one author has the moral right thus to bejuggle the work of another,
even in translation. One who has written cannot help being influenced
by a sort of sub-consciousness of what his own feelings would be
if a translator were to work such a transformation upon one of his
books. Letting this pass, however, it is to be said that popular
demands in regard to the quality and veracity of translations have
steadily advanced. The paraphraser is now forced to appeal to a public
intellectually lower than that he formerly addressed. The literary
grade of the admirers of Mrs. Wister’s books is probably distinctly
below what it was ten years ago. Her school may be said practically to
have had its day; and the translator in the best sense has taken the
place of the paraphraser.
It is not that the translator may not take liberties, as we have
already seen in speaking of idiom. It is that where before liberties
were taken for the pleasure or from the caprice of the paraphraser,
variations are now supposed to be made by the translator for the sole
purpose of imparting to the reader a better idea of the impression
produced by the original on those who read it in its first form. Miss
Wormeley, for instance, is publishing a version of the comedies of
Molière. She has decided that she can give the American reader who is
unacquainted with French a better idea of the plays by rendering them
into prose than by attempting the rhymed verse of the original. To the
average American of to-day the effect is undoubtedly more satisfactory
than that of any metrical version could be. This is an extreme
instance, and it involves the difficulty of retaining the beauties and
value of poetical forms in translation, but it illustrates the length
to which variations from the original may legitimately go if they are
made in the line of fidelity to the impression of the original.
The two great principles in translation, then, are faithfulness to the
impression produced by the work in its own language, and faithfulness
to the tongue into which it is rendered, especially in idiomatic
constructions. It is to be remembered that the difficulty of producing
a satisfactory version is never an excuse for any failure. The fact
that one undertakes to make a translation is equivalent to a profession
of ability to cope with whatever obstacles the task may present.
The value of translating as a help toward literary facility is a thing
which should not be overlooked by the student. Whatever increases ease
in the handling of language is of worth, and especially valuable is
whatever forces the writer to greater exactness in the use of words and
phrases. Reading aloud in English from a book in another language is
excellent practice in the line of training the mind to quickness in the
use of words; and this is especially good for one going into newspaper
work.
It is going a little out of our way to comment here on the translation
which comes into school work, but a word may not be amiss. It is always
to be remembered, both by teacher and by pupil, that translation
involves two languages, and one as fully as the other. Too often work
of this sort is done as if the foreign language was the one to be
considered exclusively. Students are allowed to give an approximate
meaning of the Latin or the French which they are reading, putting
their so-called translation into a verbal jargon which uses the
English vocabulary, but which is no more English than the dictionary
becomes a poem from having in it the words used in poetry. This is
unfair to the student in several ways. It makes him hate what he is
doing; it prevents his ever having anything like a proper or true
idea of the value of the literature which he is mangling out of a
foreign tongue into mongrel English. It destroys his feeling for his
own language, and it makes it all but impossible for him to be taught
English composition. More than one teacher who agonizes in spirit over
the themes of his or her pupils, wondering why it is seemingly so
impossible to teach them to write even reasonably well, might find
an answer to the perplexing question by considering the English into
which they are allowed to render their work in the languages. If pupils
are let to translate from French and German and Latin into a sort of
schoolroom dialect, inexact, unidiomatic, and lifeless, it is gross
stupidity to expect that they will fail to be influenced by this. A
pupil’s education is a unit. As long as it is assumed that his training
in the languages is one thing, in mathematics another, and in geography
or history a third, there is a constant loss of energy in counteracting
the effects of this mistake. Every branch must be taught with a view
to every other, and learned with a view to every other; and especially
evident is it that in all teaching the matter of the proper use of the
language of the learner should be kept always in sight. The translation
which injures the pupil’s use of his own tongue does him a harm which
cannot be atoned for by any knowledge it gives him of another.
It must by this time be apparent that translation in the best sense is
really so closely allied to original work as hardly to be distinguished
from it. In fact no writer can hope to produce successful versions
of works of imagination who has not himself a genuine literary gift,
carefully trained. The pathetic idea of so many young women that
because they have taken lessons in French and German they can make
their living by translating from those languages is quickly and
painfully crushed by any attempt to carry it into practice; but there
is far from being any adequate conception even among general writers
of how difficult an art really good translation is. Yet so rapidly is
public taste being educated in this matter that poor versions from
other tongues become every day more and more futile and ineffective.
XXI
CRITICISM
Criticism is the estimation of work by defined standards. In its
application to literature it is the trying of whatever is written. It
is, so to say, the balance-sheet of composition.
