Abstract
In his essay “On Translating Homer” (1861), Matthew Arnold wrote that “the critic […] should have the finest tact, the nicest moderation, the most free, flexible, and plastic spirit imaginable […].” To our contemporary culture such characterizations can seem very presumptuous. Yet normative ideas about what kind of person the critic should be are actually not so easy to escape: this essay will examine recent debates on these issues through analysis of such texts as Rita Felski’s Limits of Critique (2015) and Joseph North’s Literary Criticism (2017). The essay ends by arguing that the condition of literary criticism will be helped by its practitioners thinking more frankly and more directly about what kinds of values they are trying to embody in their own practices.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Celikates and Jensen, “Reclaiming Democracy.”
- 2.
Rustin, “Why Study English?”
- 3.
For example, see Trachtenberg, Making Citizens; Dewey, Democracy and Education; Heater, Education for Citizenship.
- 4.
See, for example, “Our Students among UK’s Most Satisfied,” on the Durham University website.
- 5.
Arnold, “On Translating Homer,” 89.
- 6.
Felski, Limits of Critique, 6.
- 7.
Eagleton, “Not Just Anybody.”
- 8.
Hazlitt, “Pleasure of Hating,” 308.
- 9.
Readers may be interested in the piece “Sad Professor” by the academic and critic John Sutherland, where he speculates that the “lit professor” in the song may be based on him, having met the lyricist, Michael Stipe, at around the time of the song’s composition: “I would like to think it’s me.”
- 10.
Eagleton, “Not Just Anybody.”
- 11.
During, “Literary Academia.”
- 12.
Berlant, Cruel Optimism, 263.
- 13.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, IV, 4, 33–34, 65–66.
- 14.
Brown, Neoliberalism, 27.
- 15.
Quoted in Baldick, English Criticism, 134.
- 16.
Quoted in Baldick, 148.
- 17.
Quoted in Baldick, 148.
- 18.
Baldick, 153.
- 19.
Anderson, “Components of the National Culture.”
- 20.
Stevens, “House Was Quiet,” ll. 1–10.
- 21.
Felski, Limits of Critique, 22.
- 22.
Greif, Against Everything, x.
- 23.
For example, see Bailey, “Anthony Seldon’s Producer Interest.”
- 24.
Arnold, “On Translating Homer,” 89.
- 25.
At this point it would be possible to launch into a long discursus on the relationship between “critical personas” and the actual people who underly them. I won’t be doing that: as suggested at the beginning of this essay, I do not wish to be prescriptive about the “actual people.” However, if “the style is the man,” then there is likely to be some relationship between the two entities, although this relationship is likely to be complex. In the age of MeToo and Black Lives Matter, unsurprisingly a series of debates have sprung up about the tone and conduct of academic life, as expressed in different disciplines and contexts: see, for example, Nagypál, “Economics Needs Reconciliation”; a very thoughtful reflection on the field of economics. These issues are as important in literary criticism as they are in any other discipline or indeed in any other part of society.
- 26.
Roth, “Tokens of Ruined Method.”
- 27.
Ashbery, “For John Clare,” 103.
- 28.
Collini, “Lot to be Said.”
- 29.
Roth, “Tokens of Ruined Method.”
- 30.
Here I am recalling the titles of Chris Baldick’s The Social Mission of English Criticism, 1848–1932 and of Christopher Hilliard’s excellent book on the Leavises and their broader impact, English as a Vocation: The “Scrutiny” Movement.
References
Anderson, Perry. “Components of the National Culture.” New Left Review, July/August 1968. https://newleftreview.org/issues/I50/articles/perry-anderson-components-of-the-national-culture.
Arnold, Matthew. “On Translating Homer: Last Words.” In Selected Prose, edited by P.J. Keating, 85–98. London: Penguin, 1970.
Ashbery, John. “For John Clare.” In Selected Poems, 103–4. London: Penguin, 1985.
Bailey, Tom. “Anthony Seldon’s Producer Interest and Bad History of Higher Education.” Wonkhe (blog), November 8, 2015. https://wonkhe.com/blogs/seldons-producer-interest-and-bad-history.
Baldick, Chris. The Social Mission of English Criticism, 1848–1932. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
Brown, Wendy. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
Celikates, Robin, and Yolande Jensen. “Reclaiming Democracy: An Interview with Wendy Brown on Occupy, Sovereignty, and Secularism.” Critical Legal Thinking, January 30, 2013. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/01/30/reclaiming-democracy-an-interview-with-wendy-brown-on-occupy-sovereignty-and-secularism/.
Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York (State): Macmillan Co, 1916.
During, Simon. “Literary Academia: Simon During Reflects, Part I.” Politics/Letters Live, May 31, 2018. http://politicsslashletters.org/features/literary-academia-simon-reflects-part/.
Eagleton, Terry. “Not Just Anybody.” London Review of Books, January 5, 2017. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n01/terry-eagleton/not-just-anybody.
Felski, Rita. The Limits of Critique. London: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Greif, Mark. Against Everything: On Dishonest Times. London: Verso, 2017.
Hazlitt, William. “On the Pleasure of Hating.” In The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things, vol. 1, 307–28. London: Henry Colbourn, 1826.
Heater, Derek. A History of Education for Citizenship. London: Routledge, 2004.
Hilliard, Christopher, English as a Vocation: The “Scrutiny” Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Nagypál, Éva. “Economics Needs Reconciliation If It Is to Be a Force for Positive Change.” Compassionate Economics, July 7, 2020. https://compassionateeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/07/07/economics-needs-reconciliation-if-it-is-to-be-a-force-for-positive-change/.
“Our Students among UK’s Most Satisfied.” Durham University website, July 3, 2019. https://www.dur.ac.uk/experience/news/?itemno=39264.
Roth, Marco. “Tokens of Ruined Method: Does Literary Studies Have a Future?” n +1, Fall 2017. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-29/reviews/tokens-of-ruined-method.
Rustin, Susanna. “Why Study English? We’re Poorer in Every Sense Without It.” The Guardian, February 10, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/10/study-english-a-level-university-government-taught.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. In Complete Oxford Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, vol. 3. London: Guild Publishing, 1988.
Stevens, Wallace. “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm.” In Collected Poems, 354–55. London: Faber, 1984.
Sutherland, John. “Sad Professor.” London Review of Books, February 18, 1999. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n04/john-sutherland/diary.
Trachtenberg, Zev M. Making Citizens: Rousseau’s Political Theory of Culture. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grimble, S. (2021). What Kind of Person Should the Critic Be?. In: Sridhar, A., Hosseini, M.A., Attridge, D. (eds) The Work of Reading. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71139-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71139-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-71138-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-71139-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)