Oscar Wilde: The Critic as Artist

Author(s): Fumihiko Kato

Source: The Harp, Vol. 1, Second International Conference (1985), pp. 26-32
Published by: IASIL-JAPAN
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as Artist1

The Critic

Oscar Wilde:

Fumihiko Kato
Kyoto Women's University
Critical assessment is inevitably a form of
reduction. While itmay enable an emancipation
of its object of enquiry, nevertheless it con
fines that object within some new boundary.
a succession

In this way

to

continued

eminent

of
the

reappraise

critics

nature

and

of rationality or of sound logic does not neces

sarily apply to the realm of art, and yet it is
for its artistic nature
that the
precisely
Wildean dialogue seems to have the greatest

have

In his

cance of the critical writings of Oscar Wilde,

yet at each stage have failed to perceive or
follow through the full implications of their

Frank

was

Kermode

of

autonomy
form

and

art

abstract

the

coterminousness

to

see

his

romantic

and

vital

from

of

cation

on

the one hand, and to elevate him to the status

of

forerunner

Today

as

Pater

be

reached

the

other.

a vantage

point

Wallace

perceived

easier

to

see

than

it

was

can

Stevens,

more

and acknowledged,
the

connections

made
years

twenty

once

by Kermode

and

almost

complete

neglect,

it also

seems

as

"The

Critics

as Artist"

or

Long

solemnity.3

seems

there

to have

the

namely

dis

rigorous

such

Susan

by

a move,

as we

Sontag's

essay

may

recall,

"Against

was
Inter

in 1964.5 With its anti-mimetic

pretation"
spirit, it largely shared its basic assumptions
with the kind of formalism professed in the
two dialogues of Oscar Wilde which
sought
to dislodge the conventional opposition bet

to

be true that the ambivalence on the part of the

critic arises from the demand made on him of
maintaining some standard of rationality as the
hallmark of sound criticism. If, then, such
dialogues

upheld,

of

instance

biguous,"2 and although this attitude may have

been inevitable in the pioneering venture of
rescueing the better part of the author's work
from

and

significance,4

been

made

am

"confusingly

between the objective and the sub

within
the critical process. One notable
jective

Image was first published. Important

Kermode dismissed the overall
as
of the Wildean
dialogue
exultant"

as

Wilde

tinction

his

ly, however,
characteristic
"affectedly

Oscar

a marked change, if affecting only the

in the critical trends on one side of
minority,
the Atlantic at least towards rejecting what had

readily

when

with

seriousness

of

^intellectual

it is much

ago,

terms

been

as Walter

such

distinct,

apparently

and

Romantic

have

the affinities between writers once

from which
seen

on

of modernism
we

when

to

coming

Stephen
involved

before this observation was printed, and in fact

even before Lionel Trilling,
several years
had
earlier, in his Sincerity and Authenticity,
pointed out that neither his dandyism nor his
could any longer obscure Wilde's
martyrdom

connection
precursors

the manifesta

serious author and how Wilde had often been

taken for the very opposite of that on the basis
of the largely mistaken
conventional identifi

as the

such concepts

and

matter,

Wilde

between

to

able

critical dialogues

in

of

study

the artistic will as the source of

in the later nineteenth
freedom
philosophical-literary milieu,
pointed out the difficulty

century
Donadio

Itwas thus by his sympathy with the organic

imagination of the romantic tradition that

today.

comparative

tions of
absolute

analyses.

Wilde's

for us

relevance

signifi

ween

form

and

that marked

"The

guages

Decay of Lying," are to be understood more

in the sense of something artistic rather than
critical and expository, we ought to be able
to begin to do justice to that particular quality
of th? dialogical discourse, which was been
and is generally disparaged. For the standard

The

interpretation

open-ended
was

doctrines

content.

the decisive
the

of Criticism

on

symposium
and

other

event

turn towards the

akin to the Wildean

the

Sciences

"The

Lan

of Man"6

held under the auspices of Johns Hopkins

Humanities Center in the fall of 1966, when
almost all the works of Roland Barthes, Jacques
and

Derrida,
those

of

Tzvetan

introduced

not

Todorov,

Jean-Francois

Lyotard,

to the English

26

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had

to mention
yet

to be

speaking audience.

