot
as a "successionof events; but as a successionof emotions
radiatingfromsome characterat thecentre"("The Novels of
Turgenev,"in TheCaptain'sDeathBed. p. 58).
28 London: Chatto and
Windus,1949.
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280
VirginiaWoolfand theCriticas Reader
ics."29 Both critics base their conception of
"significantform" on the so-called "aesthetic
emotion" which works of art are capable of
And thisemotionis a responseto a
transmitting.
significantpatternof relations,the formof the
work,whichis in turnthe perfectand complete
expressionof an idea, an emotion,a "vision of
reality,"as Mrs. Woolfwouldsay, in themindof
the artist.In maintainingthe balance between
formand feeling,Bell triesto avoid, as does Mrs.
Woolf,theso-called"affective
fallacy"on theone
hand, and the "intentionalfallacy"30on the
other."Therefore,when the criticcomes across
satisfactoryformhe need not botherabout the
feelingsof the artist;forhimto feelthe aesthetic
significanceof the artist'sformssuffices.If the
artist'sstate of mind be important,he may be
sure that it was right because the formsare
right."3'
In "An Essay In Aesthetics,"Roger Fry definesthe same relationbetweenformand emotion. "When the artistpasses frompure sensations to emotionsaroused by means of sensations, he uses natural forms,which,in themselves,are calculatedto move our emotions,and
he presentsthesein sucha mannerthattheforms
themselvesgenerate in us emotional states."32
Fry repeatshis point about the idea, or state of
mind,or emotionbehindthe "significantform"
of the work of art, in "The Artist's Vision."
When we contemplatea workof art,he says-a
Sung bowl,forexample-"there comesto us . . .
a feelingof purpose;we feelthat all thosesensually logical conformities
are the outcome of a
particularfeeling,or ofwhat,forwantofa better
word,we call an idea; and we may even say that
thepot is theexpressionoftheidea in theartist's
mind."33We can see fromthisdiscussiontherelationbetweenwhat Fry calls,in one of his books,
"Vision and Design."
Turningagain to Mrs. Woolf'sessay "On RereadingNovels," withBell and Fry in the background,we can understandMrs. Woolf'sinsistenceon theemotionalsignificance
ofform.If her
account of the critical(and creative) processis
true,thereis no possibility,she would maintain,
ofestablishingthe classicdichotomyofformand
content.Only the imperfectworks,she insists,
allow us to separate the two. In a great novel,
thereis a perfectfusionthat leaves no "slip or
chink"; nothingis left,in fact,but the formof
the workentirein the mind.In answerto Lubbock, she repeats: "There is vision and expression. The two blend so perfectlythat whenMr.
Lubbock asks us to test the formwithour eyes
we see nothingat all. But we feel withsingular
satisfaction,and since all our feelingsare in
keeping,theyforma wholewhichremainsin our
mindsas the book itself."34
Once Mrs. Woolfhas drawnherfinebut necessarydistinctionbetweenLubbock's and herown
conceptionof form,she restoresthe balance betweenart and emotion.In Bell and Fry,and in
herown essays,we have seen thatformis theresult of, and results in, emotion. Yet, as Mrs.
Woolfhas also maintained,formis by definition
that controlling,
orderingprocesswhichwe call
art. On these terms,she is willingto agree with
Lubbock. "Is therenot somethingbeyondemotion, somethingwhich thoughit is inspiredby
emotion,tranquillisesit,ordersit,composesit?that which Mr. Lubbock calls form,whichfor
simplicity'ssake, we call art?"35By insistingon a
of form,Mrs. Woolfseems to
twofolddefinition
be lettingin the back door what she has just
pushed out the front.Yet we have seen that her
criticisminvolves a basic counterpointof form
and feeling,art and emotion-saving herfroma
criticalnihilismon the one hand and a rigid,
systematicaestheticon theother.
The emotional or impressionisticpattern
ascribed to the novel is of course analogous to
Mrs. Woolf's experimentalstructurein her fiction. Though a Jamesianin her demandsforan
aestheticnovel, she is unwillingto accept Lubbock's visual sense of form,whichderivesfrom
James.36In this context,J. K. Johnstone'sattemptto tracea directline fromFry's aesthetic
to VirginiaWoolf's theoryand practice of fiction,37whilevalid to some extent,ignoresMrs.
Woolf'sskepticismtowardany visual conception
of form,and towardFry's own plastic approach
to the verbalart offiction.
