ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION  BY HAZARD ADAMS BY HAZARD ADAMS BY HAZARD ADAMS NONFICTION The Academic Tribes FICTION The Horses of Instruction The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance CRITICISM Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems The Contexts of Poetry The Interests of Criticism Lady Gregory Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic Joyce Cary's Trilogies The Book of Yeats's Poems Antithetical Essays in Literary Criticism and Liberal Education EDITED BY HAZARD ADAMS Poems by Robert Simeon Adams Poetry: An Introductory Anthology Fiction as Process (with Carl Hartman) William Blake: Jerusalem, Selected Poetry and Prose Critical Theory Since Plato Critical Theory Since 1965 (with Leroy Searle) NONFICTION The Academic Tribes FICTION The Horses of Instruction The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance CRITICISM Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems The Contexts of Poetry The Interests of Criticism Lady Gregory Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic Joyce Cary's Trilogies The Book of Yeats's Poems Antithetical Essays in Literary Criticism and Liberal Education EDITED BY HAZARD ADAMS Poems by Robert Simeon Adams Poetry: An Introductory Anthology Fiction as Process (with Carl Hartman) William Blake: Jerusalem, Selected Poetry and Prose Critical Theory Since Plato Critical Theory Since 1965 (with Leroy Searle) NONFICTION The Academic Tribes FICTION The Horses of Instruction The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance CRITICISM Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems The Contexts of Poetry The Interests of Criticism Lady Gregory Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic Joyce Cary's Trilogies The Book of Yeats's Poems Antithetical Essays in Literary Criticism and Liberal Education EDITED BY HAZARD ADAMS Poems by Robert Simeon Adams Poetry: An Introductory Anthology Fiction as Process (with Carl Hartman) William Blake: Jerusalem, Selected Poetry and Prose Critical Theory Since Plato Critical Theory Since 1965 (with Leroy Searle)  ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION ANTITHETICAL ESSAYS IN LITERARY CRITICISM AND LIBERAL EDUCATION HAZARD ADAMS The Florida State University Press Tallahassee HAZARD ADAMS The Florida State University Press Tallahassee HAZARD ADAMS The Florida State University Press Tallahassee  Copyrigbt 1990 by tb. Board of Regents ofthe Sta1e of Florida Library of Congress Catlgig-i-Publkicaio Adams., Hazard, 1926- Hazard Adams. ISBN 0-8130-0955-3 (alk. paper) cism. 2. Blake, Willia, 1757-1827-Criticism I. Titlle. 820.9-dc20 89-7811 University Presses of Florida, scbolaly publish- Florid. Booklae slec.ted for publication by U8.ne1 pu0 unierties: Florda (A&M.,) Uie- verity of Florda (Gainesvill), Univerity o0 South Florda (Tamip), Universiy oWest Ftor- Orders 0f1, books publisbed by all mem.ber vi21e, FL 32603. Printed in lbe U.S.A. on1 acid-bree Fp,.e Copyright 1990 by the Board ofRegents of0the State of Florida Libra.y .0 Con.gress Cataloging-in-FPubb,,a0, Adamst, Haza.d, 1926- Hazard Ad..m. ISBN 0-8130-0955-3 (alk. pape) I. Til. 820.9-d.28 89-7811 Untiversity Presses1o1 OFlorid, s.holaly publbsh ing agency for the St.1. Univerity System. of Flrid. Books a.e sele.ted f.. publication by nine public uiveriiesl Florida A&Ml Univer- Univerity .0 Cent1.al Florida (Orland), Uni- Nrth Florida (Jacksonill), University .0 0.8e.. £1,. booksl published by all mem.ber Presses,1o0 Florid, 15 NW 15th Street, Ga,1es- ville, FL 32603. Printed8in1th U.S.A. on1 tcid-bree paper Copyigbt 1990 by th. Board .0 Regents of0the St1te1o ,Florida Libra.y of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Ad.a.s, Haza.d, 1926- Haza.d Adams, ISBN 0-8130-0955-3 (alk. pape) cim1. Blik, Willia,, 1757-1827-Crtiismt I. Til,. 820.9-d20 89-7811 Univerity Presses o OFlorid, schlaly publksh- ing agenc1y for the State Univerity Syst.em o0 0Fl...da. Bk. r pselicedfrkubto by .11111. ,ityTllaa e) FL oid 32003cnierit (Boi ton),1, UloSia. Ineriobal pnivp sit  FOR Joan and Murray Krieger AND Peggy and Robert Montgomery FOR Joan and Murray Krieger AND Peggy and Robert Montgomery FOR Joan and Murray Krieger AND Peggy and Robert Montgomery   Contents Contents Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xi PART ONE o The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake 3 PART TWO Synecdoche and Method 21 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 52 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 60 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic 76 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses go Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 111 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 144 "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegan Wake 160 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 166 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 184 Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities 1g Thinking Cassirer 206 PART THREE The Fate of Knowledge 223 Biographia Educationis Humanae 240 Humanitas and Academic Politics 255 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 272 Index 289 Acknowledgments ix Preface xi PART ONE o The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake 3 PART TWO Synecdoche and Method 21 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 52 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 60 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic 76 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses go Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 111 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 144 "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 160 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 166 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 184 Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities 199 Thinking Cassirer 206 PART THREE The Fate of Knowledge 223 Biographia Educationis Humanae 240 Humanitas and Academic Politics 255 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 272 Index 28g Acknowledgments ix Preface xi PART ONE o The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake 3 PART TWO Synecdoche and Method 21 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 52 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 60 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic 76 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses go Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 111 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 144 "Alpsulumply Wroght!"; ALP in Finnegans Wake 160 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 166 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 184 Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities igg Thinking Cassirer 206 PART THREE The Fate of Knowledge 223 Biographia Educationis Humanae 240 Humanitas and Academic Politics 255 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 272 Index 289   Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments I wish to express my thanks to certain publishers and journals for permis- sion to reprint the following essays: "The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I read William Blake," College En- glish, 1986. Copyright © 1986 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission. "Synecdoche and Method," in Critical Paths: Blake and the Argument of Method, ed. Dan Miller, Mark Bracher, and Donald Ault, Duke Uni- versity Press, 1988. "Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity?" Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 1987 (slightly revised here). "Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy," in Excited Reverie: W. B. Yeats, 1865-1939, ed. A. N. Jeffares, The Macmillan Co. (London), 1965. "Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic," Studies in Romanticism, 1985. "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History, 1986. "Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criti- cism (condensed version), 1987. "Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today," in The Uses of the Past: Essays on Irish Culture, eds. Audrey Eyler and Robert F. Garratt, University of Delaware Press, 1987. "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," Critical Inquiry, 1988. "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations," in Blake in His Time, eds. Robert Essick and Donald Pearce, Indiana University Press, 1978. "Thinking Cassirer," reprinted from Criticism 25, no. 3 (Summer 1983) by permission of the Wayne State University Press. "The Fate of Knowledge," in Cultural Literacy and the Idea of General Education, eds. Alan Purves and Ian Westbury, National Society for the Study of Education, 87th Yearbook, part 2, 1988. "Humanitas and Academic Politics," ADE Bulletin, 1988. "Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities" was presented at the Modern Language Association convention in 1983. "Alpsulumply Wroght!: ALP in Finnegans Wake" was presented at the James Joyce International Sympo- sium in Frankfurt in 1984. "Biographia Educationis Humanae" and "Neo- Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure" were presented in earlier forms as lectures at the University of Washington in 1979-80 when I was University Professor of the Humanities. They have since been revised. I wish to express my thanks to certain publishers and journals for permis- sion to reprint the following essays: "The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I read William Blake," College En- glish, 1986. Copyright © 1986 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission. "Synecdoche and Method," in Critical Paths: Blake and the Argument of Method, ed. Dan Miller, Mark Bracher, and Donald Ault, Duke Uni- versity Press, 1988. "Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity?" Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 1987 (slightly revised here). "Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy," in Excited Reverie: W. B. Yeats, 1865-1939, ed. A. N. Jeffares, The Macmillan Co. (London), 1965. "Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic," Studies in Romanticism, 1985. "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History, 1986. "Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criti- cism (condensed version), 1987. "Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today," in The Uses of the Past: Essays on Irish Culture, eds. Audrey Eyler and Robert F. Garratt, University of Delaware Press, 1987. "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," Critical Inquiry, 1988. "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations," in Blake in His Time, eds. Robert Essick and Donald Pearce, Indiana University Press, 1978. "Thinking Cassirer," reprinted from Criticism 25, no. 3 (Summer 1983) by permission of the Wayne State University Press. "The Fate of Knowledge," in Cultural Literacy and the Idea of General Education, eds. Alan Purves and Ian Westbury, National Society for the Study of Education, 87th Yearbook, part 2, 1988. "Humanitas and Academic Politics," ADE Bulletin, 1988. "Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities" was presented at the Modern Language Association convention in 1983. "Alpsulumply Wroght!: ALP in Finnegans Wake" was presented at the James Joyce International Sympo- sium in Frankfurt in 1984. "Biographia Educationis Humanae" and "Neo- Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure" were presented in earlier forms as lectures at the University of Washington in 1979-80 when I was University Professor of the Humanities. They have since been revised. I wish to express my thanks to certain publishers and journals for permis- sion to reprint the following essays: "The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I read William Blake," College En- glish, 1986. Copyright © 1986 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission. "Synecdoche and Method," in Critical Paths: Blake and the Argument of Method, ed. Dan Miller, Mark Bracher, and Donald Ault, Duke Uni- versity Press, 1988. "Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity?" Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 1987 (slightly revised here). "Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy," in Excited Reverie: W. B. Yeats, 1865-1939, ed. A. N. Jeffares, The Macmillan Co. (London), 1965. "Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic," Studies in Romanticism, 1985. "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History, 1986. "Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criti- cism (condensed version), 1987. "Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today," in The Uses of the Past: Essays on Irish Culture, eds. Audrey Eyler and Robert F. Garratt, University of Delaware Press, 1987. "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," Critical Inquiry, 1988. "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations," in Blake in His Time, eds. Robert Essick and Donald Pearce, Indiana University Press, 1978. "Thinking Cassirer," reprinted from Criticism 25, no. 3 (Summer 1983) by permission of the Wayne State University Press. "The Fate of Knowledge," in Cultural Literacy and the Idea of General Education, eds. Alan Purves and Ian Westbury, National Society for the Study of Education, 87th Yearbook, part 2, 1988. "Humanitas and Academic Politics," ADE Bulletin, 1988. "Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities" was presented at the Modern Language Association convention in 1983. "Alpsulumply Wroght: ALP in Finnegans Wake" was presented at the James Joyce International Sympo- sium in Frankfurt in 1984. "Biographia Educationis Humanae" and "Neo- Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure" were presented in earlier forms as lectures at the University of Washington in 1979-80 when I was University Professor of the Humanities. They have since been revised.   Preface These essays, written mainly in the eighties, most in the late eighties, I regard as neo-Blakean in stance, whether intended as pieces of literary criticism or as expressions of ideas about higher education. They move from an initial statement about my reading of Blake through a series of critical essays into a final group devoted to educational issues. I have al- ways regarded my critical endeavors as closely related to and informing and informed by my teaching. Thus, when I collected these essays, I found they fell into an order moving from direct concern with Blake to neo-Blakean concerns with education, a return with a difference. The title expresses a key word in my thinking about these issues. The term antithetical should come clear from a reading of "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," where I adopt it from Yeats's A Vision. For me it is the adjectival form of Blake's noun contrary, which I discuss in the book's first essay. The antithetical, as I use it, is the uncategorical ethical other that is the literary. The greatest critics have invented various words or convenient blank spaces for it; they have never, however, captured it by analytical procedures. These essays presume the need for its pres- ence as other in any tolerable culture. On a number of occasions they celebrate it. My title also contains the word liberal to describe the sort of education with which I am concerned. I employ it here simply to mean liberating. I found in making this collection that the concept of antitheticality provides a far more democratic and practical ground for the production of educational coherence than the usual solutions we are of- fered, either from the right or from the left, today. Antitheticality advo- cates building on and with the conflicts and rich diversity of the arts and sciences in our culture, rather than trying to transcend them by some sin- gle, inevitably suppressive, and usually nostalgic measure. I go so far in this mainly theoretical book, to offer some practical programs in Part Three, especially on pages 238, 253, 270, and 282ff. At one time, until argued out of it by those who thought it too arcane, I was going to name the book Synecdoche and Method, employing the title of one of the essays it contains. This title would have been consistent with my argument in the essay on titles and with my fairly continuous emphasis on synecdoche as important to the antithetical. It is the domi- nant Blakean trope. But it would not have emphasized the educational implications of the book. Preface Preface These essays, written mainly in the eighties, most in the late eighties, I regard as neo-Blakean in stance, whether intended as pieces of literary criticism or as expressions of ideas about higher education. They move from an initial statement about my reading of Blake through a series of critical essays into a final group devoted to educational issues. I have al- ways regarded my critical endeavors as closely related to and informing and informed by my teaching. Thus, when I collected these essays, I found they fell into an order moving from direct concern with Blake to neo-Blakean concerns with education, a return with a difference. The title expresses a key word in my thinking about these issues. The term antithetical should come clear from a reading of "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," where I adopt it from Yeats's A Vision. For me it is the adjectival form of Blake's noun contrary, which I discuss in the book's first essay. The antithetical, as I use it, is the uncategorical ethical other that is the literary. The greatest critics have invented various words or convenient blank spaces for it; they have never, however, captured it by analytical procedures. These essays presume the need for its pres- ence as other in any tolerable culture. On a number of occasions they celebrate it. My title also contains the word liberal to describe the sort of education with which I am concerned. I employ it here simply to mean liberating. I found in making this collection that the concept of antitheticality provides a far more democratic and practical ground for the production of educational coherence than the usual solutions we are of- fered, either from the right or from the left, today. Antitheticality advo- cates building on and with the conflicts and rich diversity of the arts and sciences in our culture, rather than trying to transcend them by some sin- gle, inevitably suppressive, and usually nostalgic measure. I go so far in this mainly theoretical book, to offer some practical programs in Part Three, especially on pages 238, 253, 270, and 282ff. At one time, until argued out of it by those who thought it too arcane, I was going to name the book Synecdoche and Method, employing the title of one of the essays it contains. This title would have been consistent with my argument in the essay on titles and with my fairly continuous emphasis on synecdoche as important to the antithetical. It is the domi- nant Blakean trope. But it would not have emphasized the educational implications of the book. These essays, written mainly in the eighties, most in the late eighties, I regard as neo-Blakean in stance, whether intended as pieces of literary criticism or as expressions of ideas about higher education. They move from an initial statement about my reading of Blake through a series of critical essays into a final group devoted to educational issues. I have al- ways regarded my critical endeavors as closely related to and informing and informed by my teaching. Thus, when I collected these essays, I found they fell into an order moving from direct concern with Blake to neo-Blakean concerns with education, a return with a difference. The title expresses a key word in my thinking about these issues. The term antithetical should come clear from a reading of "Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria," where I adopt it from Yeats's A Vision. For me it is the adjectival form of Blake's noun contrary, which I discuss in the book's first essay. The antithetical, as I use it, is the uncategorical ethical other that is the literary. The greatest critics have invented various words or convenient blank spaces for it; they have never, however, captured it by analytical procedures. These essays presume the need for its pres- ence as other in any tolerable culture. On a number of occasions they celebrate it. My title also contains the word liberal to describe the sort of education with which I am concerned. I employ it here simply to mean liberating. I found in making this collection that the concept of antitheticality provides a far more democratic and practical ground for the production of educational coherence than the usual solutions we are of- fered, either from the right or from the left, today. Antitheticality advo- cates building on and with the conflicts and rich diversity of the arts and sciences in our culture, rather than trying to transcend them by some sin- gle, inevitably suppressive, and usually nostalgic measure. I go so far in this mainly theoretical book, to offer some practical programs in Part Three, especially on pages 238, 253, 270, and 282ff. At one time, until argued out of it by those who thought it too arcane, I was going to name the book Synecdoche and Method, employing the title of one of the essays it contains. This title would have been consistent with my argument in the essay on titles and with my fairly continuous emphasis on synecdoche as important to the antithetical. It is the domi- nant Blakean trope. But it would not have emphasized the educational implications of the book.   PART ONE PART ONE PART ONE   The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake Over thirty years of teaching and scholarship rarely occur without one's periodically sitting back to take stock of the fundamental intellectual forces that have shaped one's work. In my case, I have gradually discov- ered, it is the work of William Blake that is the fundamental and enduring force. I do not here intend to explicate the text of William Blake, to dem- onstrate a critical practice, or to treat of literary history, but to witness to my education in his works, to show briefly how it situates me in think- ing about literary criticism and theory, and finally how it affects me in the life of teaching. With respect to this last matter, let me say that I believe all teaching professes inevitably an ethical stance, and one must not avoid influencing the values of one's students. However, one must avoid the manipulation, coercion, and mastery that can easily accompany such influencing. I believe that the model of William Blake's thought and art guards against the latter, while never pretending to ethical neutrality on any issue. Because of prudent reticence about such matters-reticence for which there are all sorts of good reasons-professors rarely speak as professionals directly to the kind of matter that I address here: What is it really that has drawn me and redrawn me to Blake's work? What in it has led me to the formal study of later writers influenced by him (W. B. Yeats, JamesJoyce, andJoyceCary)andhascaused suchliterarytheory as I have developed to be in his debt? I confess that I shall say nothing of new scholarly or critical value about Blake. I shall, however, try to show through Blake what I think my pedagogical enterprise is finally all about. If my discourse has about it something of the evangelical, you must, as Blake says in the introduction to Jerusalem, "Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve" [E145].' By which he meant, of course, "If you do not approve, think on it some more, and perhaps the light will dawn." Neither do I intend what I have to say to be a formal defense of the humanities; I am somewhat weary of that. Certainly Blake would not have understood the need for a defense, and anyway he operated on the princi- ple that in such matters a good offense is always the best defense, which is to say that he had little interest in shoring up, but only in creation. . All quotations from William Blake's writings in this book are from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/ Doubleday), 1982, hereafter designated "E." The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake Over thirty years of teaching and scholarship rarely occur without one's periodically sitting back to take stock of the fundamental intellectual forces that have shaped one's work. In my case, I have gradually discov- ered, it is the work of William Blake that is the fundamental and enduring force. I do not here intend to explicate the text of William Blake, to dem- onstrate a critical practice, or to treat of literary history, but to witness to my education in his works, to show briefly how it situates me in think- ing about literary criticism and theory, and finally how it affects me in the life of teaching. With respect to this last matter, let me say that I believe all teaching professes inevitably an ethical stance, and one must not avoid influencing the values of one's students. However, one must avoid the manipulation, coercion, and mastery that can easily accompany such influencing. I believe that the model of William Blake's thought and art guards against the latter, while never pretending to ethical neutrality on any issue. Because of prudent reticence about such matters-reticence for which there are all sorts of good reasons-professors rarely speak as professionals directly to the kind of matter that I address here: What is it really that has drawn me and redrawn me to Blake's work? What in it has led me to the formal study of later writers influenced by him (W. B. Yeats, JamesJoyce, andJoyce Cary) andhascausedsuchliterarytheory as I have developed to be in his debt? I confess that I shall say nothing of new scholarly or critical value about Blake. I shall, however, try to show through Blake what I think my pedagogical enterprise is finally all about. If my discourse has about it something of the evangelical, you must, as Blake says in the introduction to Jerusalem, "Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve" [E145]. By which he meant, of course, "If you do not approve, think on it some more, and perhaps the light will dawn." Neither do I intend what I have to say to be a formal defense of the humanities; I am somewhat weary of that. Certainly Blake would not have understood the need for a defense, and anyway he operated on the princi- ple that in such matters a good offense is always the best defense, which is to say that he had little interest in shoring up, but only in creation. . All quotations from William Blake's writings in this book are from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/ Doubleday), ig82, hereafter designated "E." The Dizziness of Freedom; or, Why I Read William Blake Over thirty years of teaching and scholarship rarely occur without one's periodically sitting back to take stock of the fundamental intellectual forces that have shaped one's work. In my case, I have gradually discov- ered, it is the work of William Blake that is the fundamental and enduring force. I do not here intend to explicate the text of William Blake, to dem- onstrate a critical practice, or to treat of literary history, but to witness to my education in his works, to show briefly how it situates me in think- ing about literary criticism and theory, and finally how it affects me in the life of teaching. With respect to this last matter, let me say that I believe all teaching professes inevitably an ethical stance, and one must not avoid influencing the values of one's students. However, one must avoid the manipulation, coercion, and mastery that can easily accompany such influencing. I believe that the model of William Blake's thought and art guards against the latter, while never pretending to ethical neutrality on any issue. Because of prudent reticence about such matters-reticence for which there are all sorts of good reasons-professors rarely speak as professionals directly to the kind of matter that I address here: What is it really that has drawn me and redrawn me to Blake's work? What in it has led me to the formal study of later writers influenced by him (W. B. Yeats, JamesJoyce, andJoyceCary)andhascausedsuchliterarytheory as I have developed to be in his debt? I confess that I shall say nothing of new scholarly or critical value about Blake. I shall, however, try to show through Blake what I think my pedagogical enterprise is finally all about. If my discourse has about it something of the evangelical, you must, as Blake says in the introduction to Jerusalem, "Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve" [E145].' By which he meant, of course, "If you do not approve, think on it some more, and perhaps the light will dawn." Neither do I intend what I have to say to be a formal defense of the humanities; I am somewhat weary of that. Certainly Blake would not have understood the need for a defense, and anyway he operated on the princi- ple that in such matters a good offense is always the best defense, which is to say that he had little interest in shoring up, but only in creation. a. All quotations from William Blake's writings in this book are from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/ Doubleday), 1982, hereafter designated "E.  4 Antithetical Essays Like the fictive orator who speaks forth Blake's long poems, the humanist scholar is often a secular preacher. Blake orated in his texts in the enthusi- astic, dissenting tradition of his time. I have never hoped, nor do I hope, to emulate him in this, for that would be to succumb to what a well-known contemporary critic calls the "anxiety of influence." Rather, I intend to express my experience of reading Blake as the dizziness offreedom. The phrase is from Kierkegaard. He identified it with existential anxiety. I don't, and I'll come back to that point. But now let me say something of my first serious experience of thinking about Blake, because the initial experience (though it was more like what Blake called innocence) was indeed anxious and had to be passed through before the dizziness of anxiety could be identified as the dizziness of exhil- aration. I suffered it as an undergraduate thirty-seven years ago when boldly and ignorantly having declared I would write my junior paper on Blake, I discovered that the Blake of lambs and tigers, whom I thought I knew, had also written several stupendously difficult long poems that I didn't in the least understand and that, moreover, my teachers seemed to know very little about. The tradition then was for the eighteenth- century professors to declare Blake a romantic and the romantic period professors to declare him a pre-romantic so that neither group had to touch him. (Blake was, of course, also a visual artist, and the same thing goes on to this day in art history.) Now 1947 happened to be the year of publication of Northrop Frye's monumental study of Blake, Fearful Symmetry, but I remained confined by parochial ignorance to reading certain earlier and mainly misguided interpreters, and my literary train- ing had not provided me with a method of dealing with any allegedly ec- centric or perhaps even mad poet. "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise," says one of the devil's proverbs in Blake's Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell (E36). My junior paper, recognized by me as foolish, was nevertheless passable, because, no doubt, my readers were as mystified by the subject as myself. A mystifying portentous style had once again in Blake studies cloaked incompetence, as it had for a string of interpreters back into the middle of the nineteenth century. I retreated prudently ("Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity" [E34]) to the theological paradoxes of John Donne for my senior thesis. ("The weak in courage is strong in cunning" [E37].) I graduated. I mention all this in the form of homily. You note that different interpretations can be put upon it. Blake never liked a text that ended with a moral, or at least only one moral, to be read, as he remarked, "like a sting in the tail" (Ea69). My coming again later on to Blake has informed virtually all of the work I have done in romanticism and literary theory. These are special- 4 Antithetical Essays Like the fictive orator who speaks forth Blake's long poems, the humanist scholar is often a secular preacher. Blake orated in his texts in the enthusi- astic, dissenting tradition of his time. I have never hoped, nor do I hope, to emulate him in this, for that would be to succumb to what a well-known contemporary critic calls the "anxiety of influence." Rather, I intend to express my experience of reading Blake as the dizziness offreedom. The phrase is from Kierkegaard. He identified it with existential anxiety. I don't, and I'll come back to that point. But now let me say something of my first serious experience of thinking about Blake, because the initial experience (though it was more like what Blake called innocence) was indeed anxious and had to be passed through before the dizziness of anxiety could be identified as the dizziness of exhil- aration. I suffered it as an undergraduate thirty-seven years ago when boldly and ignorantly having declared I would write my junior paper on Blake, I discovered that the Blake of lambs and tigers, whom I thought I knew, had also written several stupendously difficult long poems that I didn't in the least understand and that, moreover, my teachers seemed to know very little about. The tradition then was for the eighteenth- century professors to declare Blake a romantic and the romantic period professors to declare him a pre-romantic so that neither group had to touch him. (Blake was, of course, also a visual artist, and the same thing goes on to this day in art history.) Now 1947 happened to be the year of publication of Northrop Frye's monumental study of Blake, Fearful Symmetry, but I remained confined by parochial ignorance to reading certain earlier and mainly misguided interpreters, and my literary train- ing had not provided me with a method of dealing with any allegedly ec- centric or perhaps even mad poet. "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise," says one of the devil's proverbs in Blake's Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell (E36). My junior paper, recognized by me as foolish, was nevertheless passable, because, no doubt, my readers were as mystified by the subject as myself. A mystifying portentous style had once again in Blake studies cloaked incompetence, as it had for a string of interpreters back into the middle of the nineteenth century. I retreated prudently ("Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity" (E34]) to the theological paradoxes of John Donne for my senior thesis. ("The weak in courage is strong in cunning" [E37].) I graduated. I mention all this in the form of homily. You note that different interpretations can be put upon it. Blake never liked a text that ended with a moral, or at least only one moral, to be read, as he remarked, "like a sting in the tail" (Ea69). My coming again later on to Blake has informed virtually all of the work I have done in romanticism and literary theory. These are special- 4 Antithetical Essays Like the fictive orator who speaks forth Blake's long poems, the humanist scholar is often a secular preacher. Blake orated in his texts in the enthusi- astic, dissenting tradition of his time. I have never hoped, nor do I hope, to emulate him in this, for that would be to succumb to what a well-known contemporary critic calls the "anxiety of influence." Rather, I intend to express my experience of reading Blake as the dizziness offreedom. The phrase is from Kierkegaard. He identified it with existential anxiety. I don't, and I'll come back to that point. But now let me say something of my first serious experience of thinking about Blake, because the initial experience (though it was more like what Blake called innocence) was indeed anxious and had to be passed through before the dizziness of anxiety could be identified as the dizziness of exhil- aration. I suffered it as an undergraduate thirty-seven years ago when boldly and ignorantly having declared I would write my junior paper on Blake, I discovered that the Blake of lambs and tigers, whom I thought I knew, had also written several stupendously difficult long poems that I didn't in the least understand and that, moreover, my teachers seemed to know very little about. The tradition then was for the eighteenth- century professors to declare Blake a romantic and the romantic period professors to declare him a pre-romantic so that neither group had to touch him. (Blake was, of course, also a visual artist, and the same thing goes on to this day in art history.) Now 1947 happened to be the year of publication of Northrop Frye's monumental study of Blake, Fearful Symmetry, but I remained confined by parochial ignorance to reading certain earlier and mainly misguided interpreters, and my literary train- ing had not provided me with a method of dealing with any allegedly ec- centric or perhaps even mad poet. "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise," says one of the devil's proverbs in Blake's Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell (E36). My junior paper, recognized by me as foolish, was nevertheless passable, because, no doubt, my readers were as mystified by the subject as myself. A mystifying portentous style had once again in Blake studies cloaked incompetence, as it had for a string of interpreters back into the middle of the nineteenth century. I retreated prudently ("Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity" [E34]) to the theological paradoxes of John Donne for my senior thesis. ("The weak in courage is strong in cunning" [E37].) I graduated. I mention all this in the form of homily. You note that different interpretations can be put upon it. Blake never liked a text that ended with a moral, or at least only one moral, to be read, as he remarked, "like a sting in the tail" (E269). My coming again later on to Blake has informed virtually all of the work I have done in romanticism and literary theory. These are special-  The Dizziness of Freedom 5 ists' interests, but literary study through examination of the particular goes beyond them, while remaining concerned with them, into questions of the critique of society and culture, questions of ethics, and questions of the role of language in life. On each of these matters I discover Blake exemplary, indeed inspirational, and so now I want to present what I have found valuable in Blake as it pertains to these three things. 1. CRITIQUE OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE The ground of a Blakean social critique is situated in a remark about what he calls "contraries" in a relatively early work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Without Contraries is no progression. (E34) Blake sees opposition as in itself a productive principle, not a system merely of checks and balances based on suspicion. Further, to be socially productive, the opposition must be of a certain sort. In his long poem Milton, he therefore distinguishes between two sorts of opposition, con- traries and negations: There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary The Negation must be destroyed to redeem the Contraries The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man. (E142) This is somewhat cryptic, but there is help elsewhere in Blake, where we learn that the negations Blake particularly dislikes and believes to be responsible for much modern error are good/evil, soul/body, and object/ subject, all in his view being the production of reason. What is a negation? In a situation of negation, sets of oppositions are established in the culture, and then one side of an opposed set is declared to have appropriate, absolute dominance, by virtue of the ownership of truth and morality, over its opposite. Because it appears that it has every right to arrogate all power to itself, it endeavors to suppress the opposite or to annihilate it entirely. Such negations are always historical products. Thus, Blake reads the history of Christianity as practiced by the historical churches to have negated the body (and thus sexuality) at the expense of the soul, declaring one evil and the other good. Likewise, Blake be- lieved that in the history of modern thought empiricism and rationalism had divided everything into object and subject-externality and self- and then proceeded to negate the subject. The result of the first negation The Dizziness of Freedom 5 ists' interests, but literary study through examination of the particular goes beyond them, while remaining concerned with them, into questions of the critique of society and culture, questions of ethics, and questions of the role of language in life. On each of these matters I discover Blake exemplary, indeed inspirational, and so now I want to present what I have found valuable in Blake as it pertains to these three things. 1. CRITIQUE OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE The ground of a Blakean social critique is situated in a remark about what he calls "contraries" in a relatively early work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Without Contraries is no progression. (E34) Blake sees opposition as in itself a productive principle, not a system merely of checks and balances based on suspicion. Further, to be socially productive, the opposition must be of a certain sort. In his long poem Milton, he therefore distinguishes between two sorts of opposition, con- traries and negations: There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary The Negation must be destroyed to redeem the Contraries The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man. (E142) This is somewhat cryptic, but there is help elsewhere in Blake, where we learn that the negations Blake particularly dislikes and believes to be responsible for much modern error are good/evil, soul/body, and object/ subject, all in his view being the production of reason. What is a negation? In a situation of negation, sets of oppositions are established in the culture, and then one side of an opposed set is declared to have appropriate, absolute dominance, by virtue of the ownership of truth and morality, over its opposite. Because it appears that it has every right to arrogate all power to itself, it endeavors to suppress the opposite or to annihilate it entirely. Such negations are always historical products. Thus, Blake reads the history of Christianity as practiced by the historical churches to have negated the body (and thus sexuality) at the expense of the soul, declaring one evil and the other good. Likewise, Blake be- lieved that in the history of modern thought empiricism and rationalism had divided everything into object and subject-externality and self- and then proceeded to negate the subject. The result of the first negation ists' interests, but literary study through examination of the particular goes beyond them, while remaining concerned with them, into questions of the critique of society and culture, questions of ethics, and questions of the role of language in life. On each of these matters I discover Blake exemplary, indeed inspirational, and so now I want to present what I have found valuable in Blake as it pertains to these three things. 