How many of those who happend to witness

his deconstructive
Jacque Derrida wheeling
on

sword

have

L?vi-Strauss7

ing of a time when

way,

as

it does,

critics

and

scholars

into

deep

foreseen

the

com

the

its

finds

deconstruction

of

consciousness
of

regardless

their

performance." According to the author of The

World, the Text, and the Critic, the critic is
responsible for finding, and exposing or giving
articulation to that which is "hidden" in the
texts but silenced under a system of forces
institutionalized by the dominant culture.11 In
the ultimate status accorded to the hidden but

assump

tions? Whether all this has benefited or damag

ed literary studies has yet to be judged by the
generations to come, but it is at least clear that
studies have nothing to lose.
Oscar Wilde
Indeed, very possibly, they may have a lot to
benefit from the deconstructive turn of mind.
The prediction of Northrop Frye, made in
his Secular Scripture, to the effect that a new
age in literature heralded by Wilde would
take
ness

another
of

to

century
to

has

critics,8

tions at least. Geoffrey

Bloom

others

among

the

aware

some

excep

penetrate

allow

for

Hartman
have

veritable

Bloom's

ways.
recreates

prision"9
esoteric

manner

dialogues,

while

notion
a

in
the main

of

to

tenets

Hartman's

of

"answerable

to.

rise

And

then

values

as

setting

and

the

which,

ideals,

to

according

as

critic

creator

the

of

a new

Interestingly

velatory
critic

enough,
his

between

and

Hopkins,

and
what

Said
however,
own
notion

such

exemplifying

of

R.

P.

re

the

Blackmur,

after

this

recall,

is a

show

a new

relevancy

to be

of

the

in terminology,
nature

performative

of

of

literature

as event

rather

diverse

persuasions

as

Jean-Paul

Sartre,

the

reader-oriented

theoreticians,

any

dis

inevitably end up in a hair

splitting quibble which is out of our present
concern. It may suffice here to point out the
crucial difference between Wilde and those
critics. The former is peculiarly marked by his
lack of tenacity and earnestness in sustaining
any point of view as absolutely true and final,
while the latter are full of enthusiams which is
spirit of the
quite alien to the mercurial
Wildean dialogue.

a con

of

may

to his own age, is designated

awareness

cussion

function

the

Georges Poulet, Hans Robert Jauss, Wolfgang

Iser, Louise Rosenblatt, Michael Riff aterre,
Norman Holland, and Stanley Fish.13 As for
the affinities and repulsions that are to be
found between Wilde's critical ideas and those

of

the

of

than as substantive entity to be deciphered:

an awareness to be found among the critics of

standard

sees

to

interpreter,

notion

century

him,

of

we

As

whether

art seems to be radically different from Said's,

or either from Hopkins's or Blackmur's12 for
that matter. Wilde's impressionistic theory of
art is in fact much in keeping with twentieth

may be perfectly in line with the function of

the critic as it was envisaged by Matthew
Arnold or T.S. Eliot, but it is not the central
issue of the critic as artist in the Wildean sense.
nection

of

secondary.

Wilde's

must necessarily be epitomized in the form of

the essay the critic writes himself. This idea of
the

nature

rather than that of the

personality

In spite of the similarities

nor

set

as

critic

style"

a new

standard,

revelatory

"performance,"
is a realization

dramatic,

composer.

of a work

Hartman can be said to have done full justice

to the artistic nature of Wilde's critical writings.
Edward Said has taken up the same com
parison between Wilde and the realist critic,
but his emphasis on the functional aspect of
criticism seems to distract further away from
the ontological condition of Wildean criticism.
Said upholds the critic's task of discovering,
and

immanent

position in accord with his impressive theory

of art according to which the function of the

two

Bloom

neither

yet,

that

view
or

original

as well as his comparison of Wilde with Georg

Luk?cs10 is perhaps one of the most serious
critical responces that Wildean criticism has
given

or

expressive

performer's

"mis

the

the

musical

more

somewhat

the

espouse

the creativity of criticism can take us in their

respective

the

art in De Profundis, we should not under

estimate how he could equally go to the other
extreme as he does in "The Critic as Artist"
in which Gilbert gives flamboyant expression

extent

the

or

"voices"

is simply betraying his own so

meaning,
called logocentric bias. Although Wilde did
he

and Harold

shown

of

presence

G.M.

