The critics
who would unite in condemning a thirteen-line sonnet or a ten-act
tragedy could not be expected to agree on the relative merits of
Milton's and Wordsworth's sonnets. Unanimity of opinion is as impossible
and undesirable concerning the poetic achievement of Browning and
Whitman as it is concerning the music of Brahms and Wagner, or the
painting of Turner and Whistler. Great artists who have taken liberties
with traditions and precedents have done much to prevent the critics
from falling into a state of self-complacency over their scientific
methods and formulas.
The most helpful form of criticism is the interpretative variety, not
necessarily the laudatory "appreciation" that is so popular in our day,
but an honest effort to understand and elucidate the intention of the
writer. The proper exercise of this art occasionally demands rare
qualifications on the part of the critic; at the same time it adds
dignity to his calling and value to his utterance. It serves to dispel
the popular conception of a critic as a disappointed _litterateur_ who
begrudges his more brilliant fellow craftsmen their success and who dogs
their triumphs with his ill-tempered snarling.
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