Criticism is a sort of Exposition, yet it is well to consider it by
itself because it has so much the nature of a general survey of the
whole field of composition. Indeed, since literary training depends so
largely upon self-criticism, it is essential to understand its methods
and principles before one can hope to progress fast or far.
There has never before been a time when there has been so much talk
about the art as in the latter half of this century, and seldom a
time when there has been less of the genuine article. Matthew Arnold
preached the gospel of criticism, and the world went on its uncritical
way very much as before. There have even been doubts expressed whether
there was after all any such thing save in theory. That entertaining
Philistine, Mr. Andrew Lang, has declared that criticism is nothing but
the expression of personal opinion, and has strengthened his position
by pretty consistently living up to the assertion. The definition has
been somewhat widely accepted; and it is certainly true that much
which in common speech is called criticism is nothing more or less
than an expression of prejudice or opinion. Indeed, in common speech
the word is pretty generally used to signify mere fault-finding. There
is, however, no more propriety in using the verb “to criticise” in
the sense of “to censure” than in the sense of “to praise.” It means
neither. Its nearest synonym is “to estimate,” or “to measure.”
Criticism is appreciation based upon comparison of work with defined
standards. To criticise is to form or to express an opinion. It is as
far from blame on the one hand as from praise on the other; but it
establishes the reason for either. As a branch of Exposition it is a
written estimate. The principles of the art are the same whatever is
the nature of the work to which judgment is applied, but we shall speak
of it here chiefly as applied to literature.
The first necessity in criticism is that of a standard. Without
definite standards there can be no measurement of work. There is no
estimating the truth or falsity of anything unless there is first
some idea of truth; the merit or the worthlessness of a thing cannot
be measured unless there be some ideal by which it may be judged.
Until one has personal standards by which to measure life he cannot be
said to have any moral identity; until he has standards by which to
estimate ideas, he has no intellectual identity; until he has definite
and defined standards by which to criticise literature it is hardly
possible to consider that he has literary identity or that he is
entitled to lay claim to any literary opinion as his own.
I have spoken in a former lecture of that irritating class who take
refuge behind the phrase, “I do not know what is good or bad, but
I know what I like.” The phrase is a confession of either mental
incapacity or of mental slothfulness. It means either “I am too stupid
to think out the reason why this pleases me,” or “I am too lazy to
think.” It is a moral duty for one to know why one likes or dislikes
a thing. I do not mean that we can go to the ultimate analysis of the
reasons why beauty delights and ugliness pains. I do mean that the
possession of reason lays on a man a moral obligation to use it; and
that so far as his individual reason can go, it is his duty to examine
the grounds of his feelings. How is a man to have the courage of his
dislikes if he does not know upon what they rest? It is the duty of
every rational creature to have opinions. In order to have opinions it
is necessary to estimate belief and feeling. In order to estimate it is
needful to have standards.
All this being so, how are standards to be obtained? There is
unfortunately no market where they are to be bought; and the mere
mention of acquiring them fills untrained and timorous minds with a
shuddering sense of horribly laborious undertaking. Yet in its plainest
form the matter is simply to know what one believes; and that is the
first step in any mental development which can claim to be genuine.
This does not mean that criticism is to be a matter of personal opinion
in the sense of its being arbitrary liking or disliking. It means that
the first standard by which all work must be tried is that of its
truth; and that to be able to measure its truth it is necessary to know
what one regards as truth. To be able to estimate the verity of a book
it is essential that one have definite opinions in regard to the truth
as it concerns life and humanity, and that one be not in the least in
doubt what those opinions are. Criticism by vague opinions is like
weight by an uncertain balance.
For individual criticism, moreover, it is absolutely essential that
judgment be made by truth as it appears to the critic, and not by
his idea of what others may think to be truth. His knowledge of what
others believe is to influence him in establishing a standard, not in
his measurement of works by it. In other words, we all are and should
be affected in our decision of what is truth by the opinion of our
fellow-men. When we have made up our mind that a certain thing is true,
we try work by it as a standard without reference to the belief or the
disbelief of others.
This is a matter which reaches far. It seems to me that it is hardly
possible to insist too strongly in education upon the need of realizing
one’s opinions. What many persons call their mind is merely a sort of
mental protoplasm from which a mind may with care be developed, and the
most effective means of development is that of defining clearly the
things which we believe and of assuring ourselves as exactly as may be
what to us is and what is not truth.