called "the bringing of literature to

must

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Ren? Wellek's remains the most rigorous and

attempt at abstracting Wilde's
comprehensive
critical contentions, and is typically ambivalent
in its attitude toward the nature of his writings.
The line of appraisal this representative critic
of the older generation follows in his celebrat
ed A History
of Modern Criticism: 1975
195014 can be fairly neatly summarized as
follows. In the first place, he points to what he
in
takes to be the most notable demerits
Wilde's

writings,
in

inconsistency

characterising

them

as

an

argumentation

and

an

ir

The third category called decorative for

malism is simply there for Wellek to deplore.
The adjectives deployed by him in relation
to

and

the

conscientious

seems

weighing

variety

of

assertions

in such

scattered

essays

as "The

regret,

however,

this

idea

of

the

It is important

"empty."

been

completely

ditioned

and was

unaware

quite

own

his

to

in his

con

aesthetic

is no more

there

say

to how

history

personal

reflected

Needless

as

the superiority of the idealist

theory of art, than there is one for presuming
the

or

for

of decorative

preeminence

say.

tradition,

Japanese

the Celtic

art-of

a matter

is just

That

of personal taste which is as autobiographical

as one's prejudices or sympathies. But there is
no way to call it willful or fantastic as Wellek
does the Wildean
theory of the subjective
nature

of

criticism.

after

For,

are

all,

not

critical judgments so many choices and deci

sions which are by definition arbitrary, ac

of

or

cidental,

if

existential

you

as

and

will,

personal and subjective as one's beliefs?

We should finally but very quickly, em
phasise here the significance of the part played
in style
by Wilde's paradoxical contradictions

its anti-mimetic, mythopoeic

Lying" with
"The
Soul of Man Under Socialism"
principles,
with its imposition of artistic criteria even on
"The Critic as Artist" with its
government,
exaltation of the life of contemplation over the
life of conduct, and finally, "De Profundis"
with its analogy drawn between Christ and a
work of art. For this representative critic of
the older generation, the second category is
indisputable so far as it remains in concord
with what he deems to be the central tenet
of the "great idealist tradition," the union of
form and content, that is. Much to Wellek's
deep

have

preferences.

among
Decay

to

warrant

three basic categories: a) panaestheti

cism; b) the autonomy of art; and c) decorative
formalism. The first category
includes the
works

so much

not

however,

to note the unconscious contradiction Wellek

has fallen into in his assumption of the super
iority of idealist aesthetics over the decorative.
found most
What Wellek
repellant among
doctrines was the autobiographical
Wildean
nature the criticism is claimed to have. But he

within

whole

and

"sheer,"

"mere,"

of pros and cons." It was his style of juggling

and flippancy, according to Wellek, that gave
Wilde "range and scope and made him the
representative figure of the English aesthetic
movement."
Thirdly and in order to facilitate
some kind of historical comparison and dimen
sion, Wellek sees Wilde's contentions as falling

Wilde's

are,

descriptive of the art they syntactically qualify

as of the personal nature of judgment on the
part of the great theorist himself: "false,"

style. Secondly, Wellek

ritatingly unbalanced
rather condescendingly
acknowledges that the
in the style and
involved
both
irrationality
content of Wildean
criticism does in fact
reveal "issues otherwise hidden by reasoned
argumentation

art

decorative

content.

and

These

are not

that went

something

unnoticed by Wellek. But it is not as he suggests

in spite of but because of the irrationally
paradoxical nature of them that the critical
writings of Oscar Wilde can be more relevant to
us today than they could been to any genera
tion before us. Our own age is one which has
witnessed
virtually every paradigmatic opposi
tions reinterpreted and dismantled, and tradi
tional

autonomy

of art tends to degrade itself into an allegedly

false formalism in Oscar Wilde's case, which
places too high a stake on decorative arabesques
on the one hand, and leads to an unfounded
on the
with
identification
autobiography,

and

values

relative

categories

overstatement

to

say

that

their

exchange

It would

ascendancies.

most

not
of

be

the

an

inver

sions and dismountings of oppositions which

have taken place during the last seventy years
or

so have

their

counterparts

writings. The development

other.