When Mrs. Woolfrefers,in her biographyof
Roger Fry, to his literarycriticism,thereis a
note of professionalskepticismin the midst of
praiseforan astute,persuasiveargument."As a
criticofliterature,
then,he was notwhatis called
a safe guide. He looked at the carpet fromthe
wrongside; but he made it forthat reason display unexpected patterns. And many of his
theoriesholdgood forbotharts.Design,rhythm,
29 Included in
Vision and Design (firstpublishedin 1920;
reprinted
by MeridianBooks,New York,1956).
30 For a discussionof these "fallacies," see the firsttwo
essaysin W. K. Wimsatt'sThe VerbalIcon (Noondayedition,
1962).
31 Bell,Art,p. 62.
2
Fry,p. 37.
33Fry,"The Artist'sVision,"in Visionand Design.
"On Re-readingNovels," p. 130.
13.
36See JosephWarrenBeach, The Methodof HenryJames
(Philadelphia:AlbertSaifer,1954), p. 31.
37 See the chapteron Bloomsbury
aestheticsin J. K. Johnstone,The Bloomsbury
Group(New York, 1954).
34
35 Ibid., p.
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MarkGoldman
texture-there they were again-in Flaubert as
in Cezanne. And he would hold up a book to the
lightas ifit werea pictureand showwherein his
view-it was a painter's of course-it fell
short."38Yet Fry's insistenceon form,pattern,
design-inherentin his admirationfor Cezanne
and the Post-Impressionists-undoubtedly
reinforcedMrs. Woolf'sbelief,inheritedfromJames
and Flaubert, in the aesthetic or "well-made"
novel. Mrs. Woolfalso tells us in her biography
ofFrythathe had a theoryabout theinfluenceof
Post-Impressionism
on literature,
whichhe never
had timeto workout. Fry appears to have incorporatedpart of thistheoryintohis essay,"Some
Questions in Esthetics," where he attemptsto
purifypaintingby purgingit of all but plastic
values and, at thesame time,to createforliteraturean equivalentpurityofform.Since each art,
Fry feels,has its own raisond'etre,its propercriteriaforcreatingand judgingit as art,literature
shouldriditselfofthoseexcrescenceswhichMrs.
Woolfdecriedin her famousessays on the Edwardians.39Fry refersto A. C. Bradley's statementon the autonomyof poetry,and goes on to
say: "For poetryin thispassage we may,I think,
substitutethe idea of any literatureas pure art.
The passage at least suggeststo us that the purpose of literatureis the creationof structures
whichhave forus thefeelingofreality,and these
structuresare self-contained,
self-sufficient
and
not to be valued by theirreferenceto what lies
outside."40Here thenis the beliefin the autonomy of art, which Mrs. Woolf consistentlyendorses in her essays. Fry's friend,the French
aestheticianCharlesMauron,had evensuggested
a way forliteratureto achieve the formalpurity
of paintingby transposing"the idea of volumes
fromthe dominionof space to the domain of
spiritand conceivethe literaryartistas creating
'psychologicalvolumes'."'" We can see how the
idea of "psychologicalvolumes" fitsin withMrs.
Woolf'sown subjectivenovel,whichis both formal and psychological.
Mrs. Woolf'sinsistenceon the crucialrelation
betweenreasonand emotionstemsfromherrole
Her experiments
as an artist-critic.
in the novel,
led paradoxicallyto a
subjective,impressionistic,
criticalstrugglewithform,and herdefenseofan
emotionalstructurein the novel-against Lubbock's visual form-parallelsherown experience
as an intenselysubjectiveyet tenaciouslyobjective literaryartist.She was intentupon preserving a balance betweenformand feeling,and she
is careful,as we have noted, to distinguishbetween the emotionaland intellectualor critical
basis of form.We have seen that thisdiscussion
leads to a denial of the familiardichotomyof
281
formand content,to an emphasis on organic
form,to the perfectfusionof what Mrs. Woolf
calls "vision and expression."This account of
organicor expressiveformis similar,as we have
also seen, to the concept of "significantform"
developedby Clive Bell and RogerFry,and may
be traced to Coleridge'sfamousorganictheory,
with its subjectiveappeal to the powersof the
imaginationand its objective referenceto the
organic relation between the parts and the
whole.Mrs. Woolf'sreference
to an organicform
forthe novel reveals her again as a followerof
Henry James,whose pioneeringinterestin the
novel as art led to his insistence,in "The Artof
Fiction,"on the organicnatureof the novel. "A
novel is a livingthing,all one and continuous,
like any otherorganism,and in proportionas it
lives willit be found,I think,that in each of the
parts there is somethingof each of the other
parts."41
The Americantranscendentalists,
Emerson, Whitman,Thoreau,stressedthe subjective
side of Coleridge'stheory,usingbotanicalimageryto describethe freeor natural development
of formout of the artist'svision or inspiration.
