“The gift of judgment is rarer than the gift of creativity.”
Oskar Loerke as quoted by Walter Benjamin.
In the tradition of appreciative stealing, this post will consist of a series of quotes by Walter Benjamin, one of the main ports of call for people seeking a voice of authority on art, literature, children’s books, toys, blogging and, of course, comics.
As one of the fathers of popular culture studies, Benjamin has been quoted and used liberally by comics academics and critics, largely with respect to his seminal essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction“. Gary Groth relies on him in his discussion of Reinventing Comics, as does Ernesto Priego in his paper on comics and digital reproduction. I, myself, have used some of his statements on children’s books and nostalgia in a disappreciation of EC comics I once wrote. It should also be noted that our host, Noah, recently wrote a post making fun of Mr. Benjamin so this could be seen as another opportunity for him to laugh at a dead man.
Most of the quotations which follow are from notes and fragments which remained unpublished prior to his death by suicide. They provide a glimpse into the man’s unfiltered thoughts.
***
In a recent discussion of theory begun by Vom Marlowe, Noah suggested that:
“Most people who review comics…come up with ad hoc ideas which refer in general to received bodies of knowledge, rather than looking to particular theories or texts. I’d argue that there are some problems with deliberately refusing to learn from people who have already covered the ground you’re walking on — for one thing, you tend to end up wandering around the same turf a lot.”
This gentle censure against reinventing the wheel might well apply to the art (let’s assume it is an art for the time being) of criticism, especially in its generalities. Therefore, to begin (all quotes in bold from hereon are by Walter Benjamin):
(1) “Suppose you make the acquaintance of a young person who is handsome and attractive, but who seems to be harboring a secret. It would be tactless and reprehensible to try to penetrate this secret and wrest it from him. But it is doubtless permissible to inquire whether he has any siblings to see whether their nature could not perhaps explain somewhat the enigmatic character of the stranger. This is exactly how the true critic inquires into the siblings of the work of art. And every great work has its sibling (brother or sister?) in the realm of philosophy.”
Which relates to the preamble.
(2) “Good criticism is composed of at most two elements: the critical gloss and the quotation. Very good criticism can be made from both glosses and quotations. What must be avoided like the plague is rehearsing the summary of the contents. In contrast, a criticism consisting entirely of quotations should be developed.”
A recurring idea in Benjamin’s notes. He was writing about literature. The equivalent in terms of comics would not be a a quotation of the text but the reproduction of panels (preferably whole pages) from the work in question. The print Journal was intermittently castigated for relying too greatly on words in what is largely a visual art form, an error which was seen to be rectified in Todd Hignite’s Comic Art magazine. The only valid excuses for refraining from doing as such online are poverty and sloth.
(3) “Honest criticism from the standpoint of unprejudiced taste is uninteresting and basically lacking in substance. What is crucial about any critical activity is whether it it is based on a concrete sketch (strategic plan) that has its own logic and its own integrity…This is missing almost universally nowadays, because political and critical strategies coincide only in the most outstanding cases. Nevertheless, such a coincidence should be the ultimate goal.”
“The false and unsustainable fiction that literary criticism today can still expect to derive its standards from pure aesthetics, and that criticism is basically nothing but the application of those standards. Criticism has failed to notice that the time for aesthetics in every sense, and especially in the sense practiced by Friedrich Theodor Vischer, is gone forever.”
An exemplar may be found in the excerpt from”The Newspaper” which Noah quotes in his Splice Today article where the author’s Marxist leanings are laid bare for all to see:
“For as writing gains in breadth what it loses in depth, the conventional distinctions between author and public, which is upheld by the bourgeois press, begins in the Soviet press to disappear. For the reader is at all times ready to become a writer, that is, a describer, but also a prescriber. As an expert—even if not on a subject, but only on the post he occupies—he gains access to authorship […] It is in the theater of the unbridled debasement of the word—the newspaper—that its salvation is being prepared.”