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in Oscar

Wilde's

of the linguistic and

turn

semiological

can

in particular,

of mind,

and

for

truth-telling,

never

could

instance,

term.

For

the

have

against

"gravity

the

fiction-making,

and

repose"

Without
power.
on the relative

as George

conspicuous

exception

we

creat

have

is the opposition
between
acknowledge
speaking and writing which Wilde did not
overturn, but affirmed in favor of speaking.
But here again, in his categorical negation of
spontaneous poetry as such and in his detecting
the alleged penetration of the conscious, critical
operations deep into the most primitive of
poetry, it will not be difficult to see an almost
with
disconcerting
isomorphism
Jacques
Derrida's

notion
But

of
to

verify

or

archi-writing
this means

may

now

turn

meaning

the

pointing

out

those

three

views

as

the

the

means

con

in the critical theory of Wilde, Rene

not fail to blame what he deemed to
did
Wellek
shifts among them which
be inconsequential
made for the difficulty on the part of the
reader to follow the argument. In fact the shift
one

of

the many

aspects

of

two

his

argument

and action.
under the nose
reader for that
of the double
when

Ernest,

phrases.

"After

says:

faculty,

meant

the

creative

actual

by "to talk about it,"

takes up the
Gilbert
another set of meanings
into another ground: to

stants

is only

of

creative

Ernest

criticism-creation relationship which lies at the

heart of the colloquy "The Critic as Artist."
In

Ernest,

provoked

all,

even

you

must admit that it ismuch more difficult to do

a thing than to talk about it." It should be
obvious that by the phrase "to do a thing"

dif

of

agreement

what

by Gilbert's assertion of the critical over against

another

to a consideration

and

action,

opposition between description

The initial shift takes place
of the interlocutor, or of the
matter,
through the medium

paper itself.
We

and

representation

to

f?rance.16

to any

it vis-?-vis

of

further deflects into another opposition, that

is the one between moral and immoral actions
which he proceeds to invert in favor of the
immoral, only to come back to the earlier

Steiner

would

come

having
value

interlocutor, believes to be the superior

faculty, that of creation, his discourse drifts
into another realm of opposition; the opposi
literature and life, linguistic
tion between

tersely summed up inAfter Babel15

One

an

reaching

his

last resort the

in its struggle

ing-otherness is arguably the

living organism is left with

to mention

not

any,

in order to grasp the dialogic

agreement,
strategy involved here, which is significantly
different from the one we are accustomed to
in the Platonic dialogues.
on the critical
Gilbert
has expounded
of
is
rather
which
reminiscent
selection,
faculty
sense of the critical
of Matthew Arnold's

been expected to be set over against each other

with the lying taking the ascendancy in the
context. Once the signifi
Platonic-Christian
cance of lying is reinterpreted, as it has been,
and the fabricating ability of human language is
set against the mimetic function of it, which
the truth-telling is now identifiable with, the
opposing terms do take on a different hierarchy
with
lying asserting its superiority over the
other

on

arguments

be said to have been prefigured in the kind of

antinomian formalism manifest inWilde. Lying

action,

representation

and
of

to

talk

about

action.

the

activity,

and

the critical. But when

phrases he employs
to shift the opposition
do a thing in actual life
"It

it, linguistic
is very much

more difficult," retorts Gilbert, "to talk about

a thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual life
that is of course obvious. Anybody can make
history. Only a great man can write it." The last
statement is arrived at by means of metaleptic
or by
the deployment
of a
conversion,
restatement
of the phrases which
m?tonymie

the way

wardness of the dialogical process which many

others have found annoying and complained
about. Just as in many other crucial turning
points, the shift takes place during the dis
cussion of the central issue of the dialogue, that
is the alleged creative nature of the criticism.
It is essential to take into account how the
dialogue moves from one point of view to
another without
substantially terminating the

were

restatements

metaphorical

themselves.

first through the

slippage of meaning
or
metaphorical
paradigmatic axis, then the
the
of
projection
newly highlighted sense onto
The

a new

syntagma

tic

one.

