Judgment and Divergent Readings
_The Prime Minister_—The misunderstanding—in so far as it is a
misunderstanding—is purely a misunderstanding. . . .
_The Leader of the Opposition_—With the utmost goodwill on this
side, I find myself with far less grasp of the whole subject than
I had. . . .—_The Times_, 8th July 1924.
Ambiguity in a poem, as with any other communication, may be
the fault of the poet or of the reader. The ambiguities due to
erratic reading are as important for criticism as others, and
practically more troublesome. There are strong social incentives
for overlooking them. Talking to one another we assume, in nine
cases out of ten like the merest simpletons, that our readings
agree, and that when we differ in our opinions it is something
else, not our experiences but our judgments about them which
are at variance. Most discussion about works of art is waste
of time _as communication_ for this reason. It may, of course,
have great value as a means by which people may severally develop
their own reactions.
These assumptions which so densely obscure the issue raise innumerable
practical difficulties both for criticism and for the construction
of a theory of criticism. It is well worth while to analyse typical
situations a little further.
The closing lines of the Fifth Sonnet of Wordsworth’s River Duddon
series will afford a convenient instance:—
Sole listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played
With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound
Wafted o’er sullen moss and craggy mound,
Unfruitful solitudes that seemed to upbraid
The sun in heaven!—but now, to form a shade
For thee, green alders have together wound
Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around;
And birch trees risen in silver colonnade.
And thou hast also tempted here to rise,
Mid sheltering pines, this cottage rude and grey;
Whose ruddy children, by the mother’s eyes
Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day,
Thy pleased associates—light as endless May
On infant bosoms lonely nature lies.
Two readers who found themselves, as they thought, in entire
agreement as to the excellence of this sonnet, and especially
as to the beauty of its close, were surprised shortly afterwards
to discover that they had been reading quite different poems.
By the one the last sentence was interpreted as saying that the
gloom of lonely nature, of sullen moss and craggy ground, however
it might seem later on in life, had no oppressive effect upon
the children. By the other it was read as saying that however
barren and gloomy might be the scene, actually lonely nature
there in itself had no such character, but was, as it were, floating
“light as endless May on infant bosoms”. The two readings, by
throwing their effect back upon what had preceded and in addition
completely altering the rhythm of the close, produced what it
is no exaggeration to describe as two different poems. Neither
would be uncharacteristic of Wordsworth, although doubtless the
first reading is the one to be accepted.
This exemplifies what is perhaps the rarest case,[68] that in
which agreement as to value covers an actual grave difference
in the experiences valued. More usually there is some genuine
source for the agreement, to be found in some common character
of the experiences. What this common character is may be difficult
to discover. It may be merely the rhythm, or the cadence of some
phrase, or the form of a sequence of references. But sometimes,
if it is a more obvious part, such as a description or metaphor,
a discussion between critical readers, who are aware that their
experiences differ, will bring it to light.
Another common case is exemplified by some famous discussions
of _Hamlet_. It is curious that people with such different
conceptions of the character of Hamlet himself and of the action
of the play, have been able to agree none the less as to its
value as a whole, apart, of course, from its incidental values.
Much has to be discounted in estimating this agreement. On some
interpretations praise of the play as a whole is certainly insincere.
On the interpretation which makes Claudius the hero, whose tragic
frailty lies in the fact that his long-suffering patience with
the baseless suspicions of the crazy nuisance Hamlet breaks down
in the end and brings the noble monarch to disaster, there would
be little beyond the playwright’s subtlety which could honestly
be commended. But with all allowances it seems certain that widely
different interpretations have seemed to good critics to result
in the same peculiar high value of tragedy. The explanation is
that tragic value is a general not a specific character of responses.
Just as a collision between motorcars and a collision between
ships are equally collisions, so the impulses whose equilibrium
produces the _catharsis_ of tragedy may be very varied,
provided that their relations to one another are correct.
Very many of the values of the arts are of this general kind.
Besides the experiences which result from the building up of
connected attitudes, there are those produced by the breaking
down of some attitude which is a clog and a bar to other activities.
From Blake’s “Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce”,[69] to Voltaire’s
“Bon père de famille est capable de tout”, such works can be
found in all degrees. It matters little what the detail of the
impulses which make up the obstructing attitude for different
people in each case may be. This often varies, but when the attitude
collapses the effect can be agreed upon. The great masters of
irony—Rabelais and the Flaubert of _Bouvard et Pécuchet_—are
the chief exponents of this kind of exorcism.
[68] For another instance see Browning, _Parting at Morning_.
[69] _The Keys of the Gates: To the Accuser who is the God of
this World_.