But forJamesand VirginiaWoolforganicform
is an objectivepatternofrelations,theresultnot
only of emotionor intuition,but of art and the
artist's "critical labour," as Eliot terms it in
"The Functionof Criticism."4"
III. The Via Media
It is not hard to demonstratethat Virginia
Woolf,thoughher essays are informaland impressionistic,
reallybelongsto themoderncritical
tradition,withits emphasison theformal,objectivevalues oftheworkofart.Yet it hardlyseems
necessaryany longerto declareone's adherence
to some defiantlymoderncriticalstandard.It no
formoderncriticismto
longerseemsmeaningful
insiston its freedomfromany romantic-impressionistheritage.If the mythic"old" criticismis
dead and the new criticalhorsehas been feeding
in the academic stable, why go on
comfortably
beatingeither?If timehas givenus newperspec38 VirginiaWoolf,
Roger Fry: A Biography(New York,
1940), p. 240.
39 See especially"ModernFiction,"in The Common
Reader,
firstseries; and "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," in The
Captain's DeathBed.
40 "Some Questions in Aesthetics," in Transformations
(firstprintedin 1926,reprinted
in 1956by Doubleday Anchor
Books), p. 11.
41Ibid. See CharlesMauron's The Natureof Beautyin Art
and Literature(London, 1927), a book published by the
Woolfsand translatedby Fry.
42 In West,ModernLiteraryCriticism,
p. 42.
"3 In SelectedEssays: New Edition (New York, 1950).
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282
VirginiaWoolfand theCriticas Reader
tive on the criticalpropagandistsof the recent
past, therealvalue maylie in seeingmoderncriticismas part of the unendingdialecticon classic
literaryquestions.
As MurrayKriegerhas shown,one crucialdialectic of moderncriticismderivesfromthe conflict,firstseen in T. E. Hulme and T. S. Eliot,
betweena beliefin theromanticimaginationand
the classical impersonalityof art."4Eliot's early
objectivity,and traemphasison impersonality,
ditionwereattemptsto resolvethe Coleridgeian
dilemmaof subject and object by pretendingto
ignoretheromantictheoryofexpressionin favor
of a classical theoryof imitation.Amongother
things,the classical smokescreenof Hulme and
Eliot was a way of escaping the stigma of the
school.
impressionist
Pater-Wilde-Symons
Othercriticsin the Eliot line had to contend
with the Italian aesthetician,Benedetto Croce,
whoseexpressionisttheoryof art seemedto preclude the kind of analysisdemandedby the formalist or "New Critics."4"Croce's expressionist
philosophy
theoryappearedto be a neo-romantic
invioofart,withtheartist'sintuition-expression
late and essentiallyuntranslatable."Criticism
does not requireanythingelse than to know the
truesentimentof the poet is the representative
formin which he translatedit. Any other demand is extraneousto the question."4"Croce's
dichotexpressionismresolvesthe form-content
omy,but witha finalitythat defendstheartist's
imaginationor intuition against the kind of
analysisessentialto the moderncritic.
I. A. Richards,whosepioneeringemphasison
a linguisticanalysisofliteraturehad suchimpact
also produceda kindofemon moderncriticism,
critic,with
barrassingroadblockfortheformalist
hispsychologicalor affective
theoryofliterature.