To

put

it anotherway,

there is here a deliberate confusion of the

rhetorical and the logical which
is being
29

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discourse.
creatively
exploited
by Gilbert's
one
is
the
human
of
Metalepsis
ploys
language
is naturally endowed with for the multiple
articulations of the world out of the basically
limited number of fragmentary units. What is
called bricolage in structuralist anthropology17
is a good enough illustration of the creative
potential of the metaleptic process.
form of aberration from logical
Another
ratiocination
arises when Gilbert
abruptly
the
identification of criticism with
up
brings
creation,

by

an

is itself

"criticism

saying

the

of

in the

creative

really

In

pendent,"

two

these

of

words

and

One

grounds.

is:

because

to

needless

(This,

creation

and

as

use

criticism

more

their

The

is obviously

equation

carried

a form

of

reduction

And

cal bracketting.

which

this

even

may

is understood

be

mate

out

com

tirades

by phenomenologi
can

process

be

traced

have

one

and

the

same

creation

because

one

is impressive

commended:

No

complained

wonder

so

about

the

beauty

give

complete,

a step

than

towards

to

vulnerable

counter

than

persuasive
overwhelmingly
In short his is not the well-manuever

on

unaware

of.

But

we

must

insist

here

that

this

first
substantial
critic on Wilde's
literary
achievement was not doing justice to the raison
d'?tre

of

warranted

status

as the other. The criticism is said to be superior

to

earlier

non

of

ed strategy of Socrates whose deliberate ques

tioning is designed to lead his opponents to the
admission of the truths they have hitherto been

the relative value of form and content within

the Symbolist context, for instance, could not
have been possible without this.
And
then,
surprisingly enough, Wilde's
colloquist jumps onto his next assertion: the
superiority of one of the parties he has just
to

one

happened,
paragons

Keats?

are more

which

arguments
the other.

behind any kind of formalism whether literary,

philosophical, or linguistic, and the reversal of

contended

one

Edward Roditi was the first critic who

pointed this out in the comparison he made
between the Platonic dialogues and Wilde's in
on this then-largely-forgotten
his monograph
artist in 1947.18 He was not wide of the mark
in pointing out the fragmentary nature Wilde's
dialogues must inevitably present against the
Platonic norm. And the discourse of Wilde's
is characterized by its apparently
protagonist
whimsical recoils from dialectical debate on the
one hand, and by sudden bursts of colorful

the

by neglecting all the irrelevant factors which

otherwise make for the distinctive features of
the two respectively. The arbitrary neglect is
pared to what

has

of a thesis
rather
exposition
a larger unit of argument.

is

rials elementary creations by the hands of other

creators.

on

only a false impression of the coherence of his

argument. Relying on a logical point of view
as the basis for their critical analyses, not only
Wellek but most of the critics I have mentioned
so far, have been destined to find the dialogues
of Wilde more or less an assemblage of alien
parts, each of which remains an independent

main thesis of "The Decay of Lying" and the

Wildean impressionism of "The Critic as Artist"
are boiled down to.) And the second: because
both

he

What
the

and makes

permanently

identical

is what

say,

to

a class

of

the inferior member

inconsistency involved in his discourse. And his

later admission of the insincerity of the critic,
and his appreciation of incompleteness per se
as the factor that makes the critic develope

constrained by the standard of faithfulness

to their object, in other words by outside
reference.

other.