Our idea of truth is the standard by which we estimate the thing that
a work expresses, whether in idea or in impression. To estimate the
mechanics of a book, its technical finish, and all that has to do with
workmanship, it is necessary to study the masterpieces of literature.
To judge of what may be done and what may therefore be fairly demanded,
it is necessary to examine those works which have stood the test of
time and which are pronounced good by the verdict of mankind. It is
difficult to form our standards from contemporary writings because
in them what is permanent is apt to be obscured by the temporary.
Literature shows the relation of men to their time and the relation
of man to life. In the classics of all languages, in the books which
have lived from generation to generation, the temporary drops out of
sight while the essential remains. A story which showed the relation
of the men of the Restoration to the great struggle between Puritanism
and Royalty was of poignant and even bitter interest to the readers
of that time because each reader was a partisan on one side or on the
other. To-day we have no personal feeling in regard to these political
and religious differences, which without the aid of foot-notes we very
likely do not even understand. Only the essential and human remains.
We read such a tale with a perception only of the revelation which it
makes of the nature of permanent human emotions. We get from it only
the truths which have to do with the relation of man to life, not as it
is for one party or sect, but as it is for man as a human being. When
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was new, it was hardly possible to look at it from
a literary standpoint, because from one side or the other of the great
anti-slavery question its readers felt passionately its moral purpose.
We are already far enough away from the anti-slavery struggle to be
able to examine the book critically, and to decide upon its literary
qualities without reference to its political or moral weight. It is
only when time has practically eliminated the temporary and accidental
in a work that we are able to look at it in a temper dispassionate
enough to allow us to get from it an idea of the essential qualities
which shall be to us a standard.
The things which we are thus to learn from the study of the
masterpieces and the classics of literature, are: first, the laws of
province, and second, the possibilities of literary expression. By
the laws of province--which is a somewhat formidable name for a not
very complicated thing--I mean what is the province of each variety
of literary form. This would include, for instance, the consideration
of the consistency of fairy tales, the discussion of a moral purpose
in fiction, methods in writing history or biography, and all the many
matters of this nature. If we are to consider how well a novelist
has done his work, it is necessary that we have some clearly defined
notion of what comes properly within the scope of a novel; if we are
to criticise a romance, a history, an essay, it is in any case needful
that we be acquainted with what the experience of permanent literature
and the judgment of the masters have decided to be the proper range of
each sort of writing. This is what is meant by the laws of province. It
is only by the careful study of the best works of these several sorts
that we become qualified to judge how far a new production holds by the
laws which should govern a composition of its kind. This is the more
difficult as these laws are largely unwritten, and from the nature of
things must be differently applied in different cases.
One thing must be said in regard to the authority of the classics,
the masterpieces of literature to which we are to go to learn our
standards. The young author is apt to feel that it is a mark of
weakness to confess that he is influenced by the example of those who
have gone before him. He protests, often pretty vigorously, against
this autocratic rule of authors long since dust strewn as far as
waters flow or the wind speeds. He feels that it is for the living to
make laws for the living, and this generally means in his own case a
willingness to make such canons, or at least a determination to be a
law unto himself. The difficulty is that he does not recognize the true
state of things. The domain of literature is not a despotism, but the
most absolutely free of all republics. No author, no matter how great
he be, can force the public to accept his book or can impose his works
upon the generations. It is by the suffrages of the readers of the
world that he stands or falls, and if there was ever given in the whole
world a disinterested and impartial vote, it is precisely this decision
which the world makes upon the merit of works. What we call the
classics are the books which the world has decided are good. It is the
consensus of the opinion of mankind that dominates here. The opinion of
individuals is often wrong. I doubt if the verdict of generations upon
a book ever errs substantially.
Yet another thought is of importance. To write is to endeavor to
communicate thought. It is manifestly inconsistent and illogical not to
choose that method of communication to which the world will listen. The
measure of the world’s willingness is to be found in the works which
the world has permanently approved. We learn our standards from the
masterpieces of literature, we say; we might say: Here are the books
which show what form of composition will be attended to by the world
which the writer wishes to address. To see how far successful a given
author has been in doing what he attempted, it is well to compare his
work with this.
The forming of standards of mechanical excellence is of course founded
on the same principles as those by which we determine what I have
called the laws of province. There is no hard-and-fast rule by which to
define exactly the limits of one department of literature or another,
and the only thing which can without qualification be said is that no
one can write criticisms which are of any lasting or indeed of any
transient value who is not well acquainted with the great body of good
English literature.