As a psychologist,Richardsseemed,in his early
work, to emphasize the therapeuticvalue of
literature:literatureas a way of feelingrather
thanofknowing.But thisconcernwiththe emotionalvalue ofart-with thereader'sresponseto
the workover the workitself,tends to destroy
the very value of art as a self-containedapproach to reality.47In order to emphasize the
complexityofmoderncriticismin its attemptsto
answerthe classicquestions,it is onlynecessary,
finally,to referto JohnCrowe Ransom's attack
on Richards.Though Ransom reproachesRichards forhis psychologismand neglectof the objective work,Ransom's own distinctionbetween
"structure,"or the logical frameworkof the
poem, and "texture," or the rich local details,
dilemmabut in
does notresolvetheform-content
factsustainsit.48
further
Withoutventuring
intothislabyrin-
thineproblem,we may say, then,that modern
criticismhas not escaped or resolvedthe imitation-expression,
subject-objectdilemmainherited
fromthenineteenth
century.Andifwe turnback
to that prototype of impressionistcriticism,
Walter Pater, we see the same questionsraised
and an attemptto finda criticalvia mediathat
anticipatesthe concernof his modernfollower,
VirginiaWoolf.Rene Wellektriesto reevaluate
Pater as a criticin termsofthisdual emphasison
the usual intersubject and object. In correcting
pretationof Pater's Prefaceto The Renaissance,
Wellek remarks: "Pater's theory of criticism
stressesnot only personal impressionsbut the
the
dutyof the criticto grasp the individuality,
unique quality of the workof art. Pater never
advocatestheimpressionist
theoryofthe'adventuresofthesoul amongmasterpieces,'the'speaking of myselfon occasion of Shakespeare,'as it
was formulatedby Anatole France."4"Pater's
reactionagainst the moral criticismof Carlyle,
Ruskin,and Morrisled to a Coleridgeianconcern
with formand an endorsementof art for art
whichmaybe relatedto thenon-utilitarian
ethics
of the Bloomsburyphilosopher,G. E. Moore,
whose insistence that art is an intrinsicor
ethicalgoodinfluenced
Bell and Fryand Virginia
values of
Woolfin theirfaithin theself-contained
art.60Pater's famousassertionthat "all art constantlyaspirestowardthe conditionof music"61
has also been misinterpreted
as an extremeexample of aestheticism.Yet it is only another
variationon the notionof organicor expressive
form.Pater refersto musicbecause it is the most
abstractof the arts and providesthe best example of unityor a fusionof formand content.In
expandingupon this point in "The School of
Giorgione,"Pater anticipates Eliot and Mrs.
Woolf and their concern for a combiningof
4" See especiallythe firsttwochaptersofMurrayKrieger's
TheNev A pologists
forPoetry(Minneapolis,1956).
45See MurrayKrieger'sarticle,"BenedettoCroceand The
Recent Poetics Of Organicism,"Comparative
Literature,
vII,
No. 3 (1955), 252-258.
46Quoted in Brooks and Wimsatt,LiteraryCriticism:A
ShortHistory(New York,1959),p. 515.
47 See Allen Tate's article, "The Present Function Of
Criticism,"in West, Essays in Modern LiteraryCriticism,
pp. 145-154.
48 See the chapteron Richards in John Crowe Ransom's
The New Criticism(New York, 1941), and Ransom's article,
"Criticismas Pure Speculation,"in West's anthology,cited
above.
49 Ren6 Wellek, "Walter Pater's Literary Theory and
Criticism,"VictorianStudies(September1957),p. 30.
50 For a full-scaletreatmentof the ethical and aesthetic
ofG. E. Moore on Bloomsbury,see J.K. Johnstone,
influence
TheBloomsbury
Group,especiallyParti.
51 WalterPater, "The Schoolof Giorgione,"
in The Renaissance (Modem LibraryEdition),p. 111.
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MarkGoldman
thoughtand feeling,reason and emotion:"but
form and matter, in their union or identity,
present one single effectto the 'imaginative
reason,' that complex facultyfor which every
withits sensible
thoughtand feelingis twin-born
analogue or symbol.It is the art of musicwhich
most completelyrealizes this artisticideal, this
ofmatterand form."52
perfectidentification
The modern analytical critics,organic and
contextualin orientation,have also been,inevitably, art forart; and Mrs. Woolf'spersistentregardfortheformalproblemsofprosefictionand
poetryhas perhapsbeen ignoredbecause she has
neglectedthe morerigoroustools of the analysts
for the formand style of the essayist. She has
suffereda certainneglectas a seriouscriticfor
choosingthe middleway betweentheindividual,
emotionalexperienceand the analytical,evaluative, or judicial responsibility-ina more rigid
age where critics are predominantlyteacherspecialistsratherthan practicingartistsor reviewerswith a very real stake in the criticas
commonreader. As an essayist,reviewer,and
as a Bloomsburyindividualistand
artist-critic;
feministsensitiveto her own Victorianlack of a
universityeducation, she reacted instinctively
orpositivist-minded
againstall prescriptive
criticism as a product of the uncreativeacademies
and academicians whom she suspected and
scorned.Mrs. Woolf'sprejudicesare apparentin
an articleon the well-known
Englishscholarand
critic,WalterRaleigh,whosecommentson literatureshe compareswiththoseof the greatartistcritics."There is nothingto suggestthat literature was a matterof profoundinterestto him
when he was not lecturingabout it. When we
read the lettersof Keats, the diaryof the Goncourts,thelettersofLamb, thecasual remarksof
that unfashionablepoet Tennyson,we feelthat,
waking or sleeping, these men never stopped
thinkingabout literature.. . . Whatevertheyare
doingtheirmindsfillup involuntarily
withsome
aspect of the absorbingquestion."53Mrs. Woolf
reflectsthe impatienceand prejudiceof the artist-critic,which she shares with T. S. Eliot.