1. CRITIQUE OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE The ground of a Blakean social critique is situated in a remark about what he calls "contraries" in a relatively early work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Without Contraries is no progression. (E34) Blake sees opposition as in itself a productive principle, not a system merely of checks and balances based on suspicion. Further, to be socially productive, the opposition must be of a certain sort. In his long poem Milton, he therefore distinguishes between two sorts of opposition, con- traries and negations: There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary The Negation must be destroyed to redeem the Contraries The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man. (E142) This is somewhat cryptic, but there is help elsewhere in Blake, where we learn that the negations Blake particularly dislikes and believes to be responsible for much modern error are good/evil, soul/body, and object/ subject, all in his view being the production of reason. What is a negation? In a situation of negation, sets of oppositions are established in the culture, and then one side of an opposed set is declared to have appropriate, absolute dominance, by virtue of the ownership of truth and morality, over its opposite. Because it appears that it has every right to arrogate all power to itself, it endeavors to suppress the opposite or to annihilate it entirely. Such negations are always historical products. Thus, Blake reads the history of Christianity as practiced by the historical churches to have negated the body (and thus sexuality) at the expense of the soul, declaring one evil and the other good. Likewise, Blake be- lieved that in the history of modern thought empiricism and rationalism had divided everything into object and subject-externality and self- and then proceeded to negate the subject. The result of the first negation  6 Antithetical Essays had been inquisition, suppression of free thought, and sexual repression leading to war. (Blake thought wars were a form of sexual perversion brought on by mental and sexual repression.) The result of the second had been repression of individual genius, art, and imagination, in which he included scientific imagination, and the idea that materialist science could explain everything objectively as objects. Blake did not believe that the solution to these negations lies, in turn, in negating (that is, attempt- ing to suppress) them. Soul/body and object/subject have a certain mean- ing and use. They require redemption rather than obliteration, and re- demption occurs through the establishment of a vigorous contrary to them, a friendly enemy, so to speak, which can provide a context for their appropriate use. Blake knew in his own life an example. When his patron, the bad poet William Hayley, offered Blake commissions to do miniature portraits and attempted, in what he thought was Blake's best interest, to dissuade him from pursuing completion of his apparently mad poems, Blake penned this couplet: Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ake Do be my Enemy for Friendships sake. (E506) The contrary of the soul/body negation is for Blake the notion of a spir- itual body. Blake read the bodily resurrection of Jesus as the contrary to historical Christianity's privileging of the soul in asceticism and virgin worship. The myth of resurrection symbolized the identity of soul and body. The contrary of the object/subject negation is the idea that the ob- ject is inevitably bound up with the subject in perception and that the notion of a separate object is a fiction. The fiction is undeniably useful, but it is a fiction. By fiction, I mean here something not necessarily un- true, but something humanly made. (Blake himself did not use the term.) Actually, the Blakean notion is that both sides of any contrarious opposi- tion are fictitious, humanly made myths, so to speak, valuable for their cultural power, but dangerous if their opposite is not present in a state of equality. Our world is our projection of such myths. If negation rules, the result is the tyranny of one-dimensional belief that would impose it- self universally. This is why Blake, parodying and reversing John Calvin's and subsequently John Milton's use of the terms, divided people into three classes: The Elect, the Redeemed, and the Reprobate. The Elect are fixed in their views and represent oppressive external authority. For Blake, they are already in Hell, though they think they are the only ones saved. The Reprobate are those who are constantly supplying the con- trary in the culture. Blake thought that in a culture dominated by deism 6 Antithetical Essays had been inquisition, suppression of free thought, and sexual repression leading to war. (Blake thought wars were a form of sexual perversion brought on by mental and sexual repression.) The result of the second had been repression of individual genius, art, and imagination, in which he included scientific imagination, and the idea that materialist science could explain everything objectively as objects. Blake did not believe that the solution to these negations lies, in turn, in negating (that is, attempt- ing to suppress) them. Soul/body and object/subject have a certain mean- ing and use. They require redemption rather than obliteration, and re- demption occurs through the establishment of a vigorous contrary to them, a friendly enemy, so to speak, which can provide a context for their appropriate use. Blake knew in his own life an example. When his patron, the bad poet William Hayley, offered Blake commissions to do miniature portraits and attempted, in what he thought was Blake's best interest, to dissuade him from pursuing completion of his apparently mad poems, Blake penned this couplet: Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ake Do be my Enemy for Friendships sake. (E5u6) The contrary of the soul/body negation is for Blake the notion of a spir- itual body. Blake read the bodily resurrection of Jesus as the contrary to historical Christianity's privileging of the soul in asceticism and virgin worship. The myth of resurrection symbolized the identity of soul and body. The contrary of the object/subject negation is the idea that the ob- ject is inevitably bound up with the subject in perception and that the notion of a separate object is a fiction. The fiction is undeniably useful, but it is a fiction. By fiction, I mean here something not necessarily un- true, but something humanly made. (Blake himself did not use the term.) Actually, the Blakean notion is that both sides of any contrarious opposi- tion are fictitious, humanly made myths, so to speak, valuable for their cultural power, but dangerous if their opposite is not present in a state of equality. Our world is our projection of such myths. If negation rules, the result is the tyranny of one-dimensional belief that would impose it- self universally. This is why Blake, parodying and reversing John Calvin's and subsequently John Milton's use of the terms, divided people into three classes: The Elect, the Redeemed, and the Reprobate. The Elect are fixed in their views and represent oppressive external authority. For Blake, they are already in Hell, though they think they are the only ones saved. The Reprobate are those who are constantly supplying the con- trary in the culture. Blake thought that in a culture dominated by deism 6 Antithetical Essays had been inquisition, suppression of free thought, and sexual repression leading to war. (Blake thought wars were a form of sexual perversion brought on by mental and sexual repression.) The result of the second had been repression of individual genius, art, and imagination, in which he included scientific imagination, and the idea that materialist science could explain everything objectively as objects. Blake did not believe that the solution to these negations lies, in turn, in negating (that is, attempt- ing to suppress) them. Soul/body and object/subject have a certain mean- ing and use. They require redemption rather than obliteration, and re- demption occurs through the establishment of a vigorous contrary to them, a friendly enemy, so to speak, which can provide a context for their appropriate use. Blake knew in his own life an example. When his patron, the bad poet William Hayley, offered Blake commissions to do miniature portraits and attempted, in what he thought was Blake's best interest, to dissuade him from pursuing completion of his apparently mad poems, Blake penned this couplet: Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ake Do be my Enemy for Friendships sake. (E5o6) The contrary of the soul/body negation is for Blake the notion of a spir- itual body. Blake read the bodily resurrection of Jesus as the contrary to historical Christianity's privileging of the soul in asceticism and virgin worship. The myth of resurrection symbolized the identity of soul and body. The contrary of the object/subject negation is the idea that the ob- ject is inevitably bound up with the subject in perception and that the notion of a separate object is a fiction. The fiction is undeniably useful, but it is a fiction. By fiction, I mean here something not necessarily un- true, but something humanly made. (Blake himself did not use the term.) Actually, the Blakean notion is that both sides of any contrarious opposi- tion are fictitious, humanly made myths, so to speak, valuable for their cultural power, but dangerous if their opposite is not present in a state of equality. Our world is our projection of such myths. If negation rules, the result is the tyranny of one-dimensional belief that would impose it- self universally. This is why Blake, parodying and reversing John Calvin's and subsequently John Milton's use of the terms, divided people into three classes: The Elect, the Redeemed, and the Reprobate. The Elect are fixed in their views and represent oppressive external authority. For Blake, they are already in Hell, though they think they are the only ones saved. The Reprobate are those who are constantly supplying the con- trary in the culture. Blake thought that in a culture dominated by deism  The Dizziness of Freedom 7 and materialist science, these people, whom he also called the "prolific," were the artists who "kept the divine vision in time of trouble" (255). The Redeemed are those many capable of seeing the life of contrariety, but blocked off from it by the Elect (or, I suppose, when certain parties are in power, the elected), who use their power for repression, conquest, and, of course, nest-feathering. The Reprobate bring the message of con- trarious opposition to the Redeemed, or redeemable. Optimistically, Blake calls them Redeemed from the beginning. Blake thought that the Elect could also be saved, but it appears that this would take a long time, and it would certainly be better to vote them out. Some of their most irritating qualities to his mind were their self-satisfied piety, their hypo- critical religiosity, their false notion of charity, and, most unfortunately, in certain cases their longevity; as, for example, George III. He calls these Elect ironically Angels, and they are often quite shrewd: I asked a thief to steal me a peach He turned up his eyes I asked a lithe lady to lie her down Holy & meek she cries- As soon as Iwent An angel came. He wink'd at the thief And smild at the dame- And without one word said Had a peach from the tree And twist earnest and joke Enjoy'd the lady. (E468, 852) Most of the time in Blake's later works the Elect are what Blake calls Spectres. We must not forget that just as there are Spectres outside us, we each have one within us, which rather than succumbing to we must put to useful work. When Blake said that without contraries there could be no progression he meant that, with respect to history and society, without contraries things would endlessly repeat themselves in the form of the classical Oed- ipal struggle between a rebellious son and a repressive father, the son becoming a repressive father in his place. This was demonstrated in Blake's own lifetime in the fate of the French Revolution, and Blake read the history of Christianity as one in which the rebel Jesus, who came to destroy the repressive law, was turned into yet a new repressive law by the Church. This is why Blake says that the Church crucifies Christ with The Dizziness of Freedom 7 and materialist science, these people, whom he also called the "prolific," were the artists who "kept the divine vision in time of trouble" (255). The Redeemed are those many capable of seeing the life of contrariety, but blocked off from it by the Elect (or, I suppose, when certain parties are in power, the elected), who use their power for repression, conquest, and, of course, nest-feathering. The Reprobate bring the message of con- trarious opposition to the Redeemed, or redeemable. Optimistically, Blake calls them Redeemed from the beginning. Blake thought that the Elect could also be saved, but it appears that this would take a long time, and it would certainly be better to vote them out. Some of their most irritating qualities to his mind were their self-satisfied piety, their hypo- critical religiosity, their false notion of charity, and, most unfortunately, in certain cases their longevity; as, for example, George III. He calls these Elect ironically Angels, and they are often quite shrewd: I asked a thief to steal me a peach He turned up his eyes I asked a lithe lady to lie her down Holy & meek she cries- As soon as I went An angel came. He wink'd at the thief And smild at the dame- And without one word said Had a peach from the tree And twixt earnest and joke Enjoy'd the lady. (E468, 852) Most of the time in Blake's later works the Elect are what Blake calls Spectres. We must not forget that just as there are Spectres outside us, we each have one within us, which rather than succumbing to we must put to useful work. When Blake said that without contraries there could be no progression he meant that, with respect to history and society, without contraries things would endlessly repeat themselves in the form of the classical Oed- ipal struggle between a rebellious son and a repressive father, the son becoming a repressive father in his place. This was demonstrated in Blake's own lifetime in the fate of the French Revolution, and Blake read the history of Christianity as one in which the rebel Jesus, who came to destroy the repressive law, was turned into yet a new repressive law by the Church. This is why Blake says that the Church crucifies Christ with The Dizziness of Freedom 7 and materialist science, these people, whom he also called the "prolific," were the artists who "kept the divine vision in time of trouble" (255). The Redeemed are those many capable of seeing the life of contrariety, but blocked off from it by the Elect (or, I suppose, when certain parties are in power, the elected), who use their power for repression, conquest, and, of course, nest-feathering. The Reprobate bring the message of con- trarious opposition to the Redeemed, or redeemable. Optimistically, Blake calls them Redeemed from the beginning. Blake thought that the Elect could also be saved, but it appears that this would take a long time, and it would certainly be better to vote them out. Some of their most irritating qualities to his mind were their self-satisfied piety, their hypo- ceritical religiosity, their false notion of charity, and, most unfortunately, in certain cases their longevity; as, for example, George III. He calls these Elect ironically Angels, and they are often quite shrewd: I asked a thief to steal me a peach He turned up his eyes I asked a lithe lady to lie her down Holy & meek she cries- As soon as I went An angel came. He wink'd at the thief And smild at the dame- And without one word said Had a peach from the tree And twixt earnest and joke Enjoy'd the lady. (E468, 852) Most of the time in Blake's later works the Elect are what Blake calls Spectres. We must not forget that just as there are Spectres outside us, we each have one within us, which rather than succumbing to we must put to useful work. When Blake said that without contraries there could be no progression he meant that, with respect to history and society, without contraries things would endlessly repeat themselves in the form of the classical Oed- ipal struggle between a rebellious son and a repressive father, the son becoming a repressive father in his place. This was demonstrated in Blake's own lifetime in the fate of the French Revolution, and Blake read the history of Christianity as one in which the rebel Jesus, who came to destroy the repressive law, was turned into yet a new repressive law by the Church. This is why Blake says that the Church crucifies Christ with  Antithetical Essays 8A Antithetical Essays 8 Antithetical Essays his head downwards, an allusion to the legend of St. Peter's crucifixion. Peter was the first pope, and thus upside down represents the Church's perversion of Jesus' response to the law. With respect to the political events Blake witnessed, what might the saving contrary have been? Kenneth Burke in his book Attitudes Toward History describes an episode in the French Assembly: "When a 'bill of rights' was being drawn, some members suggested that a 'bill of obliga- tions' be included to match them. The proposal was voted down by an overwhelming majority."' With respect to the relation of the Church to western history, Burke observes: The Church thought of man as a prospective citizen of heaven. In time, the critical inaccuracy that such transcendental em- phasis brought to the gauging of material relationships became bureaucratically exploited to its limits. Out of this over- emphasis, a purely antithetical overemphasis developed. Against man as a citizen of heaven, thinkers opposed man in nature; and with the progress of efficiency in reasoning, we got simply to man in the jungle.' Or, in Blake: Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid in forests of night. (E63) This is the same jungle in which lurks Blake's famous tiger: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night. (E24) And, indeed, the tiger is man in the state of negation. For Blake, the principal responsibility is that of bringing in the other as a contrary. The principal freedom is the imagination to oppose the ne- gations that have become embedded in the culture: "I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination," says Blake, who re- garded himself as a free primitive Christian, so protestant that no church could contain him. The notion of contrariety implicit everywhere in Blake has for some time been lurking in the modern conceptions of poetry of many great crit- 2. Attitudes Toward History (New York: The New Republic, 1937), 1:71. 3. Ibid., 218. his head downwards, an allusion to the legend of St. Peter's crucifixion. Peter was the first pope, and thus upside down represents the Church's perversion of Jesus' response to the law. With respect to the political events Blake witnessed, what might the saving contrary have been? Kenneth Burke in his book Attitudes Toward History describes an episode in the French Assembly: "When a 'bill of rights' was being drawn, some members suggested that a 'bill of obliga- tions' be included to match them. The proposal was voted down by an overwhelming majority."' With respect to the relation of the Church to western history, Burke observes: The Church thought of man as a prospective citizen of heaven. In time, the critical inaccuracy that such transcendental em- phasis brought to the gauging of material relationships became bureaucratically exploited to its limits. Out of this over- emphasis, a purely antithetical overemphasis developed. Against man as a citizen of heaven, thinkers opposed man in nature; and with the progress of efficiency in reasoning, we got simply to man in the jungle.' Or, in Blake: Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid in forests of night. (E63) This is the same jungle in which lurks Blake's famous tiger: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night. (E24) And, indeed, the tiger is man in the state of negation. For Blake, the principal responsibility is that of bringing in the other as a contrary. The principal freedom is the imagination to oppose the ne- gations that have become embedded in the culture: "I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination," says Blake, who re- garded himself as a free primitive Christian, so protestant that no church could contain him. The notion of contrariety implicit everywhere in Blake has for some time been lurking in the modern conceptions of poetry of many great crit- 2. Attitudes Toward History (New York: The New Republic, 1937), 1:71. 3. Ibid., 218. his head downwards, an allusion to the legend of St. Peter's crucifixion. Peter was the first pope, and thus upside down represents the Church's perversion of Jesus' response to the law. With respect to the political events Blake witnessed, what might the saving contrary have been? Kenneth Burke in his book Attitudes Toward History describes an episode in the French Assembly: "When a 'bill of rights' was being drawn, some members suggested that a 'bill of obliga- tions' be included to match them. The proposal was voted down by an overwhelming majority."2 With respect to the relation of the Church to western history, Burke observes: The Church thought of man as a prospective citizen of heaven. In time, the critical inaccuracy that such transcendental em- phasis brought to the gauging of material relationships became bureaucratically exploited to its limits. Out of this over- emphasis, a purely antithetical overemphasis developed. Against man as a citizen of heaven, thinkers opposed man in nature; and with the progress of efficiency in reasoning, we got simply to man in the jungle.' Or, in Blake: Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid in forests of night. (E63) This is the same jungle in which lurks Blake's famous tiger: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night. (E24) And, indeed, the tiger is man in the state of negation. For Blake, the principal responsibility is that of bringing in the other as a contrary. The principal freedom is the imagination to oppose the ne- gations that have become embedded in the culture: "I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination," says Blake, who re- garded himself as a free primitive Christian, so protestant that no church could contain him. The notion of contrariety implicit everywhere in Blake has for some time been lurking in the modern conceptions of poetry of many great crit- 2. Attitudes Toward History (New York: The New Republic, 1937), 1:71. 3. Ibid., 218.  The Dizziness of Freedom g ics as unity in diversity, bringing in the opposite, and the like. For Blake, the critique of culture is never apart from aesthetics and is predicated on the same principle. This is true also of ethics. 2. ETHICS, OR THE CRITIQUE OF MORALITY The object/subject negation is pernicious where it controls human rela- tions because it turns everything but the subjective self into an object for mastery and/or analysis, to be treated, whether alive or dead, in the same way. Thus for Blake, in a purely behavioral social science, individu- ality is sacrificed for statistics or for generalization and abstraction, and soon freedom is suppressed, unless the contrary is again brought in. The notion of a separated object is a useful fiction, but it should not become an idol. The first step is to remember it as a fiction and humanly made. The second step is suggested by a brief poem found in Blake's notebook: The Angel that presided oer my birth Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth (E52o, 864) (It is interesting to note that Blake later emended Thing" to "King.") At first, this little poem sounds rather harsh, as if the Elect were speaking, but in truth this is a Reprobate angel who reminds the child that all re- sponsibility and power resides in him, that the world's morality is not de- termined but will have to be made by him in acts and he will have to live in his own creation. If that creation is without love, it will be a prison of subjectivity. We are supposed to see that love is the contrary of both souI/body and object/subject. It is, for Blake, a going-out from the self to identify with the other. At the beginning of Jerusalem, Jesus, who in Blake is but man as he can be and the contrary of the negation supernature/nature, appeals to Blake's archetypal, disturbed, fallen human being Albion: I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend; Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me. (E146) Albion is afraid of this Jesus because he feels that if he gives himself up to the relationship of love he will lose his selfhood, thus his subjectivity, thus his capacity for mastery. He assumes that he must remain separate, a subject to the alien object, or he will be nothing. He has no notion of The Dizziness of Freedom g ics as unity in diversity, bringing in the opposite, and the like. For Blake, the critique of culture is never apart from aesthetics and is predicated on the same principle. This is true also of ethics. 2. ETHICS, OR THE CRITIQUE OF MORALITY The object/subject negation is pernicious where it controls human rela- tions because it turns everything but the subjective self into an object for mastery and/or analysis, to be treated, whether alive or dead, in the same way. Thus for Blake, in a purely behavioral social science, individu- ality is sacrificed for statistics or for generalization and abstraction, and soon freedom is suppressed, unless the contrary is again brought in. The notion of a separated object is a useful fiction, but it should not become an idol. The first step is to remember it as a fiction and humanly made. The second step is suggested by a brief poem found in Blake's notebook: The Angel that presided oer my birth Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth (E52o, 864) (It is interesting to note that Blake later emended "Thing" to "King.") At first, this little poem sounds rather harsh, as if the Elect were speaking, but in truth this is a Reprobate angel who reminds the child that all re- sponsibility and power resides in him, that the world's morality is not de- termined but will have to be made by him in acts and he will have to live in his own creation. If that creation is without love, it will be a prison of subjectivity. We are supposed to see that love is the contrary of both soul/body and object/subject. It is, for Blake, a going-out from the self to identify with the other. At the beginning of Jerusalem, Jesus, who in Blake is but man as he can be and the contrary of the negation supernature/nature, appeals to Blake's archetypal, disturbed, fallen human being Albion: I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend; Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me. (E146) Albion is afraid of this Jesus because he feels that if he gives himself up to the relationship of love he will lose his selfhood, thus his subjectivity, thus his capacity for mastery. He assumes that he must remain separate, a subject to the alien object, or he will be nothing. He has no notion of The Dizziness of Freedom g ics as unity in diversity, bringing in the opposite, and the like. For Blake, the critique of culture is never apart from aesthetics and is predicated on the same principle. This is true also of ethics. 2. ETHICS, OR THE CRITIQUE OF MORALITY The object/subject negation is pernicious where it controls human rela- tions because it turns everything but the subjective self into an object for mastery and/or analysis, to be treated, whether alive or dead, in the same way. Thus for Blake, in a purely behavioral social science, individu- ality is sacrificed for statistics or for generalization and abstraction, and soon freedom is suppressed, unless the contrary is again brought in. The notion of a separated object is a useful fiction, but it should not become an idol. The first step is to remember it as a fiction and humanly made. The second step is suggested by a brief poem found in Blake's notebook: The Angel that presided oer my birth Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth (E52o, 864) (It is interesting to note that Blake later emended "Thing" to "King.") At first, this little poem sounds rather harsh, as if the Elect were speaking, but in truth this is a Reprobate angel who reminds the child that all re- sponsibility and power resides in him, that the world's morality is not de- termined but will have to be made by him in acts and he will have to live in his own creation. If that creation is without love, it will be a prison of subjectivity. We are supposed to see that love is the contrary of both soul/body and object/subject. It is, for Blake, a going-out from the self to identify with the other. At the beginning of Jerusalem, Jesus, who in Blake is but man as he can be and the contrary of the negation supernature/nature, appeals to Blake's archetypal, disturbed, fallen human being Albion: I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend; Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me. (E146) Albion is afraid of this Jesus because he feels that if he gives himself up to the relationship of love he will lose his selfhood, thus his subjectivity, thus his capacity for mastery. He assumes that he must remain separate, a subject to the alien object, or he will be nothing. He has no notion of  Antithetical Essays so Antithetical Essays the contrary of this, which lies in the idea of identity. When two things are identical, they are not the same, they each maintain their own identi- ties but are in a relation of identicality. This is the contrary to the alienat- ing object/subject negation and is at the base of Blake's ethic, which calls for mutuality in human relations. For Blake, art, and especially poetry, which is simply language doing the most strenuous job of imagination, everywhere embodies this ethic. Why? Because language is fundamen- tally tropological. Of course, this is not the only view of language, but it is the view contrary to that of logical positivism, which would model language on a mathematical principle, claiming that tropes, or figures of speech, are not essential to language. This latter view has tended to domi- nate for some time the discourses of social science, schools of business, and schools of education. To claim that language is fundamentally tropo- logical is to say that metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, and irony are the warp and woof of language, not devices added on (as in classical rhetoric) to prettify discourse or to move or convince, with no necessary relation to content. To claim that language is fundamentally tropological is also to claim that in its tropes it is always trying to tell us something about our relations to the other and the relations of one other to another. It is a message that in modern technological culture we tend to suppress. Tropes insist on identity: of self and other, of other and other, of part and whole, of container and thing contained, of opposites. To take tropes liter- ally is to accept an ethic of mutuality, where contraries have their own identities and yet are identical to each other. Blake says there is a place where "contrarieties are equally true," but we have to build it, and like everything else, the building begins with language. 3. LANGUAGE Blake seems to have imagined the world as the projection of our expres- sion of it. This is not a scientific proposition but the contrary of equally true propositions that make the world into an object. Actoally such ob- jects become mathematical structures in science, and one notes that these are fictions. As a contrary Blake's notion of a linguistically, thus a tropologically, projected world is the ground of an ethic. If the world is the projection of our expression of it and we are our own acts, as Blake thought (that is, we are what we do), then in some sense the world ema- nates from us and is, in that sense, identical with us. This is merely the taking of synecdoche (the part for the whole or the whole for the part) literally, which is to say seriously, which is to say ethically. In Jerusalem the contrary of this, which lies in the idea of identity. When two things are identical, they are not the same, they each maintain their own identi- ties but are in a relation of identicality. This is the contrary to the alienat- ing object/subject negation and is at the base of Blake's ethic, which calls for mutuality in human relations. For Blake, art, and especially poetry, which is simply language doing the most strenuous job of imagination, everywhere embodies this ethic. Why? Because language is fundamen- tally tropological. Of course, this is not the only view of language, but it is the view contrary to that of logical positivism, which would model language on a mathematical principle, claiming that tropes, or figures of speech, are not essential to language. This latter view has tended to domi- nate for some time the discourses of social science, schools of business, and schools of education. To claim that language is fundamentally tropo- logical is to say that metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, and irony are the warp and woof of language, not devices added on (as in classical rhetoric) to prettify discourse or to move or convince, with no necessary relation to content. To claim that language is fundamentally tropological is also to claim that in its tropes it is always trying to tell us something about our relations to the other and the relations of one other to another. It is a message that in modern technological culture we tend to suppress. Tropes insist on identity: of self and other, of other and other, of part and whole, of container and thing contained, of opposites. To take tropes liter- ally is to accept an ethic of mutuality, where contraries have their own identities and yet are identical to each other. Blake says there is a place where "contrarieties are equally true," but we have to build it, and like everything else, the building begins with language. 3. LANGUAGE Blake seems to have imagined the world as the projection of our expres- sion of it. This is not a scientific proposition but the contrary of equally true propositions that make the world into an object. Actfially such ob- jects become mathematical structures in science, and one notes that these are fictions. As a contrary Blake's notion of a linguistically, thus a tropologically, projected world is the ground of an ethic. If the world is the projection of our expression of it and we are our own acts, as Blake thought (that is, we are what we do), then in some sense the world ema- nates from us and is, in that sense, identical with us. This is merely the taking of synecdoche (the part for the whole or the whole for the part) literally, which is to say seriously, which is to say ethically. In Jerusalem so Antithetical Essays the contrary of this, which lies in the idea of identity. When two things are identical, they are not the same, they each maintain their own identi- ties but are in a relation of identicality. This is the contrary to the alienat- ing object/subject negation and is at the base of Blake's ethic, which calls for mutuality in human relations. For Blake, art, and especially poetry, which is simply language doing the most strenuous job of imagination, everywhere embodies this ethic. Why? Because language is fundamen- tally tropological. Of course, this is not the only view of language, but it is the view contrary to that of logical positivism, which would model language on a mathematical principle, claiming that tropes, or figures of speech, are not essential to language. This latter view has tended to domi- nate for some time the discourses of social science, schools of business, and schools of education. To claim that language is fundamentally tropo- logical is to say that metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, and irony are the warp and woof of language, not devices added on (as in classical rhetoric) to prettify discourse or to move or convince, with no necessary relation to content. To claim that language is fundamentally tropological is also to claim that in its tropes it is always trying to tell us something about our relations to the other and the relations of one other to another. It is a message that in modern technological culture we tend to suppress. Tropes insist on identity: of self and other, of other and other, of part and whole, of container and thing contained, of opposites. To take tropes liter- ally is to accept an ethic of mutuality, where contraries have their own identities and yet are identical to each other. Blake says there is a place where "contrarieties are equally true," but we have to build it, and like everything else, the building begins with language. 3. LANGUAGE Blake seems to have imagined the world as the projection of our expres- sion of it. This is not a scientific proposition but the contrary of equally true propositions that make the world into an object. Actoally such ob- jects become mathematical structures in science, and one notes that these are fictions. As a contrary Blake's notion of a linguistically, thus a tropologically, projected world is the ground of an ethic. If the world is the projection of our expression of it and we are our own acts, as Blake thought (that is, we are what we do), then in some sense the world ema- nates from us and is, in that sense, identical with us. This is merely the taking of synecdoche (the part for the whole or the whole for the part) literally, which is to say seriously, which is to say ethically. In Jerusalem  The Dizziness of Freedom no The Dizziness of Freedom n1 The Dizziness of Freedom Blake says that each of us has an outside spread without and an outside spread within, and these two things are identical. Each of us is a synecdo- che. For Blake, you do not have a thought and then go about finding words to correspond with it. At least, that view requires its contrary which is embodied in Blake's remarks as follows: 1. Invention depends altogether upon Execution or Organiza- tion. (E637) 2. I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas. It is no matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the Design it is no matter for the Execution. These Peo- ple know Enough of Artifice but Nothing of Art. Ideas can- not be Given but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made without its minutely Appropriate Execution. (E576) This is all the more important because such execution, always radically individual, gives new life to language, which tends otherwise to stultifica- tion and adoption of the notion that language has no real basis in creating our world but only in copying it or referring to it. In Blake, the principle of renewal is called Los, who is the part of the archetypal being Albion charged with always building language. This being acts as a contrary to the endless Oedipal cycle of repression and revolt, to which language it- self is by no means immune, as one can tell by the growth and death of slang. Los is the principle of tropes as the logic and ethic of language, contrary to a logic which, if it were unopposed, would reduce all thought to mathematical principles and all morality to slavish obeisance to an ex- ternal principle he imagines as a tyrannical hidden god of the sky. Los must struggle to restore to Albion his full lost voice: Los built the stubborn structure of language acting against Albion's melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair. (E 183) There is always the struggle to liberate language from stultification. What would linguistic stultification be? We are frequently conservative about our language. We want words univocally defined, and we want those definitions to remain static. We do not like words to change their meanings in a discourse. But such a state, if reached-where every word had its single meaning or referent-would signal the death of the mind. Not only is linguistic change the Heraclitean water of life, so is polysemy and variation. To read Blake is to be plunged into a dizzying multiplicity of possible meaning and of relations among words not taken seriously or Blake says that each of us has an outside spread without and an outside spread within, and these two things are identical. Each of us is a synecdo- che. For Blake, you do not have a thought and then go about finding words to correspond with it. At least, that view requires its contrary which is embodied in Blake's remarks as follows: 1. Invention depends altogether upon Execution or Organiza- tion. (E637) a. I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas. It is no matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the Design it is no matter for the Execution. These Peo- ple know Enough of Artifice but Nothing of Art. Ideas can- not be Given but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made without its minutely Appropriate Execution. (E576) This is all the more important because such execution, always radically individual, gives new life to language, which tends otherwise to stultifica- tion and adoption of the notion that language has no real basis in creating our world but only in copying it or referring to it. In Blake, the principle of renewal is called Los, who is the part of the archetypal being Albion charged with always building language. This being acts as a contrary to the endless Oedipal cycle of repression and revolt, to which language it- self is by no means immune, as one can tell by the growth and death of slang. Los is the principle of tropes as the logic and ethic of language, contrary to a logic which, if it were unopposed, would reduce all thought to mathematical principles and all morality to slavish obeisance to an ex- ternal principle he imagines as a tyrannical hidden god of the sky. Los must struggle to restore to Albion his full lost voice: Los built the stubborn structure of language acting against Albion's melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair. (E 183) There is always the struggle to liberate language from stultification. What would linguistic stultification be? We are frequently conservative about our language. We want words univocally defined, and we want those definitions to remain static. We do not like words to change their meanings in a discourse. But such a state, if reached-where every word had its single meaning or referent-would signal the death of the mind. Not only is linguistic change the Heraclitean water of life, so is polysemy and variation. To read Blake is to be plunged into a dizzying multiplicity of possible meaning and of relations among words not taken seriously or Blake says that each of us has an outside spread without and an outside spread within, and these two things are identical. Each of us is a synecdo- che. For Blake, you do not have a thought and then go about finding words to correspond with it. At least, that view requires its contrary which is embodied in Blake's remarks as follows: 1. Invention depends altogether upon Execution or Organiza- tion. (E637) 2. I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas. It is no matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the Design it is no matter for the Execution. These Peo- ple know Enough of Artifice but Nothing of Art. Ideas can- not be Given but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made without its minutely Appropriate Execution. (E576) This is all the more important because such execution, always radically individual, gives new life to language, which tends otherwise to stultifica- tion and adoption of the notion that language has no real basis in creating our world but only in copying it or referring to it. In Blake, the principle of renewal is called Los, who is the part of the archetypal being Albion charged with always building language. This being acts as a contrary to the endless Oedipal cycle of repression and revolt, to which language it- self is by no means immune, as one can tell by the growth and death of slang. Los is the principle of tropes as the logic and ethic of language, contrary to a logic which, if it were unopposed, would reduce all thought to mathematical principles and all morality to slavish obeisance to an ex- ternal principle he imagines as a tyrannical hidden god of the sky. Los must struggle to restore to Albion his full lost voice: Los built the stubborn structure of language acting against Albion's melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair. (E 183) There is always the struggle to liberate language from stultification. What would linguistic stultification be? We are frequently conservative about our language. We want words univocally defined, and we want those definitions to remain static. We do not like words to change their meanings in a discourse. But such a state, if reached-where every word had its single meaning or referent-would signal the death of the mind. Not only is linguistic change the Heraclitean water of life, so is polysemy and variation. To read Blake is to be plunged into a dizzying multiplicity of possible meaning and of relations among words not taken seriously or  Antithetical Essays 12 Antithetical Essays 12 Antithetical Essays seriously suppressed by what we might roughly call the discourse of logic. One senses that there is no place to stand where one could lift the Blakean universe. The reason in part is that this universe is not to be mastered, as Archimedes desired to master his, by the declaration that here and here only, on this spot, is truth or the Word. W. B. Yeats, one of Blake's first lengthy interpreters in the three- volume edition of 1893, called him elsewhere a "too literal realist of the imagination." For the dizzied Yeats this was true. Yeats tried vainly to find the center or Blakean Word in occult philosophy. But Blake thought that one could never be too literal. By "literal" here I mean "literary," which in turn means to proceed by tropologic, or the principle of, identity. This is, of course, the contrary of what we usually think of as literal-literal minded, where every word must have a single corresponding meaning or object, and woe to the unfortunate who employs irony in his utterance. But as Northrop Frye has observed, the word "literal" ought to have some- thing to do with "literary." It is Blake's literality that is fundamental to his work, where it is carried farther than in any text known to me except the Finnegans Wake of James Joyce, who had the advantage of having read Blake's poem The Four Zoas. Blake's terms always expand, never sit still. We find that all characters, things, places, or whatever they are (they are words) have their own par- ticularity but quickly become everything else. Blake's heroic character Los is an instance. If you put the word before a mirror it says Sol, which may or may not be a hint as to how to pronounce it: Loss, but maybe it should be Los, with its mirror reading being "Sol" or "Soul." On the other hand maybe we should remember that Blake's text is radically a written text, in fact an engraved text and not univocally pronounceable. In any case, Sol suggests an identity with the sun, but the reversal implies that this identity has been lost or is a loss, and that perhaps we had better be prepared to read things inside out. Los's antagonist is spelled URIZEN; the problem here is to recog- nize that to utter this word is to limit its written identity. You risen? Your reason? Perhaps we should take the liberty of addition: You rise then? Or deletion and deliberate misplacement: Urine, or matter in one of its least attractive states? The name suggests that distant Greek god of the sky, Uranus, overthrown by his son. We are perhaps grateful that Blake did not exploit this suggestion further: Your Anus, as Joyce surely would have. Actually Joyce did do something to the word, but he uncharacteristically missed the obscenity and settled in his typically far-out way for "hooray most," playing on the latin "oremus" or in Latin "let us pray," which is what one does short of animal or human sacrifice to supplicate a sky god. seriously suppressed by what we might roughly call the discourse of logic. One senses that there is no place to stand where one could lift the Blakean universe. The reason in part is that this universe is not to be mastered, as Archimedes desired to master his, by the declaration that here and here only, on this spot, is truth or the Word. W. B. Yeats, one of Blake's first lengthy interpreters in the three- volume edition of 1893, called him elsewhere a "too literal realist of the imagination." For the dizzied Yeats this was true. Yeats tried vainly to find the center or Blakean Word in occult philosophy. But Blake thought that one could never be too literal. By "literal" here I mean "literary," which in turn means to proceed by tropologic, or the principle of, identity. This is, of course, the contrary of what we usually think of as literal-literal minded, where every word must have a single corresponding meaning or object, and woe to the unfortunate who employs irony in his utterance. But as Northrop Frye has observed, the word "literal" ought to have some- thing to do with "literary." It is Blake's literality that is fundamental to his work, where it is carried farther than in any text known to me except the Finnegans Wake of James Joyce, who had the advantage of having read Blake's poem The Four Zoas. Blake's terms always expand, never sit still. We find that all characters, things, places, or whatever they are (they are words) have their own par- ticularity but quickly become everything else. Blake's heroic character Los is an instance. If you put the word before a mirror it says Sol, which may or may not be a hint as to how to pronounce it: Loss, but maybe it should be Los, with its mirror reading being "Sol" or "Soul." On the other hand maybe we should remember that Blake's text is radically a written text, in fact an engraved text and not univocally pronounceable. In any case, Sol suggests an identity with the sun, but the reversal implies that this identity has been lost or is a loss, and that perhaps we had better be prepared to read things inside out. Los's antagonist is spelled unIZEN; the problem here is to recog- nize that to utter this word is to limit its written identity. You risen? Your reason? Perhaps we should take the liberty of addition: You rise then? Or deletion and deliberate misplacement: Urine, or matter in one of its least attractive states? The name suggests that distant Greek god of the sky, Uranus, overthrown by his son. We are perhaps grateful that Blake did not exploit this suggestion further: Your Anus, as Joyce surely would have. Actually Joyce did do something to the word, but he uncharacteristically missed the obscenity and settled in his typically far-out way for "hooray most," playing on the latin "oremus" or in Latin "let us pray," which is what one does short of animal or human sacrifice to supplicate a sky god. seriously suppressed by what we might roughly call the discourse of logic. One senses that there is no place to stand where one could lift the Blakean universe. The reason in part is that this universe is not to be mastered, as Archimedes desired to master his, by the declaration that here and here only, on this spot, is truth or the Word. W. B. Yeats, one of Blake's first lengthy interpreters in the three- volume edition of 1893, called him elsewhere a "too literal realist of the imagination." For the dizzied Yeats this was true. Yeats tried vainly to find the center or Blakean Word in occult philosophy. But Blake thought that one could never be too literal. By "literal" here I mean "literary," which in turn means to proceed by tropologic, or the principle of, identity. This is, of course, the contrary of what we usually think of as literal-literal minded, where every word must have a single corresponding meaning or object, and woe to the unfortunate who employs irony in his utterance. But as Northrop Frye has observed, the word "literal" ought to have some- thing to do with "literary." It is Blake's literality that is fundamental to his work, where it is carried farther than in any text known to me except the Finnegans Wake of James Joyce, who had the advantage of having read Blake's poem The Four Zoas. Blake's terms always expand, never sit still. We find that all characters, things, places, or whatever they are (they are words) have their own par- ticularity but quickly become everything else. Blake's heroic character Los is an instance. If you put the word before a mirror it says Sol, which may or may not be a hint as to how to pronounce it: Loss, but maybe it should be Los, with its mirror reading being "Sol" or "Soul." On the other hand maybe we should remember that Blake's text is radically a written text, in fact an engraved text and not univocally pronounceable. In any case, Sol suggests an identity with the sun, but the reversal implies that this identity has been lost or is a loss, and that perhaps we had better be prepared to read things inside out. Los's antagonist is spelled URIZEN; the problem here is to recog- nize that to utter this word is to limit its written identity. You risen? Your reason? Perhaps we should take the liberty of addition: You rise then? Or deletion and deliberate misplacement: Urine, or matter in one of its least attractive states? The name suggests that distant Greek god of the sky, Uranus, overthrown by his son. We are perhaps grateful that Blake did not exploit this suggestion further: Your Anus, as Joyce surely would have. Actually Joyce did do something to the word, but he uncharacteristically missed the obscenity and settled in his typically far-out way for "hooray most," playing on the latin "oremus" or in Latin "let us pray," which is what one does short of animal or human sacrifice to supplicate a sky god.  