The
Critic as Participant-observer
I
“War”, said Georges Clémenceau, the French statesman,
“is too important a business to be left to the generals”. The whole raison deter of the so-called interdisciplinary
approaches to literature is obviously a similar feeling that literature
is too important a business to be left entirely to the literary critics.
So, the argument would go on, let the historian, the sociologist,
the psychologist, the linguist also have the run of literature.
The
literary critics may naturally be suspicious if not resentful. Now surely there is more to these feelings than mere professional
jealousy. Actually, while
the term “interdisciplinary” suggests equal partnership, what we find
is that literary critics and literary historians are much more active
in the so-called interdisciplinary field than their supposed partners. The literary critics and historians tend to prefer to do-it-yourself
plan and be their own cultural historians, historians of ideas, sociologists,
psychologists, of linguists. I
think that the earlier and less fashionable term “the extrinsic approach”
is better than “interdisciplinary”—provided, of course, that “extrinsic”
is not pejoratively interpreted as ‘irrelevant”.
The literary critic is quite justified
in deeming literature to be his special property and deeming his activity
to be ‘intrinsic” to literature.
In the first place, the creative writer has some-thing of the
critic in him. (And, of course,
I do not mean the time when the writer is his own reader like any
other after it is all over. It
is through the critic in him that the literary culture in which the
literary work has its being makes itself felt in the making of that
work. Though the writer is
a critic primarily for his own benefit (cf. Auden for a very good
discussion of this point).2
Some of this criticism may be built into the work or appended
to it in the form of a title, notes, or preface.
An example of such built-in comment, pointed out by Wayne C.
Booth, occurs when Homer speaks, in the invocation of Iliad, of “the
anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastations”—as
the subject-matter of the epic. Here he is telling us “to care more about the Greeks than the Trojans’.
Indeed Homer is “constantly at our elbow, controlling rigorously
our beliefs, our interests, and our sympathies”3 Secondly,
the critic has something of the creative writer in him.
The quip that the literary critic is a frustrated writer or
the writer manqué is only a snide way of recognizing this fact.
Finally, the ordinary Rader of literature has to have something
of the critic in him if his reading is to qualify as a literary transaction
and if the literary culture is to make itself felt in his reading.
The two activities—making and reading—are inseparables within
a complex fact that I have just called the literary transaction.
If, therefore, the literary transaction
is the special province of the critic—the critic in the maker and
the critic in the reader—how is it that the possibility and relevance
of the extrinsic approach arises? The reason is not far to seek. We have already mentioned literary culture
within which the literary work has its being.
The literary transaction is what philosophers call an institutional
fact. Why does a piece of
speech delivered in a certain solemn tone and accompanied by certain
gestures count as a promise in one case or a prayer in another case? Because they are so categorized in the social-cultural matrix. Similarly a transaction is deemed to be a literary
transaction just because a shared literary sensibility deems it to
be so. The literary transaction
has its being only within literature as an
institution.
There are, as is commonly recognized
in social-science methodology, three modes of relationship that one
can enter into towards a social institution and transactions encompassed
by that institution. One can
be either a participant pure and simple or a participant-observer. In social-science methodology, participant-observation
is frequently adopted as a research strategy, as when a linguist is
urged not merely to observe the speech of a tribe but to insinuate
himself into the speech community the better to get an insider’s feel
of the language. Of course,
when a social scientist is studying his own society and culture, he
has no choice in the matter. He
has to be participant-observer to begin with.
Whether participant-observation is optional or obligatory for
the social scientist, he indulges in it only to end up a better observer. But there is another possibility namely, not
participant-observation for the sake of better participation but participant-observation
for the sake of better participation. It is this latter sort of thing that makes
the difference between a mere politician and a statesman. A statesman is no political scientist; he is
a politician who is a part-time political critic. A literary critic is a participant-observer of this second kind.
II
The
creative writer and his reader are, of course, participants, indeed
the participants in a literary transaction.
Their concern is to enjoy and to be in communication. They are more conscious of poems than of poetry, of literary works
than of literature as an institution.
Their relationship with the prevailing sensibility and the
continuing tradition can range from hearty partisanship to revolt
but hardly remain one of detached assessment—after all, the creative
writer and his reader are making literary history, not writing it.