Though she was consciousof her own role as a
criticand of the formaldemandsand legitimate
aims of literarycriticism,there is a growing
tendencyin her writingto suspectthe fallibility
of criticsand criticismresultingfroma too-great
dependenceupon abstract rules and principles.
Her artist soul became skeptical of her critical
brain; and thoughher essays on the novel, for
example,reveal a brilliantbody of formalcriticism,she is consciousofa wideninggap between
the aestheticdiscoveriesresultingfromher experimentsin fictionand thesomewhatsuperficial
283
conclusionsshe findsin most literarycriticism.
As artist and Bloomsbury individualist,she
blames the academies for the presentstate of
as we notedin hertreatmentofWalter
criticism,
Raleigh. In "How It StrikesA Contemporary,"
afterpraisingthe greatartist-critics
of the past,
she continuesthe attack: "Men of taste and
learning and ability are foreverlecturingthe
youngand celebratingthe dead. But the too frequent resultof theirable and industriouspens is
a desiccationofthelivingtissuesofliteratureinto
a networkof little bones."54Mrs. Woolf's dual
role as artist and critic merged with a third,
wider concernfor the commonreader and the
generalstate of literature.Since she considered
herpositionas an artistdependentupona certain
intelligentclass ofcommonreaders,she feltthat
theacademicinterestin literaturecouldonlylead
to a fatal split betweenthe specializedgroupon
theone hand and thereadingpublicon theother,
with the artist somewherein the middle. It is
against thispossibilityof what she considereda
sterileliteraryconditionthat Mrs. Woolfreacted
in her attack on the universitiesand what she
And it is against
thoughtwas academiccriticism.
thisbackgroundthat we can see hergrowingimpatiencewiththe moreformalcriticismshe had
herselfendorsedin heressays,and a newinterest
in a moreexperimental,
less formalcriticismthat
would be truerto the workin termsof the creativeexperience.
In assemblingsome articlesfora second CommonReader,she refersin her Diary to the possibility of a new criticalmethod that will come
closer to what she feels is the aesthetictruth.
"There must be some simpler,subtler, closer
means of writingabout books, as about people,
could I hit upon it."55And whilewritingan article on Turgenev,she again refersin the Diary to
the question of a new critical approach, once
more fromthe writer'sstandpoint."The difficulty about criticismis that it is so superficial.
The writerhas gone so much deeper.T. kept a
diary for Bazarov: wrote everythingfromhis
pointofview.We have only250 shortpages. Our
criticismis onlya bird'seye view of thepinnacle
of an iceberg.The restunderwater. One might
6 Ibid.,p. 114.The phrase"imaginative
reason"derives
fromMatthewArnold.
'3 "WalterRaleigh,"in The Captain's Death Bed, p. 85.
Thereisa moresympathetic
essayonRaleighbytheBloomsbury criticDesmondMacCarthy,in Portraits(London,
1931).
54 "How It Strikes
A Contemporary,"
in The Common
first
Reader,
series.
6" A
Writer'sDiary: Being ExtractsFrom The Diary of
VirginiaWoolf,ed. LeonardWoolf(New York, 1953),
Monday,16 Nov. 1931,p. 172.
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284
VirginiaWoolfand theCriticas Reader
begin it in this way. The articlemightbe more
broken,less composedthanusual."5"Onlya year
beforeher death, when she was consideringa
criticalbook on English literature,Mrs. Woolf
withthe
expressesa kind of finaldisillusionment
state of literarycriticism,whichdiscouragedher
fromany experimentsas well as fromthe book
itself.
No invasion.High Wind.Yesterdayin the Public
This
libraryI took downa book of X's criticism.
mybook.LondonLibrary
turnedmeagainstwriting
Turnedme againstall literary
effused.
atmosphere
intheseso clever,so airless,so fleshless
criticism:
to prove-thatT. S. Eliotfor
and attempts
genuities
critexampleis a worsecriticthanX. Is all literary
air?-a bookdust,Lonicismthatkindofexhausted
donLibraryair.Or is itonlythatX is a secondhand,
to be
university
specialistdontrying
frozen
fingered,
withbooks,writer.