The Dizziness of Freedom 13 The Dizziness of Freedom Maybe we have limited the possibilities and should admit also the pro- nunciation Urizen, which gives us the horizon to which orizons are tradi- tionally directed. It ought to be clear from this single example that Blake's text is one of radical literality, a world of written words and designs that is constantly opening up possibilities, revealing identities, or, as Blake says, "roos[ing] the faculties to act." (I might add that a Blakean theory of the university would certainly be designed to "rouse the faculties to act.") Urizen's pathetic attempt in Blake's The Four Zoas to cope with the dizziness of his own anxiety was arbitrarily to find one place to stand, one law, and one canon of holy books from which to extract that law as a univo- cal command. He is identified in the drawings as a white bearded old man clasping stone tablets. He is certainly of the Elect. He is also George III, sometimes William Hayley, William Pitt the younger, any number of poetasters, all criminally indefinite painters since Raphael, the hostile critics of Blake's exhibition of pictures, the drunken soldier Scofield whom Blake forcibly evicted from his garden, an act for which he had to stand trial for sedition, the God of Milton's Paradise Lost, as well as Milton's Satan. Urizen's language is the fixed word we must ever obey. Early in Blake's career he presents to us a conversation with an angel, who is a forerunner of Urizen. Irritated at some of Blake's apparently he- retical remarks, "The Angel. . . became almost blue, but mastering him- self he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling." He then screams at Blake about Jesus and the ten commandments, to which Blake replies that Jesus rejected the old law. Convinced, the Angel arises as Elijah, and the two of them read the Bible together in its infernal sense, "infer- nal" implying by contrariety the fire of true prophecy. The angel is re- deemed, and the conversation continues. Indeed, for Blake conversation is the true or heavenly form of war and hunting. These, in their right shapes are intellectual, that is to say, linguistic pursuits. In this, nothing is lost. The angel is not destroyed or suppressed. Urizen is redeemed. Indeed, he is the true prince of light, and at the end of Blake's greatest poem he is restored to identity with the sun. The world cannot get along without reason or your reason risen. The dizziness of reading Blake, once one passes through the kind of anxiety that Urizen suffered, is the dizziness of an exhilarating freedom in language, the sense that there is always an opportunity before us, al- ways a reading to be accomplished. But every freedom can become a tyranny requiring narrow belief. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake makes a fable of the acts of the first poets: Maybe we have limited the possibilities and should admit also the pro- nunciation Urizen, which gives us the horizon to which orizons are tradi- tionally directed. It ought to be clear from this single example that Blake's text is one of radical literality, a world of written words and designs that is constantly opening up possibilities, revealing identities, or, as Blake says, "rous[ing] the faculties to act." (I might add that a Blakean theory of the university would certainly be designed to "rouse the faculties to act.") Urizen's pathetic attempt in Blake's The Four Zoas to cope with the dizziness of his own anxiety was arbitrarily to find one place to stand, one law, and one canon of holy books from which to extract that law as a univo- cal command. He is identified in the drawings as a white bearded old man clasping stone tablets. He is certainly of the Elect. He is also George III, sometimes William Hayley, William Pitt the younger, any number of poetasters, all criminally indefinite painters since Raphael, the hostile critics of Blake's exhibition of pictures, the drunken soldier Scofield whom Blake forcibly evicted from his garden, an act for which he had to stand trial for sedition, the God of Milton's Paradise Lost, as well as Milton's Satan. Urizen's language is the fixed word we must ever obey. Early in Blake's career he presents to us a conversation with an angel, who is a forerunner of Urizen. Irritated at some of Blake's apparently he- retical remarks, "The Angel . . . became almost blue, but mastering him- self he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling." He then screams at Blake about Jesus and the ten commandments, to which Blake replies that Jesus rejected the old law. Convinced, the Angel arises as Elijah, and the two of them read the Bible together in its infernal sense, "infer- nal" implying by contrariety the fire of true prophecy. The angel is re- deemed, and the conversation continues. Indeed, for Blake conversation is the true or heavenly form of war and hunting. These, in their right shapes are intellectual, that is to say, linguistic pursuits. In this, nothing is lost. The angel is not destroyed or suppressed. Urizen is redeemed. Indeed, he is the true prince of light, and at the end of Blake's greatest poem he is restored to identity with the sun. The world cannot get along without reason or your reason risen. The dizziness of reading Blake, once one passes through the kind of anxiety that Urizen suffered, is the dizziness of an exhilarating freedom in language, the sense that there is always an opportunity before us, al- ways a reading to be accomplished. But every freedom can become a tyranny requiring narrow belief. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake makes a fable of the acts of the first poets: The Dizziness of Freedom 13 Maybe we have limited the possibilities and should admit also the pro- nunciation Urizen, which gives us the horizon to which orizons are tradi- tionally directed. It ought to be clear from this single example that Blake's text is one of radical literality, a world of written words and designs that is constantly opening up possibilities, revealing identities, or, as Blake says, "rous[ing] the faculties to act." (I might add that a Blakean theory of the university would certainly be designed to "rouse the faculties to act.") Urizen's pathetic attempt in Blake's The Four Zoas to cope with the dizziness of his own anxiety was arbitrarily to find one place to stand, one law, and one canon of holy books from which to extract that law as a univo- cal command. He is identified in the drawings as a white bearded old man clasping stone tablets. He is certainly of the Elect. He is also George III, sometimes William Hayley, William Pitt the younger, any number of poetasters, all criminally indefinite painters since Raphael, the hostile critics of Blake's exhibition of pictures, the drunken soldier Scofield whom Blake forcibly evicted from his garden, an act for which he had to stand trial for sedition, the God of Milton's Paradise Lost, as well as Milton's Satan. Urizen's language is the fixed word we must ever obey. Early in Blake's career he presents to us a conversation with an angel, who is a forerunner of Urizen. Irritated at some of Blake's apparently he- retical remarks, "The Angel . . . became almost blue, but mastering him- self he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling." He then screams at Blake about Jesus and the ten commandments, to which Blake replies that Jesus rejected the old law. Convinced, the Angel arises as Elijah, and the two of them read the Bible together in its infernal sense, "infer- nal" implying by contrariety the fire of true prophecy. The angel is re- deemed, and the conversation continues. Indeed, for Blake conversation is the true or heavenly form of war and hunting. These, in their right shapes are intellectual, that is to say, linguistic pursuits. In this, nothing is lost. The angel is not destroyed or suppressed. Urizen is redeemed. Indeed, he is the true prince of light, and at the end of Blake's greatest poem he is restored to identity with the sun. The world cannot get along without reason or your reason risen. The dizziness of reading Blake, once one passes through the kind of anxiety that Urizen suffered, is the dizziness of an exhilarating freedom in language, the sense that there is always an opportunity before us, al- ways a reading to be accomplished. But every freedom can become a tyranny requiring narrow belief. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake makes a fable of the acts of the first poets:  14 Antithetical Essays 14 Antithetical Essays 14 Antithetical Essays The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast. (E38) So there must always be a Reprobate. In a university, the Reprobate has been for some time now what we call the study of the arts and of letters. When these arts are made to go crying in the wilderness like John the Baptist, the New Testament's first Blakean Reprobate, when indeed their heads are served upon platters to the Gods in Olympia (Washington, not Greece, in this case) who call for an education devoted narrowly to tech- nology and professionalism, it is well to remember the prophecy of Wil- liam Blake: "The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure." (36) Now I come to expression of concerns which go beyond Blake and his time but are firmly identified in my mind with a Blakean view. I refer to events that have recently occurred in my own discipline of literary crit- icism and theory. In a recent book called Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic, I have attempted to provide a Blakean contrary to a quarrel that goes on in contemporary literary criticism between those who insist on some notion of determinate meaning in literary works, rejecting the liter- ality that I have ascribed to Blake, and those who hold that interpretation of a text is impossible because of the infinite dissemination of meaning characteristic of tropological language.' Both notions taken to extremes are pernicious, one willfully tyrannical, one willfully perverse. It is certainly known that no interpretation has ever exhausted a text. On the other hand, we are not speechless before a text, and some speeches are better than others. 4. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast. (E38) So there must always be a Reprobate. In a university, the Reprobate has been for some time now what we call the study of the arts and of letters. When these arts are made to go crying in the wilderness like John the Baptist, the New Testaments first Blakean Reprobate, when indeed their heads are served upon platters to the Gods in Olympia (Washington, not Greece, in this case) who call for an education devoted narrowly to tech- nology and professionalism, it is well to remember the prophecy of Wil- liam Blake: "The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure." (36) Now I come to expression of concerns which go beyond Blake and his time but are firmly identified in my mind with a Blakean view. I refer to events that have recently occurred in my own discipline of literary crit- icism and theory. In a recent book called Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic, I have attempted to provide a Blakean contrary to a quarrel that goes on in contemporary literary criticism between those who insist on some notion of determinate meaning in literary works, rejecting the liter- ality that I have ascribed to Blake, and those who hold that interpretation of a text is impossible because of the infinite dissemination of meaning characteristic of tropological language.' Both notions taken to extremes are pernicious, one willfully tyrannical, one willfully perverse. It is certainly known that no interpretation has ever exhausted a text. On the other hand, we are not speechless before a text, and some speeches are better than others. 4. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallabassee: Florida State Uaiversity Press, 1983). The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast. (E38) So there must always be a Reprobate. In a university, the Reprobate has been for some time now what we call the study of the arts and of letters. When these arts are made to go crying in the wilderness like John the Baptist, the New Testament's first Blakean Reprobate, when indeed their heads are served upon platters to the Gods in Olympia (Washington, not Greece, in this case) who call for an education devoted narrowly to tech- nology and professionalism, it is well to remember the prophecy of Wil- liam Blake: "The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure." (36) Now I come to expression of concerns which go beyond Blake and his time but are firmly identified in my mind with a Blakean view. I refer to events that have recently occurred in my own discipline of literary crit- icism and theory. In a recent book called Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic, I have attempted to provide a Blakean contrary to a quarrel that goes on in contemporary literary criticism between those who insist on some notion of determinate meaning in literary works, rejecting the liter- ality that I have ascribed to Blake, and those who hold that interpretation of a text is impossible because of the infinite dissemination of meaning characteristic of tropological language.' Both notions taken to extremes are pernicious, one willfully tyrannical, one willfully perverse. It is certainly known that no interpretation has ever exhausted a text. On the other hand, we are not speechless before a text, and some speeches are better than others. 4. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State Uiversity Press, 1983).  The Dizziness of Freedom 15 The Dizziness of Freedom 15 The Dizziness of Freedom The quarrel is sometimes seen as one between old style interpreters and the new style poststructuralist theorists known as deconstructionists. But what I am concerned about here is a third force apparent in much contemporary critical theory that claims liberation from the stranglehold of the repression of textual possibilities, from epistemology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, philology, and psychology. It is to be liberation into, or more accurately, the triumph of a reborn sociology. So complete has this triumph been prophesied to be that the term "literary theory" is com- pletely smothered by the term "critical theory," which in turn means only sociological analysis. Before this triumph has its way completely, we should ask what it re- presses. In the questioning we may yet rescue what must always be res- cued from abstraction and generalization in order to maintain sanity: the unique and individual. In 1938, with Europe in dreadful crisis, the greatest poet of the cen- tury declared, "No educated man to-day accepts the objective matter and space of popular science, and yet deductions made by those who believed in both dominate the world, make possible the stimulation and condona- tion of revolutionary massacre and the multiplication of murderous weap- ons by substituting for the old humanity with its unique irreplaceable in- dividuals something that can be chopped and measured like a piece of cheese."' Yeats was being characteristically nostalgic in a hopelessly reac- tionary essay, but he correctly feared the absence of something essential to any tolerable culture, something Blake always insisted on. I think it essential also to any cultural analysis. This element is entirely lacking in poststructuralist prophecy, and threatens to disappear in the theorizing about power of one of the most intellectually influential, and perhaps the most interesting, poststructuralists, the late Michel Foucault. Poststructu- ralist theories do not chop up the individual as if he or she were a piece of cheese. Rather, they disregard entirely the individual will and with it the notion of power as inherent in those individual imaginative acts Blake regards as the ground of culture-making. Foucault's aim, to be sure, was resistance against the object/subject negation, an attempt to recast the whole matter. But it was, I am afraid, an act of suppression or nega- tion of its own rather than providing a true contrary: "One has to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that's to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution of the sub- ject within a historical framework."' Power, which is Foucault's own object The quarrel is sometimes seen as one between old style interpreters and the new style poststructuralist theorists known as deconstructionists. But what I am concerned about here is a third force apparent in much contemporary critical theory that claims liberation from the stranglehold of the repression of textual possibilities, from epistemology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, philology, and psychology. It is to be liberation into, or more accurately, the triumph of a reborn sociology. So complete has this triumph been prophesied to be that the term "literary theory" is com- pletely smothered by the term "critical theory," which in turn means only sociological analysis. Before this triumph has its way completely, we should ask what it re- presses. In the questioning we may yet rescue what must always be res- cued from abstraction and generalization in order to maintain sanity: the unique and individual. In 1938, with Europe in dreadful crisis, the greatest poet of the cen- tury declared, "No educated man to-day accepts the objective matter and space of popular science, and yet deductions made by those who believed in both dominate the world, make possible the stimulation and condona- tion of revolutionary massacre and the multiplication of murderous weap- ons by substituting for the old humanity with its unique irreplaceable in- dividuals something that can be chopped and measured like a piece of cheese."" Yeats was being characteristically nostalgic in a hopelessly reac- tionary essay, but he correctly feared the absence of something essential to any tolerable culture, something Blake always insisted on. I think it essential also to any cultural analysis. This element is entirely lacking in poststructuralist prophecy, and threatens to disappear in the theorizing about power of one of the most intellectually influential, and perhaps the most interesting, poststructuralists, the late Michel Foucault. Poststructu- ralist theories do not chop up the individual as if he or she were a piece of cheese. Rather, they disregard entirely the individual will and with it the notion of power as inherent in those individual imaginative acts Blake regards as the ground of culture-making. Foucault's aim, to be sure, was resistance against the object/subject negation, an attempt to recast the whole matter. But it was, I am afraid, an act of suppression or nega- tion of its own rather than providing a true contrary: "One has to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that's to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution of the sub- ject within a historical framework."' Power, which is Foucault's own object The quarrel is sometimes seen as one between old style interpreters and the new style poststructuralist theorists known as deconstructionists. But what I am concerned about here is a third force apparent in much contemporary critical theory that claims liberation from the stranglehold of the repression of textual possibilities, from epistemology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, philology, and psychology. It is to be liberation into, or more accurately, the triumph of a reborn sociology. So complete has this triumph been prophesied to be that the term "literary theory" is com- pletely smothered by the term "critical theory," which in turn means only sociological analysis. Before this triumph has its way completely, we should ask what it re- presses. In the questioning we may yet rescue what must always be res- cued from abstraction and generalization in order to maintain sanity: the unique and individual. In 1938, with Europe in dreadful crisis, the greatest poet of the cen- tury declared, "No educated man to-day accepts the objective matter and space of popular science, and yet deductions made by those who believed in both dominate the world, make possible the stimulation and condona- tion of revolutionary massacre and the multiplication of murderous weap- ons by substituting for the old humanity with its unique irreplaceable in- dividuals something that can be chopped and measured like a piece of cheese."" Yeats was being characteristically nostalgic in a hopelessly reac- tionary essay, but he correctly feared the absence of something essential to any tolerable culture, something Blake always insisted on. I think it essential also to any cultural analysis. This element is entirely lacking in poststructuralist prophecy, and threatens to disappear in the theorizing about power of one of the most intellectually influential, and perhaps the most interesting, poststructuralists, the late Michel Foucault. Poststructu- ralist theories do not chop up the individual as if he or she were a piece of cheese. Rather, they disregard entirely the individual will and with it the notion of power as inherent in those individual imaginative acts Blake regards as the ground of culture-making. Foucault's aim, to be sure, was resistance against the object/subject negation, an attempt to recast the whole matter. But it was, I am afraid, an act of suppression or nega- tion of its own rather than providing a true contrary: "One has to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that's to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution of the sub- ject within a historical framework." Power, which is Foucault's own object 5. On the Boiler (Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1938), 26. 6. Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 117. 5. On the Boiler (Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1938), 26. 6. Power/Knowlede (New York: Pantheon Books, 1s8o), 117. 5. On the Boiler (Dublin: The Coals Press, 1938), 26. 6. PowerlKnowledKe (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 117.  Antithetical Essays 16 Antithetical Essays of study, is strange and mysterious, embodied in a miraculous disembodi- ment, separated from man, in historical institutional relations that threaten to get rid of the notion of individual human freedom as well as the subject. He usually evades discussing power directly, speaking for the most part of "relations of power," a phrase recalling structuralist reduc- tions in which constituent objects are obliterated and the real is forced to lie in relations of difference alone. This is a way of thinking that has led to many important insights, but it has also led to Roland Barthes' charming comic delusion that his studies in his Paris and country houses were the same because the relations among things in both places were the same.' But Foucault could not help treating the relations of power as a sort of ether, phlogiston, or perhaps ectoplasm, not emitted from a mi- raculous source but oppressively present in its absence. This power comes into the world never embodied, as in the Eucharistic miraculous symbol, but maintaining its disembodied pure (un)being as it flows wher- ever he wishes to detect it, still and always an ether of pure difference. The individual will, in this system, is not subjected to the Lockeian reduction of humanity to the abstract object that Blake attacked and paro- died in the figure of Urizen, but rather it runs the danger of being con- jured away entirely or dissolved into the larger set of relations of power: Institutions are not and never were the individuals who make them up, nor are they even larger than the sum of individuals who make them up. Individuals do not make them up. Individuals have disappeared along with the subject. Forty-five years ago, Joyce Cary, an avid reader of Blake, published a book called Power in Men.' He declared that power is mysterious. Nevertheless, he believed he knew where it always first manifests itself- in individual expressions of freedom as those expressions oppose them- selves to the real. For him, freedom depended on the force it presses against, the determinism of matter, which was its contrary. It pushes al- ways against this determinism, this real (as he called it frequently) which is always insufficiently formed, despite its obeisance to physical law. At least to the human imagination it is insufficiently formed, and the imagi- nations of individuals try to do something about its intransigence, build- ing bridges, making universities, writing poems, husbanding animals, and the like. But also doing terrible things, for Cary feared for what man might do with his freedom. One fear is that he may at any time deny it and succumb to an analysis that remembers only the relations of power. Prophecy is basically hope. I prophesy as a contrary to the uneasy mar- 7. Roland Barthes (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 46. 8. Power in Men (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1939). of study, is strange and mysterious, embodied in a miraculous disembodi- ment, separated from man, in historical institutional relations that threaten to get rid of the notion of individual human freedom as well as the subject. He usually evades discussing power directly, speaking for the most part of "relations of power," a phrase recalling structuralist reduc- tions in which constituent objects are obliterated and the real is forced to lie in relations of difference alone. This is a way of thinking that has led to many important insights, but it has also led to Roland Barthes' charming comic delusion that his studies in his Paris and country houses were the same because the relations among things in both places were the same.' But Foucault could not help treating the relations of power as a sort of ether, phlogiston, or perhaps ectoplasm, not emitted from a mi- raculous source but oppressively present in its absence. This power comes into the world never embodied, as in the Eucharistic miraculous symbol, but maintaining its disembodied pure (un)being as it flows wher- ever he wishes to detect it, still and always an ether of pure difference. The individual will, in this system, is not subjected to the Lockeian reduction of humanity to the abstract object that Blake attacked and paro- died in the figure of Urizen, but rather it runs the danger of being con- jured away entirely or dissolved into the larger set of relations of power: Institutions are not and never were the individuals who make them up, nor are they even larger than the sum of individuals who make them up. Individuals do not make them up. Individuals have disappeared along with the subject. Forty-five years ago, Joyce Cary, an avid reader of Blake, published a book called Power in Men. He declared that power is mysterious. Nevertheless, he believed he knew where it always first manifests itself- in individual expressions of freedom as those expressions oppose them- selves to the real. For him, freedom depended on the force it presses against, the determinism of matter, which was its contrary. It pushes al- ways against this determinism, this real (as he called it frequently) which is always insufficiently formed, despite its obeisance to physical law. At least to the human imagination it is insufficiently formed, and the imagi- nations of individuals try to do something about its intransigence, build- ing bridges, making universities, writing poems, husbanding animals, and the like. But also doing terrible things, for Cary feared for what man might do with his freedom. One fear is that he may at any time deny it and succumb to an analysis that remembers only the relations of power. Prophecy is basically hope. I prophesy as a contrary to the uneasy mar- 7. Roland Barthes (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 46. 8. Power in Men (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1939). 16 Antithetical Essays of study, is strange and mysterious, embodied in a miraculous disembodi- ment, separated from man, in historical institutional relations that threaten to get rid of the notion of individual human freedom as well as the subject. He usually evades discussing power directly, speaking for the most part of "relations of power," a phrase recalling structuralist reduc- tions in which constituent objects are obliterated and the real is forced to lie in relations of difference alone. This is a way of thinking that has led to many important insights, but it has also led to Roland Barthes' charming comic delusion that his studies in his Paris and country houses were the same because the relations among things in both places were the same.' But Foucault could not help treating the relations of power as a sort of ether, phlogiston, or perhaps ectoplasm, not emitted from a mi- raculous source but oppressively present in its absence. This power comes into the world never embodied, as in the Eucharistic miraculous symbol, but maintaining its disembodied pure (un)being as it flows wher- ever he wishes to detect it, still and always an ether of pure difference. The individual will, in this system, is not subjected to the Lockeian reduction of humanity to the abstract object that Blake attacked and paro- died in the figure of Urizen, but rather it runs the danger of being con- jured away entirely or dissolved into the larger set of relations of power: Institutions are not and never were the individuals who make them up, nor are they even larger than the sum of individuals who make them up. Individuals do not make them up. Individuals have disappeared along with the subject. Forty-five years ago, Joyce Cary, an avid reader of Blake, published a book called Power in Men. He declared that power is mysterious. Nevertheless, he believed he knew where it always first manifests itself- in individual expressions of freedom as those expressions oppose them- selves to the real. For him, freedom depended on the force it presses against, the determinism of matter, which was its contrary. It pushes al- ways against this determinism, this real (as he called it frequently) which is always insufficiently formed, despite its obeisance to physical law. At least to the human imagination it is insufficiently formed, and the imagi- nations of individuals try to do something about its intransigence, build- ing bridges, making universities, writing poems, husbanding animals, and the like. But also doing terrible things, for Cary feared for what man might do with his freedom. One fear is that he may at any time deny it and succumb to an analysis that remembers only the relations of power. Prophecy is basically hope. I prophesy as a contrary to the uneasy mar- 7. Roland Barthes (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 46. 8. Power in Men (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1939).  The Dizziness of Freedom 17 The Dizziness of Freedom riage of literary theory and poststructural sociological analysis a renewal of the Blakean Reprobate: insistence on the imagination as individual power to make a difference, in opposition to the deterministic reduction of sociological approaches and the recent establishment of the real as a plenum of pure relation. Power lies not entirely with the institution but fundamentally with the individual imaginative acts from which the insti- tution appropriates what it, in its fumbling way, can manage to vulgarize. Institutions are powerless to do more than lag behind imaginations, for better or for worse. For better, sometimes, because an institution's inabil- ity to do more than lag can act as a check on the imagination's destructive powers. Every institution worth anything must have built into it a contrary, reprobate intellectual principle so that imagination is not negated. I think this is actually what Foucault wanted and was trying to promulgate. But his language is sometimes a spectral sociologist. Universities seem to sus- tain within themselves the reprobate principle better than other institu- tions, though by no means perfectly and never consistently, because such principles become embodied in systems that often have lost touch with the acts of imagination that engendered them. This is the fate of power- to diminish from its first appearance as a free individual human act, like Shelley's fading coal, unless revitalized by a new act. Institutions that at- tempt to repress completely the Reprobate (all imaginative readings of texts were once Reprobate) will eventually collapse or harden into some- thing recognizably barren and stony. New institutions or the revitaliza- tion of old ones will come about by individual acts of freedom, acts of new reading, new interpretations. This is a Blakean belief, and so in approaching here the intellectual life of the university as an institution I return to the angel (or devil) who presided at my intellectual birth. I leave it to you to decide which, but in my opinion he is, in response to the negation angel/devil, the contrary who offers a dizzying freedom from both the fixed and the unfixed, from the uncreative stance of the Oedipal rebel as well as from the uncreative reactionary institutionalization of reading. riage of literary theory and poststructural sociological analysis a renewal of the Blakean Reprobate: insistence on the imagination as individual power to make a difference, in opposition to the deterministic reduction of sociological approaches and the recent establishment of the real as a plenum of pure relation. Power lies not entirely with the institution but fundamentally with the individual imaginative acts from which the insti- tution appropriates what it, in its fumbling way, can manage to vulgarize. Institutions are powerless to do more than lag behind imaginations, for better or for worse. For better, sometimes, because an institution's inabil- ity to do more than lag can act as a check on the imagination's destructive powers. Every institution worth anything must have built into it a contrary, reprobate intellectual principle so that imagination is not negated. I think this is actually what Foucault wanted and was trying to promulgate. But his language is sometimes a spectral sociologist. Universities seem to sus- tain within themselves the reprobate principle better than other institu- tions, though by no means perfectly and never consistently, because such principles become embodied in systems that often have lost touch with the acts of imagination that engendered them. This is the fate of power- to diminish from its first appearance as a free individual human act, like Shelley's fading coal, unless revitalized by a new act. Institutions that at- tempt to repress completely the Reprobate (all imaginative readings of texts were once Reprobate) will eventually collapse or harden into some- thing recognizably barren and stony. New institutions or the revitaliza- tion of old ones will come about by individual acts of freedom, acts of new reading, new interpretations. This is a Blakean belief, and so in approaching here the intellectual life of the university as an institution I return to the angel (or devil) who presided at my intellectual birth. I leave it to you to decide which, but in my opinion he is, in response to the negation angel/devil, the contrary who offers a dizzying freedom from both the fixed and the unfixed, from the uncreative stance of the Oedipal rebel as well as from the uncreative reactionary institutionalization of reading. The Dizziness of Freedom 17 riage of literary theory and poststructural sociological analysis a renewal of the Blakean Reprobate: insistence on the imagination as individual power to make a difference, in opposition to the deterministic reduction of sociological approaches and the recent establishment of the real as a plenum of pure relation. Power lies not entirely with the institution but fundamentally with the individual imaginative acts from which the insti- tution appropriates what it, in its fumbling way, can manage to vulgarize. Institutions are powerless to do more than lag behind imaginations, for better or for worse. For better, sometimes, because an institution's inabil- ity to do more than lag can act as a check on the imagination's destructive powers. Every institution worth anything must have built into it a contrary, reprobate intellectual principle so that imagination is not negated. I think this is actually what Foucault wanted and was trying to promulgate. But his language is sometimes a spectral sociologist. Universities seem to sus- tain within themselves the reprobate principle better than other institu- tions, though by no means perfectly and never consistently, because such principles become embodied in systems that often have lost touch with the acts of imagination that engendered them. This is the fate of power- to diminish from its first appearance as a free individual human act, like Shelley's fading coal, unless revitalized by a new act. Institutions that at- tempt to repress completely the Reprobate (all imaginative readings of texts were once Reprobate) will eventually collapse or harden into some- thing recognizably barren and stony. New institutions or the revitaliza- tion of old ones will come about by individual acts of freedom, acts of new reading, new interpretations. This is a Blakean belief, and so in approaching here the intellectual life of the university as an institution I return to the angel (or devil) who presided at my intellectual birth. I leave it to you to decide which, but in my opinion he is, in response to the negation angel/devil, the contrary who offers a dizzying freedom from both the fixed and the unfixed, from the uncreative stance of the Oedipal rebel as well as from the uncreative reactionary institutionalization of reading.   PART TWO PART TWO PART TWO   Synecdoche and Method In a square foot of paper is contained the boundless space LU CHI To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your Hand And Eternity in an hour BLAKE, "AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE. Method we tend to identify as opposed to the use of tropes; we would, if we could, sort tropes out of what we would like to constitute as a rigor- ously logical, antimythical activity.' Yet if we are going to speak of poetic method, as we often do, it appears that we shall have to allow tropes to play a role in it. The alternative would seem to be abandonment of the term. Yet Coleridge introduces a trope into the very center of his treat- ment of method in his essays in The Friend. For Coleridge, a man of educa- tion is characterized by "the unpremeditated and evidently habitual ar- rangement of his words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he in- tends to communicate. However irregular and desultory his talk, there is method in the fragments."' This trope is synecdoche. Though we usually think of synecdoche spatially (part and whole), here Coleridge speaks of a whole that the part anticipates, thereby introducing a temporal charac- ter. Further, what counts is the relation of part to part and part to whole: "Method . .. becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relation of things" (451). He notes that the habit of method causes "things the most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, (to be] brought into mutual contiguity and succession" (455). Method (peOooSg) means literally in Greek a way or path of transit, 1. I employ the terms "myth" and "antimyth" as neo-Blakean contraries in Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). a. Coleridge, The Friend [1818], ed. Barbara E. Rooke (London and Princeton, NJ: Routledge and Kegan Paul and Princeton University Press, 1969), 1:449. Synecdoche and Method In a square foot of paper is contained the boundless space LU CHI To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your Hand And Eternity in an hour BLAKE, "AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE" Method we tend to identify as opposed to the use of tropes; we would, if we could, sort tropes out of what we would like to constitute as a rigor- ously logical, antimythical activity.' Yet if we are going to speak of poetic method, as we often do, it appears that we shall have to allow tropes to play a role in it. The alternative would seem to be abandonment of the term. Yet Coleridge introduces a trope into the very center of his treat- ment of method in his essays in The Friend. For Coleridge, a man of educa- tion is characterized by "the unpremeditated and evidently habitual ar- rangement of his words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he in- tends to communicate. However irregular and desultory his talk, there is method in the fragments."2 This trope is synecdoche. Though we usually think of synecdoche spatially (part and whole), here Coleridge speaks of a whole that the part anticipates, thereby introducing a temporal charac- ter. Further, what counts is the relation of part to part and part to whole: "Method . . . becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relation of things" (451). He notes that the habit of method causes "things the most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, [to be] brought into mutual contiguity and succession" (455). Method (peOoflog) means literally in Greek a way or path of transit, 1. I employ the terms "myth" and "antimyth" as neo-Blakean contraries in Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). z. Coleridge, The Friend [1818], ed. Barbara E. Rooke (London and Princeton, NJ: Routledge and Kegan Paul and Princeton University Press, 1969), 1:449. Synecdoche and Method In a square foot of paper is contained the boundless space LU CHI To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your Hand And Eternity in an hour BLAKE, AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE Method we tend to identify as opposed to the use of tropes; we would, if we could, sort tropes out of what we would like to constitute as a rigor- ously logical, antimythical activity.' Yet if we are going to speak of poetic method, as we often do, it appears that we shall have to allow tropes to play a role in it. The alternative would seem to be abandonment of the term. Yet Coleridge introduces a trope into the very center of his treat- ment of method in his essays in The Friend. For Coleridge, a man of educa- tion is characterized by "the unpremeditated and evidently habitual ar- rangement of his words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he in- tends to communicate. However irregular and desultory his talk, there is method in the fragments."a This trope is synecdoche. Though we usually think of synecdoche spatially (part and whole), here Coleridge speaks of a whole that the part anticipates, thereby introducing a temporal charac- ter. Further, what counts is the relation of part to part and part to whole: "Method . .. becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relation of things" (451). He notes that the habit of method causes "things the most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, [to be] brought into mutual contiguity and succession" (455). Method (pa6tOg) means literally in Greek a way or path of transit, 1. I employ the terms "myth" and "antimyth" as neo-Blakean contraries in Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). a. Coleridge, The Frsend [1818], ed. Barbara E. Rose (London and Princeton, NJ: Routtedge and Kegan Paul and Princeton University Press, 1g69), 1:449.  Antithetical Essay. 22 Antithetical Essay., A t Antithetical Essay.. and so there comes with it the notion, according to Coleridge, of "pro- gressive transition" and thus of process in time (457). I shall return to the connection of method with temporal process when I discuss William Blake's poetic method as synecdochic and metaphoric and the issues this raises for interpretation or critical reading of his works. Before proceed- ing, however, it is necessary to consider some difficulties that have arisen in critical theory with respect to the term "synecdoche." In his remarks, Coleridge is discussing a process of thought not neces- sarily poetic. His employment of the terms "contiguity" and "succession" suggests those syntagmatic relations with which the trope metonymy has been associated ever since Roman Jakobson's famous essay distinguishing metonymy from metaphor.' From the point of view of literary criticism, Jakobson makes a mistake in drawing no distinction of any importance be- tween metonymy and synecdoche. He treats synecdoche merely as a type of metonymy or relation by contiguity. (He may be quite correct with re- gard to the apparent indifference of the two in matters having to do with aphasia, a phenomenon the observation of which launched him on his subject.) The failure to distinguish is by no means unusual. In a recent book on figures of speech, for example, Arthur Quinn expresses the view that synecdoche is a kind of metonymy, though when he comes around to quoting an example from Blake he becomes uneasy and calls it and certain others "ineffably real synecdoches, if such there be."' He then de- clares such synecdoches to be symbols. The failure to distinguish is also apparent in Claude Levi-Strauss's use of the term and in Edmund Leach's accepting commentary.' It is also the characteristic behavior of Jacques Lacan.' There is a distinction, of course, in psychoanalytic usage between metonymy and synecdoche. The former parallels displacement and the latter condensation of the dream-thought. But both perform the same basic function, and so it is a distinction without a significant difference. In Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, there is something of a mystery about condensation. Freud remarks: 3. Jakobsen with Morris Halle, "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles," in Fundann- tals of Language (1956), reprinted in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 1113-16. 4. Quinn, Figures of Speech: 6o Ways to Turn a Phrase (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1982), 58. 5. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 191-16; Leach, Claude Levi-Strauss (New York: Viking Press, 1970), 47-52. 6. See, e.g., Lacan, "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious," in Ecrits, ed. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton), 156. and so there comes with it the notion, according to Coleridge, of "pro- gressive transition" and thus of process in time (457). I shall return to the connection of method with temporal process when I discuss William Blake's poetic method as synecdochic and metaphoric and the issues this raises for interpretation or critical reading of his works. Before proceed- ing, however, it is necessary to consider some difficulties that have arisen in critical theory with respect to the term "synecdoche." In his remarks, Coleridge is discussing a process of thought not neces- sarily poetic. His employment of the terms "contiguity" and "succession" suggests those syntagmatic relations with which the trope metonymy has been associated ever since Roman Jakobson's famous essay distinguishing metonymy from metaphor.' From the point of view of literary criticism, Jakobson makes a mistake in drawing no distinction of any importance be- tween metonymy and synecdoche. He treats synecdoche merely as a type of metonymy or relation by contiguity. (He may be quite correct with re- gard to the apparent indifference of the two in matters having to do with aphasia, a phenomenon the observation of which launched him on his subject.) The failure to distinguish is by no means unusual. In a recent book on figures of speech, for example, Arthur Quinn expresses the view that synecdoche is a kind of metonymy, though when he comes around to quoting an example from Blake he becomes uneasy and calls it and certain others "ineffably real synecdoches, if such there be." He then de- clares such synecdoches to be symbols. The failure to distinguish is also apparent in Claude Levi-Strauss's use of the term and in Edmund Leach's accepting commentary.' It is also the characteristic behavior of Jacques Lacan.' There is a distinction, of course, in psychoanalytic usage between metonymy and synecdoche. The former parallels displacement and the latter condensation of the dream-thought. But both perform the same basic function, and so it is a distinction without a significant difference. In Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, there is something of a mystery about condensation. Freud remarks: 3. Jakobsen with Morris Halle, "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles," in Fundamen- tals of Language (1956), reprinted in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 1113-16. 4. Quinn, Figures of Speech: 6o Ways to Thrn a Phrase (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1982), 58. 5. Lkvi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 191-a16; Leach, Claude Lvi-Strauss (New York: Viking Press, 1970), 47-52. 6. See, e.g., Lacan, "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious," in Ecrits, ed. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton), 156. and so there comes with it the notion, according to Coleridge, of "pro- gressive transition" and thus of process in time (457). I shall return to the connection of method with temporal process when I discuss William Blake's poetic method as synecdochic and metaphoric and the issues this raises for interpretation or critical reading of his works. Before proceed- ing, however, it is necessary to consider some difficulties that have arisen in critical theory with respect to the term "synecdoche." In his remarks, Coleridge is discussing a process of thought not neces- sarily poetic. His employment of the terms "contiguity" and "succession" suggests those syntagmatic relations with which the trope metonymy has been associated ever since Roman Jakobson's famous essay distinguishing metonymy from metaphor.' From the point of view of literary criticism, Jakobson makes a mistake in drawing no distinction of any importance be- tween metonymy and synecdoche. He treats synecdoche merely as a type of metonymy or relation by contiguity. (He may be quite correct with re- gard to the apparent indifference of the two in matters having to do with aphasia, a phenomenon the observation of which launched him on his subject.) The failure to distinguish is by no means unusual. In a recent book on figures of speech, for example, Arthur Quinn expresses the view that synecdoche is a kind of metonymy, though when he comes around to quoting an example from Blake he becomes uneasy and calls it and certain others "ineffably real synecdoches, if such there be."' He then de- clares such synecdoches to be symbols. The failure to distinguish is also apparent in Claude Levi-Strauss's use of the term and in Edmund Leach's accepting commentary.' It is also the characteristic behavior of Jacques Lacan." There is a distinction, of course, in psychoanalytic usage between metonymy and synecdoche. The former parallels displacement and the latter condensation of the dream-thought. But both perform the same basic function, and so it is a distinction without a significant difference. In Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, there is something of a mystery about condensation. Freud remarks: 3. Jakobsen with Morris Halle, "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles," in Fundamen- tals of Language (1956), reprinted in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 1113-16. 