Concerning aesthetics: Benjamin was talking specifically about literary criticism. If there is a problem with the application of aesthetic standards, they apply less to comics than they do to literature for we have barely begun to understand the extent to which they pertain to the former.
It must be said that I’ve often found critics who focus on a single strategic plan (Benjamin suggests a plan but there is no hint as to their number) uninteresting and tedious over the course of time. The reader can certainly avoid these writers but if said person infects a favorite publication, then there can only be weeping and the gnashing of teeth, even if their goals appear to be noble and right (e.g. feminism and issues concerning race).
A counter example. The print Journal was singular in its focus – that comics (a medium once thought thoroughly disposable) could be art and should be treated with all the respect and severity the term entails. This is a situation which we find mirrored in the following strand from Benjamin’s “Program for Literary Criticism”:
“Germany’s reading public has a highly peculiar structure. It can be divided into two roughly equal parts: ‘the public’ and ‘the literary circles.’ There is scarcely any overlap between the two. The public regards literature as an instrument of entertainment, animation or the deepening of sociability – a pastime in a higher or lower sense. The literary circles regard books as books of life, as sources of wisdom, as the statutes of their small groups – groups that alone bring bliss. Hitherto, criticism has concerned itself almost exclusively – and very wrongly – with what catches the attention of the public.”
The print Journal of old was noted for its in-depth interviews which looked beyond temporary and purely commercial needs; there was probing long form criticism the like of which will not be seen for some time in a non-scholarly venue and it possessed a careless disregard for political expediency. In the face of falling circulation numbers earlier this century, the print Journal reinvented itself and died. The battles of old had been won and the marketplace more accepting of a wider literary and artistic approach. The larger comics reading public was seen as a new potential customer base; superheroes and their genre brothers worthy of deeper investigation and equal consideration. The magazine’s tone became less confrontational and rigorous, its “statutes” in a sense denigrated, its older audience thus alienated and whittled down. The advance of technology took care of the rest.
(4) “Historical retrospect: the decay of literary criticism since the Romantic movement. A contributory factor is the absence of a collective authority that could judge great objects and slogans. Every cohort of critics has seen itself as a “generation” in all its limitations, as a puny guardian of “posterity”. In this way, caught between productive writers and posterity, it didn’t dare move a muscle, and so foundered in epigonism.”
Benjamin is talking specifically about critics and not the artists they write about. A strange concept for comics – that criticism should be seen as part of the grand weave of art. I have the impression that this idea is viewed as a kind of vanity both by comics critics themselves and the reading public at large. It is, after all, hardly a “professional” endeavor. Nor is the medium about which they write sanctioned by the ages. Free from such constraints, comics critics often find themselves at ease to find new “masterpieces” and condemn “posterity”. We do not feel the weight of history or tradition for there is none.
On the question of posterity in comics, the following quote was culled from a message board thread discussing the value of collecting original art:
“A quote from a conversation between a collector and the director of a Museum in Amsterdam: ‘Director: Do you really believe that the art world gives a damn about all those memorabilia? Their so called iconic value is eroding, because it’s not generation-crossing. The people who grew up with Tintin are now in places where they can keep their childhood hero alive (press, media). Once they are gone, attention will slowly fade away, and so will your so called icon. It has happened before.'”
Are these words based on experience or blind ignorance? Let’s dispense first with the idea that mere quality guarantees the survival of a work of art. Central to the idea presented above is that what keeps a work of art alive through the centuries is patronage, the academy and the art establishment as personified by major galleries; that comics must form an essential part of formalized education and the study of human progress in order to ensure its longevity. Quite apart from a simple seeking after recognition, this explains the desire by so many to place comics within the safe houses of Western civilization. It might be useful to compare the extent to which the public (now empowered; see subquotation 3) as opposed to the academy has influenced the durability of individual films.
(5) “The stronger a critic is, the more comprehensively he is able to digest the entire personality of his adversary, right down to the details of his character.”