In some literary cultures the literary amateur-reader is occasionally
called upon to verbalize the attitude that he has formed towards a
literary work whether globally or piecemeal beyond simple exclamation
of acceptance or rejection. What
sometimes goes under the name of criticism, typically the so-called
impressionistic criticism, is actually literary appreciation.
The author of literary appreciation is not a participant-observer
but simply a participant. *
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
A good deal of writing in India on specific pieces of music falls in an
analogous category of music appreciation rather than music criticism
proper—it appreciates, and sometimes also explicates the musical grammar
of rāga, tāla and the
rest.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Literary criticism proper goes beyond
simple appreciation to participant-observation, and in so doing often
arouses the suspicion and resentment of the literary amateurs. In the face of such hostile or contemptuous
reaction, the literary critic who believes in his job, to use the
words of Leo Spitzer, “would maintain that to formulate observations
by means of words is not to cause artistic beauty to evaporate in
vain intellectualities; rather, it makes for a widening and deepening
of the aesthetic taste. It is only a frivolous love that cannot survive
intellectual definition; great love prospers with understanding” 3a
Less rhetorically put, participant-observation is in the se5rvice
of more effectiv3e participation; it is simply more observant participation. The literary critic, then, is as much conscious
of single poems as of a whole body of poems and the institution of
poetry they represent. He
is quite likely to go in for a continual reassessment of tradition. Indeed he is the one who brings a self-conscious
literary tradition into existence. He is not content with expressing his enjoyment and explicating
what is communicated. He must
justify his evaluations and interpretations and he must account for
or explain what is happening in a work of literature and literary
transaction. Now when you want to explain anything—including
literature—you have to go beyond what you are explaining and place
it within a wider context. Literary
criticism is no exception. It
not only places the single work in the context of some literary the
Greek anthology or the Shakespeare canon.
It also places such traditions or corpora themselves in the
wider context. To this end,
the literary critic has to project his understanding of man and the
human condition into his critical activity.
In short, he has to be his own philosopher, historian, social
scientist, psychologist, and linguist.
At the same time, however, no such approach can be formulated
as a modus operandi and claim the critic’s “commitment”.
For “in the end it is the quality of imagination and intelligence
of the critic that is in question, not his method”. 4
The separation between the intrinsic and the extrinsic approaches
can only be a device for intellectual convenience.
These observations apply as much to text-cent red or formalist
criticism as to criticism of other kinds that is professedly less
single-minded in its concern for the central experience associated
with the text that is at the heart of the literary transaction.
So far we have seen the possibilities
of two stances towards literature—that of the participant doing literary
creation or appreciation, and that of the participation-oriented participant-observer
doing literary criticism. Next
we shall take up the possibilities of the stance of the observation-oriented
participant-observer and observer perhaps it will be simpler to speak
of the participant, the observing participant, the participating observer,
and the observer in listing the four stances. This is really a single stance, participant-observation
being only a tool in the service of observation. The observer’s interest is not centered on
literature in and for itself but rather on literature as exemplifying
this or that phenomenon or principle that happens to be the observer’s
main concern. His interest
is motivated in purely extrinsic terms.
The prime example of this is literary scholarship, the application
of philological techniques to literature.
The scope of philology is wider than literature in the narrow
sense. Let us use the term “letters’ for this purpose—letters
are all those texts whether artistic or not that are re-performed
in a given linguistic community from time to time in essentially unchanged
form (the transmission being oral or written) and are considered to
be worthy of such repeated performance.(The definition of ‘letters’
is indebted to Charles F.Hockett’s definition of the literature of
a society5 which is “essentially that of Martin Joos (unpublished)”.*
The philologist detaches himself from the intrinsic worth of letters
as literary art, mythology, scripture, and the like and studies them
as cultural artifacts. He
is no participant. Indeed he is typically an antiquarian. He either proceeds from a thorough knowledge
of the sociocultural envelope of these artifacts to throwing light
on the text or proceeds from the close study of the text to using
its evidence for reconstructing the sociocultural circumstances in
which it is produced and re-performed.
Philology applied to literature, i.e. artistic letters, is
literary scholarship. There are signs of late of psychologists, sociologists,
linguists, and others taking an extrinsic interest in literature.