4. Quinn, Figures of Speech: 6o Ways to Turn a Phrase (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1982), 58. 5. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 191-16; Leach, Claude Leci-Strauss (New York: Viking Press, 1970), 47-52 6. See, e.g., Lacan, "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious," in Ecrits, ed. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton), 156.  Synecdoche and Method 23 Synecdoche and Method 23 Synecdoche and Method One is inclined to regard the dream-thoughts that have been brought to light as complete material, whereas if the work of interpretation is carried further it may reveal still more thoughts concealed behind the dream. I have already had oc- casion to point out that it is in fact never possible to be sure that a dream has been completely interpreted. Even if the so- lution seems satisfactory and without gaps, the possibility al- ways remains that the dream may have yet another meaning. Strictly speaking, then, it is impossible to determine the amount of condensation.' Several comments indicating what Freud implies in this passage are nec- essary before I proceed. 1. There is a meaning to be discovered behind the manifest dream. Elsewhere Freud rejects the idea that the dream as remembered may in- evitably have omissions and that what is left is not strictly speaking a con- densation but a congeries of fragments. The manifest dream contains this hidden meaning and is not to be regarded in interpretation as a fragment or set of fragments with some of the fragments missing. 2. Even assuming (as does Freud) a meaning to be reached, the inter- preter cannot know whether it has been reached. 3. The manifest dream is a synecdoche of this meaning. 4. This meaning is in some sense there and ideally recoverable, but it may not be in practice fully recoverable in interpretation. 5. Thus condensation is synecdochic in a sense beyond the rhetorical definition of tropes as figures. It is a microcosm, not merely a part that stands for a whole; it is identical to the whole. This I shall call a radical synecdoche. 6. Condensation is therefore a relation in which the macrocosm or dream-thought is posited only hypothetically, not fully known, or (to be more accurate) we can never know whether or not it is fully known. We can never be sure of its completeness in interpretation. 7. In that sense, condensation may be called an open synecdoche, and, as I shall try to show, it is locked in a negating opposition to a closed syn- ecdoche and differs from the kind of synecdoche produced by Blakean method, which is a contrary to this open/closed negation. The differences are that: (a) it is not temporal and progressive as the Blakean is; and (b) as it implies a completed macrocosm somewhere, it also implies that 7. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey (New York: Avon Books, -g65), 3-3. One is inclined to regard the dream-thoughts that have been brought to light as complete material, whereas if the work of interpretation is carried further it may reveal still more thoughts concealed behind the dream. I have already had oc- casion to point out that it is in fact never possible to be sure that a dream has been completely interpreted. Even if the so- lution seems satisfactory and without gaps, the possibility al- ways remains that the dream may have yet another meaning. Strictly speaking, then, it is impossible to determine the amount of condensation. Several comments indicating what Freud implies in this passage are nec- essary before I proceed. 1. There is a meaning to be discovered behind the manifest dream. Elsewhere Freud rejects the idea that the dream as remembered may in- evitably have omissions and that what is left is not strictly speaking a con- densation but a congeries of fragments. The manifest dream contains this hidden meaning and is not to be regarded in interpretation as a fragment or set of fragments with some of the fragments missing. z. Even assuming (as does Freud) a meaning to be reached, the inter- preter cannot know whether it has been reached. 3. The manifest dream is a synecdoche of this meaning. 4. This meaning is in some sense there and ideally recoverable, but it may not be in practice fully recoverable in interpretation. 5. Thus condensation is synecdochic in a sense beyond the rhetorical definition of tropes as figures. It is a microcosm, not merely a part that stands for a whole; it is identical to the whole. This I shall call a radical synecdoche. 6. Condensation is therefore a relation in which the macrocosm or dream-thought is posited only hypothetically, not fully known, or (to be more accurate) we can never know whether or not it is fully known. We can never be sure of its completeness in interpretation. 7. In that sense, condensation may be called an open synecdoche, and, as I shall try to show, it is locked in a negating opposition to a closed syn- ecdoche and differs from the kind of synecdoche produced by Blakean method, which is a contrary to this open/closed negation. The differences are that: (a) it is not temporal and progressive as the Blakean is; and (b) as it implies a completed macrocosm somewhere, it also implies that 7. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey (New York: Avon Books, -965), 313. One is inclined to regard the dream-thoughts that have been brought to light as complete material, whereas if the work of interpretation is carried further it may reveal still more thoughts concealed behind the dream. I have already had oc- casion to point out that it is in fact never possible to be sure that a dream has been completely interpreted. Even if the so- lution seems satisfactory and without gaps, the possibility al- ways remains that the dream may have yet another meaning. Strictly speaking, then, it is impossible to determine the amount of condensation.' Several comments indicating what Freud implies in this passage are nec- essary before I proceed. 1. There is a meaning to be discovered behind the manifest dream. Elsewhere Freud rejects the idea that the dream as remembered may in- evitably have omissions and that what is left is not strictly speaking a con- densation but a congeries of fragments. The manifest dream contains this hidden meaning and is not to be regarded in interpretation as a fragment or set of fragments with some of the fragments missing. z. Even assuming (as does Freud) a meaning to be reached, the inter- preter cannot know whether it has been reached. 3. The manifest dream is a synecdoche of this meaning. 4. This meaning is in some sense there and ideally recoverable, but it may not be in practice fully recoverable in interpretation. 5. Thus condensation is synecdochic in a sense beyond the rhetorical definition of tropes as figures. It is a microcosm, not merely a part that stands for a whole; it is identical to the whole. This I shall call a radical synecdoche. 6. Condensation is therefore a relation in which the macrocosm or dream-thought is posited only hypothetically, not fully known, or (to be more accurate) we can never know whether or not it is fully known. We can never be sure of its completeness in interpretation. 7. In that sense, condensation may be called an open synecdoche, and, as I shall try to show, it is locked in a negating opposition to a closed syn- ecdoche and differs from the kind of synecdoche produced by Blakean method, which is a contrary to this open/closed negation. The differences are that: (a) it is not temporal and progressive as the Blakean is; and (b) as it implies a completed macrocosm somewhere, it also implies that 7. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey (New York: Avon Books, 1965), 313.  Antithetical Essays 24 Antithetical Essays 24 Antithetical Essays though we might know the macrocosm we can never know that we know it. (It is, in other words, a synecdoche that is probably open.) The Freud- ian synecdochic relation would properly be examined by a "hermeneutics of suspicion," in Paul Ricoeur's phrase, assuming hidden meaning to be recovered, even if we cannot know that it has been recovered.' 8. Insofar as condensation and displacement do the same kind of work and the work is what interests Freud, he need not offer a distinction be- tween synecdoche and metonymy. Others have made such a distinction. Hayden White describes synee- doche as "integrative," metonymy as "reductive."' By reduction he means the identification of two things by treating one thing (the contained, act, effect, etc.) as a manifestation of another thing (container, cause, agent, spirit, essence, etc.). By "integration" he means a relation of"shared quali- ties." Here White's example is the statement "He is all heart" (34). White sees "heart," itself a word used figuratively, spreading through to the whole of the man as a quality or essence pervading all of him. But then White complicates the matter by suggesting that some statements can be read either as a metonymy or as a synecdoche, as if a trope is defined merely according to the act of reading. In both cases, he distinguishes between what he calls the "literal assertion" and the "figurative under- standing," even as he rejects the authority of the assertion in favor of the act of reading. Still, White strives to establish a difference. The outcome seems to be a distinction that, if pressed a little further, claims for syner- doche a relation privileging difference. Giovanni Battista Vico, White's early-eighteenth-century mentor, identifies the tropes metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche with primi- tive man's "poetic logic," characteristic of an age where people were un- able to abstract forms and qualities from objects to make "abstract univer- sals" and therefore created "poetic" or concrete universals "by metaphor from the human body and its parts and from the human senses and pas- sions."" The reason for this is that "as rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them (Homo intelligendo fit omnia), this imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them (hoomo non intelligendo fit omnia); and per- haps the latter proposition is truer than the former, for when man under- 8. Bicoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 32-36 passim. g. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination inNineteenth-Century Europe (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 36. so. Vim, The New Science, trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fish (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), sa. though we might know the macrocosm we can never know that we know it. (It is, in other words, a synecdoche that is probably open.) The Freud- ian synecdochic relation would properly be examined by a "hermeneutics of suspicion," in Paul Ricoeur's phrase, assuming hidden meaning to be recovered, even if we cannot know that it has been recovered.' 8. Insofar as condensation and displacement do the same kind of work and the work is what interests Freud, he need not offer a distinction be- tween synecdoche and metonymy. Others have made such a distinction. Hayden White describes synec- doche as "integrative," metonymy as "reductive."' By reduction he means the identification of two things by treating one thing (the contained, act, effect, etc.) as a manifestation of another thing (container, cause, agent, spirit, essence, etc.). By "integration" he means a relation of "shared quali- ties." Here White's example is the statement "He is all heart" (34). White sees "heart," itself a word used figuratively, spreading through to the whole of the man as a quality or essence pervading all of him. But then White complicates the matter by suggesting that some statements can be read either as a metonymy or as a synecdoche, as if a trope is defined merely according to the act of reading. In both cases, he distinguishes between what he calls the "literal assertion" and the "figurative under- standing," even as he rejects the authority of the assertion in favor of the act of reading. Still, White strives to establish a difference. The outcome seems to be a distinction that, if pressed a little further, claims for synec- doche a relation privileging difference. Giovanni Battista Vico, White's early-eighteenth-century mentor, identifies the tropes metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche with primi- tive man's "poetic logic," characteristic of an age where people were un- able to abstract forms and qualities from objects to make "abstract univer- sals" and therefore created "poetic" or concrete universals "by metaphor from the human body and its parts and from the human senses and pas- sions."" The reason for this is that "as rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them (Homo intelligendo fit omnia), this imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them (homo non intelligendo fit omnia); and per- haps the latter proposition is truer than the former, for when man under- 8. Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 32-36 passim. g. White, Metahistory: The Historicalmagination inNineteenth-CenturyEurope (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 36. 1o. Vico, The New Science, trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fish (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), 1m9. though we might know the macrocosm we can never know that we know it. (It is, in other words, a synecdoche that is probably open.) The Freud- ian synecdochic relation would properly be examined by a "hermeneutics of suspicion," in Paul Ricoeur's phrase, assuming hidden meaning to be recovered, even if we cannot know that it has been recovered.' 8. Insofar as condensation and displacement do the same kind of work and the work is what interests Freud, he need not offer a distinction be- tween synecdoche and metonymy. Others have made such a distinction. Hayden White describes synec- doche as "integrative," metonymy as "reductive."* By reduction he means the identification of two things by treating one thing (the contained, act, effect, etc.) as a manifestation of another thing (container, cause, agent, spirit, essence, etc.). By "integration" he means a relation of"shared quali- ties." Here White's example is the statement "He is all heart" (34). White sees "heart," itself a word used figuratively, spreading through to the whole of the man as a quality or essence pervading all of him. But then White complicates the matter by suggesting that some statements can be read either as a metonymy or as a synecdoche, as if a trope is defined merely according to the act of reading. In both cases, he distinguishes between what he calls the "literal assertion" and the "figurative under- standing," even as he rejects the authority of the assertion in favor of the act of reading. Still, White strives to establish a difference. The outcome seems to be a distinction that, if pressed a little further, claims for synec- doche a relation privileging difference. Giovanni Battista Vico, White's early-eighteenth-century mentor, identifies the tropes metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche with primi- tive man's "poetic logic," characteristic of an age where people were un- able to abstract forms and qualities from objects to make "abstract univer- sals" and therefore created "poetic" or concrete universals "by metaphor from the human body and its parts and from the human senses and pas- sions."" The reason for this is that "as rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them (Homo intelligendo fit omnia), this imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them (homo non intelligendo fit omnia); and per- haps the latter proposition is truer than the former, for when man under- 8. Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage (New Haven: Yale University Press, s97o), 32-36 passim. g. White, Metahistory: The Historicalmagination inNineteenth-Century Emope(Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 36. so. Vim, The New Science, trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fish (Ithaca, NY: Corell University Press, 1968), 129.  S ynecdoche and Method 25 Synecdoche and Method 25 Synecdoche and Method stands he extends his mind and takes in things, but when he does not understand he makes the things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them" (13o). Vico goes on to claim that poetic universals became merely figurative when human beings developed the capacity to make abstract universals: "Words were invented which signified abstract forms or genera compris- ing their species or relating parts with their wholes" (131). In Vico, poetic universals privileged identity. But when they became only figurative they privileged difference, difference being now the "truth" about language. Vico is somewhat ambivalent about the movement of the poetic univer- sal from identity to figurative difference or standing for. Blake is not, as the well-known passage from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 11, shows (E38). There Blake describes the evolution of language from cre- ative naming by "ancient poets" to interpretation by a "priesthood." I have discussed this passage elsewhere." Here it is necessary only to re- mark that the movement noted by both Vico and Blake involves emer- gence of a new attitude toward tropes, requiring a priesthood of interpret- ers who hold that there is a hidden meaning behind a word or text or, to put it as White does, a literal surface with a figurative meaning. Intro- duction of the figurative meaning implies that from that time on the literal surface of a text must be read through in order to discover its truth, that language is but a covering over of prelinguistic or alinguistic thought- something like a Platonic idea perhaps. This view privileges difference, indeed obliterates identity. The literal text has but an arbitrary or allegor- ical relation to its truth. Paul de Man's treatment of tropes also privileges difference, not only the difference just discussed, but also a difference arising out of a different-actually a differential view-of language. In "The Rhetoric of Temporality," de Man distinguishes metonymy from synecdoche: a synec- doche is a symbol, and a symbol is a "sensorial equivalence of a more gen- eral, ideal meaning," which for de Man means that synecdoches "desig- nate a totality of which they are a part."" This totality is the idea, and it is supposedly entirely beyond language. But, of course, de Man denies that this relationship is possible. It is a delusion, for the symbol cannot embody something not linguistic. Indeed, it cannot even embody another linguistic entity. The relationship is always arbitrary between signifier and signified, as Ferdinand de Saussure held, or between word and word, each signified being arbitrarily but another word or set of words. There- 11. See p. 14 and Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 5-12, 105-14. 12. De Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, ad ed., rev. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), o. stands he extends his mind and takes in things, but when he does not understand he makes the things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them" (130). Vico goes on to claim that poetic universals became merely figurative when human beings developed the capacity to make abstract universals: "Words were invented which signified abstract forms or genera compris- ing their species or relating parts with their wholes" (131). In Vico, poetic universals privileged identity. But when they became only figurative they privileged difference, difference being now the "truth" about language. Vice is somewhat ambivalent about the movement of the poetic univer- sal from identity to figurative difference or standing for. Blake is not, as the well-known passage from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate no, shows (E38). There Blake describes the evolution of language from cre- ative naming by "ancient poets" to interpretation by a "priesthood." I have discussed this passage elsewhere." Here it is necessary only to re- mark that the movement noted by both Vico and Blake involves emer- gence of a new attitude toward tropes, requiring a priesthood of interpret- ers who hold that there is a hidden meaning behind a word or text or, to put it as White does, a literal surface with a figurative meaning. Intro- duction of the figurative meaning implies that from that time on the literal surface of a text must be read through in order to discover its truth, that language is but a covering over of prelinguistic or alinguistic thought- something like a Platonic idea perhaps. This view privileges difference, indeed obliterates identity. The literal text has but an arbitrary or allegor- ical relation to its truth. Paul de Man's treatment of tropes also privileges difference, not only the difference just discussed, but also a difference arising out of a different-actually a differential view-of language. In "The Rhetoric of Temporality," de Man distinguishes metonymy from synecdoche: a synee- doche is a symbol, and a symbol is a "sensorial equivalence of a more gen- eral, ideal meaning," which for de Man means that synecdoches "desig- nate a totality of which they are a part."" This totality is the idea, and it is supposedly entirely beyond language. But, of course, de Man denies that this relationship is possible. It is a delusion, for the symbol cannot embody something not linguistic. Indeed, it cannot even embody another linguistic entity. The relationship is always arbitrary between signifier and signified, as Ferdinand de Saussure held, or between word and word, each signified being arbitrarily but another word or set of words. There- 11. See p. 14 and Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 5-12, 1s5-14. so. De Man, Blindness and Iusight E ssays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, ad ed., rev. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), igo. stands he extends his mind and takes in things, but when he does not understand he makes the things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them" (130). Vico goes on to claim that poetic universals became merely figurative when human beings developed the capacity to make abstract universals: "Words were invented which signified abstract forms or genera compris- ing their species or relating parts with their wholes" (131). In Vico, poetic universals privileged identity. But when they became only figurative they privileged difference, difference being now the "truth" about language. Vico is somewhat ambivalent about the movement of the poetic univer- sal from identity to figurative difference or standing for. Blake is not, as the well-known passage from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 11, shows (E38). There Blake describes the evolution of language from cre- ative naming by "ancient poets" to interpretation by a "priesthood." I have discussed this passage elsewhere." Here it is necessary only to re- mark that the movement noted by both Vice and Blake involves emer- gence of a new attitude toward tropes, requiring a priesthood of interpret- ers who hold that there is a hidden meaning behind a word or text or, to put it as White does, a literal surface with a figurative meaning. Intro- duction of the figurative meaning implies that from that time on the literal surface of a text must be read through in order to discover its truth, that language is but a covering over of prelinguistic or alinguistic thought- something like a Platonic idea perhaps. This view privileges difference, indeed obliterates identity. The literal text has but an arbitrary or allegor- ical relation to its truth. Paul de Man's treatment of tropes also privileges difference, not only the difference just discussed, but also a difference arising out of a different-actually a differential view-of language. In "The Rhetoric of Temporality," de Man distinguishes metonymy from synecdoche: a synec- doche is a symbol, and a symbol is a "sensorial equivalence of a more gen- eral, ideal meaning," which for de Man means that synecdoches "desig- nate a totality of which they are a part."" This totality is the idea, and it is supposedly entirely beyond language. But, of course, de Man denies that this relationship is possible. It is a delusion, for the symbol cannot embody something not linguistic. Indeed, it cannot even embody another linguistic entity. The relationship is always arbitrary between signifier and signified, as Ferdinand de Saussure held, or between word and word, each signified being arbitrarily but another word or set of words. There- 11. See p. 14 and Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 5-12, 105-14- 12. De Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoic of Contemporary Criticism, od ed., rev. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1g83), 19o.  Antithetical Essays 26 Antithetical Essays 26 Antithetical Essays fore there is only difference, and difference is a metonymical or syntagmatic relation of contiguity that always knows it arbitrariness, even if its author does not. Allegory is the truth about language; symbol is its illusion; and synecdoche is symbolism implying unity, a closed system in which the word is a delusory entity claiming indifference with the univer- sal idea to which it is supposed to belong. De Man's argument assumes that synecdoche and symbol imply signi- flers that are one with referents outside language and that these referents are purely ideal. He then claims that this is nonsense. Metonymy and allegory make no such claim and accept the reality of difference, in which sign and referent never coincide. Indeed, signifier and signified (compo- nents of the sign) can never coincide. The sign itself is differential. Here the notion of language as having some mimetic relation to nature is com- pletely abandoned. So also is the notion that language as a creative force can, in a neo-Kantian sense, constitute anything-even a manifold of sensation-external to it, that language has anything other than an arbi- trary relation to nature, or that any new efforts at expression can refurbish the materials of linguistic culture with which it works. The argument pre- sumes a hard-and-fast distinction between words and things (if indeed it can be said that there are things), and between words and words, taking as its opponent-and regarding it as absurd-the view that things can be in words or that one word can be in another. Blake thought otherwise, but in an unexpected way. He argued for his own "primitive and original ways" by a contrary mode of thought that de- clared the opposition between difference and indifference a negation al- ways privileging one side over the other. This argument requires another term contrary to the negation. Blake's term is "vision." Elsewhere I have used "identity."" The term takes us back again to Blake's remarks about the "ancient poets" and declares for an antithetical logic that accepts dif- ference and indifference at the same time. It does not require the other world of the Platonic idea miraculously embodied in language (except as one-half of the opposition to which it is contrary.) It does accept the no- tion of language as a force that creates from the stuff of experience and the decay of linguistic forms a new linguistic or (as in the case of painting) a new cultural form. This is accomplished by the poetic antithetical logic of not merely figurative tropes. A not merely figurative trope declares for both the difference and indifference of word and thing, word and word. A word never merely stands for a thing, neither is it merely that thing. The condition of identity prevents our making either of these assertions fore there is only difference, and difference is a metonymical or syntagmatic relation of contiguity that always knows it arbitrariness, even if its author does not. Allegory is the truth about language; symbol is its illusion; and synecdoche is symbolism implying unity, a closed system in which the word is a delusory entity claiming indifference with the univer- sal idea to which it is supposed to belong. De Man's argument assumes that synecdoche and symbol imply signi- flers that are one with referents outside language and that these referents are purely ideal. He then claims that this is nonsense. Metonymy and allegory make no such claim and accept the reality of difference, in which sign and referent never coincide. Indeed, signifier and signified (compo- nents of the sign) can never coincide. The sign itself is differential. Here the notion of language as having some mimetic relation to nature is com- pletely abandoned. So also is the notion that language as a creative force can, in a neo-Kantian sense, constitute anything-even a manifold of sensation-external to it, that language has anything other than an arbi- trary relation to nature, or that any new efforts at expression can refurbish the materials of linguistic culture with which it works. The argument pre- sumes a hard-and-fast distinction between words and things (if indeed it can be said that there are things), and between words and words, taking as its opponent-and regarding it as absurd-the view that things can be in words or that one word can be in another. Blake thought otherwise, but in an unexpected way. He argued for his own "primitive and original ways" by a contrary mode of thought that de- clared the opposition between difference and indifference a negation al- ways privileging one side over the other. This argument requires another term contrary to the negation. Blake's term is "vision." Elsewhere I have used "identity."" The term takes us back again to Blake's remarks about the "ancient poets" and declares for an antithetical logic that accepts dif- ference and indifference at the same time. It does not require the other world of the Platonic idea miraculously embodied in language (except as one-half of the opposition to which it is contrary.) It does accept the no- tion of language as a force that creates from the stuff of experience and the decay of linguistic forms a new linguistic or (as in the case of painting) a new cultural form. This is accomplished by the poetic antithetical logic of not merely figurative tropes. A not merely figurative trope declares for both the difference and indifference of word and thing, word and word. A word never merely stands for a thing, neither is it merely that thing. The condition of identity prevents our making either of these assertions fore there is only difference, and difference is a metonymical or syntagmatic relation of contiguity that always knows it arbitrariness, even if its author does not. Allegory is the truth about language; symbol is its illusion; and synecdoche is symbolism implying unity, a closed system in which the word is a delusory entity claiming indifference with the univer- sal idea to which it is supposed to belong. De Man's argument assumes that synecdoche and symbol imply signi- fiers that are one with referents outside language and that these referents are purely ideal. He then claims that this is nonsense. Metonymy and allegory make no such claim and accept the reality of difference, in which sign and referent never coincide. Indeed, signifier and signified (compo- nents of the sign) can never coincide. The sign itself is differential. Here the notion of language as having some mimetic relation to nature is com- pletely abandoned. So also is the notion that language as a creative force can, in a neo-Kantian sense, constitute anything-even a manifold of sensation-external to it, that language has anything other than an arbi- trary relation to nature, or that any new efforts at expression can refurbish the materials of linguistic culture with which it works. The argument pre- sumes a hard-and-fast distinction between words and things (if indeed it can be said that there are things), and between words and words, taking as its opponent-and regarding it as absurd-the view that things can be in words or that one word can be in another. Blake thought otherwise, but in an unexpected way. He argued for his own "primitive and original ways" by a contrary mode of thought that de- clared the opposition between difference and indifference a negation al- ways privileging one side over the other. This argument requires another term contrary to the negation. Blake's term is "vision." Elsewhere I have used "identity."" The term takes us back again to Blake's remarks about the "ancient poets" and declares for an antithetical logic that accepts dif- ference and indifference at the same time. It does not require the other world of the Platonic idea miraculously embodied in language (except as one-half of the opposition to which it is contrary.) It does accept the no- tion of language as a force that creates from the stuff of experience and the decay of linguistic forms a new linguistic or (as in the case of painting) a new cultural form. This is accomplished by the poetic antithetical logic of not merely figurative tropes. A not merely figurative trope declares for both the difference and indifference of word and thing, word and word. A word never merely stands for a thing, neither is it merely that thing. The condition of identity prevents our making either of these assertions 13. Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 380- 13. Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 380. 13. Adams, Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 380.  Synecdoche and Method 27 Synecdoche and Method 27 Synecdoche and Method alone, because when alone they belong to another logic. As for the rela- tion of word and word, the same principle prevails. But these relations, as we have been observing them, are too statically spatial. The trope exists only in or as a sentence, which is a dynamic form, not an equivalence free of its making and temporal development. A Blakean synecdoche is a dynamic identity (contrary to difference/ indifference) of words, but words conceived of as forming new cultural ma- terials from a nature and culture that is only potential until the poet has done something with it. In such antithetical logic each word acts as a "minute particular," but it acts also in a relation of identity to a "larger" word. It is also in relation to some "smaller" word. Both would be particu- lars. As Blake remarks, "Every Class is Individual" (E648). This returns us to two distinctions, one of which has already been made in discussion of the passage from Freud and the other implied in the discussion of de Man's privileging of allegory: that between an open and a closed synecdoche, and that between a miraculous and a figurative one. In ajfigurative synecdoche the relation privileges difference and pre- sumes that the part stands for the whole, like White's figure, but that it is really a fragment of the whole. In a miraculous synecdoche the part is invaded by a whole that has emanated or shrunk into it. The contrary to this negation is the radical synecdoche, in which the part not only is itself but also is the whole, as it would be with Freud's condensation if we could know that whole, or know that we know it. In a closed synecdoche both part and whole are spatially considered as fixed in size. The part, as microcosm, cannot become smaller; the whole, as macrocosm, cannot become larger. Nothing more can come of it. The miraculous, closed synecdoche is the type that de Man calls a symbol and denigrates. An open synecdoche implies a progressive movement or temporality entirely avoiding any suggestion of completed form or what has recently been called "totalization." Such would characterize a synecdoche from the point of view of deconstruction. It would, like the views of Jakobson and Levi-Strauss, be merely a variety of metonymy with its syntagmatic end- lessness, exploited by Jacques Derrida. This is what de Man thinks a syn- ecdoche really is, since it is only, for him, a metonymy trying to be a symbol. The open synecdoche is always in process, and the movement between part and whole continually "supplements," in Derrida's sense, the relationship so as to enlarge it or diminish it. There is no end to this. Rather than creation, however, the activity is always that of differentia- tion and "dissemination." The Blakean conception of synecdoche that opposes the negations open/closed and miraculous/figurative I shall call radical and progressive, alone, because when alone they belong to another logic. As for the rela- tion of word and word, the same principle prevails. But these relations, as we have been observing them, are too statically spatial. The trope exists only in or as a sentence, which is a dynamic form, not an equivalence free of its making and temporal development. A Blakean synecdoche is a dynamic identity (contrary to difference/ indifference) of words, but words conceived of as forming new cultural ma- terials from a nature and culture that is only potential until the poet has done something with it. In such antithetical logic each word acts as a "minute particular," but it acts also in a relation of identity to a "larger" word. It is also in relation to some "smaller" word. Both would be particu- lars. As Blake remarks, "Every Class is Individual" (E648). This returns us to two distinctions, one of which has already been made in discussion of the passage from Freud and the other implied in the discussion of de Man's privileging of allegory: that between an open and a closed synecdoche, and that between a miraculous and a figurative one. In afigurative synecdoche the relation privileges difference and pre- sumes that the part stands for the whole, like White's figure, but that it is really a fragment of the whole. In a miraculous synecdoche the part is invaded by a whole that has emanated or shrunk into it. The contrary to this negation is the radical synecdoche, in which the part not only is itself but also is the whole, as it would be with Freud's condensation if we could know that whole, or know that we know it. In a closed synecdoche both part and whole are spatially considered as fixed in size. The part, as microcosm, cannot become smaller; the whole, as macrocosm, cannot become larger. Nothing more can come of it. The miraculous, closed synecdoche is the type that de Man calls a symbol and denigrates. An open synecdoche implies a progressive movement or temporality entirely avoiding any suggestion of completed form or what has recently been called "totalization." Such would characterize a synecdoche from the point of view of deconstruction. It would, like the views of Jakobson and Levi-Strauss, be merely a variety of metonymy with its syntagmatic end- lessness, exploited by Jacques Derrida. This is what de Man thinks a syn- ecdoche really is, since it is only, for him, a metonymy trying to be a symbol. The open synecdoche is always in process, and the movement between part and whole continually "supplements," in Derrida's sense, the relationship so as to enlarge it or diminish it. There is no end to this. Rather than creation, however, the activity is always that of differentia- tion and "dissemination." The Blakean conception of synecdoche that opposes the negations open/closed and miraculous/figurative I shall call radical and progressive, alone, because when alone they belong to another logic. As for the rela- tion of word and word, the same principle prevails. But these relations, as we have been observing them, are too statically spatial. The trope exists only in or as a sentence, which is a dynamic form, not an equivalence free of its making and temporal development. A Blakean synecdoche is a dynamic identity (contrary to difference/ indifference) ofwords, but words conceived of as forming new cultural ma- terials from a nature and culture that is only potential until the poet has done something with it. In such antithetical logic each word acts as a "minute particular," but it acts also in a relation of identity to a "larger" word. It is also in relation to some "smaller" word. Both would be particu- lars. As Blake remarks, "Every Class is Individual" (E648). This returns us to two distinctions, one of which has already been made in discussion of the passage from Freud and the other implied in the discussion of de Man's privileging of allegory: that between an open and a closed synecdoche, and that between a miraculous and a figurative one. In afigurative synecdoche the relation privileges difference and pre- sumes that the part stands for the whole, like White's figure, but that it is really a fragment of the whole. In a miraculous synecdoche the part is invaded by a whole that has emanated or shrunk into it. The contrary to this negation is the radical synecdoche, in which the part not only is itself but also is the whole, as it would be with Freud's condensation if we could know that whole, or know that we know it. In a closed synecdoche both part and whole are spatially considered as fixed in size. The part, as microcosm, cannot become smaller; the whole, as macrocosm, cannot become larger. Nothing more can come of it. The miraculous, closed synecdoche is the type that de Man calls a symbol and denigrates. An open synecdoche implies a progressive movement or temporality entirely avoiding any suggestion of completed form or what has recently been called "totalization." Such would characterize a synecdoche from the point of view of deconstruction. It would, like the views of Jakobson and Levi-Strauss, be merely a variety of metonymy with its syntagmatic end- lessness, exploited by Jacques Derrida. This is what de Man thinks a syn- ecdoche really is, since it is only, for him, a metonymy trying to be a symbol. The open synecdoche is always in process, and the movement between part and whole continually "supplements," in Derrida's sense, the relationship so as to enlarge it or diminish it. There is no end to this. Rather than creation, however, the activity is always that of differentia- tion and "dissemination." The Blakean conception of synecdoche that opposes the negations open/closed and miraculous/figurative I shall call radical and progressive,  Antithetical Essays 28 Antithetical Essays 28 Antithetical Essays adopting the second term from Blake's well-known aphorism "Without Contraries is no progression" (E34). One can attempt a figure to describe the curved space of Einsteinian physics: it proposes an object starting out in a certain direction, holding to it, and returning to its place of origin- but in an infinite length of time. We have come all of this way to meet a paradox. Such space-time would be both infinite and bounded, open and closed. Blake's conception of the synecdochic relation is just this. There is a progression, a supplementation, but rather than rolling out into endless night, it returns infinitely to itself, but always in a new and im- measurably greater-or smaller-form. Vico said of ancient men that their poetic logic was "the opposite and more sublime thing" (128), though poetic logic was superseded by the logic that followed it and reduced the radical progressive synecdoche to the closed figure. The sublimity of progressive synecdoche is its creative possibility. When Immanuel Kant considered the sublime he responded to Edmund Burke's notion that the sublime was overwhelming by arguing that what we discover ultimately in the sublime is the infinitude of the human mind, by which synecdoche he meant the mind's satisfaction in discovering its power. This is where the notion of Derridean supplemen- tation as a movement that always produces more interpretation can be seen as an aspect of progressive synecdoche, but it wanders endlessly into the abyss that Kant rejected. Blake also rejected the abyss, as in his satirical account in The Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell of a furious but terrified angel who threatens him with it (E41). His notion of language was that it can be constantly creative, shaping what looks like an abyss to the angel and to the pure deconstructionist-the former fearing it and the latter embracing it. Lan- guage creates even as it destroys old forms, as in Blake's synecdoche of the spiritual, fourfold London "continually building & continually decay- ing desolate" (53:19, E203). The Blakean synecdoche is both closed and open at both ends, and the movement back and forth produces always more and more interpretation. There is, perhaps, something sublime about this. We can consider synec- doche momentarily as a "vertical" relation from small to large and back. Metaphor we can consider as a "horizontal" relation, going out and com- ing back. Between the two we have what looks like the great egg that W. B. Yeats playfully has Michael Robartes mention in A Vision-the world seen in Yeatsian terms as continually turning inside out without breaking its shell." The difference is that this is a whole infinite in all directions and unchartable in terms of directions: adopting the second term from Blake's well-known aphorism "Without Contraries is no progression" (E34). One can attempt a figure to describe the curved space of Einsteinian physics: it proposes an object starting out in a certain direction, holding to it, and returning to its place of origin- but in an infinite length of time. We have come all of this way to meet a paradox. Such space-time would be both infinite and bounded, open and closed. Blake's conception of the synecdochic relation is just this. There is a progression, a supplementation, but rather than rolling out into endless night, it returns infinitely to itself, but always in a new and im- measurably greater-or smaller-form. Vico said of ancient men that their poetic logic was "the opposite and more sublime thing" (128), though poetic logic was superseded by the logic that followed it and reduced the radical progressive synecdoche to the closed figure. The sublimity of progressive synecdoche is its creative possibility. When Immanuel Kant considered the sublime he responded to Edmund Burke's notion that the sublime was overwhelming by arguing that what we discover ultimately in the sublime is the infinitude of the human mind, by which synecdoche he meant the mind's satisfaction in discovering its power. This is where the notion of Derridean supplemen- tation as a movement that always produces more interpretation can be seen as an aspect of progressive synecdoche, but it wanders endlessly into the abyss that Kant rejected. Blake also rejected the abyss, as in his satirical account in The Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell of a furious but terrified angel who threatens him with it (E41). His notion of language was that it can be constantly creative, shaping what looks like an abyss to the angel and to the pure deconstructionist-the former fearing it and the latter embracing it. Lan- guage creates even as it destroys old forms, as in Blake's synecdoche of the spiritual, fourfold London "continually building & continually decay- ing desolate" (153:1g, E2o3). The Blakean synecdoche is both closed and open at both ends, and the movement back and forth produces always more and more interpretation. There is, perhaps, something sublime about this. We can consider syner- doche momentarily as a "vertical" relation from small to large and back. Metaphor we can consider as a "horizontal" relation, going out and com- ing back. Between the two we have what looks like the great egg that W. B. Yeats playfully has Michael Robartes mention in A Vision-the world seen in Yeatsian terms as continually turning inside out without breaking its shell.'" The difference is that this is a whole infinite in all directions and unchartable in terms of directions: adopting the second term from Blake's well-known aphorism "Without Contraries is no progression" (E34). One can attempt a figure to describe the curved space of Einsteinian physics: it proposes an object starting out in a certain direction, holding to it, and returning to its place of origin- but in an infinite length of time. We have come all of this way to meet a paradox. Such space-time would be both infinite and bounded, open and closed. Blake's conception of the synecdochic relation is just this. There is a progression, a supplementation, but rather than rolling out into endless night, it returns infinitely to itself, but always in a new and im- measurably greater-or smaller-form. Vico said of ancient men that their poetic logic was "the opposite and more sublime thing" (128), though poetic logic was superseded by the logic that followed it and reduced the radical progressive synecdoche to the closed figure. The sublimity of progressive synecdoche is its creative possibility. When Immanuel Kant considered the sublime he responded to Edmund Burke's notion that the sublime was overwhelming by arguing that what we discover ultimately in the sublime is the infinitude of the human mind, by which synecdoche he meant the mind's satisfaction in discovering its power. This is where the notion of Derridean supplemen- tation as a movement that always produces more interpretation can be seen as an aspect of progressive synecdoche, but it wanders endlessly into the abyss that Kant rejected. Blake also rejected the abyss, as in his satirical account in The Mar- riage of Heaven and Hell of a furious but terrified angel who threatens him with it (E41). His notion of language was that it can be constantly creative, shaping what looks like an abyss to the angel and to the pure deconstructionist-the former fearing it and the latter embracing it. Lan- guage creates even as it destroys old forms, as in Blake's synecdoche of the spiritual, fourfold London "continually building & continually decay- ing desolate" (J53:19, E203). The Blakean synecdoche is both closed and open at both ends, and the movement back and forth produces always more and more interpretation. There is, perhaps, something sublime about this. We can consider synec- doche momentarily as a "vertical" relation from small to large and back. Metaphor we can consider as a "horizontal" relation, going out and com- ing back. Between the two we have what looks like the great egg that W. B. Yeats playfully has Michael Robartes mention in A Vision-the world seen in Yeatsian terms as continually turning inside out without breaking its shell.'" The difference is that this is a whole infinite in all directions and unchartable in terms of directions: 14. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 33. 14. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 193s), 33. 14. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 33-  Synecdoche and Method 2g Synecdoche and Method qg Synecdoche and Method 29 And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North, The Nadir: East, the Center (J12:56, Et156) And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North, The Nadir: East, the Center (112:56, E156) And the North is Breadth, the South is Heighth & Depth: The East is Inwards: & the West is Outwards every way. (14:29-30, E158) Here directions are infinite and at the same time they are places; the language itself shapes the world by the oscillation of synecdoche, the world never escaping the words themselves. To interpret Blake's poetry is to work toward apprehension of an anti- thetical system in which synecdoche plays a major role. Such criticism is a process that does not end and in practice includes many phases, all of which, except for the containing one with which I am concerned, are part of traditional literary scholarship. Neither the phases nor their order can be prescribed, for then the process would not be a constitutive search, but rather the adoption of an authorized method designed to ex- pose a meaning behind and prior to Blake's text. This would be a meaning kept by a priesthood, guardians of the word and its mystery, and divulged in a fragment only, as if there were a prior whole eventually to be re- vealed by allegorical interpretation. E. R. Goodenough has argued that although the term logos as em- ployed by Saint John has been translated by the English "word," following the Vulgate Latin verbum, such meaning is one of the few attributed to it that it never possessed. The Greek for "word" is not logos but pjva or dyova. For Goodenough, logos means "primarily the formation and ex- pression of thought in speech.'" Others have given it various meanings, including "the reasoning mind . , a plan, scheme, system. , the Platonic Idea of the Good, the Stoic World-Spirit or Reason of God, im- manent in creation which it fosters and sustains."" In these definitions, the relation of a word to whatever is supposed to lie behind it becomes hazy, and finally the whole relation becomes questionable, mysterious, and quite rightly subject to suspicion. Mysteries require keepers and keys, 15. Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus [194o] (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962), 1o3. 16. Charles Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandra [1913] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 40. And the North is Breadth, the South is Heighth & Depth: The East is Inwards: & the West is outwards every way. (114:29-30, E158) Here directions are infinite and at the same time they are places; the language itself shapes the world by the oscillation of synecdoche, the world never escaping the words themselves. To interpret Blake's poetry is to work toward apprehension of an anti- thetical system in which synecdoche plays a major role. Such criticism is a process that does not end and in practice includes many phases, all of which, except for the containing one with which I am concerned, are part of traditional literary scholarship. Neither the phases nor their order can be prescribed, for then the process would not be a constitutive search, but rather the adoption of an authorized method designed to ex- pose a meaning behind and prior to Blake's text. This would be a meaning kept by a priesthood, guardians of the word and its mystery, and divulged in a fragment only, as if there were a prior whole eventually to be re- vealed by allegorical interpretation. E. R. Goodenough has argued that although the term logos as em- ployed by Saint John has been translated by the English "word," following the Vulgate Latin verbum, such meaning is one of the few attributed to it that it never possessed. The Greek for "word" is not logos but pjva or syova. For Goodenough, logos means "primarily the formation and ex- pression of thought in speech."" Others have given it various meanings, including "the reasoning mind . , a plan, scheme, system . . . , the Platonic Idea of the Good, the Stoic World-Spirit or Reason of God, im- manent in creation which it fosters and sustains."" In these definitions, the relation of a word to whatever is supposed to lie behind it becomes hazy, and finally the whole relation becomes questionable, mysterious, and quite rightly subject to suspicion. Mysteries require keepers and keys, 15. Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus las4] (New York: Barnes and Noble, s6z), 103- 16. Charles Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria [1913] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 40. And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North, The Nadir: East, the Center (J12:56, E156) or: And the North is Breadth, the South is Heighth & Depth: The East is Inwards: & the West is Outwards every way. (114:29-3o, E158) Here directions are infinite and at the same time they are places; the language itself shapes the world by the oscillation of synecdoche, the world never escaping the words themselves. To interpret Blake's poetry is to work toward apprehension of an anti- thetical system in which synecdoche plays a major role. Such criticism is a process that does not end and in practice includes many phases, all of which, except for the containing one with which I am concerned, are part of traditional literary scholarship. Neither the phases nor their order can be prescribed, for then the process would not be a constitutive search, but rather the adoption of an authorized method designed to ex- pose a meaning behind and prior to Blake's text. This would be a meaning kept by a priesthood, guardians of the word and its mystery, and divulged in a fragment only, as if there were a prior whole eventually to be re- vealed by allegorical interpretation. E. R. Goodenough has argued that although the term logos as em- ployed by Saint John has been translated by the English "word," following the Vulgate Latin verbum, such meaning is one of the few attributed to it that it never possessed. The Greek for "word" is not logos but pva or dyova. For Goodenough, logos means "primarily the formation and ex- pression of thought in speech."" Others have given it various meanings, including "the reasoning mind . , a plan, scheme, system . ., the Platonic Idea of the Good, the Stoic World-Spirit or Reason of God, im- manent in creation which it fosters and sustains."" In these definitions, the relation of a word to whatever is supposed to lie behind it becomes hazy, and finally the whole relation becomes questionable, mysterious, and quite rightly subject to suspicion. Mysteries require keepers and keys, 15. Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus [ig40] (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962), 103. 16. Charles Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria [1913] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 40.  Antithetical Essays 30 Antithetical Essays 30 Antithetical Essays which imply that, despite the haze or even the possibility of the nothing- ness of the referent, the text (Blake's or any other) can be passed through to some nonverbal meaning as referent behind it-even if it is a nothing- ness. However, the process of synecdoche that I am talking about goes on and on even as it returns. The Blakean sublime is not merely the sublime of magnitude or of dynamism, as in Kant. It is also the sublime of the infinitesimal, the grain of sand and even smaller things. The interpreta- tions produced are never hypothetical reconstructions of something said to lie behind the text awaiting recovery like the Freudian dream-thought. Interpretations are to be made and endlessly remade. So there is a sense after all in which White is right to claim that we can read a text as a synee- doche or as a metonymy, or at least he is correct to say that this is fre- quently done, correct or not. The difference has to do with what we think reading or criticism or interpretation is all about, what method, if you will, is appropriate. A reading should want to see a text from its own point of view. This, of course, is strictly speaking impossible, as impossible as de Man claims a symbol to be. But there is, nevertheless, something even more inade- quate about sheer impressionism, allegorization, readings as play, and so on. Readings need to bring texts into the range of conversation, where by this mediation they become socially involved. Blake himself beautifully describes what total identification with a text, or in this case a painting, might be: If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his Imagina- tion approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contempla- tive Thought if he could Enter into Noahs rainbow or into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy General Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Par- ticulars that Wisdom consists & Happiness too. (VLJ82, E560) But there must always be the return to interpretive assertion for the sake of cultural conversation, and that has its own point of view, even as it tries to capture the moment Blake describes. Such a position, as modem hermeneutics tells us, is always in motion. In spite of this moving on, critical method (as Blakean as it might become), for reasons of its ironic position, must be allegorical and priestly to some extent. Therefore, the which imply that, despite the haze or even the possibility of the nothing- ness of the referent, the text (Blake's or any other) can be passed through to some nonverbal meaning as referent behind it-even if it is a nothing- ness. However, the process of synecdoche that I am talking about goes on and on even as it returns. The Blakean sublime is not merely the sublime of magnitude or of dynamism, as in Kant. It is also the sublime of the infinitesimal, the grain of sand and even smaller things. The interpreta- tions produced are never hypothetical reconstructions of something said to lie behind the text awaiting recovery like the Freudian dream-thought. Interpretations are to be made and endlessly remade. So there is a sense after all in which White is right to claim that we can read a text as a synec- doche or as a metonymy, or at least he is correct to say that this is fre- quently done, correct or not. The difference has to do with what we think reading or criticism or interpretation is all about, what method, if you will, is appropriate. A reading should want to see a text from its own point of view. This, of course, is strictly speaking impossible, as impossible as de Man claims a symbol to be. But there is, nevertheless, something even more inade- quate about sheer impressionism, allegorization, readings as play, and so on. Readings need to bring texts into the range of conversation, where by this mediation they become socially involved. Blake himself beautifully describes what total identification with a text, or in this case a painting, might be: If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his Imagina- tion approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contempla- tive Thought if he could Enter into Noahs rainbow or into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy General Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Par- ticulars that Wisdom consists & Happiness too. (VLJ82, E56o) But there must always be the return to interpretive assertion for the sake of cultural conversation, and that has its own point of view, even as it tries to capture the moment Blake describes. Such a position, as modem hermeneutics tells us, is always in motion. In spite of this moving on, critical method (as Blakean as it might become), for reasons of its ironic position, must be allegorical and priestly to some extent. Therefore, the which imply that, despite the haze or even the possibility of the nothing- ness of the referent, the text (Blake's or any other) can be passed through to some nonverbal meaning as referent behind it-even if it is a nothing- ness. However, the process of synecdoche that I am talking about goes on and on even as it returns. The Blakean sublime is not merely the sublime of magnitude or of dynamism, as in Kant. It is also the sublime of the infinitesimal, the grain of sand and even smaller things. The interpreta- tions produced are never hypothetical reconstructions of something said to lie behind the text awaiting recovery like the Freudian dream-thought. Interpretations are to be made and endlessly remade. So there is a sense after all in which White is right to claim that we can read a text as a synec- doche or as a metonymy, or at least he is correct to say that this is fre- quently done, correct or not. The difference has to do with what we think reading or criticism or interpretation is all about, what method, if you will, is appropriate. A reading should want to see a text from its own point of view. This, of course, is strictly speaking impossible, as impossible as de Man claims a symbol to be. But there is, nevertheless, something even more inade- quate about sheer impressionism, allegorization, readings as play, and so on. Readings need to bring texts into the range of conversation, where by this mediation they become socially involved. Blake himself beautifully describes what total identification with a text, or in this case a painting, might be: If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his Imagina- tion approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contempla- tive Thought if he could Enter into Noahs rainbow or into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy General Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Par- ticulars that Wisdom consists & Happiness too. (VLJ82, E56o) But there must always be the return to interpretive assertion for the sake of cultural conversation, and that has its own point of view, even as it tries to capture the moment Blake describes. Such a position, as modem hermeneutics tells us, is always in motion. In spite of this moving on, critical method (as Blakean as it might become), for reasons of its ironic position, must be allegorical and priestly to some extent. Therefore, the  Synecdoche and Method 31 Synecdoche and Methodd 31 Synecdoche and Method priesthood that publishes in Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly and attends Blake conferences has less than might be imagined to fear from my insis- tence on a neo-Blakean critical method that would be the outer circumfer- ence of what they do. The insistence that criticism can never stand still but must constantly search to reformulate its utterances is only the asser- tion that it must know itself and the irony of its situation, which is that criticism requires preconceptions or what Gadamer calls prejudices and the fictive notion of a certain fixity even to begin a process always ques- tioning those fixities. Coleridge balanced such things in his treatment of method, though not so radically as I have suggested must be done here: "As without continuous transition there can be no Method, so without a pre-conception there can be no transition with continuity. The term Method, cannot, therefore otherwise than by abuse, be applied to a mere dead arrangement, containing in itself no principle or progression" (457). Criticism of Blake's text seeks to show what Blake does, but to accom- plish this it must constitute Blake's doing according to a language of its own. Such a language is inevitably a set of critical fictions contrary to some extent to the synecdochic antithetical logic of Blake's text. This criti- cism works within an ironic system that recognizes its own fictionality and its own process as a process without end, a process only, and not the find- ing of an allegorically represented idea, even though it sometimes acts as if the allegorical idea is its end and that end has been achieved. Criti- cism must have some sort of inner check against taking its "as ifs" as abso- lutes. There is required, as I have suggested, an initial effort to see the text from the text's point of view-in terms of the text's antithetical logic. This involves a leap to the opposite, so to speak, and in this case it is the leap to embrace the synecdochic even though it cannot (though the text can) think synecdochically. THE text I have chosen to discuss is itself a synecdochic part; I shall make a beginning effort to see to what extent it stands for-no!-is identical with, the whole. The part is plate io of Blake's Europe, a poem that Har- old Bloom regards as "the subtlest and most difficult of Blake's works, out- side of the three epies, and perhaps the most rewarding as a poem."1cI quote plate so in its entirety: In thoughts perturb'd, they rose from the bright ruins silent following The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form'd 17. Bloom, "Commentary," Ego3. See also Northrop Frye, The Stubborn Structure (Ith- aca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 183-188. priesthood that publishes in Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly and attends Blake conferences has less than might be imagined to fear from my insis- tence on a neo-Blakean critical method that would be the outer circumfer- ence of what they do. The insistence that criticism can never stand still but must constantly search to reformulate its utterances is only the asser- tion that it must know itself and the irony of its situation, which is that criticism requires preconceptions or what Gadamer calls prejudices and the fictive notion of a certain fixity even to begin a process always ques- tioning those fixities. Coleridge balanced such things in his treatment of method, though not so radically as I have suggested must be done here: "As without continuous transition there can be no Method, so without a pre-conception there can be no transition with continuity. The term Method, cannot, therefore otherwise than by abuse, be applied to a mere dead arrangement, containing in itself no principle or progression" (457). Criticism of Blake's text seeks to show what Blake does, but to accom- plish this it must constitute Blake's doing according to a language of its own. Such a language is inevitably a set of critical fictions contrary to some extent to the synecdochic antithetical logic of Blake's text. This criti- cism works within an ironic system that recognizes its own fictionality and its own process as a process without end, a process only, and not the find- ing of an allegorically represented idea, even though it sometimes acts as if the allegorical idea is its end and that end has been achieved. Criti- cism must have some sort of inner check against taking its "as ifs" as abso- lutes. There is required, as I have suggested, an initial effort to see the text from the text's point of view-in terms of the text's antithetical logic. This involves a leap to the opposite, so to speak, and in this case it is the leap to embrace the synecdochic even though it cannot (though the text can) think synecdochically. THE text I have chosen to discuss is itself a synecdochic part; I shall make a beginning effort to see to what extent it stands for-no!-is identical with, the whole. The part is plate so of Blake's Europe, a poem that Har- old Bloom regards as "the subtlest and most difficult of Blake's works, out- side of the three epics, and perhaps the most rewarding as a poem."" I quote plate so in its entirety: In thoughts perturb'd, they rose from the bright ruins silent following The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form'd 17. Bloom, "Commentary," Ear3. See also Northrop Frye, The Stubborn Strcture (Ith- aca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 183-188. priesthood that publishes in Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly and attends Blake conferences has less than might be imagined to fear from my insis- tence on a neo-Blakean critical method that would be the outer cicumfer- ence of what they do. The insistence that criticism can never stand still but must constantly search to reformulate its utterances is only the asser- tion that it must know itself and the irony of its situation, which is that criticism requires preconceptions or what Gadamer calls prejudices and the fictive notion of a certain fixity even to begin a process always ques- tioning those fixities. Coleridge balanced such things in his treatment of method, though not so radically as I have suggested must be done here: "As without continuous transition there can be no Method, so without a pre-conception there can be no transition with continuity. The term Method, cannot, therefore otherwise than by abuse, be applied to a mere dead arrangement, containing in itself no principle or progression" (457) Criticism of Blake's text seeks to show what Blake does, but to accom- plish this it must constitute Blake's doing according to a language of its own. Such a language is inevitably a set of critical fictions contrary to some extent to the synecdochic antithetical logic of Blake's text. This criti- cism works within an ironic system that recognizes its own fictionality and its own process as a process without end, a process only, and not the find- ing of an allegorically represented idea, even though it sometimes acts as if the allegorical idea is its end and that end has been achieved. Criti- eism must have some sort of inner check against taking its "as ifs" as abso- lutes. There is required, as I have suggested, an initial effort to see the text from the text's point of view-in terms of the text's antithetical logic. This involves a leap to the opposite, so to speak, and in this case it is the leap to embrace the synecdochic even though it cannot (though the text can) think synecdochically. THE text I have chosen to discuss is itself a synecdochic part; I shall make a beginning effort to see to what extent it stands for-no!-is identical with, the whole. The part is plate so of Blake's Europe, a poem that Har- old Bloom regards as "the subtlest and most difficult of Blake's works, out- side of the three epics, and perhaps the most rewarding as a poem."" I quote plate so in its entirety: In thoughts perturb'd, they rose from the bright ruins silent following The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form'd 17. Bloom, "Commentary," Ego3. See also Northrop Frye, The Stubborn Structure (Ith- aca: Cornell University Press, 1970) 183-188.  32 Antithetical Essays 32 Antithetical Essays 32 Antithetical Essays That stretches out its shady length along the Island white. Round him roll'd his clouds of war; silent the Angel went, Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam. There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear Their oak-surrounded pillars, form'd of massy stones, uncut With tools; stones precious; such eternal in the heavens, Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake, Plac'd in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelm'd In deluge o'er the earth-born man; then turn'd the fluxile eyes Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things, The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens Were bended downward; and the nostrils golden gates shut Turn'd outward, barr'd and petrify'd against the infinite. Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth: To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh. Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel; Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd. Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch, That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south, Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck, Now overgrown with hair and coverd with a stony roof, Downward 'tis sunk beneath th'attractive north, that round the feet A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave: (Eurio:1-3o, E63-64) What work is involved in spinning out the synecdochic nature of this text? (I acknowledge that in the phrase "synecdochic nature" lies the irony of critical practice midway between trying to see the text from its own point of view and trying to constitute it antimythically as a nature or ob- ject to a subject. For that matter, "spinning out" is also putting together.) First, I discuss the work of scholarship and learning and the apprehension of how Blake employs a variety of traditionally allegorical conventions of interpretation as material to be reconstituted as myth. I take up five of these interrelated matters as exemplary in no prescribed or prescribable order. My point is that the materials I discuss, some well known, must That stretches out its shady length along the Island white. Round him roll'd his clouds of war; silent the Angel went, Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam. There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear Their oak-surrounded pillars, form'd of massy stones, uncut With tools; stones precious; such eternal in the heavens, Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake, Plac'd in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelm'd In deluge o'er the earth-born man; then turn'd the fluxile eyes Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things, The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens Were beeded downward; and the nostrils golden gates shut Turn'd outward, barr'd and petrify'd against the infinite. Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth: To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh. Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel; Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd. Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch, That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south, Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck, Now overgrown with hair and coverd with a stony roof, Downward 'tis sunk beneath th'attractive north, that round the feet A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave: (Eurio:1-30, E63-64) What work is involved in spinning out the synecdochic nature of this text? (I acknowledge that in the phrase "synecdochic nature" lies the irony of critical practice midway between trying to see the text from its own point of view and trying to constitute it antimythically as a nature or ob- ject to a subject. For that matter, "spinning out" is also putting together.) First, I discuss the work of scholarship and learning and the apprehension of how Blake employs a variety of traditionally allegorical conventions of interpretation as material to be reconstituted as myth. I take up five of these interrelated matters as exemplary in no prescribed or prescribable order. My point is that the materials I discuss, some well known, must That stretches out its shady length along the Island white. Round him roll'd his clouds of war; silent the Angel went, Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam. There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear Their oak-surrounded pillars, form'd of massy stones, uncut With tools; stones precious; such eternal in the heavens, Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake, Plac'd in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelm'd In deluge o'er the earth-born man; then turn'd the fluxile eyes Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things, The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens Were bended downward; and the nostrils golden gates shut Turn'd outward, barr'd and petrify'd against the infinite. Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth: To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh. Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel; Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd. Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch, That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south, Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck, Now overgrown with hair and coverd with a stony roof, Downward 'tis sunk beneath th'attractive north, that round the feet A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave: (Eurio:1-3o, E63-64) What work is involved in spinning out the synecdochic nature of this text? (I acknowledge that in the phrase "synecdochic nature" lies the irony of critical practice midway between trying to see the text from its own point of view and trying to constitute it antimythically as a nature or ob- ject to a subject. For that matter, "spinning out" is also putting together.) First, I discuss the work of scholarship and learning and the apprehension of how Blake employs a variety of traditionally allegorical conventions of interpretation as material to be reconstituted as myth. I take up five of these interrelated matters as exemplary in no prescribed or prescribable order. My point is that the materials I discuss, some well known, must  Synecdoche and Method 33 Synecdoche and Method 33 Synecdoche and Method 33 be subsumed under a theory of Blake's text that recognizes the changes the material has undergone as a result of Blake's method. This is not en- tirely new, but I believe that in the light of a theory of synecdoche as method it gains a firmer, though paradoxical ground. Second, I add two aspects of method that tend to contain the others. Blake's own vigorous poetic method requires that we emphasize these as absolutely fundamen- tal. A brief discussion of plate 1o follows this. a . Gnostic interpretation as a version of antitypical interpretation of Scripture. One notices in Blake's designs and his poetry the occasional appearance of a serpent hanging on a cross or tree, sometimes crucified, sometimes wrapped around it. The best-known pictorial examples are in the illustrations for Paradise Lost, where a serpent is wrapped around the base of a cross on which Jesus is hung, and where Raphael converses with Adam and Eve, a serpent wrapped around a tree in the background. In America, one discovers the lines: The terror answerd: I am Orec, wreath'd round the accursed tree: The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break; (A8:1-2, E54) The motif recalls, of course, the serpent of Eden, "more subtil than any beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1). Tradition identifies the serpent with Satan, and Milton has Satan inhabit its body, though the Bible does not do so explicitly. Since in Europe the figure of Ore is regarded as a devil by the "angelic" supporters of the "fiery King," we have reason to under- stand Ore's serpentine form as a Blakean attempt to construct new values for these terms by what looks at first like a kind of verbal violence, espe- cially when it is made abundantly clear that Orc has phallic characteris- tics. Why Blake puts Orc on a cross or tree or why the biblical serpent was put there may be more difficult to grasp. Blake is drawing on the potentiality of the Gnostic use of the serpent. To understand this matter, we have recourse to certain references to serpents in the Bible and to some Renaissance occult drawings. In Num- bers 21:4-9, Moses raises a serpent up on a pole: And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; be subsumed under a theory of Blake's text that recognizes the changes the material has undergone as a result of Blake's method. This is not en- tirely new, but I believe that in the light of a theory of synecdoche as method it gains a firmer, though paradoxical ground. Second, I add two aspects of method that tend to contain the others. Blake's own vigorous poetic method requires that we emphasize these as absolutely fundamen- tal. A brief discussion of plate so follows this. 1. Gnostic interpretation as a version of antitypical interpretation of Scripture. One notices in Blake's designs and his poetry the occasional appearance of a serpent hanging on a cross or tree, sometimes crucified, sometimes wrapped around it. The best-known pictorial examples are in the illustrations for Paradise Lost, where a serpent is wrapped around the base of a cross on which Jesus is hung, and where Raphael converses with Adam and Eve, a serpent wrapped around a tree in the background. In America, one discovers the lines: The terror answerd: I am Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree: The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break; (A8:1-2, E54) The motif recalls, of course, the serpent of Eden, "more subtil than any beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1). Tradition identifies the serpent with Satan, and Milton has Satan inhabit its body, though the Bible does not do so explicitly. Since in Europe the figure of Ore is regarded as a devil by the "angelic" supporters of the "fiery King," we have reason to under- stand Ore's serpentine form as a Blakean attempt to construct new values for these terms by what looks at first like a kind of verbal violence, espe- cially when it is made abundantly clear that Ore has phallic characteris- tics. Why Blake puts Ore on a cross or tree or why the biblical serpent was put there may be more difficult to grasp. Blake is drawing on the potentiality of the Gnostic use of the serpent. To understand this matter, we have recourse to certain references to serpents in the Bible and to some Renaissance occult drawings. In Num- bers 21:4-9, Moses raises a serpent up on a pole: And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; be subsumed under a theory of Blake's text that recognizes the changes the material has undergone as a result of Blake's method. This is not en- tirely new, but I believe that in the light of a theory of synecdoche as method it gains a firmer, though paradoxical ground. Second, I add two aspects of method that tend to contain the others. Blake's own vigorous poetic method requires that we emphasize these as absolutely fundamen- tal. A brief discussion of plate 1o follows this. 1. Gnostic interpretation as a version of antitypical interpretation of Scripture. One notices in Blake's designs and his poetry the occasional appearance of a serpent hanging on a cross or tree, sometimes crucified, sometimes wrapped around it. The best-known pictorial examples are in the illustrations for Paradise Lost, where a serpent is wrapped around the base of a cross on which Jesus is hung, and where Raphael converses with Adam and Eve, a serpent wrapped around a tree in the background. In America, one discovers the lines: The terror answerd: I am Ore, wreath'd round the accursed tree: The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break; (A8:1-2, E54) The motif recalls, of course, the serpent of Eden, "more subtil than any beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1). Tradition identifies the serpent with Satan, and Milton has Satan inhabit its body, though the Bible does not do so explicitly. Since in Europe the figure of Orc is regarded as a devil by the "angelic" supporters of the "fiery King," we have reason to under- stand Ore's serpentine form as a Blakean attempt to construct new values for these terms by what looks at first like a kind of verbal violence, espe- cially when it is made abundantly clear that Ore has phallic characteris- tics. Why Blake puts Ore on a cross or tree or why the biblical serpent was put there may be more difficult to grasp. Blake is drawing on the potentiality of the Gnostic use of the serpent. To understand this matter, we have recourse to certain references to serpents in the Bible and to some Renaissance occult drawings. In Num- bers 21:4-9, Moses raises a serpent up on a pole: And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee;  34 Antithetical Essays 34 Antithetical Essays 34 Antithetical Essays pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived. This event is alluded to in John 3:14, where it is said: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Biblical typologists, of whom John was obviously one himself, saw Moses' act and the crucifixion as antitypes; and just as Moses used the serpent on the pole as a magical talisman to ward off evil, so does Chris- tian tradition employ the crucifix. But what justifies this curious relation of Jesus to serpent? Among some Gnostic sects the serpent was transvaluated and worshiped, because the serpent of Genesis created human desire for knowledge, for gnosis. Since the Demiurge, not God, had, in Gnostic myth, designed and created the world, the serpent, who urges Eve to disobey the creator, represents a force that rejects the fallen creation and introduces her to real knowledge. As Hans Jonas remarks: "[The serpent] came in a whole group of systems to represent the 'pneu- matic' principle from beyond, counteracting the designs of the Demi- urge, and thus could become as much a symbol of the powers of redemp- tion as the biblical God had been degraded to a symbol of cosmic oppression."" The Genesis story was interpreted as an allegory of man's coming to knowledge via the forbidden fruit and turning away from the lower demonic creator toward the true, transcendent deity. This also makes possible man's being saved in an act expressing love. Man seeking real knowledge could come to transcend the limiting belief that the Demiurge, who created the material world, was the real God. It is a short step from this to the Valentinian Gnostics, who saw a parallel between Jesus and the now-benevolent serpent. For them it was Jesus as serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the tree and to make knowledge transcending their innocence possible-a knowledge that would bring them to recognition that the Demiurge was not God. And from this point it is not far to the idea that Christ was knowledge and the apple on the tree or the serpent wrapped around it was Christ on the cross. Both were sources of gnosis, powerful talismans. At the same time, there was a competing Gnostic tradition that the 18. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion [1958] (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963) 93. pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived. This event is alluded to in John 3:14, where it is said: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Biblical typologists, of whom John was obviously one himself, saw Moses' act and the crucifixion as antitypes; and just as Moses used the serpent on the pole as a magical talisman to ward off evil, so does Chris- tian tradition employ the crucifix. But what justifies this curious relation of Jesus to serpent? Among some Gnostic sects the serpent was transvaluated and worshiped, because the serpent of Genesis created human desire for knowledge, for gnosis. Since the Demiurge, not God, had, in Gnostic myth, designed and created the world, the serpent, who urges Eve to disobey the creator, represents a force that rejects the fallen creation and introduces her to real knowledge. As Hans Jonas remarks: "[The serpent] came in a whole group of systems to represent the 'pneu- matic' principle from beyond, counteracting the designs of the Demi- urge, and thus could become as much a symbol of the powers of redemp- tion as the biblical God had been degraded to a symbol of cosmic oppression."a The Genesis story was interpreted as an allegory of man's coming to knowledge via the forbidden fruit and turning away from the lower demonic creator toward the true, transcendent deity. This also makes possible man's being saved in an act expressing love. Man seeking real knowledge could come to transcend the limiting belief that the Demiurge, who created the material world, was the real God. It is a short step from this to the Valentinian Gnostics, who saw a parallel between Jesus and the now-benevolent serpent. For them it was Jesus as serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the tree and to make knowledge transcending their innocence possible-a knowledge that would bring them to recognition that the Demiurge was not God. And from this point it is not far to the idea that Christ was knowledge and the apple on the tree or the serpent wrapped around it was Christ on the cross. Both were sources of gnosis, powerful talismans. At the same time, there was a competing Gnostic tradition that the 18. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion [1958] (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 93. pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived. This event is alluded to in John 3:14, where it is said: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Biblical typologists, of whom John was obviously one himself, saw Moses' act and the crucifixion as antitypes; and just as Moses used the serpent on the pole as a magical talisman to ward off evil, so does Chris- tian tradition employ the crucifix. But what justifies this curious relation of Jesus to serpent? Among some Gnostic sects the serpent was transvaluated and worshiped, because the serpent of Genesis created human desire for knowledge, for gnosis. Since the Demiurge, not God, had, in Gnostic myth, designed and created the world, the serpent, who urges Eve to disobey the creator, represents a force that rejects the fallen creation and introduces her to real knowledge. As Hans Jonas remarks: "[The serpent] came in a whole group of systems to represent the 'pneu- matic' principle from beyond, counteracting the designs of the Demi- urge, and thus could become as much a symbol of the powers of redemp- tion as the biblical God had been degraded to a symbol of cosmic oppression."" The Genesis story was interpreted as an allegory of man's coming to knowledge via the forbidden fruit and turning away from the lower demonic creator toward the true, transcendent deity. This also makes possible man's being saved in an act expressing love. Man seeking real knowledge could come to transcend the limiting belief that the Demiurge, who created the material world, was the real God. It is a short step from this to the Valentinian Gnostics, who saw a parallel between Jesus and the now-benevolent serpent. For them it was Jesus as serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the tree and to make knowledge transcending their innocence possible-a knowledge that would bring them to recognition that the Demiurge was not God. And from this point it is not far to the idea that Christ was knowledge and the apple on the tree or the serpent wrapped around it was Christ on the cross. Both were sources of gnosis, powerful talismans. At the same time, there was a competing Gnostic tradition that the 18. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion [1958] (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 93.  Synecdoche and Method 35 Synecdoche and Method 3S Synecdoche and Method 35 serpent with its tail in its mouth is a dragon representing the outer circle or containing form of the fallen creation, identified with Leviathan. One finds this too in Blake, where falling figures are encoiled by serpents, as in the Book of Urizen, or where the created Adam is wrapped round by a huge snake. It is noteworthy in this respect that Blake may have en- graved for Jacob Bryant's New System a serpent wrapped around an egg, which in Blake's own writings is the sleeping world." In any case, the en- graving was surely known to him. Blake's use of both of these Gnostic traditions about the serpent expresses in the character of Ore a conflation of what according to antimythical logic seem disparate or contradictory elements. There is also a curious tradition in alchemy connected with Moses and the serpent. The Gnostic serpent is related to the alchemical dragon or ouroboros, the tail-eater. The dragon is "mercurous," the fundamental substance. It is represented in many drawings as an alchemical image of the transmutation of matter, of special knowledge and regeneration, like the serpent on the cross. There is a tradition that Moses, who held up the brass serpent on a pole, was the first alchemist. K. K. Doberer in The Goldmakers tells a story averring that Aaron, Moses' brother, may have performed an alchemical trick in a sorcery contest when he "cast down his rod before Pharoah, and before his servants, and it became a serpent." Doberer remarks: "This trick can be performed chemically, without recourse to hypnotism, if the rod is made of a paste of bay-laurel, quicksilver, and sulphur, and stuck together with the gum of the bush Astralogus from Asia Minor. Such a rod, when thrown upon a charcoal fire, turns into a long writhing mass."" One finds in C. G. Jung's Psychol- ogy and Alchemy and Kurt Seligmann's The Mirror of Magic several rep- resentations of crucified serpents and tail-eaters taken from Renaissance alchemical texts." The crucifixion of Ore in Blake's prophetic books takes up this whole curious tradition. In the earlier prophetic books Orc is political and spirit- ual regeneration. Like Blake's Jesus of The Everlasting Gospel, who vio- lates the law, Blake's Ore appears as a devil to those who represent the status quo. In the later prophetic books, Ore has become a cyclical con- cept, tied to linear history, and we find much irony in his Gnostic connec- 19. Bryant, A New System, or An Analysis of Ancient Mythology 1774] (London: J. Walker, 18o4). See Geoffrey Keynes, Blake Studies (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1949), 44. so. Doberer, The Goldmakers, trans. E. W. Dickes (London and Brussels: Nicholson and Watson, 1949), 16. '1. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 145:); Seligmann, The Mirror of Magic (New York: Pantheon Books, 148), 14, 1u8, 187. serpent with its tail in its mouth is a dragon representing the outer circle or containing form of the fallen creation, identified with Leviathan. One finds this too in Blake, where falling figures are encoiled by serpents, as in the Book of Urizen, or where the created Adam is wrapped round by a huge snake. It is noteworthy in this respect that Blake may have en- graved for Jacob Bryant's New System a serpent wrapped around an egg, which in Blake's own writings is the sleeping world." In any case, the en- graving was surely known to him. Blake's use of both of these Gnostic traditions about the serpent expresses in the character of Ore a conflation of what according to antimythical logic seem disparate or contradictory elements. There is also a curious tradition in alchemy connected with Moses and the serpent. The Gnostic serpent is related to the alchemical dragon or ouroboros, the tail-eater. The dragon is "mercurous," the fundamental substance. It is represented in many drawings as an alchemical image of the transmutation of matter, of special knowledge and regeneration, like the serpent on the cross. There is a tradition that Moses, who held up the brass serpent on a pole, was the first alchemist. K. K. Doberer in The Goldmakers tells a story averring that Aaron, Moses' brother, may have performed an alchemical trick in a sorcery contest when he "cast down his rod before Pharoah, and before his servants, and it became a serpent." Doberer remarks: "This trick can be performed chemically, without recourse to hypnotism, if the rod is made of a paste of bay-laurel, quicksilver, and sulphur, and stuck together with the gum of the bush Astralogus from Asia Minor. Such a rod, when thrown upon a charcoal fire, turns into a long writhing mass."' One finds in C. G. Jung's Psychol- ogy and Alchemy and Kurt Seligmann's The Mirror of Magic several rep- resentations of crucified serpents and tail-eaters taken from Renaissance alchemical texts." The crucifixion of Orc in Blake's prophetic books takes up this whole curious tradition. In the earlier prophetic books Ore is political and spirit- ual regeneration. Like Blake's Jesus of The Everlasting Gospel, who vio- lates the law, Blake's Orce appears as a devil to those who represent the status quo. In the later prophetic books, Orc has become a cyclical con- cept, tied to linear history, and we find much irony in his Gnostic connec- 19. Bryant, A New System, or An Analysis of Ancient Mythology [1774 (London: J. Walker, 1804). See Geoffrey Keynes, Blake Studies (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1949), 44. 