Is the adversary the artist, his fellow critics or both? In a private discussion with a certain critic, I discussed in a limited way the idea of being forthright and the morality of conferring on a writer’s proclivities behind the subject’s back. How else are we to refine our ideas concerning the positions of our fellow writers and critics if not through such discussions? How else are we to perceive not only his stated ideas but the nature of his deficiencies and sensitivities? From this statement, it would appear that Benjamin saw such adversarial relationships as a certainty though they may be looked upon with sadness when unexpected and unplanned.
(6) “The risk in bestowing praise: the critic forfeits his credit. Looked at strategically, every expression of praise is a blank check…There is fine art in giving praise. But it is also a fine art to bring out the importance of something apparently peripheral through negative criticism.”
“Highly symptomatic of modern criticism: it never compromises an author more than when it bestows praise. And on the whole, that is right and proper, since the critics prefer to praise worthless books. But significant works are not treated any differently.”
Of course, Benjamin never suggests that these “risks” are not worth taking. He also seems to allude to a kind of susceptibility in all works of art, a flaw which is acquired from their construction through human hands. I am certainly “thankful” when critics leave themselves open through unqualified praise of “worthless” comics. So much the better to beat them over the head with if one so chooses.
As for the predisposition to praise among comics critics, this quality may be seen as the corollary of our freedom from history (see quotation 4) and hence any sense of responsibility or guilt relating to shoddy standards and craftsmanship.
A recent example of bringing out the “peripheral” through negative criticism on The Hooded Utilitarian was Caro’s dissection of Chris Ware’s deficiencies where we find an analysis of a half-formed quote deriding the critical establishment; statements concerning his artistic ease and difficulties; and a discussion of his desire and ability to create fully-formed worlds for the mind to inhabit, less so a corresponding swathe of complex ideas (I am of the opinion they do exist). The reader who is convinced of Ware’s merits may be led to search for that which he senses intuitively (Ball and Kuhlman’s The Comics of Chris Ware is an adequate starting point).
It is when the light shines brightest that I long for the comforts of darkness. Negative criticism to me is least useful in matters of consumer guidance though this is frequently needful. It very often has the unlikely (predictable?) side effect of strengthening my convictions as to the worth of the work in question.
Readers often presume a complex but logical process in the work of criticism, an almost empirical basis for the evaluation of books. But Benjamin recognizes something more mystical, a process of appreciation based on the fleeting and unconscious rather than definitive knowledge:
“Reading is only one of a hundred ways of gaining access to a book. Always ultimately essential (within limits) as a means of verification, but often no more than this. What does it mean to have a sense of the aura surrounding a book? Perhaps it means the ability to forget. To forget a work or conversation about a book, or a glance through its pages, means perhaps consigning it to the judgment of our unconscious. The unconscious – which has the power to turn impressions and images, however fleeting, into extracts we often recognize in our dreams. This often explains why the true critic often has waking dreams about a book even before he comes to know it.”
(7) “The critic must know how to give the public the feeling that it will know where to expect him. When he will speak out and in what way.”
A trait much more typical of critics of the comics industry, less so the formless void which addresses aesthetics (see quotation 3) and value. This requires time and a concerted effort on the part of the critic. We can sense the values of Dan Nadel in matters of historical accuracy and in his concern for attention to detail in curatorialship. There’s Jeet Heer’s respectful and less adversarial stance towards the comics and cartoonists he covers, and Ken Parille’s obsession with form, structure and close readings. Noah’s disdain for the modern literary comic is palpable, as is his theory-based appreciation of pulp and genre. It is hard to say if this is an essential aspect of the comics critic. It may have the happy side effect of creating a loyal and expectant readership. Is predictability of this sort a valuable trait? This has some connection to quotation 8 which follows…
(8) “Regarding the terrible misconception that the quality indispensable to the true critic is “his own opinion”: it is quite meaningless to learn the opinion of someone about something when you do not even know who he is. The more important the critic, the more he will avoid baldly asserting his own opinion. And the more his insights will absorb his opinions. Instead of giving his own opinion, a great critic enables others to form their opinion on the basis of his critical analysis…What we should know about a critic is what he stands for. He should tell us this.”