Let us use the term “perliterary studies’ for all such studies,
literary scholarship being the oldest member of this group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This broader
definition thus covers not only literature proper but also letters,
advertisements, jokes, riddles, slogans, laws, inscriptions which
are all respoken, reheard, re-written, re-read from time to time
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both
literary criticism and literary scholarship can be given a historical
slant. What goes under the
name of literary history is commonly extrinsic or scholarly history
of literature and is an extension of literary scholarship and the
ethnography of literature. The intrinsic or critical history of literature
is only now coming into its own.
It reconstructs, for example, the changing literary sensibility
as revealed in literary creation and literary appreciation. A work of literature thrives in the company
of other works of literature. The
existing literary monuments constitute, in T.S. Eliot’s classic phrase
(1919), “an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the
introduction of the new (really new) work of art among them”.
Critical history reconstructs this order for each generation
after its sensibility. The
discrimination between the really new and the not so really new points
in another direction for critical history to proceed in.
To the extent that a literary transaction is not just enjoyment
but communication, the literary critic is always going
to use the yardstick of originality and authenticity and look
down upon plagiarism, forgery, imitation, even self-imitation of the
kind indulged in by a writer resting on his laurels.
The literary critic does so not because he is a moralist or
legalist, but because he is concerned that the communicative act in
a literary transaction may not be vacuous.
But then what is the kind of activity
in which we are now indulging in this study? It is neither literary
appreciation nor literary criticism nor literary scholarship. Rather, it is literary theorizing. The theory of literature is a branch of the
theory of art which in turn is a branch of aesthetics. Thus the theory of literature is essentially
a philosophical activity; as such it cannot replace literary criticism
nor (and literary critics need to be remind of this) can it be replaced
by literary criticism. It
takes up the critic’s interpretative insights and evaluative commitments
seen in relation to specific works or bodies of works and seeks to
interrelate them and bring out their coherence.
The theory of literary style is a branch of the theory of literature.
Literary theorizing has the same relation to literary criticism
that literary criticism has to literary appreciation. Literary theorizing proceeds form participant-observation of literary
critical activity. Ancient
India presents a remarkable case in that the surviving texts testify
to a sophisticated theory of literature, but there is little discourse
by way of literary criticism of specific texts.
The four kinds of activity, literary
appreciation, literary criticism, literary theorizing, and literary
scholarship can now be brought into a single frame work with the help
of two Para-meters (see Figure 1):
(a)
(1) Participation: the specific and
exploratory.
(2) Observation: the general and systematic.
(b)
(1) the subjective.
(2)
Observation: the objective.
Fig. 1. the general and systematic
Literary appreciation by the participant from the subjective
view of the specific (a1, b1) to the subjective view of the general
(a2, b1)—from “I like/ don’t like this piece” to, at the most, “I
like/ don’t like pieces of this sort”.
Literary criticism by the observing participant same point
of departure as literary appreciation (a1, b1) but aims at the objective
view of the specific (a1, b2) through the introduction of relatively
less subjective consideration of the general.
This last is the point of departure of literary theorizing.
By the participating observer, which proceeds from the relatively
subjective view of the general 9a2m, b1) to the objective systematization
of the general (a1, b2) through the introduction of relatively less
subjective consideration of the specific.
Finally;, literary scholarship by the observer applies general
objective considerations (a2, b2) to obtain an objective view of the
specific (a1. b2).
It must be born3e in mind that we are
not here. Classifying persons
but their activities. It is
quite possible that a literary critic who has started a true participant-observer
may get dissatisfied with the do-it-yourself plan, decide to go professional
in psychology or linguistics, and do a straight peri-literary study. Or it is just that he gets carried away by
the approach and so committed to it as a method; this may lead to
distortion in his account of the specific work of art.
It is equally possible, though perhaps less common, that an
observer, who after all is also a participant, an ordinary citizen
of the literary common wealth outside his study and occasionally even
inside his study, may forget his detachment, get involved, and become
a part-time critic and so a participation-oriented participant-observer.
A Marxist student of literature may thus become a Marxist critic.
No harm
done so long as one does not confuse the different rôles—we have just mentioned the
distorting of a literary critical approach into a set extrinsic method,
the result being neither good criticism nor good periliterary study
by a psychologist or a linguist.
Loose fashions in “interdisciplinary” approaches may lead to
just such distortions. The
hoped for fusion turns out to be a piece of confusion.
