If criticism is a Science , how you would describe it

Criticism a Science

Ans . If criticism is a science , it is also , as Sainte Beuve says , " an art , requiring a clever artist . " - " Poetry can only be touched by a poet . " It has been further suggested that poet or the novelist finds in his subject the external life around him , or in some internal life experience ; the critic finds his subject in other men's books , in the world of literature . In each case there follows a reconstruction , the first reconstructing impressions drawn from life , the other reconstructing impressions drawn from literature . The purpose which the critic serves it at first simple appreciation . Appreciation is all that is demanded of a reader , expressed it may be by a rod of intelligent acquiescence , or a shake of the head when something has gone wrong . In proportion as he is moved to burst into self - expression , his is the voice of the public answering the writer's acknowledging the communication , declaring how it is understood , and what impression it is making . But when he goes further , and puts himself more intimately at the view point of the author , examining the subject , the treatment , the technique , the spirit expressed , the form , his is joined to the voices which reveal literature in the act of becoming self conscious about itself . It matters not whether the literature considered be of the past or the present . If it is of the past , each fresh effort to understand and place it means that so much belonging to the past has been reabsorbed and brought into the present , entering with something of its old original force into the life - current of modern culture . If it is of the present , it means that so much new fire that is being kindled today is being made to do work , so much fresh energy is being caught up and handed on to the extent that this mind , and another , and yet others are able to participate in it.are The critic cannot remain silent . But he is many things . Now his is the voice of the reader in active response . Now he is the creative writer justifying or explaining a certain method . Now he is one entering the fray where ideas tossed to and fro , standing on some vantage ground where his voice will be heard and exercise some possibly perceptible influence on the spirit of time . He may set himself deliberately at some central point in the movement , and aim , like Arnold at , establishing current of fresh and true ideas , not content to define and interpret this and that example of fine work , but going forth with the Crusader's lance in his hand to make truth and seriousness , the best that is known and thought in ught in the world , prevail . " The critic may be the quiet , just appreciator , He may be the interpreter , or the censor . He may be the artist , discussing about himself and his kind . He may be the elucidator , affording clues to the language , or explaining ideas which the author has taken for granted . He may be the curious explorer . Or be may be the definer , who is declaring just what a work is , gives it also its place in the succession or contemporaneity of ideas . He may be the constructive historian , who tells how the history of society has affected art , and the influence of the arts has modified society . He may be the literature either for the sake of literature or for the sake of humanity , or both . But whichever of these lie may be , there is one view point at which must always begin , and to which he must always return- that from which the man of letters , an artist , addresses himself with a single mind to the task of construing life into an image which will convince us and delight . From this the artist's point of view , he must never be far distant . " " To judge of pets is only the faculty of poets . " The critic must be a man of wide and very varied experience in reading almost , if not quite , wide as that of Jonson in eating . Otherwise lie will not have sufficient materials on which to base a judgment . He must be thoroughly acquainted with the great authors in several languages , or he will have no standard at all . But he must also have read many inferior authors ; he will put his candidate too low . As an examiner must know the whole range of his subject , or he cannot examine , but must also know the average abilities of men of twenty - two , or his standard will be absurdly high ; so with the examiner of a book . Next , he must not only have read , but must have reflected on his reading and accustomed himself to analyse the impressions the reading has made on his own mind . In fact , he must be a self critic , as well as a critic of books ; he must be more severe with them . When he finds himself liking or disliking a book , he must consider whether this or that feeling or may not be due to certain features of his own character , and whether these features are accidental or general . Like an astronomer , he will try to correct his personal education . and detach his own preference as far as possible from his judgments . It shouldbe his aim to give a fair criticism of something that he may personally dislike . This implies sympathy .. Besides , there is a capacity which , of late years , has been more visible , and more strongly insisted on , than before a psychological gift , both natural and trained ; a power to discover ; to some extent , the mind of the author behind the book . For the critic realises that the book is part of the man who wrote it , and that as it throws light on the man , so , when you attain some idea of the man , you understand the book better . This is the secret of the attempts that have so often been made to discover the real Shakespeare , the real Shelley , the real Byron . As an illustration , a reference could be made to certain recent works on Milton's work both French and English . The writers of these books by a close chronological study of Milton's works , prose , poetry , Latin , Italian , English , endeavour to reach an idea of the character of the man , and the changes that it underwent as years and circumstances set their mark on it . Thus , equipped they have come back to the poems , and have not only understood them better themselves , but have made us understand them better . They are aided , of course , by the fact that we know a good deal , apart from the poems , about Milton . But those who have read Andrew Bradley's essay on ' Shakespeare the Man ' will see that even in the case of the poet who does not . * abide our question ' much may be learned ; the merits of Bradley's criticism of Lear and Macbeth are largely due to this attempt , incompletely successful as it necessarily was , to get at the mind of the writer.