(9) “The wretched state of German book criticism is a secret to no one. Unlike the reasons for it. But chief among these are the absence of comradeship, of opposition, and of clarity in the commerce between writers. Hence the astoundingly wishy-washy nature of trends and their representatives, and the sterile dignity of a criticism that is merely the expression of the stiflingly narrowminded spirit in which it is practiced.”
I assume that Benjamin’s claims here were charged with the political. The problems faced by comics criticism are much more basic.
As stated under quotation 3, that brief “shining” moment for comics criticism (that challenge to the aesthetic possibilities of the form) is now over. Grendel and his dam are dead and we wait expectantly for the next monster in the firm knowledge that it will not be the dragon. These are the best of times and the worst of times.
Divorced from the larger narrative of art and civilization, comics criticism in its most popular form has largely subsisted on a type of specialized knowledge, a kind of insularity which has become easy and habitual. The perspective here is narrow and vested. An unhealthy state of affairs to some onlookers who appreciate and demand the application of a wider field of knowledge. Is comics criticism trendless and “sterile”, and do we wish it as such?
(10) “One should adopt a maxim; never write a critique without at least one quotation from the work under review.”
Which explains all of the above.
“The critic must know how to give the public the feeling that it will know where to expect him. When he will speak out and in what way.”
I actually disagree with this fairly strongly. He seems to be advocating some sort of critic branding. I can see why this would be useful for marketing purposes (the McDonald’s effect), but I don’t really see how it can be elevated to some sort of aesthetic goal.
I think if anything a writer has something of a responsibility not to get in a rut; you don’t want to always be saying the same things in the same way over and over.
I wonder if in that quote, he is speaking more of reviewers than critics (obviously these are categories that overlap a lot). The point might be that in a review, if you have to tell your readership every single time what your over-all tastes are and what your theory of art is, your pieces are going to be really long, really repetitive.
With critics I like, over time I develop the kind of relationship with them where I more-or-less know the parameters of their taste and roughly where they are coming from ideologically. This allows me to approach a new piece by a given critic with certain expectations. Now the critic may shatter those expectations, or may subtly shade them by adding new information.
The value of me, as a reader, having this foreknowledge of the parameters of a critic’s taste is that I don’t have to assume that the critic is making a universal statement of quality, sitting in Olympus and declaring that this work of art is good and that work of art is bad. The critic may believe he is doing just that, but because I, as a reader, have formed an opinion on the critic’s taste before I read his next pronouncement, I have the luxury of being skeptical of any explicit or implied statements of universality on the part of the critic–while still enjoying the criticism.
(See Thomas McEvilley.)
Suat,
Thanks for mentioning me — I understand the longstanding connection between criticism and claims about quality, and the oft-mentioned polarities of positive and negative criticism. But these terms and this way of thinking about what I’m doing when I write are not all that important to me. I don’t really have a concept of “the role of the critic” — I can only speak for myself and say that when I write for the blog flume I try to find things that are interesting (something that I want to spend a few afternoons trying to understand) and then write it in a way that I hope will be interesting and accessible to others.
For example, I once wrote about a page from Casper.
http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/2010/02/casper-formalism-and-great-search-party.html
Does the page or story have merit? Is it good? I really can’t say for sure, though I guess it doesn’t have much “literary value.” But it is a very attractive page, fun to think about, and then challenging to write about. So in that piece I praised something that I also think has not much value, in a way.
I have published a book and some articles in academic journals on childhood, literature, education, and gender in nineteenth-century America, but, with rare exceptions, would not recommend any of the primary texts to anyone. Yet they were interesting to me and helped me to understand New England pedagogical culture as it appears in numerous kinds of writing in the period. I almost always ignored questions of value, merit, standards, praise, etc . . . Sometimes you could read my beliefs out of what I say, but most times, not. Sometimes, questions of value seem the least important questions to ask.
2 years ago I wrote about some of these issues in comics criticism at the blog flume:
http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/2008/07/need-based-criticism.html
Hey Robert. I don’t know. It’s possible he is actually talking about some sort of marketing program; hard to say exactly from context.