III
It
may be argued at this point that we have really begged the question
of seeing the literary critic’s activity as observant participation. There would be some justice in such a complaint
in that we have thrown out the merest hints. What we need to do is to show how this assessment
of the dual nature of literary criticism accounts for the existence
of certain recurring dilemmas in literary criticism.
In more grandiose terms, we shall speak of the antinomies of
literary criticism, each antinomy pointing to the pole of participation
and the pole of observation. It
will also be seen that the pole of participation has
a slight edge in appeal over the other pole: after all, literary
criticism is not participating observation but observant participation.
We have recognized six such antinomies, though it must be admitted
that not all of them may be of equal weight and that the six may be
open to being collapsed to some fewer of them.
The first horn in each pair will lean towards participation,
the second towards observation.
(1)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
let the work stand on pedestal and
submit to it?
(b)
Stand on the pedestal himself in
judgement of the work before him?
If
we find a poem that we are unable to come to terms with as a good
poem, we have to determine whether the poem has been found wanting
or our sensibility has been found wanting.
(1a) is disposed to accept the second alternative and (1b)
the first.
Participation with (a) seems better
suited to the critic’s job of interpretation, “a reconstruction of
vision” that “tends to merge into the work it analyses”, observation
with (b) the job of evaluation, “a judgement of vision” that discriminates
“good” from “bad”, “better” from “worse”, “major” from “minor”.
“The greater part of poetic commentary pursues a middle course….
Bur sometimes work is created of so resplendent a quality, so massive
a solidity of imagination that … any profitable commentary on such
work must necessarily tend towards a pure interpretation”
Interpretation and evaluation cannot but involve each other.
(2)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
go more by the effect of the words
on the page on the reader?
(b)
Go more by the known and inferable
intentions of the writer behind the words on the page?
The
young critic has recently been advised to shun equally the Scylla
of affective fallacy (a) and the Charybdis of intentional fallacy8
(b) and stick to exploring the complexities of the words on the page.9 But surely this last advice is a worse fallacy
than the ones it is designed to combat? Words on the page matter precisely because they are institutional
facts: otherwise they are merely pigments (or vapour, if we think
of spoken words). And the
institutions concerned are the language in the first instance and
the literary culture in the last instance.
So any genuine exploration of the words on the page (as distinct
from pretty diagrams or uninformed statistical jugglery) leads us
back to the communicative intention and forward to the unimpeachable
effect.
A participant reader is more likely
to go by the effects of the words on the page on him. He is likely to take the known intentions of the participant maker
for granted. A systematic
consideration of the intentions—inferring what they are and comparing
them with the effect—calls for a certain detachment.
Also, an observer is more likely to feel the need for such
a consideration.
Participation with (a) is better suited
to deal with traditional or familiar works and observation with (b)
with innovative or novel works. (Familiar/Novel
is also associable with contemporary/Older and Native/ Foreign).
(3)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
exhibit leniency, the quality of
generosity to the writer?
(b)
Exhibit stringency, and pay the compliment
of exactingness to the writer?
Involvement
with (a) is fairer to the inexperienced artist—to the young, the “folk”,
or the “primitive” artist. (The
primitive artist may, of course, be active in a metropolitan city. The painters Fousseau (Le Douanier) and early
Hussain come to one’s mind). A
certain detachment with (b) is fairer to the experienced artist—to
the established, the “popular”, or the sophisticated artist.
(4)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
remain robustly untutored, seeking
no extraneous aid?
(b)
Be educated and knowledgeable, fully
aware of the context?
Participation with (a) can do without extraneous aid
only to the extent that the literary critic has fully internalized
the language and the literary culture.
The inevitable gaps have to be plugged with explicative or
exegetical interpretation. Observation
with (b) can equally do without external aid since the critic is fully
aware of the context surrounding the text.
The critic knows he must be “against interpretation”10
but cannot help undertaking explanatory or hermeneutical interpretation. The distinction between the explicative and
the explanatory levels of interpretative criticism can be formulated
rather simply as follows: exegesis supported by philology tells you
what some text or text-fragment means when it does not mean anything
to you (as with obsolete words or unfamiliar allusion); hermeneutics
supported by a critical history tells you what some text or text-fragment
really ought to mean to you when it does mean something to you that
is unacceptable or inadequate (as with spiritual interpretations of
the erotic “Song of Solomon” in the Old Testament).
