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by The Liberal Imagination (pdf)

  to us because it gives us a clue to what might be called the sociology

  Ideology is not the product of thought; it is the habit or the.ritual

  of our question. "Henry James had a mind so fine that no idea

  of showing respect for certain formulas to which, for various reasons

  could violate it." In the context "violate" is a strong word, yet we

  having to do with emotional safety, we have very strong ties of

  can grant that the mind of the poet is a sort of Clarissa Harlowe

  whose meaning and consequences in actuality we have no clear

  and that an idea is a sort of Colonel Lovelace, for it is a truism

  understanding. The nature of ideology may in part be understood

  of contemporary thought that the whole nature of man stands in

  from its tendency to develop the sort of language I parodied, and

  danger of being brutalized by the intellect, or at least by some one

  scarcely parodied, a moment ago.

  of its apparently accredited surrogates. A specter haunts our culture

  It is therefore no wonder that any critical theory that conceives

  -it is that people will eventually be unable to say, "They fell in love

  itself to be at the service of the emotions, and of life itself, should

  and married," let alone understand the language of Romeo and

  turn a very strict and jealous gaze upon an intimate relationship

  Juliet, but will as a matter of course say, "Their libidinal impulses

  between literature and ideas, for in our culture ideas tend to debeing reciprocal, they activated their individual erotic drives and teriorate into ideology. And indeed it is scarcely surprising that

  integrated them within the same frame of reference."

  criticism, in its zeal to protect literature and life from the tyranny

  Now this is not the language of abstract thought or of any kind

  of the rational intellect, should misinterpret the relationship. Mr.

  of thought. It is the language of non-thought. But it is the language

  Eliot, if we take him literally, does indeed misinterpret the relawhich is developing from the peculiar status which we in our cultionship when he conceives of "thinking" in such a way that it ture have given to abstract thought. There can be no doubt whatmust be denied to Shakespeare and Dante. It must puzzle us to ever that it constitutes a threat to the emotions and thus to life itself.

  know what thinking is if Shakespeare and Dante did not do it.

  The specter of what this sort of language suggests has haunted

  And it puzzles us to know what Rene W ellek and Austin Warren

  us since the end of the eighteenth century. When he speaks of the

  mean when in their admirable Theory of Literature they say that

  mind being violated by an idea, Mr. Eliot, like the Romantics, is

  literature can make use of ideas only when ideas "cease to be ideas

  simply voicing his horror at the prospect of life being intellectualized

  in the ordinary sense of concepts and become symbols, or even

  out of all spontaneity and reality.

  myths." I am not sure that the ordinary sense of ideas actually is

  We are the people of the idea, and we rightly fear that the in­

  concepts, or at any rate concepts of such abstractness that they do

  tellect will dry up the blood in our veins and wholly check the

  not arouse in us feelings and attitudes. And I take it that when we

  emotional and creative part of the mind. And although I said that

  speak of the relationship of literature and ideas, the ideas we refer

  the fear of the total sovereignty of the abstract intellect began in

  to are not those of mathematics or of symbolic logic, but only such

  the Romantic period, we are of course touching here upon Pascal's

  ideas as can arouse and traditionally have aroused the feelings-the

  opposition between two faculties of the mind, of which !'esprit de

  ideas, for example, of men's relation to one another and to the

  finesse has its heuristic powers no less than l' esprit de geometrie,

  world. A poet's simple statement of a psychological fact recalls us

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  to a proper simplicity about the nature of ideas. "Our continued

  The authors of Theory of Literature are certainly right to quesinfluxes of feeling," said Wordsworth, "are modified and directed tion the "intellectualist misunderstanding of art" and the "conby our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our fusions of the functions of art and philosophy" and to look for the

  past feelings." The interflow between emotion and idea is a psychoflaws in the scholarly procedures which organize works of art aclogical fact which we do well to keep clearly in mind, together with cording to their ideas and their affinities with philosophical systhe part that is played by desire, will, and imagination in philosophy tems. Yet on their own showing there has always been a conscious

  as well as in literature. Mr. Eliot, and Mr. Wellek and Mr. Warren

  commerce between the poet and the philosopher, and not every poet

  -and in general those critics who are zealous in the defense of the

  has been violated by the ideas that have attracted him. The sexual

  autonomy of poetry-prefer to forget the ground which is common

  metaphor is forced upon us, not only explicitly by Mr. Eliot but

  to both emotion and thought; they presume ideas to be only the

  also implicitly by Mr. Wellek and Mr. Warren, who seem to think

  product of formal systems of philosophy, not remembering, at least

  of ideas as masculine .and gross and of art as feminine and pure,

  on the occasion of their argument, that poets too have their effect

  and who permit a union of the two sexes only when ideas give up

  in the world of thought. L' esprit de finesse is certainly not to be

  their masculine, effective nature and "cease to be ideas in the orconfused with /'esprit de geometrie, but neither-which is precisely dinary sense and become symbols, or even myths." We naturally