I can see where readers would certainly figure out themes, ideas, characteristic interests in critics they read regularly. But I don’t see why a critic should cater to that. Or to look at it another way — as a matter of marketing and just not driving away all the readers, HU tries to focus on comics criticism. But, if only to keep from getting bored, I think it’s important to try to mix it up at least a little — throw in the occasional piece on feminist performance art, for example.
I tend to think reader expectations are more of a trap than something to embrace, I guess. It’s not hard to figure out what people want to read and then spend your time trying to give that to them. But I think you find yourself in dead ends fairly quickly if you don’t keep other goals in mind as well.
Ken, thanks for that link.
As far as I’m concerned, criticism, or any writing, is a goal in itself, not a way to improve comics. That goes for positive criticism, negative criticism, analytical criticism, or what have you. I like writing all of those, but the point is never really to lift comics up or make the medium better or what have you. It’s to entertain myself and the reader, or to create something beautiful or funny or meaningful, depending on how pretentious you want to be about it I guess.
I basically agree with you, but wouldn’t mind ocassionaly if a post, like this one on Dave Sim
http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/2008/05/glamorous-mess.html
had some minor effect on things.
I helped Buneaventura Press and still work with a few cartoonists as a proofreader/editor. I see my role here as trying to make actual comics better through different kinds of critical responses (not just proofreading the text, but the art, and commenting on anything else that seem worth bringing up to the cartoonist). It’s not quite what we have been talking about, but it’s a related form of criticism. And I have learned a lot about comics and how they are made.
Hmmm…Noah, I’m a bit dismayed at your ‘profession of faith’ as a critic. Art, even bad art, doesn’t exist as simple clay for the critic to play with just to “entertain” himself and his readers. Art has its quiddity, which deserves respect.
I’m also disturbed by the quotes from Benjamin that Suat has posted. I feel a real will-to-power behind them.
The critics should be as the straw dogs whom the people trample onto the temple floor.
I don’t actually think art qua art does deserve respect. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with entertainment — though obviously entertainment doesn’t deserve respect any more than art, to the extent that the two can be distinguished (which isn’t to a great extent, I don’t think.)
Oh, I love entertainment: I just am uneasy about criticism as entertainment. It always seems to lead to a Roman-circus orgy of gleeful Schadenfreude and shallow put-downs.
We remember Dorothy Parker’s barbs for their cruel wit, but was she ever worth anything as a critic? The same goes for John Simon, that “Illyrian thug”, to use Gore Vidal’s pungent insult.
TCJ used to have a bad reputation for gratuitous put-downs, quite separate from Gary Groth’s harsh crusades against mainstream mediocrity.
Look up the writings of Marilyn Bethke, for a sample…
Lots of things are entertaining; mean putdowns are intellectual analysis or heartfelt appreciation.
And, you know, Dorothy Parker is great; would she be better if she was a serious critic, whatever that would mean? I don’t think so.
Noah, I don’t know if Benjamin was talking about the kind of marketing you seem to suggest in your comment. For example, your citation of HU’s content mix applies well to Benjamin’s oeuvre – he wrote about everything (art, music, film, photography, literature, poetry, criticism, translation, toys, food, politics etc.). It’s more consistent with what Robert said – clear positions with regards standards, taste and, perhaps, ethics. Maybe you disagree in this regard as well (re: taste) but some of your readers and detractors would suggest that your published opinions don’t bear this out. We sort of know what to expect from Noah Berlatsky…
Following on this point and Ken’s comments on the forms criticism can take, I feel that critics should try to be reasonably adventurous in how they write about comics even if they favor one particular approach or style. I’ve read through most of Blog Flume and once directed Noah’s attention to Ken’s piece on “Need-based Criticism”. Ken practices what he preaches and my impression is that he’s trying to fill a void in comics criticism (I think that void can be objectively said to be present). Even so, I wouldn’t mind seeing him turn his attention to a different form of comics-related writing just to see what would emerge.