Interdisciplinary extrinsic criticism is simply an outgrowth
of hermeneutical criticism.
(5)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
be willing to distinguish between
what is being said and how it is being said?
(b)
Insist that what is being said cannot
be separated from how it is being said?
The literary amateur thinks nothing of so distinguishing
between what is being said and how it is being said if need be.
Style is conceived as finding the right means for the end in
view. The sophisticated critic
sooner or later comes to see the ultimate inadequacy of this notion
of style when applied to art as distinct from craft. At the same time one must admit that position
(a) is suited to dealing with minor works, while position (b) cannot
be avoided with major works.
(6)
Shall the literary critic—
(a)
be willing to distinguish between
how the work is formed (“what goes where?”) and the enjoyment it yields?
(b)
Insist that how the work is formed
(its texture and structure) cannot be separated from the enjoyment
it yields?
The literary amateur thinks nothing of so distinguishing
between devices, techniques, ornaments and the pleasure and enjoyment.
Style is conceived as finding the right devices for the end
in view—amusement, pleasure, enjoyment.
The sophisticated critic comes to see the ultimate inadequacy
of this notion of style when applied to art as distinct from entertainment
or decoration. At the same time one must admit that position
(a) is suited to dealing with minor works, while position (b) cannot
be avoided with major works.
The last two antinomies are obviously
related to each other: both call for a passage from a recognition of technique to a recognition of
the organic unity of a work of art.
The fifth antinomy does so in the context of intentions, the
sixth in the context of effects.
(The distinction between intention and effects takes us back
to the second antinomy). The position taken here is that for the participant
in the literary transaction—be the maker or reader—technique is a
more immediately felt reality than for others.
Major artist and sophisticated critics do not bypass “mere
craftsmanship” : the artist can take infinite pains and the critic
knows a piece of painstaking work when he seed one.
Rather, they manage to rise above such consideration. By the same token, the really promising artist
takes his craft quite seriously—at any rate he revels in gaining a
virtuoso control of his medium.
A purely “technical” criticism. However,
is as much “extrinsic” in approach as the approach of the critic turned
psychologist or social historian or ethnologist or whatever. The “intrinsic” approach is predicated on the
organic unity of the literary work.
The following will serve as a conspectus
of literature related studies.
1.1
Literary appreciation
1.2
.1 Literary criticism—which may be
Intrinsic, holistic/Extrinsic, analytic
Interpretative, i.e., explanatory or hermeneutic/Evaluative
and which may or may not single out for attention Technique mediating
between effects and Intentions History, i.e., intrinsic critical history
1.2.2
Literary theory- which places art within the theory of art, which
in turn places art within
aesthetics
2.1
Literary scholarship—which includes
Interpretation, i.e., explicatory or exegetic History, i.e., extrinsic,
scholarly history
2.2
Other preliterary studies taken up
by psychologists, sociologists linguists, etc.
IV
The
observations made in the course of this study about the nature of
literary criticism in terms of certain polarities are presumably valid
mutates mutandis for the criticism of the other arts like painting,
music, or the theatre. The necessary mutations will have to do with
the fact that some of the observations hinge on literature being a
linguistic art. Language,
of course, enters into certain other arts, namely, dramatic theatre,
song, and talking film, but does so less exclusively when these arts
are compared with literature.
` The observations made in the course
of this study about the interrelationship between participation and
observation and between intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to study
are likely to be applicable to social institutions other than literature
and the arts.
Finally, the distinction made in the
course of this study between the three levels: initial attitude formation
and assessment, evaluative and exploratory judgement, and philosophical
ground-seeking and coherence-finding is presumably as much valid for
the ethical domain as it is for the aesthetic domain. There is an overlap between adjacent levels. See Figure 2 below which distinguishes between
appreciation (levels 0,1) and
|
|
3
Meta-aesthetic Principle after
2
Aesthetic insight
|
|
|
3
Critical principle after
1 Critical judgement
|
|
|
1Appreciative assessment after
0 Initial attitude formation
|
|
|
|
|
criticism
(levels 1,2) and philosophizing (levels 2,3).
At level 2, for instance, literary criticism and theory of
literature overlap. “Not all
critics…. Have a taste for literary theory—yet the greatest
must have, and I suppose it is inevitable that any really perceptive
and lucid critical study must reach this threshold and then, if it
turns back, disappoint”.11
Coincidentally, philosophizing about literature does not merely
pick up after literary criticism has left and confine itself to meta-aesthetic
discourse. Indeed, as I have
indicated earlier, it has to concern itself with specific judgements
in which critical principles are rooted.