Wouldone
donall stuffed
creative,
Reader?I dippedforfive
saythesameoftheCommon
andputthebookbackdepressed.57
minutes
interestin "philosophy,aestheticsand psychology," as well as (echoingMrs. Woolf) to the increasinginfluenceof the teachingof literaturein
the universities.Though there is not space
enoughto traceEliot's discussionof the excesses
commonto the various critical(and scholarly)
methods,hisconcludingstatementattemptsonce
more to strikethe kind of creativebalance or
fusionoffunctionswhichdescribesMrs. Woolf's
mostcharacteristic
criticism.
If inliterary
weplaceall theemphasis
criticism,
upon
weareindangerofslipping
snderstanding,
from
understandingto mereexplanation.
We are in dangerof
pursuing
criticism
as ifit was a science,whichit can
neverbe. If, on the otherhand,we over-emphasize
wewiUl
enjoyment,
tendto fallintothesubjective
and
impressionistic,
and our enjoyment
willprofitus no
morethan mereamusement
and pastime.Thirtythreeyearsago,it seemsto havebeenthelattertype
of criticism,
theimpressionistic,
thathad causedthe
I feltwhenI wroteonthe'function
annoyance
ofcriticism.'Todayit seemsto methatweneedto be more
on guardagainstthepurelyexplanatory.
But I do not
wantto leaveyouwiththeimpression
thatI wishto
condemn
thecriticism
of ourtime.Theselast thirty
yearshavebeen,I think,a brilliant
periodin literary
in bothBritainand America.It mayeven
criticism
cometoseem,inretrospect,
toobrilliant.
Whoknows?'8
For a fittingconclusion,it is also necessaryto
referto Henry James's famous portraitof the
ideal critic.In manyways,Mrs. Woolfis a direct
literarydescendantof James, and the kind of
critiche describesresemblesthe image I findreflectedin heressays.
To lendhimself,
toprojecthimself
andsteephimself,
to
feelandfeeltillhe understands
and to understand
so
wellthathecansay,tohaveperception
at thepitchof
passionand expression
as embracing
as theair,to be
infinitely
curiousand incorrigibly
patient,and yet
plasticandinflammable
anddeterminable,
stooping
to
conquerand serving
to direct-thesearefinechances
foran activemind,chancesto add the idea of independent
beautyto theconception
ofsuccess.59
But we must see this despair against the backgroundofhergrowingdesolationand illnessduringthewaryearsand just beforeherfinaldepression and death. Her intensereactiondoes point
up, however, the creative balance she estabbetweentheextremes
lishedin herbest criticism,
of abstract scientismand romanticimpressionism. And it is fromthislatterstandpointthatwe
theimageof VirginiaWoolf
can refuseto further
critic,as the
as the epitomeof the impressionist
ofthedecadentspirit,to which
last pale reflection
literaryhistorianshave subscribed.
A fairerestimate of Mrs. Woolf as a critic
musttake intoaccountthebalance or mergingof
criticalfunctionswhichI have triedto trace in
this study. Against the background of Mrs.
Woolf'scriticalvia mediaand her growingdisillusionment with contemporarycriticism,we
shouldconsideragain T. S. Eliot's examinationof
moderncriticismand its dominanttendencies.In
termsthat echo what Mrs. Woolf thoughtand
In thelightofT. S. Eliot's analysisofourcritiwrote about the subject, Eliot's essay, "The
cal
needs and the Jamesianportraitof the ideal
Frontiersof Criticism,"revealsthat he has come
fullcirclefromhis earlyreactionagainstimpres- critic,this may be the most rewardingmoment
sionismto his presentconcernforexcessescom- in whichto turnto the essays of VirginiaWoolf.
mittedin thenameofwhathe calls "understandUNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
ing." Eliot wants to re-emphasizethe relation
Kingston
between"enjoymentand understanding";again,
66 Ibid., Wednesday,16 August 1933,pp. 203-204.
as in The SacredWood,he feelsthat therecan be
67 Ibid., Tuesday, 17 Sept. 1940,p. 337.
a fusionof the twotermswithrespectto thecrit58 "The Frontiersof Criticism,"
pp. 117-118.
of
ic's function.He traces the transformation
59Henry James, "Criticism,"in Essays in London and
criticismto Coleridgeand his
twentieth-century
Elsewhere(London, 1893), pp. 276-277.
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