20. Doberer, The Goldmakers, trans. E. W. Dickes (London and Brussels: Nicholson and Watson, 1949), 16. a1. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953); Seligmann, The Mirror of Magic (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948), 1,34, 138, 187. serpent with its tail in its mouth is a dragon representing the outer circle or containing form of the fallen creation, identified with Leviathan. One finds this too in Blake, where falling figures are encoiled by serpents, as in the Book of Urizen, or where the created Adam is wrapped round by a huge snake. It is noteworthy in this respect that Blake may have en- graved for Jacob Bryant's New System a serpent wrapped around an egg, which in Blake's own writings is the sleeping world." In any case, the en- graving was surely known to him. Blake's use of both of these Gnostic traditions about the serpent expresses in the character of Ore a conflation of what according to antimythical logic seem disparate or contradictory elements. There is also a curious tradition in alchemy connected with Moses and the serpent. The Gnostic serpent is related to the alchemical dragon or ouroboros, the tail-eater. The dragon is "mercurous," the fundamental substance. It is represented in many drawings as an alchemical image of the transmutation of matter, of special knowledge and regeneration, like the serpent on the cross. There is a tradition that Moses, who held up the brass serpent on a pole, was the first alchemist. K. K. Doberer in The Goldmakers tells a story averring that Aaron, Moses' brother, may have performed an alchemical trick in a sorcery contest when he "cast down his rod before Pharoah, and before his servants, and it became a serpent." Doberer remarks: "This trick can be performed chemically, without recourse to hypnotism, if the rod is made of a paste of bay-laurel, quicksilver, and sulphur, and stuck together with the gum of the bush Astralogus from Asia Minor. Such a rod, when thrown upon a charcoal fire, turns into a long writhing mass."0 One finds in C. G. Jung's Psychol- ogy and Alchemy and Kurt Seligmann's The Mirror of Magic several rep- resentations of crucified serpents and tail-eaters taken from Renaissance alchemical texts." The crucifixion of Ore in Blake's prophetic books takes up this whole curious tradition. In the earlier prophetic books Orc is political and spirit- ual regeneration. Like Blake's Jesus of The Everlasting Gospel, who vio- lates the law, Blake's Orc appears as a devil to those who represent the status quo. In the later prophetic books, Orc has become a cyclical con- cept, tied to linear history, and we find much irony in his Gnostic connec- 19. Bryant, A New System, or An Analysis of Ancient Mythology [17741 (London: J. Walker, 18o4). See Geoffrey Keynes, Blake Studies (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, ig4g), 44. at. Doberer, The Goldmakers, trans. E. W. Dickes (London and Brussels: Nicholson and Watson, 1949), 16. . Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953); Seligmann, The Mirror of Magic (New York: Pantheon Books, ig48), 134, 138, 187.  Antithetical Essays 36 Antithetical Essays 36 Antithetical Essays tions, his activity being circular and confining like the tail-eater. Blake's texts are not Gnostic or occultist, but in the crucified serpent and the tail- eater he employed two venerable devices and took advantage of the ambi- guity that over time they began to harbor. To read Blake is to discover many such usages, such as the values given to various numbers, reminis- cent of Cabalistic thought and alchemy-but Blake's texts are not Cabalis- tie, nor was he an alchemist any more than he was a Gnostic. The serpent temple of Europe, identified with the body of Albion's thought, has ves- tiges of the traditions I have mentioned and expresses the connection in Blake's mind between sectarianism and the cyclical figure that the revolu- tionary Ore eventually became. Above all, it appears that Blake's inten- tion was to open up typological method, which traditionally saw its proc- ess as expressing fulfillment in history and closure of the text. Blake's notion was to free the figure to evoke new possibilities from the vestiges of its typological usage that are carried into his text. In this sense, Blake's use of typology is a contrary to the type/antitype relation and yet assimi- lates it as a part, making us read the part as implying a new sort of whole. 2. Neoplatonic allegorical conventions. It is well known that there are numerous appearances of Neoplatonic allegorical materials in Blake. The most frequently cited one is the so-called Arlington Court Picture, which has been interpreted as a visual presentation of Porphyry's interpretation of a passage from Odyssey 13. But even here, as Anne Mellor has shown, Blake departs quite radically from Neoplatonic doctrine, while illustrating a scene that has been supposed to be Neoplatonic." He is using materials rather than passing on a doctrine under cover of allegory. Another exam- ple is the story of the soul that Kathleen Raine declares to be in the little- girl-lost-and-found poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience.0 This allegory has to do with the descent of the soul into matter and its ascent therefrom. There is no question that Blake was familiar with Porphyry and Neoplatonism, mainly through the contemporary translations of Thomas Taylor, and that he employed their figurative motif; but Blake is concerned with providing the contrary to Platonic concepts. He regards as negations the traditional distinctions between body and soul, matter and the immaterial, and their modern relatives subject and object, and he reworks stories involving them to his own satisfaction, often to parody and criticize their supposed intent. Indeed, in plate so of Europe such zz. Mellor, Blake's Human Form Divine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cab- fornia Press, 1974), 056-070. 23. Raine, "The Little Girl Lost and Found," The Divine Vision, ed. V. de S. Pinto (Lon- don: Gollancz, 1957), 19-49. tions, his activity being circular and confining like the tail-eater. Blake's texts are not Gnostic or occultist, but in the crucified serpent and the tail- eater he employed two venerable devices and took advantage of the ambi- guity that over time they began to harbor. To read Blake is to discover many such usages, such as the values given to various numbers, reminis- cent of Cabalistic thought and alchemy-but Blake's texts are not Cabalis- tic, nor was he an alchemist any more than he was a Gnostic. The serpent temple of Europe, identified with the body of Albion's thought, has ves- tiges of the traditions I have mentioned and expresses the connection in Blake's mind between sectarianism and the cyclical figure that the revolu- tionary Ore eventually became. Above all, it appears that Blake's inten- tion was to open up typological method, which traditionally saw its proc- ess as expressing fulfillment in history and closure of the text. Blake's notion was to free the figure to evoke new possibilities from the vestiges of its typological usage that are carried into his text. In this sense, Blake's use of typology is a contrary to the type/antitype relation and yet assimi- lates it as a part, making us read the part as implying a new sort of whole. 2. Neoplatonic allegorical conventions. It is well known that there are numerous appearances of Neoplatonic allegorical materials in Blake. The most frequently cited one is the so-called Arlington Court Picture, which has been interpreted as a visual presentation of Porphyry's interpretation of a passage from Odyssey 13. But even here, as Anne Mellor has shown, Blake departs quite radically from Neoplatonic doctrine, while illustrating a scene that has been supposed to be Neoplatonic.' He is using materials rather than passing on a doctrine under cover of allegory. Another exam- ple is the story of the soul that Kathleen Raine declares to be in the little- girl-lost-and-found poems from Songs of Innocence and Experiencen This allegory has to do with the descent of the soul into matter and its ascent therefrom. There is no question that Blake was familiar with Porphyry and Neoplatonism, mainly through the contemporary translations of Thomas Taylor, and that he employed their figurative motif; but Blake is concerned with providing the contrary to Platonic concepts. He regards as negations the traditional distinctions between body and soul, matter and the immaterial, and their modern relatives subject and object, and he reworks stories involving them to his own satisfaction, often to parody and criticize their supposed intent. Indeed, in plate so of Europe such no. Mellor, Blake's Human Form Divine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1974), 256-270. 23. Raine, "The Little Girl Lost and Found," The Divine Vision, ed. V. de S. Pinto Lon- don: Gollancz, 1957), 19-49. tions, his activity being circular and confining like the tail-eater. Blake's texts are not Gnostic or occultist, but in the crucified serpent and the tail- eater he employed two venerable devices and took advantage of the ambi- guity that over time they began to harbor. To read Blake is to discover many such usages, such as the values given to various numbers, reminis- cent of Cabalistic thought and alchemy-but Blake's texts are not Cabalis- tic, nor was he an alchemist any more than he was a Gnostic. The serpent temple of Europe, identified with the body of Albion's thought, has ves- tiges of the traditions I have mentioned and expresses the connection in Blake's mind between sectarianism and the cyclical figure that the revolu- tionary Ore eventually became. Above all, it appears that Blake's inten- tion was to open up typological method, which traditionally saw its proe- ess as expressing fulfillment in history and closure of the text. Blake's notion was to free the figure to evoke new possibilities from the vestiges of its typological usage that are carried into his text. In this sense, Blake's use of typology is a contrary to the type/antitype relation and yet assimi- lates it as a part, making us read the part as implying a new sort of whole. a. Neoplatonic allegorical conventions. It is well known that there are numerous appearances of Neoplatonic allegorical materials in Blake. The most frequently cited one is the so-called Arlington Court Picture, which has been interpreted as a visual presentation of Porphyry's interpretation of a passage from Odyssey 13. But even here, as Anne Mellor has shown, Blake departs quite radically from Neoplatonic doctrine, while illustrating a scene that has been supposed to be Neoplatonic.' He is using materials rather than passing on a doctrine under cover of allegory. Another exam- ple is the story of the soul that Kathleen Raine declares to be in the little- girl-lost-and-found poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience.' This allegory has to do with the descent of the soul into matter and its ascent therefrom. There is no question that Blake was familiar with Porphyry and Neoplatonism, mainly through the contemporary translations of Thomas Taylor, and that he employed their figurative motif; but Blake is concerned with providing the contrary to Platonic concepts. He regards as negations the traditional distinctions between body and soul, matter and the immaterial, and their modern relatives subject and object, and he reworks stories involving them to his own satisfaction, often to parody and criticize their supposed intent. Indeed, in plate so of Europe such an. Mellor, Blake's Human Form Divine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1974) 256-27o. 23. Raine, The Little Girl Lost and Found," The Divine Vision, ed. V. de S. Pinto (Lon- don: Gollancz, 1957), 19-49.  Synecdoche and Method 37 S ynecdoche and Method 37 Synecdoche and Method 37 distinctions are regarded as fundamental errors that misled the fiery King and his Angels. 3. The idea of analogy. We have already seen an example of antitype and Blake's appropriation of it in the Mosiac serpent on the cross. Blake also used the idea of analogy, that is, the idea of a fallen form of an unfallen truth, but here, as usual, there is a creative difference from its usual use, which has Platonic or religious overtones. The most fundamen- tal example is his motif of the upside-down and upright men, which has parallels in Gnosticism and which he steals in part from Dante's vision of Satan at the end of the Inferno. It seems also to be a variation on a passage in Plato's Timaeus describing man as "a plant whose roots are not in earth, but in the heavens" (goa-b). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil travel downward through Hell to the center of the earth, where they crawl along the hairy side of the ice- encased body of Satan. Proceeding past the very center of gravity, they discover that what had been downward into Hell is suddenly upward to- ward Purgatory. Looking back or downward now, they see Satan upside down with his head hanging into the abyss of the sky. In Blake this idea of the upside-down man is applied to Albion, the universal man, who when he is in a fallen condition is upside down. The fallen world con- tained in Albion's spiritual body is an analogy or demonic parody of his upright state. The idea of analogy, which is the basic principle of the Sma- ragdine Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, is that things below copy things above. Things above are spirit; those below, matter. Though Blake uses the idea, he reconstructs it. The whole situation is turned on its side. Things apparently outside parody things inside, and the duality of matter and spirit is declared to be delusion, because matter is a fiction projected by mental activity into externality. Another example of this symbolism, appropriating the Timaeus, occurs in Europe, where the nameless shadowy female says, My roots are brandish'd in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath. (Eur 1:8, E6o) Her statement is Platonic, but in Blake her upside-down character is stressed. She is an upside-down tree, in fact. She is thus identified meto- nymically with Eve and the forbidden fruit, the upside-down tree being fallen nature and a foreboding of the crucifixion, tree being antitype of cross. Elsewhere Blake says that the modern church crucifies Christ with his head downward, an allusion to the legend surrounding the crucifixion of Saint Peter and an expression of Blake's view that the very idea of a church, or the bureaucratization of religion and externalization of God distinctions are regarded as fundamental errors that misled the fiery King and his Angels. 3. The idea of analogy. We have already seen an example of antitype and Blake's appropriation of it in the Mosiac serpent on the cross. Blake also used the idea of analogy, that is, the idea of a fallen form of an unfallen truth, but here, as usual, there is a creative difference from its usual use, which has Platonic or religious overtones. The most fundamen- tal example is his motif of the upside-down and upright men, which has parallels in Gnosticism and which he steals in part from Dante's vision of Satan at the end of the Inferno. It seems also to be a variation on a passage in Plato's Timaeus describing man as "a plant whose roots are not in earth, but in the heavens" (goa-b). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil travel downward through Hell to the center of the earth, where they crawl along the hairy side of the ice- encased body of Satan. Proceeding past the very center of gravity, they discover that what had been downward into Hell is suddenly upward to- ward Purgatory. Looking back or downward now, they see Satan upside down with his head hanging into the abyss of the sky. In Blake this idea of the upside-down man is applied to Albion, the universal man, who when he is in a fallen condition is upside down. The fallen world con- tained in Albion's spiritual body is an analogy or demonic parody of his upright state. The idea of analogy, which is the basic principle of the Sma- ragdine Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, is that things below copy things above. Things above are spirit; those below, matter. Though Blake uses the idea, he reconstructs it. The whole situation is turned on its side. Things apparently outside parody things inside, and the duality of matter and spirit is declared to be delusion, because matter is a fiction projected by mental activity into externality. Another example of this symbolism, appropriating the Timaeus, occurs in Europe, where the nameless shadowy female says, My roots are brandish'd in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath. (Eur 1:8, E6) Her statement is Platonic, but in Blake her upside-down character is stressed. She is an upside-down tree, in fact. She is thus identified meto- nymically with Eve and the forbidden fruit, the upside-down tree being fallen nature and a foreboding of the crucifixion, tree being antitype of cross. Elsewhere Blake says that the modern church crucifies Christ with his head downward, an allusion to the legend surrounding the crucifixion of Saint Peter and an expression of Blake's view that the very idea of a church, or the bureaucratization of religion and externalization of God distinctions are regarded as fundamental errors that misled the fiery King and his Angels. 3. The idea of analogy. We have already seen an example of antitype and Blake's appropriation of it in the Mosiac serpent on the cross. Blake also used the idea of analogy, that is, the idea of a fallen form of an unfallen truth, but here, as usual, there is a creative difference from its usual use, which has Platonic or religious overtones. The most fundamen- tal example is his motif of the upside-down and upright men, which has parallels in Gnosticism and which he steals in part from Dante's vision of Satan at the end of the Inferno. It seems also to be a variation on a passage in Plato's Timaeus describing man as "a plant whose roots are not in earth, but in the heavens" (goa-b). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil travel downward through Hell to the center of the earth, where they crawl along the hairy side of the ice- encased body of Satan. Proceeding past the very center of gravity, they discover that what had been downward into Hell is suddenly upward to- ward Purgatory. Looking back or downward now, they see Satan upside down with his head hanging into the abyss of the sky. In Blake this idea of the upside-down man is applied to Albion, the universal man, who when he is in a fallen condition is upside down. The fallen world con- tained in Albion's spiritual body is an analogy or demonic parody of his upright state. The idea of analogy, which is the basic principle of the Sma- ragdine Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, is that things below copy things above. Things above are spirit; those below, matter. Though Blake uses the idea, he reconstructs it. The whole situation is turned on its side. Things apparently outside parody things inside, and the duality of matter and spirit is declared to be delusion, because matter is a fiction projected by mental activity into externality. Another example of this symbolism, appropriating the Timaeus, occurs in Europe, where the nameless shadowy female says, My roots are brandish'd in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath. (Eur 1:8, E6o) Her statement is Platonic, but in Blake her upside-down character is stressed. She is an upside-down tree, in fact. She is thus identified meto- nymically with Eve and the forbidden fruit, the upside-down tree being fallen nature and a foreboding of the crucifixion, tree being antitype of cross. Elsewhere Blake says that the modern church crucifies Christ with his head downward, an allusion to the legend surrounding the crucifixion of Saint Peter and an expression of Blake's view that the very idea of a church, or the bureaucratization of religion and externalization of God  Antithetical Essays 38 Antithetical Essays 38 Antithetical Essays into the abyss of the sky, is a perversion of Jesus' teaching and thus upside down like the whole modern concept of nature. This idea of upside down as error or the fallen analogy of upright, turned then on its side to express epistemological error, though it has its roots in Dante, the Timaeus, and Hermeticism, is as far as I know a purely Blakean construction. We see it at the end of plate so of Europe as an expression of the state of Albion, where it has the effect of qualifying or calling in question any interpreta- tion garnered from its previous usages. 4. Romantic syncretic mythography. Two of the most fascinating and amusing books for the student of Romanticism are Edward B. Hunger- ford's Shores of Darkness and Ruthven Todd's Tracks in the Snow, which discuss the comparative mythologists who, flourishing in Blake's day, of- fered various outlandish theories about the Druids, the lost tribes of Is- rael, the location of the source of civilization, and just about anything else that came to their attention from the past." Blake's knowledge of some of these writers led to many curiosities in his own work, such as his state- ment that human civilization began in England, that certain mythological or biblical events took place in England, and that England was a surviving portion of Atlantis. In reading William Stukeley, Jacob Bryant, or Edward Davies today, one is struck by their capacity to order large amounts of so-called knowl- edge into elegant wholes based on entirely false premises." It has been pointed out by the recent anthologists Feldman and Richardson that Bry- ant (and this would hold good for Davies as well) was a throwback to late- seventeenth-century polymaths like Bochart." Blake knew Bryant's New System; it seemed to him to attack the rationalist and deistic positions that were so entrenched in his time. (There is, however, some question about how carefully Blake read Bryant.)" One is tempted to characterize these 24. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness [1941] (Cleveland and New York: World, 1963; Todd, Tracks in the Snow (London: Grey Walls Press, 1943). 25. Stukeley, Stonehenge, A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids (London: W. Innys and R. Mamby, 1740); Abury, a Temple of the British Druids (London: n.p., 1743). Bryant, A New System, or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774; London: J. Walker, 1807). Da- cirs, Celtic Researches (London: J. Booth, 1804); The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids (London: J. Booth, 18og). 26. Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, eds. The Re of Modern Mythology, 1680-186o (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 27. 27. Northrop Frye (Fearful Symmetry [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947], 173) has raised the issue. On Bryant see Nancy Warshaw Bogen, Jacob Bryant and William Blake (Master's thesis, Columbia University, 1962). into the abyss of the sky, is a perversion of Jesus' teaching and thus upside down like the whole modern concept of nature. This idea of upside down as error or the fallen analogy of upright, turned then on its side to express epistemological error, though it has its roots in Dante, the Timaeus, and Hermeticism, is as far as I know a purely Blakean construction. We see it at the end of plate so of Europe as an expression of the state of Albion, where it has the effect of qualifying or calling in question any interpreta- tion garnered from its previous usages. 4. Romantic syncretic mythography. Two of the most fascinating and amusing books for the student of Romanticism are Edward B. Hunger- ford's Shores of Darkness and Ruthven Todd's Tracks in the Snow, which discuss the comparative mythologists who, flourishing in Blake's day, of- fered various outlandish theories about the Druids, the lost tribes of Is- rael, the location of the source of civilization, and just about anything else that came to their attention from the past." Blake's knowledge of some of these writers led to many curiosities in his own work, such as his state- ment that human civilization began in England, that certain mythological or biblical events took place in England, and that England was a surviving portion of Atlantis. In reading William Stukeley, Jacob Bryant, or Edward Davies today, one is struck by their capacity to order large amounts of so-called knowl- edge into elegant wholes based on entirely false premises." It has been pointed out by the recent anthologists Feldman and Richardson that Bry- ant (and this would hold good for Davies as well) was a throwback to late- seventeenth-century polymaths like Bochart.a Blake knew Bryant's New System; it seemed to him to attack the rationalist and deistic positions that were so entrenched in his time. (There is, however, some question about how carefully Blake read Bryant.)" One is tempted to characterize these 04. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness [1941] (Cleveland and New York: World, 1963); Todd, Tracks in the Snow (London: Grey Walls Press, 1943)- 25. Stukeley, Stonehenge, A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids (andon: W. Iunys and R. Mamby, 1740); Abury, a Temple of the British Druids (London: n.p, 1743). Bryant, A New System, or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774; London: J. Walker, 1807). Da- vies, Celtic Researches (London: J. Booth, 1804); The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids (London: J. Booth, 18og). 26. Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, eds. The Rise of Modern Mythology, 168o-186o (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 27. 27. Northrop Frye (Fearful Symmetry [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947], 173) has raised the issue. On Bryant see Nancy Warshaw Bogen, Jacob Bryant and William Blake (Master's thesis, Columbia University, 1962). into the abyss of the sky, is a perversion of Jesus' teaching and thus upside down like the whole modern concept of nature. This idea of upside down as error or the fallen analogy of upright, turned then on its side to express epistemological error, though it has its roots in Dante, the Timaeus, and Hermeticism, is as far as I know a purely Blakean construction. We see it at the end of plate so of Europe as an expression of the state of Albion, where it has the effect of qualifying or calling in question any interpreta- tion garnered from its previous usages. 4. Romantic syncretic mythography. Two of the most fascinating and amusing books for the student of Romanticism are Edward B. Hunger- ford's Shores of Darkness and Ruthven Todd's Tracks in the Snow, which discuss the comparative mythologists who, flourishing in Blake's day, of- fered various outlandish theories about the Druids, the lost tribes of Is- rael, the location of the source of civilization, and just about anything else that came to their attention from the past." Blake's knowledge of some of these writers led to many curiosities in his own work, such as his state- ment that human civilization began in England, that certain mythological or biblical events took place in England, and that England was a surviving portion of Atlantis. In reading William Stukeley, Jacob Bryant, or Edward Davies today, one is struck by their capacity to order large amounts of so-called knowl- edge into elegant wholes based on entirely false premises.n It has been pointed out by the recent anthologists Feldman and Richardson that Bry- ant (and this would hold good for Davies as well) was a throwback to late- seventeenth-century polymaths like Bochart." Blake knew Bryant's New System; it seemed to him to attack the rationalist and deistic positions that were so entrenched in his time. (There is, however, some question about how carefully Blake read Bryant.)" One is tempted to characterize these 24. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness ['4a] (Cleveland and New York: World, 1963); Todd, Tracks in the Snow (London: Grey Walls Press, 1943)- 25. Stukeley, Stonehenge, A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids (London: W. Innys and R. Mamby, 1740); Abury, a Temple of the British Druids (London: n.p., 1743). Bryant, A New System, or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774; London: J. Walker, 18o7). Da- sirs, Celtic Researches (London: J. Booth, 1804); The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids (London: J. Booth, 18o9). 26. Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson, eds. The Rise of Modern Mythology, 1680-186o (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 27. 27. Northrop Frye (Fearful Symmetry [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947], 173) has raised the issue. On Bryant see Nancy Warshaw Bogen, Jacob Bryant and William Blake (Master's thesis, Columbia University, 1962).  Synecdoche and Method 39 Synecdoche and Method 39 Synecdoche and Method 39 works as quasi-artistic, fictive structures, and their authors as Blakean art- ists using materials from fabulous tradition. There is some similarity be- tween them and the sorts of "anatomies" we find later in Carlyle and Yeats (and even Frye), though the former are totally lacking the irony, satire, and self-conscious fiction making that call upon us to claim a distinction between their work and that of modern "anatomists"-even though the line cannot be strictly drawn anywhere. It must suffice for us to note that the presence of external belief aligns them with the Gnostics on this point and separates their works from the anatomies of Yeats and Carlyle as well as from the poems of Blake, but in the last instance in a somewhat differ- ent way. Much of the syncretic mythographical work was done by those who were seeking to square archeological evidence, such as it was, with Chris- tian tradition as they saw it. Bryant's New System, like the work of the early church fathers, assumes that pagan myths were distorted plagia- risms of the Old Testament, and this required the most brilliantly agile approach to chronology and to modes of proof. Bryant was equal to the challenge: as Hungerford has noted, he proved beyond his own doubt that Chatterton did not forge the Rowley poems and that there never had been a Troy." He created a fable of postdiluvian language called Amonian, which was supposed to have been passed on through the descendants of Ham, son of Noah, who are the gentiles, and which became gradually corrupted. Ham is euhemeristically identified with the sun; and under the domination of Amonion is included everyone except the Jews- Egyptians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, etc. Bryant's method was to pursue a sort of speculative etymology back to a totally imaginary language, Amonian: the family resemblances of all pagan rites and languages were thereby revealed: The Deluge was the grand epoch of every ancient kingdom. It is to be observed, that when colonies made anywhere a set- tlement, they ingrafted their antecedent history upon the sub- sequent events of the place. And as in those days they could carry up the genealogies of their princes to the very source of all; it will be found, under whatever title he may come, that the very first king in every country was Noah. For as he was mentioned first in the genealogy of their princes, he was in aftertimes looked upon as a real monarch; and represented as a great traveller, a mighty conquerer, and sovereign of the 28. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, so. works as quasi-artistic, fictive structures, and their authors as Blakean art- ists using materials from fabulous tradition. There is some similarity be- tween them and the sorts of "anatomies" we find later in Carlyle and Yeats (and even Frye), though the former are totally lacking the irony, satire, and self-conscious fiction making that call upon us to claim a distinction between their work and that of modern "anatomists"-even though the line cannot be strictly drawn anywhere. It must suffice for us to note that the presence of external belief aligns them with the Gnostics on this point and separates their works from the anatomies of Yeats and Carlyle as well as from the poems of Blake, but in the last instance in a somewhat differ- ent way. Much of the syncretic mythographical work was done by those who were seeking to square archeological evidence, such as it was, with Chris- tian tradition as they saw it. Bryant's New System, like the work of the early church fathers, assumes that pagan myths were distorted plagia- risms of the Old Testament, and this required the most brilliantly agile approach to chronology and to modes of proof. Bryant was equal to the challenge: as Hungerford has noted, he proved beyond his own doubt that Chatterton did not forge the Rowley poems and that there never had been a Troy." He created a fable of postdiluvian language called Amonian, which was supposed to have been passed on through the descendants of Ham, son of Noah, who are the gentiles, and which became gradually corrupted. Ham is euhemeristically identified with the sun; and under the domination of Amonion is included everyone except the Jews- Egyptians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, etc. Bryant's method was to pursue a sort of speculative etymology back to a totally imaginary language, Amonian: the family resemblances of all pagan rites and languages were thereby revealed: The Deluge was the grand epoch of every ancient kingdom. It is to be observed, that when colonies made anywhere a set- tlement, they ingrafted their antecedent history upon the sub- sequent events of the place. And as in those days they could carry up the genealogies of their princes to the very source of all; it will be found, under whatever title he may come, that the very first king in every country was Noah. For as he was mentioned first in the genealogy of their princes, he was in aftertimes looked upon as a real monarch; and represented as a great traveller, a mighty conquerer, and sovereign of the s8. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, as. works as quasi-artistic, fictive structures, and their authors as Blakean art- ists using materials from fabulous tradition. There is some similarity be- tween them and the sorts of "anatomies" we find later in Carlyle and Yeats (and even Frye), though the former are totally lacking the irony, satire, and self-conscious fiction making that call upon us to claim a distinction between their work and that of modern "anatomists"-even though the line cannot be strictly drawn anywhere. It must suffice for us to note that the presence of external belief aligns them with the Gnostics on this point and separates their works from the anatomies of Yeats and Carlyle as well as from the poems of Blake, but in the last instance in a somewhat differ- ent way. Much of the syncretic mythographical work was done by those who were seeking to square archeological evidence, such as it was, with Chris- tian tradition as they saw it. Bryant's New System, like the work of the early church fathers, assumes that pagan myths were distorted plagia- risms of the Old Testament, and this required the most brilliantly agile approach to chronology and to modes of proof. Bryant was equal to the challenge: as Hungerford has noted, he proved beyond his own doubt that Chatterton did not forge the Rowley poems and that there never had been a Troy." He created a fable of postdiluvian language called Amonian, which was supposed to have been passed on through the descendants of Ham, son of Noah, who are the gentiles, and which became gradually corrupted. Ham is euhemeristically identified with the sun; and under the domination of Amonion is included everyone except the Jews- Egyptians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, etc. Bryant's method was to pursue a sort of speculative etymology back to a totally imaginary language, Amonian: the family resemblances of all pagan rites and languages were thereby revealed: The Deluge was the grand epoch of every ancient kingdom. It is to be observed, that when colonies made anywhere a set- tlement, they ingrafted their antecedent history upon the sub- sequent events of the place. And as in those days they could carry up the genealogies of their princes to the very source of all; it will be found, under whatever title he may come, that the very first king in every country was Noah. For as he was mentioned first in the genealogy of their princes, he was in aftertimes looked upon as a real monarch; and represented as a great traveller, a mighty conquerer, and sovereign of the 28. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, zo.  4o Antithetical Essays 40 Antithetical Essays 4o Antithetical Essays whole earth. This circumstance will appear even in the annals of the Egyptians: and though their chronology has been sup- posed to have reached beyond that of any nation, yet it coin- cides very happily with the accounts given by Moses.n Burton Feldman argues that it was Bryant's absolute disregard for the new rationalists and all progress toward a science of mythography in his own time that appealed to Blake, to whom Bryant's views were "a defense of the true and ancient faith against the corrosive disbelief" of rational- ism.0 Blake uses Bryant as support for his statement about his painting The Ancient Britons, now lost. Bryant wrote in a style of absolute self- confidence and dogmatic assurance that probably appealed to Blake as at- tributes of a "true orator." His tone calls to mind the gestures of a latter- day euhemerist mythographer, Robert Graves. Mixed in with the sanction of Bryant in Blake are traces of the mythological constructions of Stukeley, William Owen Pughe, and Davies." In two different works, Stukeley explains Avebury and Stonehenge as ancient Druid temples. The story he offers is that of a patriarchal antedi- luvian religion, not a deistic religion of reason and nature but what he regards as orthodox Christianity itself. He claims the British Druids were direct descendants of the patriarchs who came to Britain before Moses. The Druids are a direct link between those patriarchs and the present Church of England: My intent is . . . to promote, as much as I am able, the knowledge and practice of ancient and true Religion; to revive in the minds of the learned the spirit of Christianity, nearly as old as the Creation, which is now languishing among us; to restore the first and great Idea of the Deity, who has carry'd on the same regular and golden chain of Religion from the be- ginning to this day; to warm our hearts into that true sense of Religion, which keeps the medium between ignorant super- stition and learned free-thinking, between slovenly fanaticism and popish pageantry, between enthusiasm and the rational worship of God, which is no where on earth done in my judg- ment, better than in the Church of England.' s9. Bryant, A New System, preface. 30. Feldman and Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, 2s. 3. See Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, where Blake's Albion is traced to Wilford, Pughe, Davies, Stukeley, and Bryant. See also Todd, Tracks in the Somw, where Bryant, Wilford, Stukeley, and Pughe are discussed in connection with Blake. 32. Stukeley, Stonehenge, preface. The supposed tradition Stukeley creates here may whole earth. This circumstance will appear even in the annals of the Egyptians: and though their chronology has been sup- posed to have reached beyond that of any nation, yet it coin- rides very happily with the accounts given by Moses.n Burton Feldman argues that it was Bryant's absolute disregard for the new rationalists and all progress toward a science of mythography in his own time that appealed to Blake, to whom Bryant's views were "a defense of the true and ancient faith against the corrosive disbelief" of rational- ism." Blake uses Bryant as support for his statement about his painting The Ancient Britons, now lost. Bryant wrote in a style of absolute self- confidence and dogmatic assurance that probably appealed to Blake as at- tributes of a "true orator." His tone calls to mind the gestures of a latter- day euhemerist mythographer, Robert Graves. Mixed in with the sanction of Bryant in Blake are traces of the mythological constructions of Stukeley, William Owen Pughe, and Davies." In two different works, Stukeley explains Avebury and Stonehenge as ancient Druid temples. The story he offers is that of a patriarchal antedi- luvian religion, not a deistic religion of reason and nature but what he regards as orthodox Christianity itself. He claims the British Druids were direct descendants of the patriarchs who came to Britain before Moses. The Druids are a direct link between those patriarchs and the present Church of England: My intent is . . . to promote, as much as I am able, the knowledge and practice of ancient and true Religion; to revive in the minds of the learned the spirit of Christianity, nearly as old as the Creation, which is now languishing among us; to restore the first and great Idea of the Deity, who has carry'd on the same regular and golden chain of Religion from the be- ginning to this day; to warm our hearts into that true sense of Religion, which keeps the medium between ignorant super- stition and learned free-thinking, between slovenly fanaticism and popish pageantry, between enthusiasm and the rational worship of God, which is no where on earth done in my judg- ment, better than in the Church of England."n zg. Bryant, A New System, preface. 30. Feldman and Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, 242. 31. See Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, where Blake's Albion is traced to Wilford, Pughe, Davies, Stukeley, and Bryant. See also Todd, Tracks in the Snow, where Bryant, Wilford, Stukeley, and Pughe are discussed in connection with Blake. 32. Stukeley, Stonehenge, preface. The supposed tradition Stukeley creates here may whole earth. This circumstance will appear even in the annals of the Egyptians: and though their chronology has been sup- posed to have reached beyond that of any nation, yet it coin- cides very happily with the accounts given by Moses.n Burton Feldman argues that it was Bryant's absolute disregard for the new rationalists and all progress toward a science of mythography in his own time that appealed to Blake, to whom Bryant's views were "a defense of the true and ancient faith against the corrosive disbelief' of rational- ism." Blake uses Bryant as support for his statement about his painting The Ancient Britons, now lost. Bryant wrote in a style of absolute self- confidence and dogmatic assurance that probably appealed to Blake as at- tributes of a "true orator." His tone calls to mind the gestures of a latter- day euhemerist mythographer, Robert Graves. Mixed in with the sanction of Bryant in Blake are traces of the mythological constructions of Stukeley, William Owen Pughe, and Davies." In two different works, Stukeley explains Avebury and Stonehenge as ancient Druid temples. The story he offers is that of a patriarchal antedi- luvian religion, not a deistic religion of reason and nature but what he regards as orthodox Christianity itself. He claims the British Druids were direct descendants of the patriarchs who came to Britain before Moses. The Druids are a direct link between those patriarchs and the present Church of England: My intent is . . . to promote, as much as I am able, the knowledge and practice of ancient and true Religion; to revive in the minds of the learned the spirit of Christianity, nearly as old as the Creation, which is now languishing among us; to restore the first and great Idea of the Deity, who has carry'd on the same regular and golden chain of Religion from the be- ginning to this day; to warm our hearts into that true sense of Religion, which keeps the medium between ignorant super- stition and learned free-thinking, between slovenly fanaticism and popish pageantry, between enthusiasm and the rational worship of God, which is no where on earth done in my judg- ment, better than in the Church of England.0 ng. Bryant, A New System, preface. 30. Feldman and Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, s42. 31. See Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, where Blake's Albion is traced to Wilford, Pughe, Davies, Stukeley, and Bryant. See also Todd, Tracks in the Snom, where Bryant, Wilford, Stukeley, and Pughe are discussed in connection with Blake. 