Linguistic acts at levels 0, 1 and 2 are only incidentally
knowledge-communicating acts: they are primarily acts forming, manipulating,
and communicating attitudes. In spite of the intellectual trappings, art
criticism and moral criticism are not primarily modes of knowledge
at all, but are, like art and moral appreciation, forms of gestures
in some large sense. Criticism
and appreciation are close kin to the artistic and moral acts which
inspire them and not to scholarship and science which may be called
in to assist them. (Indeed it is less of a distortion to claim
that literary criticism is a moral gesture than it is to claim for
it the status of a science). Literary
theorizing and “technical analysis” may demote the work of art from
Thou to It. But literary participation
is true to the “the essential encounter between a person and a work
of art, a ‘spiritual being’,” “an I-Thou encounter” as distinct from
an I-It relationship.12
These proposals are to be taken not
so much for proposals for analogical extension as for proposals for
placing the literary art, the institution of art, and the aesthetic
domain in a wider context and the right perspective provided respectively
by the other arts, other social institutions, and the other domain
of intrinsic value. And you will agree that this concern for contexts
and perspectives is a very philosophical business and can thus be
counted on to impose discipline on the interdisciplinary approach
and prevent the desired fusion from lapsing into mere confusion.
NOTES
1
Ren Welleck and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature
(Penguin Books, 1956, first published in 1949), pp. 73-74.
2
W. H. Auden, Making,
Knowing and Judging : An Argument (Oxford: Carendon
Press, 1956). Reprinted in his The Dyer’s Hand and Other
Essays (London, 1963.)
3
Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 961),
4
S. W. Dawson, Drama and the Dramatic: London, 1970),
p. 47. The idea goes back to T. S. Eliot who said, “There is no method
except to be very intelligent. . . swiftly operating the analysis
of sensation to the point of principle and definition.” In the perfect
Critic in his . wood (London 1920: Section II).
5 A Course in Modern Linguistics (New York : Macmillar,
1958), p 554.
6 “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (The Egoist, Oct, 1919)
in The Sacred Wood (London, reviced ed. 1967, p.50) and selected
writing (London 1932, revised ed.1951).
7
G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire
(London Oxford University Press, 1930), pp. lff. IN his “Introduction”
T. S. Eliot concurs. Ibid.
p. xvii. (Revised ed. London: Methuen
1949)
8
W. K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, “The International
Fallacy”, The Sewanee Review, LIV (1946), pp. 455-88,
and “The Affective Fallacy”, The Sewanee Review, LVII(1949),
pp. 31-55.
9
For a recent mise au
point on the international fallacy see Graham Hough, “An Eighth Type
of Ambiguity, “ in Roma Gill, ed. William Empson:
The Man and His Work (London Route********1974,) pp. 76-77
10
Cf. Susan Sontag, Against, Interpretation
and other Essays (New York: Delhi, 1966, also: London: & Spottiswoods, 1967 *******
11 Laurence
Lerner, “Demoralizing Dickens”, Encounter (Feb., 1975), p.
78. The idea goes back to Rémy
12
Ich Und Du (Leipzlg: Insel, 1923). English translation,
Ronald Gregor, I and Thou (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 41-42.
COLOPHON
The initial stimulus came
in the course of a discussion at the Seminar on Twentieth-Century
American Literary Criticism: Interdisciplinary Approaches held at
Mussoorie, U.P., India in September 1974 under the auspices of the
U.S. Information Service. Later, much shorter versions were presented
at some talks. A revised and
enlarged version was presented at the 50th session of the
Indian Philosophical Congress held at Delhi (December 1975-January
1976) and published in Vdgartha quarterly (No. 11, October 1975, published
March 1976). The present version published in twentieth
century American Criticism Interdisciplinary approaches, New Delhi:
Arnold-Heinemann, 1977(p.13`-45), includes some additions (some of
which I owe to the queries raised by my friend Dr. Prajapati Shah,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur).
Hindi and Marathi versions have appeared respectively in Alochand,
July-September 1976 (Delhi) and Satyakathā, January 1977 (Mumbai).