One thing should be kept constantly in mind in writing criticisms, and
that is that the critic must appreciate and hold to the point of view
of the author criticised. The great point is to know what the author
tried to do, and to judge how far he has succeeded in doing it. If a
book is written for the general public, for instance, it is manifestly
unfair to complain that it does not meet the needs of the specialists;
and equally would it be unfair to find fault with the volume carefully
prepared for the specialist for not being adapted to the average
reader. Be sure that in writing a criticism you are clear in regard to
what it is proper to expect from a given book, and in regard also to
what the work is or is not as judged by the standard thus established.
Criticism must first of all things be definite.
One of the powers first to be called into play in forming an estimate
of any work is that of analysis. It is impossible to compare the
qualities of a composition with the standard in our mind, without
separating those qualities from each other. We must be able to say that
this passage has Force, that that has Elegance; to see that the work as
a whole possesses Force but lacks Clearness; and so on for any and all
the characteristics which may be found. It is necessary to study the
effect which a work produces, and again to be able to tell upon what
means those effects depend. In no other way can we put ourselves in a
position to estimate fairly and conclusively the value and the lasting
merit of that which we criticise.
I have more than once reminded you that literary work that is worth
the name is a severe labor. It has never seemed to me worth while
to attempt to lure you on with delusive persuasions of easy roads
to literary perfection. All literary work which is worth doing is
laborious and long; and of all literature which is generally included
under the head of belles-lettres it seems to me that criticism is
intellectually the most severe. It is so largely a matter of pure
intellect that it even seems more arduous than it is. In writing
poetry or fiction, or indeed any purely creative work, the pleasure of
creation arouses the emotions and kindles the fancy. One can now and
then give the rein to his mind, so to say, and let the steeds of his
imagination start off for a dash. In criticism the imagination has no
office save that of being sympathetic and of entering into the mood
of another. The strain on the attention and the judgment is constant;
and that there are no more good critics is to be accounted for by the
explanation--which is almost an excuse--that criticism is so difficult
an art.
When all other qualifications for criticising have been considered,
there remains that most elusive, most essential of all,--taste. Taste
is a fine sense of the fitness of things; a perception of the proper
proportion in work, and of the limits to which the expression of
feeling or emotion can go. It is closely allied to a sense of humor in
its quality. It is no less a delicate appreciation of the fitness of
means to effect, and of the propriety of the ways by which an author
has endeavored to impress his readers. Taste is the self-respect of
the imagination. It determines the line beyond which the fancy cannot
go with dignity.
It is that faculty by which we decide that one shade of incongruity
is humorous and touching, yet that the shade but a trifle deeper is
vulgar and repulsive. The knowledge how far things should be carried;
sensitiveness to literary propriety; delicacy to finest differences
of effect, are all dependent upon this faculty, which underlies all
æsthetic perception. How to improve it, refine it, develop it, is the
question of all culture. Goethe says:--
Taste should be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably
good, but of the truly excellent.... The best ... when you
have fully apprehended, ... you will have a standard, and will
know how to value inferior performances without overrating
them.--_Conversations._
There is little that can be added to this. The best books well read
will do all for the taste that definite outward cultivation can do.
The rest is a matter of inner growth. No one is fitted to criticise
work until he has learned to appreciate work. Even a felon may claim to
be tried by his peers, and surely an author is fairly entitled to at
least this grace. The peer of an author in this sense is the man who
sympathetically is able to understand him; who is trained to perceive
what is the aim of a book, and so is in a position to judge how far it
has succeeded or failed. Until one is conscious of having attained to
this he should at least be modest in his judgments; he should define
his opinions for himself, but he will not claim that infallibility
which belongs only to the critic of the highest rank and which is
claimed only by those of the lowest.
All this has to do with criticism as it should be, and as it is at
its best. This is what men like Sainte-Beuve, Leslie Stephen, Taine,
Lowell, and those of their rank have made it. If the question is that
of writing what are called criticisms for the press, and especially for
the daily press, the matter is not entirely the same. A newspaper is
a business enterprise. The publishers have not established it in the
interest of abstract virtues, and they generally care neither more nor
less for ideals, whether literary or otherwise, than the broker or the
banker next door. They conduct their business very much as business
which depends directly upon public support is conducted everywhere.
They endeavor to learn what the largest number of buyers will like,
and this they endeavor to supply. If too many newspapers of to-day are
nothing more or less than mental dram-shops or bagnios, the men who
have not too much principle or self-respect to keep them have at least
the defense, such as it is, that they print what the public proves
itself most eager to buy.