Shakespeare,
readers
have

many

art.

neither

the

wonder,
creation

Homer,

the word.

much

on

justly

mimetic

creative and inde

the two are said to be

that follow
on

sense

highest

is, in fact, both

member

superior

another

may

And just as artistic creation implies the working

of the critical faculty, and indeed without it it
cannot be said to exist at all, so criticism is
Criticism

ideally

end of the scale and with

his

when

dialogues

he makes

inference that Wilde

been

obscurely

aware

own

dialectics,

or

of

again,

the weaknesses
when

an un

seemed to have
he

refers

of his
to

the

alleged failure on the part of the author to

achieve his high aim in the dialogues as in other
writings where he emmulated classical models.
aim was not dialectical
Obviously, Wilde's
as such. It was only within the
elucidation

in princi

ple and the other mimetic. That this is a com

is too
comparison
pletely
self-contradicting
obvious: he is distorting his comparison into
an unfair weighing of the relative value with

30

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tradition that the perfection of

logocentric
logic was erroneously identifed,
metaphysical
as was done by Roditi, asWilde's goal. Wildean
and self
coloquys with their inconsistencies
so
with
the
other
all
contradictions, together
called critical writings of him propounding,
as not,

as often

for

never

themselves,

theses

contradictory
to

contribute

tensity

ultimate

and

among

is nothing more

process of creation which

an

endless

of

process
in a cozier

becoming

term.

With

seems

differentiation

to

and

reference

almost

Frost's

and

Play,

of

ferent

Games.19

but not quite, a deconstructionist

It
is difficult to overlook the pr?sense
may say.
of one trascendental dimension which is kept
untouched by the flux of changing terms in the
universe.
is, of

transcendence
human

name

The

course,

given

the

"soul."

as

its

logues

The

over,
So

long

by

as

absolute

their

a sceptical

under

deconstructive

ing

status

scrutiny by

precursor,

the

was

never

We

can

rest

assured,

of the fundamentally monistic

never

parted

with,

even

under

guise

for

thoe

who

enhanced

admire
and

his

artistic

was

given

style,
even

from

with

journey
one
can

route,

Oscar

and

go

one's

dif
over

musing

the

Cretan's

paradox.

through
do without

their
the

strange,

loop

deconstruc

at

the

Second

International

Con

Wilde."

Univ.

Press),

p. 53.

4 Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity

(Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard Univ.
Press), p. 118.
5 Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
(New
York: Farrar Straus, 1966).
6 See Richard Macksey & Eugenio Donato,
eds., The Languages of Criticism and the

like,

of

pluralism manifest in his style of writing as well

as in his doctrines. And yet, quite fortunately
was

it

read

2 Frank Kermode, Romantic Lmage (London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 44-47.
3 Stephen Donadio, Nietzsche, Henry James,
and the Artistic Will (New York: Oxford

often

sensibility Wilde
the

to

ference of IASAIL-JAPAN under the title

"Some Implications
of the Criticism of

put

if we

of Robert

ratiocinations
and cons in

confronted

presented

between him and Nietzsche must neces

sarily be a limited one.
For Wilde "Beauty" embodied whatever
good God or the One in the Platonic tradition
represented.

But

and

analysis

Notes

made

has

through

coterminous

1 This is a slightly revised version of my paper

this otherwise

comparison

his

tive hvffiene.

terms.

transcendental

of

ambiguous.

is willing to sit over the Wildean dia

once in a while and go through the

vertiginous

only by being presided

the

it were,

remain

are

interpretation

writings.21

in when

privilege the pair enjoys undergoes little change

throughout Wilde's writings, and all the binary
oppositions with each contradicting terms shift
as
ing its relative validity are maintainable
significant oppositions

and

experience

If one

that

and

"Beauty,"

is called

counterpart

to

contents

abstractable
should

Wilde's dialogical performance in that superbly

rich, rhythmical movement which betokens the
liar's discourse in the Wildean sense. Critics
dealing with Wilde's writings should constantly
remind themselves of the fact that they are in
exactly the same situation as they would be

Almost

Wildean

the

through
interdisciplinary
pros
conscientiously
weighing
one's mind, should be and is a distinctly

pure play similar to the kind of play classified

as ilinx or the vertiginous by Roger Caillois in
Man,

now-over

that

by

his

literature

innocence

as

It remains Wilde's

paradox: "All Cretans are

they

inseparable

of outside

the

achieves

for

writings,

creation

notion

emancipate

the burden of the principle

from

his

In his recent article in New Literary History,

Norman Holland arrived at the conclusion that

or

Wilde's

demonstrated

As

liars."20
his

of art this self

of the essential incompleteness

is

strained Epimenides

than

self-differentiation

of

reveals

strength

Pluralism

mask.