Alex: Your attitude toward criticism is absolutely typical of the public perception of critical writing and comics criticism in particular – its lowly status, inherent uselessness and purely parasitic nature. It is undoubtedly the generally accepted view of criticism and is the majority opinion particularly in degraded art forms like comics. It would also appear to be precisely the opposite of that of another HU blogger, Caro. In her piece on Ware, for example, she writes:
“Cocteau’s contrasting approach, rich with confidence, recognizes how the relationship of artist and critic can be that of interlocutors. The conversation may happen in writing and the artist and critic may never actually speak to each other face to face, but criticism as such is inherently fecund. Critics model ways of talking back to art, and talking back increases and vitalizes the relationships among any given art object, the people who engage with it, and the culture in which it operates. It is precisely the thing that moves art beyond being merely the “expression” of an artist, toward a more ambitious function as a site for cultural engagement and debate.”
Maybe Caro didn’t realize it at the time but this view concerning the value of criticism is almost non-existent in comics-related writing. Now it may be that a number of critics (and even The Comics Journal of old) did reach for this in some unconscious way but most do so with a kind of embarrassment. Comics criticism mirrors the sense of inferiority that can be found in comics in general.
Unlike Noah, Benjamin definitely thought of criticism as a way to shape (?improve) the publishing industry and “preserve” the best literature. I left out some quotes relating to this but I’ll reproduce two of them below:
“Furthermore, criticism has to secure its own power by developing a more effective attitude toward the relations of production in the book market. It is well known that far too many books are published. What is worse, a consequence of this is that too few good books appear. And those that have appeared have made too little impact. Until now, when critics wished to reject a book they directed their fire at the author. It is obvious that they have not achieved very much by this procedure. Their judgments cannot be followed up by executions. Not to mention that for every bad writer who is demolished in this way, nine new ones spring up in his place. A different approach is when the critics insists, within certain limits, on the principle of the publisher’s (economic) responsibility, and denounces the publisher of bad books as the squanderer of the already small capital that is available for producing books. The aim here, of course, is not to attack the commercial aspect of publishing – to criticize the publisher who makes money from bad books, just as other businessmen make money from inferior merchandise – but to appeal to the misguided idealist whose patronage supports dangerous products.”
“A shrew patron who wished to do something for German literature should abandon the notion of discovering fresh talent, or of launching Kleist and Schiler prizes. Instead, he should adopt the following proposal: he should set up a fairground for German literature. The terrain does not need to be very large. Its possibilities are unlimited: a roller-coaster ride through the peaks and troughs of the German novel, starting off in the Kafka grotto, plunging suddenly into the Ludwig wolf’s lair, hurtling past Samiel Fischer and Hauptmann the sharpshooter. Literary stalls: Nietzsche, Goethe, Brecht…After this a ceremony, a choir leader will step forward and say something to this effect: nothing of importance.”
“We sort of know what to expect from Noah Berlatsky…”
Yeah, I would say that to the extent that that is always the case, it’s not necessarily a positive reflection on me as a critic.
Suat:
“Alex: Your attitude toward criticism is absolutely typical of the public perception of critical writing and comics criticism in particular – its lowly status, inherent uselessness and purely parasitic nature. It is undoubtedly the generally accepted view of criticism and is the majority opinion particularly in degraded art forms like comics.”
Not my view at all, and I wasn’t particularly referencing comics. My point is that, all too often, the work of art under consideration is treated as a means towards an end, that end being the critique itself.
That’s why I singled out John Simon– here’s a man who, by his own admission, admired only one film: ‘I Vittelone’ in all world cinema, but nevertheless operated as a film critic. It is obvious that he was acting as an entertainer, with the films under review merely the raw material for his show.
Just as man wasn’t made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man, art wasn’t made for criticism, but criticism for art…
Or perhaps they were made for each other? What a marriage. What interesting offspring.