3z. Stukeley, Stonehenge, preface. The supposed tradition Stukeley creates here may  Synecdoche and Method 41 Synecdoche and Method 41 Synecdoche and Method Stukeley believed that the temples at Stonehenge and Avebury were serpentine in form, an erroneous judgment; we shall see how Blake used this in Europe. Davies's Celtic Researches, known to Blake but again read at best only cursorily by him, holds that the antediluvian society was in fact the golden age, in which pre-Noachic people lived to great ages and practiced monotheism. The Druids are traced back to Ashkenez, one of the three sons of Gomer, who was the son of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah. The Titans were also descended from Ashkenez and after their defeat went to live among the Hyperboreans, who are declared to be the earliest inhabitants of Britain. Thus Britain was the Hell and Para- dise of Greek myth. For Davies, in contrast to Stukeley and a number of others, the Old Testament provides the "correct epitome" of the most ancient period of history. Genesis is the key. Hebrew was the original language. A fundamental difference between Blake's use of these materials and the works of Stukeley, Bryant, and Davies lies in the difference between an attitude and activity that attempts to create the past or all history ver- bally as a present in a reverse synecdoche and one that seeks only to re- cover it as a past. I call the former method "internal," the latter "exter- nal." The euhemerists regarded their methods as scholarly and leading to external historical fact. It was not a question of their deciding between myth and science, but of their affirming that they had in fact scientifically unraveled texts that had corrupted true history. It is tempting to rescue their works for myth, placing them near the center of a Viconian "poetic logic" as examples of what Northrop Frye calls "symmetrical cosmolo- gies." There is a certain rarefied pleasure in reading them-though they are not to the taste of very many people-but the difference is finally pro- found. It is fundamentally that between an antimythical externalizing atti- tude and a mythical one. Blake was not captive to antimythical forms of external belief that have rendered the mythographical efforts of Bryant and others absurd. Both Hungerford and Ruthven Todd have given attention to Blake's description of his now lost painting, The Ancient Britons. In the descrip- tion of this painting, Blake pictures the three survivors of Arthur's last battle in the West: "In the last Battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped, these were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man; these three marched through the field unsubdued, as Gods, account for Blake's decision to have a Church of England funeral, even though he was buried in Bunhill Fields, a ground for dissenters. Stukeley believed that the temples at Stonehenge and Avebury were serpentine in form, an erroneous judgment; we shall see how Blake used this in Europe. Davies's Celtic Researches, known to Blake but again read at best only cursorily by him, holds that the antediluvian society was in fact the golden age, in which pre-Noachic people lived to great ages and practiced monotheism. The Druids are traced back to Ashkenez, one of the three sons of Gomer, who was the son of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah. The Titans were also descended from Ashkenez and after their defeat went to live among the Hyperboreans, who are declared to be the earliest inhabitants of Britain. Thus Britain was the Hell and Para- dise of Greek myth. For Davies, in contrast to Stukeley and a number of others, the Old Testament provides the "correct epitome" of the most ancient period of history. Genesis is the key. Hebrew was the original language. A fundamental difference between Blake's use of these materials and the works of Stukeley, Bryant, and Davies lies in the difference between an attitude and activity that attempts to create the past or all history ver- bally as a present in a reverse synecdoche and one that seeks only to re- cover it as a past. I call the former method "internal," the latter "exter- nal." The euhemerists regarded their methods as scholarly and leading to external historical fact. It was not a question of their deciding between myth and science, but of their affirming that they had in fact scientifically unraveled texts that had corrupted true history. It is tempting to rescue their works for myth, placing them near the center of a Viconian "poetic logic" as examples of what Northrop Frye calls "symmetrical cosmolo- gies." There is a certain rarefied pleasure in reading them-though they are not to the taste of very many people-but the difference is finally pro- found. It is fundamentally that between an antimythical externalizing atti- tude and a mythical one. Blake was not captive to antimythical forms of external belief that have rendered the mythographical efforts of Bryant and others absurd. Both Hungerford and Ruthven Todd have given attention to Blake's description of his now lost painting, The Ancient Britons. In the descrip- tion of this painting, Blake pictures the three survivors of Arthur's last battle in the West: "In the last Battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped, these were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man; these three marched through the field unsubdued, as Gods, account for Blake's decision to have a Church of England funeral, even though he was buried in Bunhill Fields, a ground for dissenters. Stukeley believed that the temples at Stonehenge and Avebury were serpentine in form, an erroneous judgment; we shall see how Blake used this in Europe. Davies's Celtic Researches, known to Blake but again read at best only cursorily by him, holds that the antediluvian society was in fact the golden age, in which pre-Noachic people lived to great ages and practiced monotheism. The Druids are traced back to Ashkenez, one of the three sons of Gamer, who was the son of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah. The Titans were also descended from Ashkenez and after their defeat went to live among the Hyperboreans, who are declared to be the earliest inhabitants of Britain. Thus Britain was the Hell and Para- dise of Greek myth. For Davies, in contrast to Stukeley and a number of others, the Old Testament provides the "correct epitome" of the most ancient period of history. Genesis is the key. Hebrew was the original language. A fundamental difference between Blake's use of these materials and the works of Stukeley, Bryant, and Davies lies in the difference between an attitude and activity that attempts to create the past or all history ver- bally as a present in a reverse synecdoche and one that seeks only to re- cover it as a past. I call the former method "internal," the latter "exter- nal." The euhemerists regarded their methods as scholarly and leading to external historical fact. It was not a question of their deciding between myth and science, but of their affirming that they had in fact scientifically unraveled texts that had corrupted true history. It is tempting to rescue their works for myth, placing them near the center of a Viconian "poetic logic" as examples of what Northrop Frye calls "symmetrical cosmolo- gies." There is a certain rarefied pleasure in reading them-though they are not to the taste of very many people-but the difference is finally pro- found. It is fundamentally that between an antimythical externalizing atti- tude and a mythical one. Blake was not captive to antimythical forms of external belief that have rendered the mythographical efforts of Bryant and others absurd. Both Hungerford and Ruthven Todd have given attention to Blake's description of his now lost painting, The Ancient Britons. In the descrip- tion of this painting, Blake pictures the three survivors of Arthur's last battle in the West: "In the last Battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped, these were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man; these three marched through the field unsubdued, as Gods, account for Blake's decision to have a Church of England funeral, even though he was buried in Bunhill Fields, a ground for dissenters.  Antithetical Essays 42 Antithetical Essays 42 Antithetical Essays and the Sun of Britain set, but shall rise again with tenfold splendor when Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and ocean (DC39, E542). Northrop Frye identifies these three with Tharmas, Luvah, and Urizen, respectively, from Blake's prophetic books." The de- scription Blake proceeds to give of them seems to identify them with the Druids, though an explicit identification is not made. They are the an- cient Britons "naked, civilized, learned, studious." They survive Arthur, and Blake constructs his version of the mythic Arthur. According to Hungerford, Blake's connection of Arthur with Albion, Atlas, and the constellation Bottes (to which belongs Arcturus) indicates his assumption that all of these are corrupt forms of "an original mytholog- ical personage."0 The connection of Atlas with Albion goes back to the er- roneous researches of Francis Wilford, who believed that England was the antediluvian seat of all civilization. Appropriating Davies, according to Todd, Blake placed the Druids in England, identified with Atlantis, as early as the time of Abraham, practicing a pre-Christian Christianity.? The great strong man of this time was Hercules of Tyre, identified by Stukeley, following Toland's History of the Druids, as the actual builder of the stone monuments. Blake derived the idea of his painting from this, from the legend of Arthur, which in his view, appropriating Pughe, is a corruption of the acts of Albion applied to the life of a prince in the fifth century. The vast amount of contemporary mythography, blending together in Blake's fertile imagination, created something entirely new. Hungerford reconstructs the sources of the relationships Blake made among Albion, Arthur, Boites, Arcturus, and Atlas and traces the slaying of Albion back to the Greek myth in which a character named Albion is killed by Hercules. But Hungerford ultimately sees no important differ- ence between Blake and his congeries of erroneous sources. With Blake, he claims, "we are plunged into the maddest sort of mythological jumble, in which Blake imposed no limit to his imagination."' Todd, who indepen- dently located some of the links that Hungerford did, is less willing to be critical of Blake's process. But Blake's use of these materials is original and coherent, as scholar- ship subsequent to Hungerford has shown.0 Perhaps the most important 33. Frye, Fearful Symmetry, 272. 34. Hungerford, Shores ofDarkness, 47. This is not quite correct. They are Arthur, and he them; though corrupted myth and they in their myths do not know it. 35. Todd, Tracks in the Snow, 47. 36. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, 56. 37. See especially A. L. Owen, The Famous Druids: A Surrey of Three Centuries of English Literature on the Druids (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 2n4-36. According to Owen, Druidism for Blake, "was already ancient when it entered the ark." Druidism origi- and the Sun of Britain set, but shall rise again with tenfold splendor when Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and ocean (DC39, E542). Northrop Frye identifies these three with Tharmas, Luvah, and Urizen, respectively, from Blake's prophetic books.? The de- scription Blake proceeds to give of them seems to identify them with the Druids, though an explicit identification is not made. They are the an- cient Britons "naked, civilized, learned, studious." They survive Arthur, and Blake constructs his version of the mythic Arthur. According to Hungerford, Blake's connection of Arthur with Albion, Atlas, and the constellation Boites (to which belongs Arcturus) indicates his assumption that all of these are corrupt forms of-an original mytholog- ical personage."o The connection of Atlas with Albion goes back to the er- roneous researches of Francis Wilford, who believed that England was the antediluvian seat of all civilization. Appropriating Davies, according to Todd, Blake placed the Druids in England, identified with Atlantis, as early as the time of Abraham, practicing a pre-Christian Christianity.' The great strong man of this time was Hercules of Tyre, identified by Stukeley, following Toland's History of the Druids, as the actual builder of the stone monuments. Blake derived the idea of his painting from this, from the legend of Arthur, which in his view, appropriating Pughe, is a corruption of the acts of Albion applied to the life of a prince in the fifth century. The vast amount of contemporary mythography, blending together in Blake's fertile imagination, created something entirely new. Hungerford reconstructs the sources of the relationships Blake made among Albion, Arthur, Boites, Arcturus, and Atlas and traces the slaying of Albion back to the Greek myth in which a character named Albion is killed by Hercules. But Hungerford ultimately sees no important differ- ence between Blake and his congeries of erroneous sources. With Blake, he claims, "we are plunged into the maddest sort of mythological jumble, in which Blake imposed no limit to his imagination."' Todd, who indepen- dently located some of the links that Hungerford did, is less willing to be critical of Blake's process. But Blake's use of these materials is original and coherent, as scholar- ship subsequent to Hungerford has shown." Perhaps the most important 33. Frye, Fearful Symmetry, 272. 34. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, 47. This is not quite correct. They are Arthur, and he them; though corrupted myth and they in their myths do not know it. 35. Todd, Tracks in the Snow, 47- 36. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, 56. 37. See especially A. L. Owen, The Famous Druids: A Survey of Three Centuries of English Literature on the Druids (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 224-36. According to Owen, Druidism for Blake, "was already ancient when it entered the ark." Druidism orig- and the Sun of Britain set, but shall rise again with tenfold splendor when Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and ocean (DC39, E542). Northrop Frye identifies these three with Tharmas, Luvah, and Urizen, respectively, from Blake's prophetic books." The de- scription Blake proceeds to give of them seems to identify them with the Druids, though an explicit identification is not made. They are the an- cient Britons "naked, civilized, learned, studious." They survive Arthur, and Blake constructs his version of the mythic Arthur. According to Hungerford, Blake's connection of Arthur with Albion, Atlas, and the constellation Botes (to which belongs Arcturus) indicates his assumption that all of these are corrupt forms of 'an original mytholog- ical personage."o The connection of Atlas with Albion goes back to the er- roneous researches of Francis Wilford, who believed that England was the antediluvian seat of all civilization. Appropriating Davies, according to Todd, Blake placed the Druids in England, identified with Atlantis, as early as the time of Abraham, practicing a pre-Christian Christianity.0 The great strong man of this time was Hercules of Tyre, identified by Stukeley, following Toland's History of the Druids, as the actual builder of the stone monuments. Blake derived the idea of his painting from this, from the legend of Arthur, which in his view, appropriating Pughe, is a corruption of the acts of Albion applied to the life of a prince in the fifth century. The vast amount of contemporary mythography, blending together in Blake's fertile imagination, created something entirely new. Hungerford reconstructs the sources of the relationships Blake made among Albion, Arthur, Bottes, Arcturus, and Atlas and traces the slaying of Albion back to the Greek myth in which a character named Albion is killed by Hercules. But Hungerford ultimately sees no important differ- ence between Blake and his congeries of erroneous sources. With Blake, he claims, "we are plunged into the maddest sort of mythological jumble, in which Blake imposed no limit to his imagination."' Todd, who indepen- dently located some of the links that Hungerford did, is less willing to be critical of Blake's process. But Blake's use of these materials is original and coherent, as scholar- ship subsequent to Hungerford has shown.0 Perhaps the most important 33. Frye, Fearful Symmetry, 27z. 34. Hungerford, Shores ofDarkness, 47. This is not quite correct. They are Arthur, and he them; though corrupted myth and they in their myths do not know it. 35. Todd, Tracks in the Snow, 47. 36. Hungerford, Shores of Darkness, 56. 37. See especially A. L. Owen, The Famous Druids: A Surrey of Three Centuries of English Literature on the Druids (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 224-36. According to Owen, Druidism for Blake, "was already ancient when it entered the ark." Druidism origi-  Synecdoche and Method 43 S ynecdoche and Method 43 Synecdoche and Method 43 idea that Blake takes from his sources (but with his own twist) is that myths came down to the modern world as corruptions of original visions of identity. The mythographers' aims were to clean up these corrupt ver- sions and to see clearly the reasons for the corruption. Blake's intention was different. In this matter external history was for him utterly of no value. The only important aim was to establish the synecdochic relation. I have spoken of this as "original vision," but it is every bit as potential as original for Blake, and the story of Fall in Blake is reversible to a story of potentiality. Blakean origins and beginnings are not to be merely a re- ceding then, separate from the present, but a then-slumbering now, which is a synecdoche of history and time. Thus, by comparison to many of the Romantic poets there is very little nostalgia in Blake. Blake thought that in our notion of history constituted as external or of time constituted as measured, vision is clouded, so that the true Albion is slain and broken up into pieces, scattered through that cut-up time, some of him being attributed to Arthur, other parts to Atlas, and so on. This is true of Arthur and Atlas as well, who ought to be seen as synecdochic of Albion. The mythic relation among these parts-synecdochic, metaphoric, metonym- ic-is lost. The Ancient Britons is a picture of what survives in this story of cultural decay and cataclysm, present in one version in Arthur's last battle against Rome and in another in the sinking of Atlantis. One original of these versions is not what is to be sought. There is none. What is to be sought is the identity of these versions, or their relation. The relation is one of synecdochic identity between Albion and, say, Arthur. Albion is not then the original of which others are later corruptions, but instead their giant form. The Arthur version is appropriated by Blake in his picture of three sur- viving giants. The all-important Blakean fourth is not present. If Frye is right in identifying the three survivors, the missing fourth is Blake's fig- ure for the capacity to form a vision of identity, which would include iden- tity of part and whole. This would be Urthona, or in his working (unmea- sured) time-form Los. But he is present as the picture itself or the "originally one man," who appears variously and synecdochically as Al- bion, Arthur, Atlas. Blake's remark about England as the seat of the original human cre- ation must be understood mythically and synecdochically as W. B. Yeats understood it. This has not always occurred. Yeats chastised Denis Saurat for an antimythical reading of Blake: "Blake does not think England the nated in Britain in its pristine visionary state, and the Jews received druidic traditions from there, but subsequently the Druids perverted their own traditions. In Blake's Milton and Jerusalem, Britain is the original Holy Land. idea that Blake takes from his sources (but with his own twist) is that myths came down to the modern world as corruptions of original visions of identity. The mythographers' aims were to clean up these corrupt ver- sions and to see clearly the reasons for the corruption. Blake's intention was different. In this matter external history was for him utterly of no value. The only important aim was to establish the synecdochic relation. I have spoken of this as "original vision," but it is every bit as potential as original for Blake, and the story of Fall in Blake is reversible to a story of potentiality. Blakean origins and beginnings are not to be merely a re- ceding then, separate from the present, but a then-slumbering now, which is a synecdoche of history and time. Thus, by comparison to many of the Romantic poets there is very little nostalgia in Blake. Blake thought that in our notion of history constituted as external or of time constituted as measured, vision is clouded, so that the true Albion is slain and broken up into pieces, scattered through that cut-up time, some of him being attributed to Arthur, other parts to Atlas, and so on. This is true of Arthur and Atlas as well, who ought to be seen as synecdochic of Albion. The mythic relation among these parts-synecdochic, metaphoric, metonym- ic-is lost. The Ancient Britons is a picture of what survives in this story of cultural decay and cataclysm, present in one version in Arthur's last battle against Rome and in another in the sinking of Atlantis. One original of these versions is not what is to be sought. There is none. What is to be sought is the identity of these versions, or their relation. The relation is one of synecdochic identity between Albion and, say, Arthur. Albion is not then the original of which others are later corruptions, but instead their giant form. The Arthur version is appropriated by Blake in his picture of three sur- viving giants. The all-important Blakean fourth is not present. If Frye is right in identifying the three survivors, the missing fourth is Blake's fig- ure for the capacity to form a vision of identity, which would include iden- tity of part and whole. This would be Urthona, or in his working (unmea- sured) time-form Los. But he is present as the picture itself or the "originally one man," who appears variously and synecdochically as Al- bion, Arthur, Atlas. Blake's remark about England as the seat of the original human cre- ation must be understood mythically and synecdochically as W. B. Yeats understood it. This has not always occurred. Yeats chastised Denis Saurat for an antimythical reading of Blake: "Blake does not think England the sated in Britain in its pristine visionary state, and the Jews received druidic traditions from there, but subsequently the Druids perverted their own traditions. In Blake's Milton and Jeesalem, Britain is the original Holy Land. idea that Blake takes from his sources (but with his own twist) is that myths came down to the modem world as corruptions of original visions of identity. The mythographers' aims were to clean up these corrupt ver- sions and to see clearly the reasons for the corruption. Blake's intention was different. In this matter external history was for him utterly of no value. The only important aim was to establish the synecdochic relation. I have spoken of this as "original vision," but it is every bit as potential as original for Blake, and the story of Fall in Blake is reversible to a story of potentiality. Blakean origins and beginnings are not to be merely a re- ceding then, separate from the present, but a then-slumbering now, which is a synecdoche of history and time. Thus, by comparison to many of the Romantic poets there is very little nostalgia in Blake. Blake thought that in our notion of history constituted as external or of time constituted as measured, vision is clouded, so that the true Albion is slain and broken up into pieces, scattered through that cut-up time, some of him being attributed to Arthur, other parts to Atlas, and so on. This is true of Arthur and Atlas as well, who ought to be seen as synecdochic of Albion. The mythic relation among these parts-synecdochic, metaphoric, metonym- ic-is lost. The Ancient Britons is a picture of what survives in this story of cultural decay and cataclysm, present in one version in Arthur's last battle against Rome and in another in the sinking of Atlantis. One original of these versions is not what is to be sought. There is none. What is to be sought is the identity of these versions, or their relation. The relation is one of synecdochic identity between Albion and, say, Arthur. Albion is not then the original of which others are later corruptions, but instead their giant form. The Arthur version is appropriated by Blake in his picture of three sur- viving giants. The all-important Blakean fourth is not present. If Frye is right in identifying the three survivors, the missing fourth is Blake's fig- ure for the capacity to form a vision of identity, which would include iden- tity of part and whole. This would be Urthona, or in his working (unmea- sured) time-form Los. But he is present as the picture itself or the "originally one man," who appears variously and synecdochically as Al- bion, Arthur, Atlas. Blake's remark about England as the seat of the original human cre- ation must be understood mythically and synecdochically as W. B. Yeats understood it. This has not always occurred. Yeats chastised Denis Saurat for an antimythical reading of Blake: "Blake does not think England the nated in Britain in its pristine visionary state, and the Jews received druidic traditions from there, but subsequently the Druids perverted their own traditions. In Blake's Miton and Jersalem, Britain is the original Holy Land.  44 Antithetical Essays 44 Antithetical Essays 44 Antithetical Essays place of primitive humanity, or the original wisdom because they were before the flood of time and space-the historical druids he thought de- generate men-'rocky druidism.' He spoke of England and its past be- cause he lived there. In the same way the folklore of the Echte hills in Galway says that the last judgment will be among those hills. Blake sees the near and particular always."0 England is identical with the world, and this is the way of poetry. A. L. Owen, who added to our understanding of Blake's use of the Druids, also misunderstood the nature of Blakean belief: "In the Pro- phetic Books . . . Blake's version of Genesis is so provocative that it hardly lends itself to a willing suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, it does not affect their central meaning, and if it is disconcerting to see the extent to which Blake was self-deluded, this is partly because his sincerity is so patent."0 What Owen does not see is that Blake's work demands a distinction between antimythical and mythical forms of belief, forms ap- propriate to the nature of the utterance, rather than a distinction between belief and suspended disbelief. The antimythical insists on an external historical referent and spatial and temporal differences. The mythical, as Yeats saw, finds every place identical to every other place, every place identical to the whole, implying an ethic of interinvolvement that it re- gards as more fundamental than external fact. But even Yeats was daunted by the rigor with which Blake kept to this antithetical logic. Yeats called Blake a "too literal realist of the imagination,"n and his own reading of Blake resists Blake's determination to construct a mythic world in the spirit of a poetic deliberately not answerable to judgments of verification according to the antimythical logic of the syncretic mythographers he had read. Blake must have seen the work of the mythographers as corrupted efforts to restore mythical thought on an encyclopedic scale, but they proved to be just like the historians he criticized. They did not grasp the appropriate, antithetical logic for their work and mistook what they were doing. Blake does not "spirit away" the contents of the Bible-that is, de- stroy its historicity-as the biblical typologists feared and still fear that allegorical readings, with their Platonizing tendencies, will do. Neither does he, however, externalize the Bible's events purely as history, as ty- pologists desire. He constitutes it as a poetic antithetical logic, exploiting 38. Quoted from Yeats's annotation to his copy of Saurat's Blake and Modern Thought (London: The Dial Press, 1929), 85, in Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision, by Hazard Adams (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955). 123. 39. Owen, The Famous Drids, 236. 40. Yeats, "William Blake and His Illustrations to The Divine Comedy," Ideas of Good and Evil (London: A. H. Bullen, 1914), 127. place of primitive humanity, or the original wisdom because they were before the flood of time and space-the historical druids he thought de- generate men-'rocky druidism.' He spoke of England and its past be- cause he lived there. In the same way the folklore of the Echte hills in Galway says that the last judgment will be among those hills. Blake sees the near and particular always."" England is identical with the world, and this is the way of poetry. A. L. Owen, who added to our understanding of Blake's use of the Druids, also misunderstood the nature of Blakean belief: "In the Pro- phetic Books . . . Blake's version of Genesis is so provocative that it hardly lends itself to a willing suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, it does not affect their central meaning, and if it is disconcerting to see the extent to which Blake was self-deluded, this is partly because his sincerity is so patent."' What Owen does not see is that Blake's work demands a distinction between antimythical and mythical forms of belief, forms ap- propriate to the nature of the utterance, rather than a distinction between belief and suspended disbelief. The antimythical insists on an external historical referent and spatial and temporal differences. The mythical, as Yeats saw, finds every place identical to every other place, every place identical to the whole, implying an ethic of interinvolvement that it re- gards as more fundamental than external fact. But even Yeats was daunted by the rigor with which Blake kept to this antithetical logic. Yeats called Blake a "too literal realist of the imagination," and his own reading of Blake resists Blake's determination to construct a mythic world in the spirit of a poetic deliberately not answerable to judgments of verification according to the antimythical logic of the syncretic mythographers he had read. Blake must have seen the work of the mythographers as corrupted efforts to restore mythical thought on an encyclopedic scale, but they proved to be just like the historians he criticized. They did not grasp the appropriate, antithetical logic for their work and mistook what they were doing. Blake does not "spirit away" the contents of the Bible-that is, de- stroy its historicity-as the biblical typologists feared and still fear that allegorical readings, with their Platonizing tendencies, will do. Neither does he, however, externalize the Bible's events purely as history, as ty- pologists desire. He constitutes it as a poetic antithetical logic, exploiting 38. Quoted from Yeats's annotation to his copy of Saurat's Blake and Modern Thought (London: The Dial Press, 1929), 85, in Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision, by Hazard Adams (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955), 123. 39. Owen, The Famous Druids, 236. 40. Yeats, "William Blake and His Illustrations to The Divine Comedy," Ideas of Good and Evil (London: A. H. Bullen, 1914), 127. place of primitive humanity, or the original wisdom because they were before the flood of time and space-the historical druids he thought de- generate men-'rocky druidism.' He spoke of England and its past be- cause he lived there. In the same way the folklore of the Echte hills in Galway says that the last judgment will be among those hills. Blake sees the near and particular always. " England is identical with the world, and this is the way of poetry. A. L. Owen, who added to our understanding of Blake's use of the Druids, also misunderstood the nature of Blakean belief: "In the Pro- phetic Books . . . Blake's version of Genesis is so provocative that it hardly lends itself to a willing suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, it does not affect their central meaning, and if it is disconcerting to see the extent to which Blake was self-deluded, this is partly because his sincerity is so patent."' What Owen does not see is that Blake's work demands a distinction between antimythical and mythical forms of belief, forms ap- propriate to the nature of the utterance, rather than a distinction between belief and suspended disbelief The antimythical insists on an external historical referent and spatial and temporal differences. The mythical, as Yeats saw, finds every place identical to every other place, every place identical to the whole, implying an ethic of interinvolvement that it re- gards as more fundamental than external fact. But even Yeats was daunted by the rigor with which Blake kept to this antithetical logic. Yeats called Blake a "too literal realist of the imagination,"' and his own reading of Blake resists Blake's determination to construct a mythic world in the spirit of a poetic deliberately not answerable to judgments of verification according to the antimythical logic of the syncretic mythographers he had read. Blake must have seen the work of the mythographers as corrupted efforts to restore mythical thought on an encyclopedic scale, but they proved to be just like the historians he criticized. They did not grasp the appropriate, antithetical logic for their work and mistook what they were doing. Blake does not "spirit away" the contents of the Bible-that is, de- stroy its historicity-as the biblical typologists feared and still fear that allegorical readings, with their Platonizing tendencies, will do. Neither does he, however, externalize the Bible's events purely as history, as ty- pologists desire. He constitutes it as a poetic antithetical logic, exploiting 38. Quoted from Yeats's annotation to his copy of Saurat's Blake and Modern Thought (London: The Dial Press, 1929), 85, in Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision, by Hazard Adams (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955), 123. 39. Owen, The Famous Druids, 236. 40. Yeats, "William Blake and His Illustrations to The Divine Comedy," Ideas of Good and Evil (London: A. H. Bullen, 1914), 127.  S ynecdoche and Method 45 Synecdoche and Method 45 Synecdoche and Method 45 the ethical truth of tropes, so that England and Jerusalem can be in the same place at the same time and we can be in them and they in us and still be ourselves. What Yeats saw in Blake as more fundamental than ex- ternal fact was an ethic of the trope. 5. History contained. The extent of Blake's allegorical use of historical events and personages was not much appreciated until David V. Erdman's Blake: Prophet against Empire came out in 1954.4 There is, no doubt, more to be learned about Blake's historical allegory, and this infor- mation will have to be given its appropriate place in the effort to grasp the antithetical logic of his work. This has not happened to any great ex- tent as yet, for the reading of the historical allegory has tended to be ex- ternal and reductive. A clear example of historical allegory is plate no of Europe, where the "fiery King" retreats to his serpent temple. Erdman makes this William Pitt's decision to raise alarms against Jacobins in order to hasten war with France (195-97). Events are actually conflated, since there were three attempts to initiate war in 1787, 1790, and 1791. In- deed, even people are conflated, for surely not only Pitt but also King George III and the members of the government are involved here. Blake speaks not only of the "fiery King," but also of "Albion's Angel" and the "Angels of Albion," as well as the "Ancient Guardian." These are in poetic logic both the same person and several persons. The names contain the allegory, having come first, so to speak; and we are constantly shuffling back and forth from the containing names to the contained historical event that is embodied not as history so much as a synecdochic part of a story that is here and everywhere now, then, and probably (unfortu- nately) in the future. The ancient temple of plate no is clearly identified with the neolithic remains at Avebury that Stukeley assumed erroneously to be of Druidic origin. It was connected with the site of Verulamium, the ancient Roman town. Blake was interested in the connection between this and Sir Francis Bacon, whose baronial title was Verulam. The opportunity to trope into relation Pitt, Druidism, and Bacon was too much for him not to exploit, for Bacon represented to him the negating domination of empiricism or antimythical externalization. He regarded the Druids as originally the wisest and greatest of men, the earliest true Christians, antedating Jesus himself; but as their religion spread it became codified and sacrificed all that was human to abstraction. The Druid serpent temple, which is Verulam, which is Avebury, which has stretched itself all across England, which is white, or Albion, a giant humanity in a fallen state, stands on 45. Erdman, Blake: Prophet against Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), since revised. the ethical truth of tropes, so that England and Jerusalem can be in the same place at the same time and we can be in them and they in us and still be ourselves. What Yeats saw in Blake as more fundamental than ex- ternal fact was an ethic of the trope. 5. History contained. The extent of Blake's allegorical use of historical events and personages was not much appreciated until David V. Erdman's Blake: Prophet against Empire came out in 1954." There is, no doubt, more to be learned about Blake's historical allegory, and this infor- mation will have to be given its appropriate place in the effort to grasp the antithetical logic of his work. This has not happened to any great ex- tent as yet, for the reading of the historical allegory has tended to be ex- ternal and reductive. A clear example of historical allegory is plate 1o of Europe, where the "fiery King" retreats to his serpent temple. Erdman makes this William Pitt's decision to raise alarms against Jacobins in order to hasten war with France (195-97). Events are actually conflated, since there were three attempts to initiate war in 1787, 1790, and 1791. In- deed, even people are conflated, for surely not only Pitt but also King George III and the members of the government are involved here. Blake speaks not only of the "fiery King," but also of "Albion's Angel" and the "Angels of Albion," as well as the "Ancient Guardian." These are in poetic logic both the same person and several persons. The names contain the allegory, having come first, so to speak; and we are constantly shuffling back and forth from the containing names to the contained historical event that is embodied not as history so much as a synecdochic part of a story that is here and everywhere now, then, and probably (unfortu- nately) in the future. The ancient temple of plate no is clearly identified with the neolithic remains at Avebury that Stukeley assumed erroneously to be of Druidic origin. It was connected with the site of Verulamium, the ancient Roman town. Blake was interested in the connection between this and Sir Francis Bacon, whose baronial title was Verulam. The opportunity to trope into relation Pitt, Druidism, and Bacon was too much for him not to exploit, for Bacon represented to him the negating domination of empiricism or antimythical externalization. He regarded the Druids as originally the wisest and greatest of men, the earliest true Christians, antedating Jesus himself; but as their religion spread it became codified and sacrificed all that was human to abstraction. The Druid serpent temple, which is Verulam, which is Avebury, which has stretched itself all across England, which is white, or Albion, a giant humanity in a fallen state, stands on 41. Erdman, Blake: Prophet against Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), since revised. the ethical truth of tropes, so that England and Jerusalem can be in the same place at the same time and we can be in them and they in us and still be ourselves. What Yeats saw in Blake as more fundamental than ex- ternal fact was an ethic of the trope. 5. History contained. The extent of Blake's allegorical use of historical events and personages was not much appreciated until David V. Erdman's Blake: Prophet against Empire came out in 1954." There is, no doubt, more to be learned about Blake's historical allegory, and this infor- mation will have to be given its appropriate place in the effort to grasp the antithetical logic of his work. This has not happened to any great ex- tent as yet, for the reading of the historical allegory has tended to be ex- ternal and reductive. A clear example of historical allegory is plate no of Europe, where the "fiery King" retreats to his serpent temple. Erdman makes this William Pitt's decision to raise alarms against Jacobins in order to hasten war with France (195-97). Events are actually conflated, since there were three attempts to initiate war in 1787, 1790, and 1791. In- deed, even people are conflated, for surely not only Pitt but also King George III and the members of the government are involved here. Blake speaks not only of the "fiery King," but also of "Albion's Angel" and the "Angels of Albion," as well as the "Ancient Guardian." These are in poetic logic both the same person and several persons. The names contain the allegory, having come first, so to speak; and we are constantly shuffling back and forth from the containing names to the contained historical event that is embodied not as history so much as a synecdochic part of a story that is here and everywhere now, then, and probably (unfortu- nately) in the future. The ancient temple of plate to is clearly identified with the neolithic remains at Avebury that Stukeley assumed erroneously to be of Druidic origin. It was connected with the site of Verulamium, the ancient Roman town. Blake was interested in the connection between this and Sir Francis Bacon, whose baronial title was Verulam. The opportunity to trope into relation Pitt, Druidism, and Bacon was too much for him not to exploit, for Bacon represented to him the negating domination of empiricism or antimythical externalization. He regarded the Druids as originally the wisest and greatest of men, the earliest true Christians, antedating Jesus himself; but as their religion spread it became codified and sacrificed all that was human to abstraction. The Druid serpent temple, which is Verulam, which is Avebury, which has stretched itself all across England, which is white, or Albion, a giant humanity in a fallen state, stands on 4s. Erdman, Blake: Prophet against Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), since revised.  Antithetical Essays 46 Antithetical Essays 46 Antithetical Essays the banks of the Thames, itself serpent-shaped, though the river as part is identified as infinite to remind us of the expansion to include every- thing that is always potential even in the fallen condition of contraction, where everything seems to be thrust outward from a center. The Druid temple-Verulam-Avebury-serpent-Albion-England is the refuge of Albion's Angel King in debased, codified thought. It is a con- tainer, thus a metonym of the Angel King's state of mind, metonymy stringing out the king's thought into external forms. It is closely identified with oak trees, idolized by the Druids. The serpent that lurks here in and as the temple and the river beside it is merely a vestige of the original knowledge it embodied before God cursed it and made it crawl on its belly. It is now merely an image of the infinite, contracted into a circle, which identifies it synecdochically with the circles of the heavenly plan- ets, in turn the mechanical world wound up by a Deistic sky-god. The temple is this world, and when the Ancient Guardian retreats to it, he retreats into the state of mind that created it, and he becomes it. This is a fall into a state of antimythical materialism of the sort invented by Bacon and his coworkers Newton and Locke. Druidism fell similarly, and its vestige is the temple formed as the circle of the constricting tail-eater. The porches of the serpent temple are of stone, surrounded by a forest of oak, and the whole picture is reminiscent of trees on which are hung the serpents of Gnostic lore. Such a crucifix is, of course, a fallen or de- monic talisman that succeeds only in warding things off or completing the division of object from the subject. The ground on which Blake seems to have made the Avebury ruins into a serpent was the research of Stukeley, who in his 1724 book on Ave- bury erroneously connected it with the Druids and with the serpent. (Stukeley's illustration shows a circle as well as a serpentine line and it is taken up and produced by Blake as such in Jerusalem [plate soo].) To the old ruins Stukeley gives the name "Dracontia": "The serpent,' says Maximus of Tyre Dissert. 38, 'was the great symbol of the deity to most nations, and as such was worshipped by the Indians.' The temples of old made in the form of a serpent, were called for that reason Dracontia. The universality of this regard for serpents, shews the high antiquity of the symbol, and that it was antediluvian."" Stukeley proceeds to give numerous reasons for the serpent's status, citing Egyptian hieroglyphic use of it and Chinese veneration. Moreover, serpents are beautiful and proceed with a wonderful sinuous motion that the banks of the Thames, itself serpent-shaped, though the river as part is identified as infinite to remind us of the expansion to include every- thing that is always potential even in the fallen condition of contraction, where everything seems to be thrust outward from a center. The Druid temple-Verulam-Avebury-serpent-Albion-England is the refuge of Albion's Angel King in debased, codified thought. It is a con- tainer, thus a metonym of the Angel King's state of mind, metonymy stringing out the king's thought into external forms. It is closely identified with oak trees, idolized by the Druids. The serpent that lurks here in and as the temple and the river beside it is merely a vestige of the original knowledge it embodied before God cursed it and made it crawl on its belly. It is now merely an image of the infinite, contracted into a circle, which identifies it synecdochically with the circles of the heavenly plan- ets, in turn the mechanical world wound up by a Deistic sky-god. The temple is this world, and when the Ancient Guardian retreats to it, he retreats into the state of mind that created it, and he becomes it. This is a fall into a state of antimythical materialism of the sort invented by Bacon and his coworkers Newton and Locke. Druidism fell similarly, and its vestige is the temple formed as the circle of the constricting tail-eater. The porches of the serpent temple are of stone, surrounded by a forest of oak, and the whole picture is reminiscent of trees on which are hung the serpents of Gnostic lore. Such a crucifix is, of course, a fallen or de- monic talisman that succeeds only in warding things off or completing the division of object from the subject. The ground on which Blake seems to have made the Avebury ruins into a serpent was the research of Stukeley, who in his 1724 book on Ave- bury erroneously connected it with the Druids and with the serpent. (Stukeley's illustration shows a circle as well as a serpentine line and it is taken up and produced by Blake as such in Jerusalem [plate 1oo].) To the old ruins Stukeley gives the name "Dracontia'": "'The serpent,' says Maximus of Tyre Dissert. 38, 'was the great symbol of the deity to most nations, and as such was worshipped by the Indians.' The temples of old made in the form of a serpent, were called for that reason Dracontia. The universality of this regard for serpents, shews the high antiquity of the symbol, and that it was antediluvian."" Stukeley proceeds to give numerous reasons for the serpent's status, citing Egyptian hieroglyphic use of it and Chinese veneration. Moreover, serpents are beautiful and proceed with a wonderful sinuous motion that the banks of the Thames, itself serpent-shaped, though the river as part is identified as infinite to remind us of the expansion to include every- thing that is always potential even in the fallen condition of contraction, where everything seems to be thrust outward from a center. The Druid temple-Verulam-Avebury-serpent-Albion-England is the refuge of Albion's Angel King in debased, codified thought. It is a con- tainer, thus a metonym of the Angel King's state of mind, metonymy stringing out the king's thought into external forms. It is closely identified with oak trees, idolized by the Druids. The serpent that lurks here in and as the temple and the river beside it is merely a vestige of the original knowledge it embodied before God cursed it and made it crawl on its belly. It is now merely an image of the infinite, contracted into a circle, which identifies it synecdochically with the circles of the heavenly plan- ets, in turn the mechanical world wound up by a Deistic sky-god. The temple is this world, and when the Ancient Guardian retreats to it, he retreats into the state of mind that created it, and he becomes it. This is a fall into a state of antimythical materialism of the sort invented by Bacon and his coworkers Newton and Locke. Druidism fell similarly, and its vestige is the temple formed as the circle of the constricting tail-eater. The porches of the serpent temple are of stone, surrounded by a forest of oak, and the whole picture is reminiscent of trees on which are hung the serpents of Gnostic lore. Such a crucifix is, of course, a fallen or de- monic talisman that succeeds only in warding things off or completing the division of object from the subject. The ground on which Blake seems to have made the Avebury ruins into a serpent was the research of Stukeley, who in his 1724 book on Ave- bury erroneously connected it with the Druids and with the serpent. (Stukeley's illustration shows a circle as well as a serpentine line and it is taken up and produced by Blake as such in Jerusalem [plate soo].) To the old ruins Stukeley gives the name "Dracontia": "'The serpent,' says Maximus of Tyre Dissert. 38, 'was the great symbol of the deity to most nations, and as such was worshipped by the Indians.' The temples of old made in the form of a serpent, were called for that reason Dracontia. The universality of this regard for serpents, shews the high antiquity of the symbol, and that it was antediluvian."' Stukeley proceeds to give numerous reasons for the serpent's status, citing Egyptian hieroglyphic use of it and Chinese veneration. Moreover, serpents are beautiful and proceed with a wonderful sinuous motion that 42. Stukeley, Abury: A Temple of the British Druids, 55. 42. Stukeley, Abury: A Temple of the British Druids, 55-. 44. Stukeley, Abury: A Temple of the Bitish Druids, 55.  Synecdoche and Method 47 Synecdoche and Method 47 Synecdoche and Method 47 Sanchoniathon regarded as spiritual. Moses called the serpent wise. Aris- totle called it crafty. Servius noted with admiration that it moved its tongue rapidly. The Gnostic association of Christ with the serpent and Moses' serpent on the pole are invoked. And finally Stukeley employs the principle of analogy and antitype: "Did the devil injure us under the form of a serpent? The like figure is the properest of any to symbolize the remedy, the antidote against poison whereby the devil wrought man's fall. Therefore, naturally, the same is to symbolize the messiah then promised, who is to work man's redemption" (6). This astonishing example of Mithradatic typologizing Blake seems to have ignored in order to make the temple demonic.' Stukeley's Druids were wise men until they disappeared: "When I first began these studies about the Druid antiquities, I plainly discern'd the religion profess'd in these places was the first, simple, patriarchal religion" (a). But Stukeley's single religion of Druidical, Christian common sense Blake does not ac- cept. It is Deism. For him the original religion involved synecdochic vi- sion, and the originally visionary Druids fell into corrupt thought. Blake exploits the ambiguity of the serpent throughout his work, expressing the ambiguity of cyclical Orc and suggesting that the serpent temple is a fallen corrupt vestige of knowledge. Ore's cyclicity is latent in Aterica and Europe, implying its development in the great longer poems. 