  the point of Pascal's having distinguished and named the two differask: symbols of what, myths about what? No anxious exercise of ent qualities of mind-is it to be denied its powers of comprehenaesthetic theory can make the ideas of, say, Blake and Lawrence sion and formulation.

  other than what they are intended to be-ideas relating to action

  Mr. W ellek and Mr. Warren tell us that "the artist will be hamand to moral judgment.

  pered by too much ideology1 if it remains unassimilated." We note

  This anxiety lest the work of art be other than totally self-conthe tautology of the statement-for what else is "too much" ideology tained, this fear lest the reader make reference to something beyond

  except ideology that is unassimilated ?-not because we wish to take

  the work itself, has its origin, as I have previously suggested, in the

  a disputatious advantage over authors to whom we have reason to

  reaction from the earlier impulse-it goes far back beyond the ninebe grateful, but because the tautology suggests the uneasiness of the teenth century-to show that art is justified in comparison with

  position it defends. We are speaking of art, which is an activity

  the effective activity of the systematic disciplines. It arises too from

  which defines itself exactly by its powers of assimilation and of
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  the strong contemporary wish to establish, in a world of unremitting

  which the essence is the just amount of any of its qualities or eleaction and effectiveness, the legitimacy of contemplation, which it ments; of course too much or unassimilated ideology will "hamper"

  is now no longer convenient to associate with the exercises of rethe artist, but so will too much of anything, so will too much metaligion but which may be associated with the experiences of art. We phor: Coleridge tells us that in a long poem there can be too much

  will all do well to advance the cause of contemplation, to insist on

  poetry. The theoretical question is simply being begged, out of an

  the right to a haven from perpetual action and effectiveness. But we

  undue anxiety over the "purity" of literature, over its perfect literarimust not enforce our insistence by dealing with art as if it were a ness.

  unitary thing, and by making reference only to its "purely" aesthetic

  element, requiring that every work of art serve our contemplation

  1 The word is used by Mr. Wellek and Mr. Warren, not in the pejorative sense

  by being wholly self-contained and without relation to action. No

  in which I have earlier used it, but to mean simply a body of ideas.

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  doubt there is a large body of literature to which ideas, with their

  doubt that the language of poetry is very largely that of indirection

  tendency to refer to action and effectiveness, are alien and inapand symbolism. But it is not only that. Poetry is closer to rhetoric propriate. But also much of literature wishes to give the sensations

  than we today are willing to admit; syntax plays a greater part in it

  and to win the responses that are given and won by ideas, and it

  than our current theory grants, and syntax connects poetry with

  makes use of ideas to gain its effects, considering ideas-like people,

  rational thought, for, as Hegel says, "grammar, in its extended and

  sentiments, things, and scenes-to be indispensable elements of

  consistent form"-by which he means syntax-"is the work of

  human life. Nor is the intention of this part of literature always an

  thought, which makes its categories distinctly visible therein." And

  aesthetic one in the strict sense that Mr. Wellek and Mr. Warren

  those poets of our time who make the greatest impress upon us are

  have in mind; there is abundant evidence that the aesthetic upon

  those who are most aware of rhetoric, which is to say, of the intelwhich the critic sets primary store is to the poet himself frequently lectual content of their work. Nor is the intellectual content of their

  of only secondary importance.

  work simply the inevitable effect produced by good intelligence

  We can grant that the province of poetry is one thing and the

  turned to poetry; many of these poets-Yeats and Eliot himself

  province of intellection another. But keeping the difference well in

  come most immediately to mind-have been at great pains to demind, we must yet see that systems of ideas have a particular quality velop consistent intellectual positions along with, and consonant

  which is much coveted as their chief effect-let us even say as their

  with, their work in poetry.