I’ve mentioned this before, but Oscar Wilde has a great essay/play called “The Critic As Artist” in which he argues that criticism is better than art because it’s further removed from reality. It’s very entertaining (to use the word again.)
We’re going to have to play some Scott Joplin around here…
“Even so, I wouldn’t mind seeing him turn his attention to a different form of comics-related writing just to see what would emerge.”
Suat,
Thanks — I think that I have already been doing this, or have been trying to, at least. A recent post on Weathercraft is not a close reading; it takes the form of a mock “how to” guide. One of the posts on Wilson, too, is a numbered series of strategies for reading, not a reading or review itself. And the recent post on Wally Gropius is all over the place in terms of method. Each one of these post has reflected a conscious attempt to write online criticism that takes different forms — that looks different and uses different methods.
And the longer comics-related print pieces I have written in the last few years each take a different approach and structure. A long formal look at a graphic novel, informed by author biography, interviews, and comics history; then a straightforward book review for a political-literary journal; a heavily illustrated first biography of a cartoonist in which I tell his life through commentary on over 40 images he produced from high school to the end of his career; I have a book coming out this summer that features a long interview I conducted . . . My desire to experiment with and change the form of the comics essays I have been writing stems from that fact that essays I have in academic journals — not on comics — all take roughly the same form, and so I wanted to do something new.
“Ken practices what he preaches and my impression is that he’s trying to fill a void in comics criticism (I think that void can be objectively said to be present).”
Your impression is right — I do see it partially as filling a void.
And again, thanks for mentioning me in such good company.
I have a short post that’s a response to this thread at http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/
Suat,
I was wondering about the proposed connection you see between quotes (1) and (2).
(2) advocates a “good criticism” that makes rich use of quotation from the text — a critical practice, perhaps, where quotation not only supports the argument but does some of the work of arguing.
(1) compares the (“great”) literary artwork to “a young person who is handsome and attractive, but who seems to be harboring a secret”; and then suggests that the “true critic” pursues that secret, not through direct interrogation of the work itself, but through a discovery and examination of its “sibling(s).” And these siblings are to be found, intriguingly, “in the realm of philosophy.”
Briefly, then, (1) says something about what the *true* critic does,(2) about what *good* criticism must/must not do. Is that the extent of the relation you propose — or is there something further?
Thanks.
I wasn’t actually proposing a connection between quotes (1) and (2) and was merely presenting them as elements of what Benjamin perceived to be good criticism. But I see what you’re getting at – that the two statements seem almost contradictory. Both quotations are from note fragments so it’s hard to determine where they fit in exactly. Judging from Benjamin’s published writing, it’s entirely possible that the first quotation relates to critical analysis while the latter pertains to more elementary reviews. I see quotation (2) as part truth and part overstatement. I don’t remember any pieces from his hand which consisted “entirely of quotations”. I imagine the opinions in (2) were born of a certain frustration with his fellow reviewers who didn’t quote at all and who engaged in bland synopses (I’m just speculating here). You can probably see how things haven’t changed much over the intervening decades or between art forms.
Thanks for the clarification.
Heavy quotation plays a big role in Benjamin’s Arcades Project.
On the other hand, Benjamin’s fairly long and favorable review of Alfred Doblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, written at more or less the same time as quote (2), quotes only minimally from the novel (I think only once).
Which suggests, rather than a confused writer, perhaps one testing different voices or perspectives on criticism — e.g., between the published book review and the unpublished remarks on book criticism. But also, internally, between the different numbered remarks on book criticism.
In this respect, the critic’s adversarial relationship, discussed above, might also be with himself (i.e, with the different voices, characters, critical approaches or personalities he brings together, in conflict, in his writing).
Interesting! Didn’t consider that quote in quite that way.
For those interested in such things, quote 1 is from “The Theory of Criticism” (1919-1920) , quote 2 is from “Program for Literary Criticism” (1929 or 1930) and the Berlin Alexanderplatz review mentioned in the comment above is from “The Crisis of the Novel” (1930). I haven’t even begun to finish reading The Arcades Project so I will have to trust Jonathan on that one.