which

the

constitute

contradiction,

the

The creative nature of the writings of the

author of "The Decay of Lying" rests on the
same kind of logical indeterminacy as that

of any single truth, but prevent any of the

inversions of values from rigidifying into new
orthodoxies in their turn.
All of those means of inconsistency, logical
aberration,

of

under-pinning.

well as conceals his monism.

verification

the

virture

by

monistic

pluralism
more
in

31

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Sciences of Man (Baltimore & London: The

Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1970).
7 Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play
in

the

ibid.,

of

Discourse
pp.

the

Human

Press,
1968), 5 Readers
(New Haven: Yale Univ. Press,
1975); Stanley E. Fish, Is There a Text in
This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive
Communities
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Oxford

Sciences,"

247-65.

8 Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture: A

Study of the Structure of Romance
(Cam
&

Mass.,

bridge,

Univ.

Univ.

Harvard

London:

Press, 1976), p. 46.

9 See Harold Bloom,
fluence: A Theory
Oxford Univ. Press,

J.P.

Sartre,

Jauss,

que

Qu'est-ce

(Paris: Gallimard,
"Phenomenology
Literary History,
Literaturgeschite

Elizabeth

(1970),

"Indeterminacy

and

History,

7-37;
the

ed., Reader-Response

Tompkins,

Crosman,

eds.,

The

Reader

in

the

See

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology\

trans., G.C. Spivak (Baltimore & London:
The Johns Hopkins Univ, Press, 1974),
trans. Alan Bass
Margins
of Philosophy,
of
Univ.
(Chicago:
Chicago Press, 1982),
1?27,

pp.

and

Other Essays

Provokation

trans.

D.B.

Speech

and

Phenomena

on HusserVs Theory

Allison

(Evanston:

and

of Signs,

Northwestern

Univ. Press, 1973).

17 Cf. Claude L?vi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966),

Literary

Wolfgang

Reader's

of

p. 222.

16

la litt?rature?

in New

Benzinger,

reader-ori

Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation

(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980).
14 Ren? Wellek, A History of Modern Criti
cism: 1975-1950,
IV (London: Jonathan
407-16.
Cape, 1966), pp.
15 George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of
Language and Translation (London, Oxford,
& New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1975),

1948); Georges Poulet,

in New
of Reading,"
U.R.
53-68;
1(1969),
als

other

see, the two collections

(Baltimore & London: The Johns

Univ. Press, 1980); S.R. Suleiman

Hopkins

Suhrkamp,
"Literary
(Frankfurt:
1970),
History as a Challenge to Literary Theory,"
trans.,

essays:

J.P.

Inge

For

1980).

theories

&

1980).
11 Edward Said, The World, the Text, and the
Critic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ.
Press, 1983), Ch. 1.
12 Cf. Said, pp. 4Iff.
See

Press,

ented

Criticism

The Anxiety
of In
of Poetry
(London:
1973), and A Map of
Misreading
(London & New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1975)
10 See Geoffrey
Criticism in the
Hartman,
Wilderness: The Study of Literature Today
(New Haven & London: Yale Univ. Press,

13

Univ.

Reading

Iser,

p.

Response

in Prose Fiction," in Aspects of Narrative,

ed., J.H. Miller (New York: Columbia Univ.
Press, 1971), pp. 1-45, The Act of Reading:
A Theory of Aesthetic Response Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978);
Louise Rosenblatt, The Reader, the Text,
the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the
Literary Work (Carbondale: Southern Illi
nois Univ, Press, 1978); Michael Riffatere,
Semiotics of Poetry (Bloornington: Indiana
Univ. Press, 1978); Norman Holland, The
Dynamics of Literary Response (New York:

150.

18 Edouard
Oscar Wilde (Norfolk:
Roditi,
New Directions, 1947).
19 Roger Caillois, Man,
and Games,
Play,
Free
Barash
York:
trans., Meyer
(New
Press of Glencoe, 1961).
20 See Douglas Hofstadter,
G?del, Escher,
Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York:
Basic Books, 1979).
21 Norman Holland,
"The Brain of Robert
Frost" m New Literary History,
15 (1984),
365-85.

32

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