  chief aesthetic effect-by at least certain kinds of literary works. Say

  The aesthetic effect of intellectual cogency, I am convinced, is

  what we will as critics and teachers trying to defend the province

  not to be slighted. Let me give an example for what it is worth. Of

  of art from the dogged tendency of our time to ideologize all things

  recent weeks my mind has been much engaged by two statements,

  into grayness, say what we will about the "purely" literary, the

  disparate in length and in genre, although as it happens they have

  purely aesthetic values, we as readers know that we demand of our

  related themes. One is a couplet of Yeats:

  literature some of the virtues which define a successful work of

  We had fed the heart on fantasies,

  systematic thought. We want it to have-at least when it is appro­

  The heart's grown brutal from the fare.

  priate for it to have, which is by no means infrequently-the authority, the cogency, the completeness, the brilliance, the hardness I am hard put to account for the force of the statement. It certainly

  of systematic thought.2

  does not lie in any metaphor, for only the dimmest sort of metaphor

  Of late years criticism has been much concerned to insist on the

  is to be detected. Nor does it lie in any special power of the verse.

  indirection and the symbolism of the language of poetry. I do not

  The statement has for me the pleasure of relevance and cogency,

  in part conveyed to me by the content, in part by the rhetoric. The

  2 Mr. Wellek and Mr. Warren say something of the same sort, but only, as it

  other statement is Freud's short book, his last, An Outline of

  were, in a concessivc way: "Philosophy, ideological content, in its proper context,

  seems to enhance artistic value because it corroborates several important artistic

  Psychoanalysis, which gives me a pleasure which is no doubt differvalues: those of complexity and coherence . . .. But it need not be so. The arti,t will be hampered by too much ideology if it remains unassimilated" (p.

  ent from that given by Yeats's couplet, but which is also similar; it

  122).

  Earlier (p. 27) they say: "Serious art implies a view of life which can be stated in

  is the pleasure of listening to a strong, decisive, self-limiting voice

  philosophical terms, even in terms of systems. Between artistic coherence . . . and

  philosophic coherence there is some kind of correlation." They then hasten to disuttering statements to which I can give assent. The pleasure I have tinguish between emotion and thinking, sensibility and intellection, etc., and to

  in responding to Freud I find very difficult to distinguish from the

  tell us that art is more complex than "propaganda."

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  pleasure which is involved in responding to a satisfactory work of

  American literature as an academic subject is not so much a subject

  art.

  as an object of study: it does not, as a literature should, put the

  Intellectual assent in literature is not quite the same thing as

  scrutinizer of it under scrutiny but, instead, leaves its students with

  agreement. We can take pleasure in literature where we do not

  a too comfortable sense of complete comprehension.

  agree, responding to the power or grace of a mind without admit­

  When we try to discover the root of this difference between

  ting the rightness of its intension or conclusion-we can take our

  European and American literature, we are led to the conclusion that

  pleasure from an intellect's cogency, without making a final judgit is the difference betw
een the number and weight or force of the ment on the correctness or adaptability of what it says.

  ideas which the two literatures embody or suggest. I do not mean

  that European literature makes use of, as American literature does

  not, the ideas of philosophy or theology or science. Kafka does not

  II

  exemplify Kierkegaard, Proust does not dramatize Bergson. One

  And now I leave these general theoretical matters for a more

  way of putting the relationship of this literature to ideas is to say

  particular concern-the relation of contemporary American literathat the literature of contemporary Europe is in competition with ture to ideas. In order to come at this as directly as possible we

  philosophy, theology, and science, that it seeks to match them in

  might compare modern American prose literature-for American

  comprehensiveness and power and seriousness.

  poetry is a different thing-with modern European literature.

  This is not to say that the best of contemporary European litera­

  European literature of, say, the last thirty or forty years seems to

  ture makes upon us the effect of a rational system of thought. Quite

  me to be, in the sense in which I shall use the word, essentially an

  the contrary, indeed; it is precisely its artistic power that we reactive literature. It does not, at its best, consent to be merely comspond to, which I take in part to be its power of absorbing and prehended. It refuses to be understood as a "symptom" of its society,

  disturbing us in secret ways. But this power it surely derives from

  although of course it may be that, among other things. It does not

  its commerce, according to its own rules, with systematic ideas.

  submit to being taped. We as scholars and critics try to discover

  For in the great issues with which the mind has traditionally been

  the source of its effective energy and of course we succeed in some

  concerned there is, I would submit, something primitive which is

  degree. But inevitably we become aware that it happily exists beof the highest value to the literary artist. I know that it must seem yond our powers of explanation, although not, certainly, beyond

  a strange thing to say, for we are in the habit of thinking of sysour powers of response. Proust, Joyce, Lawrence, Kafka, Yeats and tematic ideas as being of the very essence of the not-primitive, of