6. The literal story. I think of this point and the next as containing the concerns represented by the first five. We should take Blake seriously when he emphasizes that he actually saw his giant forms-the ancient of days on his ceiling, for example. This was Blake's way of emphasizing the literal surface of his works, in addition, of course, to his illustrations, where Albion's Angel has bat's wings and where the serpent temple is a serpent of seven coils and forked tongue and "stretches out its shady length" vertically along the side of plate so. Blake constantly warns us against reading abstractly toward allegory. This is why it is a fearful mis- take to read Blake with a skeleton key that tells us to substitute reason for Urizen, imagination for Urthona, instinct for Tharmas, etc. These creatures and their emanations are giant human forms who argue with each other the way husbands and wives do. They have human failings and 43. Stukeley seems to have been quite aware of Gnostic treatment of the serpent without perhaps understanding the Gnostic intent: "This figure of the circle and the snake, on which they [Avebury and Stonehenge] are founded, had obtained a very venerable regard, in being expressive of the most eminent and illustrious act of the deity, the multiplication of his own nature as the Zorastrans and Platonists speak; and in being a symbol of that divine person who was the consequence of it" (85). Sanchoniathon regarded as spiritual. Moses called the serpent wise. Aris- totle called it crafty. Servius noted with admiration that it moved its tongue rapidly. The Gnostic association of Christ with the serpent and Moses' serpent on the pole are invoked. And finally Stukeley employs the principle of analogy and antitype: "Did the devil injure us under the form of a serpent? The like figure is the properest of any to symbolize the remedy, the antidote against poison whereby the devil wrought man's fall. Therefore, naturally, the same is to symbolize the messiah then promised, who is to work man's redemption" (6). This astonishing example of Mithradatic typologizing Blake seems to have ignored in order to make the temple demonic. Stukeley's Druids were wise men until they disappeared: "When I first began these studies about the Druid antiquities, I plainly discern'd the religion profess'd in these places was the first, simple, patriarchal religion" (a). But Stukeley's single religion of Druidical, Christian common sense Blake does not ac- cept. It is Deism. For him the original religion involved synecdochic vi- sion, and the originally visionary Druids fell into corrupt thought. Blake exploits the ambiguity of the serpent throughout his work, expressing the ambiguity of cyclical Ore and suggesting that the serpent temple is a fallen corrupt vestige of knowledge. Ore's cyclicity is latent in America and Europe, implying its development in the great longer poems. 6. The literal story. I think of this point and the next as containing the concerns represented by the first five. We should take Blake seriously when he emphasizes that he actually saw his giant forms-the ancient of days on his ceiling, for example. This was Blake's way of emphasizing the literal surface of his works, in addition, of course, to his illustrations, where Albion's Angel has bat's wings and where the serpent temple is a serpent of seven coils and forked tongue and "stretches out its shady length" vertically along the side of plate so. Blake constantly warns us against reading abstractly toward allegory. This is why it is a fearful mis- take to read Blake with a skeleton key that tells us to substitute reason for Urizen, imagination for Urthona, instinct for Tharmas, etc. These creatures and their emanations are giant human forms who argue with each other the way husbands and wives do. They have human failings and 43. Stukeley seems to have been quite aware of Gnostic treatment of the serpent without perhaps understanding the Gnostic intent: 'This figure of the circle and the snake, on which they [Avebury and Stonehenge] are founded, had obtained a very venerable regard, in being expressive of the most eminent and illustrious act of the deity, the multiplication of his own nature as the Zorastrians and Platonists speak; and in being a symbol of that divine person who was the consequence of it" (85). Sanchoniathon regarded as spiritual. Moses called the serpent wise. Aris- totle called it crafty. Servius noted with admiration that it moved its tongue rapidly. The Gnostic association of Christ with the serpent and Moses' serpent on the pole are invoked. And finally Stukeley employs the principle of analogy and antitype: "Did the devil injure us under the form of a serpent? The like figure is the properest of any to symbolize the remedy, the antidote against poison whereby the devil wrought man's fall. Therefore, naturally, the same is to symbolize the messiah then promised, who is to work man's redemption" (6). This astonishing example of Mithradatic typologizing Blake seems to have ignored in order to make the temple demonic." Stukeley's Druids were wise men until they disappeared: "When I first began these studies about the Druid antiquities, I plainly discern'd the religion profess'd in these places was the first, simple, patriarchal religion" (1). But Stukeley's single religion of Druidical, Christian common sense Blake does not ac- cept. It is Deism. For him the original religion involved synecdochic vi- sion, and the originally visionary Druids fell into corrupt thought. Blake exploits the ambiguity of the serpent throughout his work, expressing the ambiguity of cyclical Orc and suggesting that the serpent temple is a fallen corrupt vestige of knowledge. Orc's cyclicity is latent in America and Europe, implying its development in the great longer poems. 6. The literal story. I think of this point and the next as containing the concerns represented by the first five. We should take Blake seriously when he emphasizes that he actually saw his giant forms-the ancient of days on his ceiling, for example. This was Blake's way of emphasizing the literal surface of his works, in addition, of course, to his illustrations, where Albion's Angel has bat's wings and where the serpent temple is a serpent of seven coils and forked tongue and "stretches out its shady length" vertically along the side of plate so. Blake constantly warns us against reading abstractly toward allegory. This is why it is a fearful mis- take to read Blake with a skeleton key that tells us to substitute reason for Urizen, imagination for Urthona, instinct for Tharmas, etc. These creatures and their emanations are giant human forms who argue with each other the way husbands and wives do. They have human failings and 43. Stukeley seems to have been quite aware of Gnostic treatment of the serpent without perhaps understanding the Gnostic intent: "This figure of the circle and the snake, on which they [Avebury and Stonehenge] are founded, had obtained a very venerable regard, in being expressive of the most eminent and illustrious act of the deity, the multiplication of his own nature as the Zorastrians and Platonists speak; and in being a symbol of that divine person who was the consequence of it" (85).  Antithetical Essays 48 Antithetical Essays 48 Antithetical Essays strengths. In Europe, plate io, we must not forget the human being who skulks along the Thames to Verulam. He contains allegory but is not alle- gorical, being a particular. 7. Tropic literality. This phrase emphasizes that there is not only a sur- face of story that we may too quickly pass through to abstract allegori- zation but that even this surface is really an internality contained by what Northrop Frye called a pattern of words: words as literally words in relation. The best work bearing this in mind is Nelson Hilton's pro- vocative Literal Imagination." Blake causes words to take on worldly bodies and these bodies to form chains of relations based on a variety of possibilities: acronymic, homonymic, punnish, etc. Blake's work is not Finnegans Wake because it does not deliberately cut off or frustrate our sense of plot, character, historical allegory, etc. But surely what Ari- stotle called diction but did not make the principal form of the poem is the synecdochic macrocosm, and we must give full attention to all its possibilities. Thus we find in plate so that the appearance of the word "infinite" with both "Thames" and "serpent" sets forth a relation, that Blake's words tend to cluster without center but with equality characterized by their tropo- logical relations. In the light of past criticism it is not possible, I think, to emphasize the last two points too much. As PLATE so gets under way, we see that in the temple the acts of the fiery King, Albion's Angel, et al. are identified with what Blake elsewhere calls the worldview of "Bacon, Newton, and Locke." This worldview, he thought, had "ruined England": man's fate, when he becomes enclosed in the self-involving activity of the externalizing reason, is to become ser- pentine. The fiery King's behavior is a cyclical repetition of the Fall of man, itself an "analogy" of an unfallen state of creativity, where what seems like repetition is identity. To retire to the serpent temple is to re- play the temple's creation. This is not, however, quite the best way to put it: what really happens is that there is a movement back and forth between the macrocosmic myth of Fall and the microcosmic part played in particulars by the fiery King et al., who are the "island white" or Albion himself, or "ruined England," or, in turn, man, who is the world that con- tains him. This movement from part to whole to part to whole is contained in plate io itself considered as part identical by implication with the whole of Europe and the Blake canon. The shift from the part to the larger 44. Hilton, Literal Imagination: Blake's Vision of Words (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 1983). strengths. In Europe, plate so, we must not forget the human being who skulks along the Thames to Verulam. He contains allegory but is not alle- gorical, being a particular. 7. Tropic literality. This phrase emphasizes that there is not only a sur- face of story that we may too quickly pass through to abstract allegori- zation but that even this surface is really an internality contained by what Northrop Frye called a pattern of words: words as literally words in relation. The best work bearing this in mind is Nelson Hilton's pro- vocative Literal Imagination." Blake causes words to take on worldly bodies and these bodies to form chains of relations based on a variety of possibilities: acronymic, homonymic, punnish, etc. Blake's work is not Finnegan Wake because it does not deliberately cut off or frustrate our sense of plot, character, historical allegory, etc. But surely what Ari- stotle called diction but did not make the principal form of the poem is the synecdochic macrocosm, and we must give full attention to all its possibilities. Thus we find in plate so that the appearance of the word "infinite" with both "Thames" and "serpent" sets forth a relation, that Blake's words tend to cluster without center but with equality characterized by their tropo- logical relations. In the light of past criticism it is not possible, I think, to emphasize the last two points too much. As PLATE 1s gets under way, we see that in the temple the acts of the fiery King, Albion's Angel, et al. are identified with what Blake elsewhere calls the worldview of "Bacon, Newton, and Locke." This worldview, he thought, had "ruined England": man's fate, when he becomes enclosed in the self-involving activity of the externalizing reason, is to become ser- pentine. The fiery King's behavior is a cyclical repetition of the Fall of man, itself an "analogy" of an unfallen state of creativity, where what seems like repetition is identity. To retire to the serpent temple is to re- play the temple's creation. This is not, however, quite the best way to put it: what really happens is that there is a movement back and forth between the macrocosmic myth of Fall and the microcosmic part played in particulars by the fiery King et al., who are the "island white" or Albion himself, or "ruined England," or, in turn, man, who is the world that con- tains him. This movement from part to whole to part to whole is contained in plate so itself considered as part identical by implication with the whole of Europe and the Blake canon. The shift from the part to the larger 44. Hilton, Literal Imagination: Blake's Vision of Words (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 1983). strengths. In Europe, plate so, we must not forget the human being who skulks along the Thames to Verulam. He contains allegory but is not alle- gorical, being a particular. 7. Tropic literality. This phrase emphasizes that there is not only a sur- face of story that we may too quickly pass through to abstract allegori- zation but that even this surface is really an internality contained by what Northrop Frye called a pattern of words: words as literally words in relation. The best work bearing this in mind is Nelson Hilton's pro- vocative Literal Imagination." Blake causes words to take on worldly bodies and these bodies to form chains of relations based on a variety of possibilities: acronymic, homonymic, punnish, etc. Blake's work is not Finnegans Wake because it does not deliberately cut off or frustrate our sense of plot, character, historical allegory, etc. But surely what Ari- stotle called diction but did not make the principal form of the poem is the synecdochic macrocosm, and we must give full attention to all its possibilities. Thus we find in plate so that the appearance of the word "infinite" with both "Thames" and "serpent" sets forth a relation, that Blake's words tend to cluster without center but with equality characterized by their tropo- logical relations. In the light of past criticism it is not possible, I think, to emphasize the last two points too much. As PLATE so gets under way, we see that in the temple the acts of the fiery King, Albion's Angel, et al. are identified with what Blake elsewhere calls the worldview of "Bacon, Newton, and Locke." This worldview, he thought, had "ruined England": man's fate, when he becomes enclosed in the self-involving activity of the externalizing reason, is to become ser- pentine. The fiery King's behavior is a cyclical repetition of the Fall of man, itself an "analogy" of an unfallen state of creativity, where what seems like repetition is identity. To retire to the serpent temple is to re- play the temple's creation. This is not, however, quite the best way to put it: what really happens is that there is a movement back and forth between the macrocosmic myth of Fall and the microcosmic part played in particulars by the fiery King et al., who are the "island white" or Albion himself, or "ruined England," or, in turn, man, who is the world that con- tains him. This movement from part to whole to part to whole is contained in plate so itself considered as part identical by implication with the whole of Europe and the Blake canon. The shift from the part to the larger 44. Hilton, Literal Imagination: Blake's Vision of Words (Berkeley: University of Caifor- nia Press, 1983).  Synecdoche and Method 49 S ynecdoche and Method 4g Synecdoche and Method 4g myth that occurs, for example, in lines 13f. may at first appear to be a loss of control over the story characteristic of a garrulous (mad?) narrator. The difference from garrulousness (to say nothing of madness, of which Blake has been accused) is a rigorously synecdochic method that requires constant invocation of the presentness of all history in "visible" particulars as well as the identity of man and men. And so we are suddenly told of man's enclosure in corporeality, which in Blake is the illusion of materiality separate from imagination. This ap- pears in the form of a great flood, which is also the ancient flood, de- scribed as a flood of sense perception, the result of an empirical notion of sense passivity, which petrifies against the infinite or against the princi- ple of synecdoche, itself the means of expansion from the alienated, cen- tered individual to man as whole. We soon learn that this petrification is connected with a center of supposed truth called the Stone of Night, fallen Albion's head, and, of course, the Ancient Guardian's. The flight of man into the forests of night (an oak forest, of course, be- cause the Druids were oak worshippers) is thus identical with the flight of the fiery King et al. to Verulam (to Bacon), who is by metonymy his empiricism surrounded by oak trees. And these flights are not connected merely by a figure of speech, considered as a technical device, but by an avenue of ethical vision according to poetic antithetical logic or myth; for in the very fabric of synecdoche, a warp and woof of infinite magnitude and the infinitesimal as well, there lies everywhere the principal ethical pattern we constitute from Blake's work: the need for annihilation of the selfhood, for sympathetic expansive identity to include the other. As Jesus says to Albion at the beginning of Jerusalem, we are involved in identity with each other and must cure ourselves of the illusion of abso- lute subjectivity, though not of individuality and freedom. We might even conclude that this is the ethical pattern abstractable as idea from myth itself as a way of constituting life and that Blake's canon is a synecdoche of mythmaking. Beginning at line 24 of plate no, the southern porch of the serpent tem- ple becomes the head of Albion, and the whole of the temple his body. The porch becomes, as the passage proceeds, the Stone of Night, with its suggestion of a dark immovable center to which all things ought to tend as if it were the word or (deca) logos. It ought to be the light of rea- son, as in Blake's treatment of the unfallen condition, where Urizen is identified with the sun and is in the South or Zenith, supported by the other Zoas with Urthona at the base or North. Instead it is located in a "vale obscure." It is "oblique"-standing inclined, indirect, disingenuous, the dictionary tells us; but the term also hearkens back to Paradise Lost, where God's angels myth that occurs, for example, in lines 13ff. may at first appear to be a loss of control over the story characteristic of a garrulous (mad?) narrator. The difference from garrulousness (to say nothing of madness, of which Blake has been accused) is a rigorously synecdochic method that requires constant invocation of the presentness of all history in "visible" particulars as well as the identity of man and men. And so we are suddenly told of man's enclosure in corporeality, which in Blake is the illusion of materiality separate from imagination. This ap- pears in the form of a great flood, which is also the ancient flood, de- scribed as a flood of sense perception, the result of an empirical notion of sense passivity, which petrifies against the infinite or against the princi- ple of synecdoche, itself the means of expansion from the alienated, cen- tered individual to man as whole. We soon learn that this petrification is connected with a center of supposed truth called the Stone of Night, fallen Albion's head, and, of course, the Ancient Guardian's. The flight of man into the forests of night (an oak forest, of course, be- cause the Druids were oak worshippers) is thus identical with the flight of the fiery King et al. to Verulam (to Bacon), who is by metonymy his empiricism surrounded by oak trees. And these flights are not connected merely by a figure of speech, considered as a technical device, but by an avenue of ethical vision according to poetic antithetical logic or myth; for in the very fabric of synecdoche, a warp and woof of infinite magnitude and the infinitesimal as well, there lies everywhere the principal ethical pattern we constitute from Blake's work: the need for annihilation of the selfhood, for sympathetic expansive identity to include the other. As Jesus says to Albion at the beginning of Jerusalem, we are involved in identity with each other and must cure ourselves of the illusion of abso- lute subjectivity, though not of individuality and freedom. We might even conclude that this is the ethical pattern abstractable as idea from myth itself as a way of constituting life and that Blake's canon is a synecdoche of mythmaking. Beginning at line 24 of plate io, the southern porch of the serpent tem- ple becomes the head of Albion, and the whole of the temple his body. The porch becomes, as the passage proceeds, the Stone of Night, with its suggestion of a dark immovable center to which all things ought to tend as if it were the word or (deca) logos. It ought to be the light of rea- son, as in Blake's treatment of the unfallen condition, where Urizen is identified with the sun and is in the South or Zenith, supported by the other Zoas with Urthona at the base or North. Instead it is located in a "vale obscure." It is "oblique"-standing inclined, indirect, disingenuous, the dictionary tells us; but the term also hearkens back to Paradise Lost, where God's angels myth that occurs, for example, in lines 13ff. may at first appear to be a loss of control over the story characteristic of a garrulous (mad?) narrator. The difference from garrulousness (to say nothing of madness, of which Blake has been accused) is a rigorously synecdochic method that requires constant invocation of the presentness of all history in "visible" particulars as well as the identity of man and men. And so we are suddenly told of man's enclosure in corporeality, which in Blake is the illusion of materiality separate from imagination. This ap- pears in the form of a great flood, which is also the ancient flood, de- scribed as a flood of sense perception, the result of an empirical notion of sense passivity, which petrifies against the infinite or against the princi- ple of synecdoche, itself the means of expansion from the alienated, cen- tered individual to man as whole. We soon learn that this petrification is connected with a center of supposed truth called the Stone of Night, fallen Albion's head, and, of course, the Ancient Guardian's. The flight of man into the forests of night (an oak forest, of course, be- cause the Druids were oak worshippers) is thus identical with the flight of the fiery King et al. to Verulam (to Bacon), who is by metonymy his empiricism surrounded by oak trees. And these flights are not connected merely by a figure of speech, considered as a technical device, but by an avenue of ethical vision according to poetic antithetical logic or myth; for in the very fabric of synecdoche, a warp and woof of infinite magnitude and the infinitesimal as well, there lies everywhere the principal ethical pattern we constitute from Blake's work: the need for annihilation of the selfhood, for sympathetic expansive identity to include the other. As Jesus says to Albion at the beginning of Jerusalem, we are involved in identity with each other and must cure ourselves of the illusion of abso- lute subjectivity, though not of individuality and freedom. We might even conclude that this is the ethical pattern abstractable as idea from myth itself as a way of constituting life and that Blake's canon is a synecdoche of mythmaking. Beginning at line 24 of plate on, the southern porch of the serpent tem- ple becomes the head of Albion, and the whole of the temple his body. The porch becomes, as the passage proceeds, the Stone of Night, with its suggestion of a dark immovable center to which all things ought to tend as if it were the word or (deca) logos. It ought to be the light of rea- son, as in Blake's treatment of the unfallen condition, where Urizen is identified with the sun and is in the South or Zenith, supported by the other Zoas with Urthona at the base or North. Instead it is located in a "vale obscure." It is "oblique"-standing inclined, indirect, disingenuous, the dictionary tells us; but the term also hearkens back to Paradise Lost, where God's angels  Antithetical Essays 50 Antithetical Essays 5o Antithetical Essays turn askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more From the sun's axle; they with labor pushed Oblique the centric globe. (1o:668-71) In Blake's poem the movement is 18o degrees, but particularly impor- tant is the dark centering of the sun within and as the head of Albion: as things are thrust out from the mind as objects, so is reason more and more self-enclosed as subject. As the effort to establish an objective cen- ter of authority or logos becomes more intensified, so does this center become more subjectified as a projection of arbitrary personal power and tyranny. Something is wrong here. The purple flowers and berries are but vestiges of a previous condition of summer; now the sun has departed. This lost light of reason was not then the law, as it is now presumably carved on the Stone of Night, like the tablets of Moses; it was a liberating science. Now everything is reversed: South has become North; Albion's body is upside down, as is the fiery King's, the Angel's, and the Ancient Guardian's, all identified and identical. The head hangs into the abyss of a northern sky. Suddenly we see it, quite properly, as a cavern, because this northern sky, externalized by the fallen reason is really an airy thought contained by Albion's mind. It is also a locked-up sun that can spread no light. Thought is the thought of the subject and the object. Fur- ther, the whole of the serpent temple, turned 18o degrees on its axis, also Albion's body, is pulled into this abyss of sky as if the sky were a grave; and we see it sink headfirst, then feet, as if being sucked in by a whirlpool, except that this is a reverse whirlpool that sucks the victim not through the eye of Hell toward Purgatory as Dante went with Virgil, but out into the grave of the abyss. The whirlpool thus continues the no- tion of everything being reversed or upside down in the fallen state. Caught in this movement, the victim, an inquirer according to the exter- nalizing mode of Bacon, is dizzied. The effort to establish a center by em- pirical means has resulted in objective/subjective disequilibrium. This story, which begins with the fiery King and expands to include Albion himself, is a synecdoche of the greater story of The Four Zoas. To constitute this text is to become involved in the endless oscillation of synecdoche, where figure expands to become the whole, where whole contracts only to confront a miniscule figure of expansion that expands to become identical with an even larger whole. Plate no writes in micro- cosm the whole of Europe; Europe writes The Four Zoas, but also "Lon- don," "Holy Thursday," and "The Human Abstract." Plate io continually turn askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more From the sun's axle; they with labor pushed Oblique the centric globe. (1o:668-71) In Blake's poem the movement is 18o degrees, but particularly impor- tant is the dark centering of the sun within and as the head of Albion: as things are thrust out from the mind as objects, so is reason more and more self-enclosed as subject. As the effort to establish an objective cen- ter of authority or logos becomes more intensified, so does this center become more subjectified as a projection of arbitrary personal power and tyranny. Something is wrong here. The purple flowers and berries are but vestiges of a previous condition of summer; now the sun has departed. This lost light of reason was not then the law, as it is now presumably carved on the Stone of Night, like the tablets of Moses; it was a liberating science. Now everything is reversed: South has become North; Albion's body is upside down, as is the fiery King's, the Angel's, and the Ancient Guardian's, all identified and identical. The head hangs into the abyss of a northern sky. Suddenly we see it, quite properly, as a cavern, because this northern sky, externalized by the fallen reason is really an airy thought contained by Albion's mind. It is also a locked-up sun that can spread no light. Thought is the thought of the subject and the object. Fur- ther, the whole of the serpent temple, turned 18o degrees on its axis, also Albion's body, is pulled into this abyss of sky as if the sky were a grave; and we see it sink headfirst, then feet, as if being sucked in by a whirlpool, except that this is a reverse whirlpool that sucks the victim not through the eye of Hell toward Purgatory as Dante went with Virgil, but out into the grave of the abyss. The whirlpool thus continues the no- tion of everything being reversed or upside down in the fallen state. Caught in this movement, the victim, an inquirer according to the exter- nalizing mode of Bacon, is dizzied. The effort to establish a center by em- pirical means has resulted in objective/subjective disequilibrium. This story, which begins with the fiery King and expands to include Albion himself, is a synecdoche of the greater story of The Four Zoas. To constitute this text is to become involved in the endless oscillation of synecdoche, where figure expands to become the whole, where whole contracts only to confront a miniscule figure of expansion that expands to become identical with an even larger whole. Plate no writes in micro- cosm the whole of Europe; Europe writes The Four Zoas, but also "Lon- don," "Holy Thursday," and "The Human Abstract." Plate so continually turn askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more From the sun's axle; they with labor pushed Oblique the centric globe. (10:668-71) In Blake's poem the movement is 18o degrees, but particularly impor- tant is the dark centering of the sun within and as the head of Albion: as things are thrust out from the mind as objects, so is reason more and more self-enclosed as subject. As the effort to establish an objective cen- ter of authority or logos becomes more intensified, so does this center become more subjectified as a projection of arbitrary personal power and tyranny. Something is wrong here. The purple flowers and berries are but vestiges of a previous condition of summer; now the sun has departed. This lost light of reason was not then the law, as it is now presumably carved on the Stone of Night, like the tablets of Moses; it was a liberating science. Now everything is reversed: South has become North; Albion's body is upside down, as is the fiery King's, the Angel's, and the Ancient Guardian's, all identified and identical. The head hangs into the abyss of a northern sky. Suddenly we see it, quite properly, as a cavern, because this northern sky, externalized by the fallen reason is really an airy thought contained by Albion's mind. It is also a locked-up sun that can spread no light. Thought is the thought of the subject and the object. Fur- ther, the whole of the serpent temple, turned 18o degrees on its axis, also Albion's body, is pulled into this abyss of sky as if the sky were a grave; and we see it sink headfirst, then feet, as if being sucked in by a whirlpool, except that this is a reverse whirlpool that sucks the victim not through the eye of Hell toward Purgatory as Dante went with Virgil, but out into the grave of the abyss. The whirlpool thus continues the no- tion of everything being reversed or upside down in the fallen state. Caught in this movement, the victim, an inquirer according to the exter- nalizing mode of Bacon, is dizzied. The effort to establish a center by em- pirical means has resulted in objective/subjective disequilibrium. This story, which begins with the fiery King and expands to include Albion himself, is a synecdoche of the greater story of The Four Zoas. To constitute this text is to become involved in the endless oscillation of synecdoche, where figure expands to become the whole, where whole contracts only to confront a miniscule figure of expansion that expands to become identical with an even larger whole. Plate 10 writes in micro- cosm the whole of Europe; Europe writes The Four Zoas, but also "Lon- don," "Holy Thursday," and "The Human Abstract." Plate no continually  Synecdoche and Method 51 Synecdoche and Method 51 Synecdoche and Method progresses out from itself in opposition to the antimythical logic of before/ after, here/there, and subject/object. A neo-Blakean critical method must embody a traditional scholarship that traces the Blakean tropes into odd channels of the past, must read the news of Blake's time, must grasp at the modes of interpretation he may have known, must follow out innumerable hunches; but the results must be enclosed in a discourse that recognizes the Blakean text's synec- dochic antithetical logic and discovers ways to make the text's ethical im- plications, based on this logic, available to conversation. Blake's notion of "Allegory addressed to the Intellectual powers" (E730) was not that its use is the mediated expression of a truth or deity that hides truth even as it speaks in a code of arbitrary signifiers. That would be the detested Romantic allegory addressed to the corporeal understanding. Nor was it that poetry is somehow a miraculous symbolism bringing into existence something lurking in the beyond. That would be delusion. Blake's intel- lectual allegory shaped by synecdoche is an endlessly exfoliating potenti- ality of identities, carrying ethical implications of the greatest urgency. Our critical method should not forget the urgency with which he wrote. Our method should be neo-Blakean, lest we detach the ethic from its ex- foliation in such a way as to corrupt it into a Stone of Night, constituting ourselves as an antimythical rather than an ironic priesthood. progresses out from itself in opposition to the antimythical logic of before/ after, here/there, and subject/object. A neo-Blakean critical method must embody a traditional scholarship that traces the Blakean tropes into odd channels of the past, must read the news of Blake's time, must grasp at the modes of interpretation he may have known, must follow out innumerable hunches; but the results must be enclosed in a discourse that recognizes the Blakean text's synec- dochic antithetical logic and discovers ways to make the text's ethical im- plications, based on this logic, available to conversation. Blake's notion of "Allegory addressed to the Intellectual powers" (E73o) was not that its use is the mediated expression of a truth or deity that hides truth even as it speaks in a code of arbitrary signifiers. That would be the detested Romantic allegory addressed to the corporeal understanding. Nor was it that poetry is somehow a miraculous symbolism bringing into existence something lurking in the beyond. That would be delusion. Blake's intel- lectual allegory shaped by synecdoche is an endlessly exfoliating potenti- ality of identities, carrying ethical implications of the greatest urgency. Our critical method should not forget the urgency with which he wrote. Our method should be neo-Blakean, lest we detach the ethic from its ex- foliation in such a way as to corrupt it into a Stone of Night, constituting ourselves as an antimythical rather than an ironic priesthood. progresses out from itself in opposition to the antimythical logic of before/ after, here/there, and subject/object. A neo-Blakean critical method must embody a traditional scholarship that traces the Blakean tropes into odd channels of the past, must read the news of Blake's time, must grasp at the modes of interpretation he may have known, must follow out innumerable hunches; but the results must be enclosed in a discourse that recognizes the Blakean text's synec- dochic antithetical logic and discovers ways to make the text's ethical im- plications, based on this logic, available to conversation. Blake's notion of 'Allegory addressed to the Intellectual powers" (E73o) was not that its use is the mediated expression of a truth or deity that hides truth even as it speaks in a code of arbitrary signifiers. That would be the detested Romantic allegory addressed to the corporeal understanding. Nor was it that poetry is somehow a miraculous symbolism bringing into existence something lurking in the beyond. That would be delusion. Blake's intel- lectual allegory shaped by synecdoche is an endlessly exfoliating potenti- ality of identities, carrying ethical implications of the greatest urgency. Our critical method should not forget the urgency with which he wrote. Our method should be neo-Blakean, lest we detach the ethic from its ex- foliation in such a way as to corrupt it into a Stone of Night, constituting ourselves as an antimythical rather than an ironic priesthood.  Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? This question, of interest once again because of the project of deconstruc- tion, is the apparent subject of a curious little engraved prose work by William Blake called "On Homers Poetry," which I quote in its en- tirety: [1] Every poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homers is peculiarly so, I cannot tell: he has told the story of Bellerophon & omitted the Judgment of Paris which is not only a part, but a principal part of Homers subject [2] But when a Work has Unity it is as much in a Part as in the Whole. the Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon [3] As Unity is the cloke of folly so Goodness is the cloke of knavery Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer come out with a Moral like a sting in the tail: Aristotle says Characters are either Good or Bad: now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do with Character. an Apple tree a Pear tree a Horse a Lion, are Characters but a Good Apple tree or a Bad, is an Apple tree still: a Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse. that is its Character; its Goodness or Badness is another consideration. [4] It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness of its parts Unity & Morality, are secon- dary considerations & belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule, to Accident & not to Substance. the Ancients call it eating of the tree of good & evil. [5] The Classics, it is the Classics! & not Goths nor Monks, that Desolate Europe with Wars (E269-70). One is confronted here at first with what appears to be a critical essay presenting an argument. In the usual argument, one begins knowing where one will end, that is, the arguer knows this and the movement and shape of the argument implies it. The form of the argument is enthymemic, as is characteristic of Blake in his treatises; and this supplies a certain amount of difficulty. Yet here something else seems to be going Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? This question, of interest once again because of the project of deconstrue- tion, is the apparent subject of a curious little engraved prose work by William Blake called "On Homers Poetry," which I quote in its en- tirety: [1] Every poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homers is peculiarly so, I cannot tell: he has told the story of Bellerophon & omitted the Judgment of Paris which is not only a part, but a principal part of Homers subject [2] But when a Work has Unity it is as much in a Part as in the Whole. the Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon [3] As Unity is the cloke of folly so Goodness is the cloke of knavery Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer come out with a Moral like a sting in the tail: Aristotle says Characters are either Good or Bad: now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do with Character. an Apple tree a Pear tree a Horse a Lion, are Characters but a Good Apple tree or a Bad, is an Apple tree still: a Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse. that is its Character; its Goodness or Badness is another consideration. [4] It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness of its parts Unity & Morality, are secon- dary considerations & belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule, to Accident & not to Substance. the Ancients call it eating of the tree of good & evil. [g] The Classics, it is the Classics! & not Goths nor Monks, that Desolate Europe with Wars (E269-70). One is confronted here at first with what appears to be a critical essay presenting an argument. In the usual argument, one begins knowing where one will end, that is, the arguer knows this and the movement and shape of the argument implies it. The form of the argument is enthymemic, as is characteristic of Blake in his treatises; and this supplies a certain amount of difficulty. Yet here something else seems to be going Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? This question, of interest once again because of the project of deconstrue- tion, is the apparent subject of a curious little engraved prose work by William Blake called "On Homers Poetry," which I quote in its en- tirety: [1] Every poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homers is peculiarly so, I cannot tell: he has told the story of Bellerophon & omitted the Judgment of Paris which is not only a part, but a principal part of Homers subject [2] But when a Work has Unity it is as much in a Part as in the Whole. the Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon [3] As Unity is the eloke of folly so Goodness is the cloke of knavery Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer come out with a Moral like a sting in the tail: Aristotle says Characters are either Good or Bad: now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do with Character. an Apple tree a Pear tree a Horse a Lion, are Characters but a Good Apple tree or a Bad, is an Apple tree still: a Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse. that is its Character; its Goodness or Badness is another consideration. [4] It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness of its parts Unity & Morality, are secon- dary considerations & belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule, to Accident & not to Substance. the Ancients call it eating of the tree of good & evil. [5] The Classics, it is the Classics! & not Goths nor Monks, that Desolate Europe with Wars (E269-7o). One is confronted here at Brst with what appears to be a critical essay presenting an argument. In the usual argument, one begins knowing where one will end, that is, the arguer knows this and the movement and shape of the argument implies it. The form of the argument is enthymemic, as is characteristic of Blake in his treatises; and this supplies a certain amount of difficulty. Yet here something else seems to be going  Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 53 Must a Poem Be a Perfect UitUnity? 53 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 53 on simultaneously with argument, forming two lines of development. This I shall call dramatic search. It is connected here with the apparent instability of the word "unity." The conclusion we reach may be foregone, as in argument, or come-upon, as in search. It may or may not be self- contradictory, as in argument. It may or may not be something satisfying to discover, as in search. In the exclamation of the last paragraph, one has the sense of a search pleasurably completed as well as an argument concluded. Very rarely, it seems to me, do Blake's apparent arguments not have this parallel dramatic development. The two lines I mention sug- gest that Blake's text is ordered by a sort of (dis)unity. The search is one to constitute the meaning of "unity," which keeps threatening dispersal of the argument, and to discover the consequences of notions of unity in human actions. We have the impression that in the course of dramatic search Blake discovers something for the first time, while if we are correct about the argument, we recognize also that we know its point from having read other works of Blake. It might be said, then, that the eureka is one of the revival of recognition rather than new discovery. For us, the conclusion is a surprise, in that to find that particu- lar conclusion as a result of the problems initially having been posed is a surprise. In the usual argument, as in a debate, the reader begins know- ing where he expects to end. In the meandering sort of argument infused with dramatic search, such as we seem to have here, the ending seems uncertain after all. Yet it is also not uncertain. As a cunning piece of per- suasion it is certain; as drama and search it is not, except that there is something inevitable in the way any Blakean seed sprouts the same tree. This process is synecdochic, by which I mean here that the small issue with which we begin seems to have become the larger with which we end. In the case of Blake, we have the impression that no matter what the issue with which we begin the process will take us to this conclu- sion. All the way along there are questions. The first of these is one unre- solved in critical theory: is unity to be located in the work or only in the critical constitution of it, or somehow in both? The second is: what is this unity being mentioned? The situation is confounded by what appears (if we view the text as argument) to be an equivocation on "unity." It appears that the first statement says that in order to qualify as a poem a work must have unity. But perhaps it says that the idea of unity is a hypothesis with which anyone reading a text begins (which is the way Northrop Frye has read it). This is to say that one searches the text for some principle of unity that will be appropriate to it. on simultaneously with argument, forming two lines of development. This I shall call dramatic search. It is connected here with the apparent instability of the word "unity." The conclusion we reach may be foregone, as in argument, or come-upon, as in search. It may or may not be self- contradictory, as in argument. It may or may not be something satisfying to discover, as in search. In the exclamation of the last paragraph, one has the sense of a search pleasurably completed as well as an argument concluded. Very rarely, it seems to me, do Blake's apparent arguments not have this parallel dramatic development. The two lines I mention sug- gest that Blake's text is ordered by a sort of (dis)unity. The search is one to constitute the meaning of "unity," which keeps threatening dispersal of the argument, and to discover the consequences of notions of unity in human actions. We have the impression that in the course of dramatic search Blake discovers something for the first time, while if we are correct about the argument, we recognize also that we know its point from having read other works of Blake. It might be said, then, that the eureka is one of the revival of recognition rather than new discovery. For us, the conclusion is a surprise, in that to find that particu- lar conclusion as a result of the problems initially having been posed is a surprise. In the usual argument, as in a debate, the reader begins know- ing where he expects to end. In the meandering sort of argument infused with dramatic search, such as we seem to have here, the ending seems uncertain after all. Yet it is also not uncertain. As a cunning piece of per- suasion it is certain; as drama and search it is not, except that there is something inevitable in the way any Blakean seed sprouts the same tree. This process is synecdochic, by which I mean here that the small issue with which we begin seems to have become the larger with which we end. In the case of Blake, we have the impression that no matter what the issue with which we begin the process will take us to this conclu- sion. All the way along there are questions. The first of these is one unre- solved in critical theory: is unity to be located in the work or only in the critical constitution of it, or somehow in both? The second is: what is this unity being mentioned? The situation is confounded by what appears (if we view the text as argument) to be an equivocation on "unity." It appears that the first statement says that in order to qualify as a poem a work must have unity. But perhaps it says that the idea of unity is a hypothesis with which anyone reading a text begins (which is the way Northrop Frye has read it). This is to say that one searches the text for some principle of unity that will be appropriate to it. on simultaneously with argument, forming two lines of development. This I shall call dramatic search. It is connected here with the apparent instability of the word "unity." The conclusion we reach may be foregone, as in argument, or come-upon, as in search. It may or may not be self- contradictory, as in argument. It may or may not be something satisfying to discover, as in search. In the exclamation of the last paragraph, one has the sense of a search pleasurably completed as well as an argument concluded. Very rarely, it seems to me, do Blake's apparent arguments not have this parallel dramatic development. The two lines I mention sug- gest that Blake's text is ordered by a sort of (dis)unity. The search is one to constitute the meaning of "unity," which keeps threatening dispersal of the argument, and to discover the consequences of notions of unity in human actions. We have the impression that in the course of dramatic search Blake discovers something for the first time, while if we are correct about the argument, we recognize also that we know its point from having read other works of Blake. It might be said, then, that the eureka is one of the revival of recognition rather than new discovery. For us, the conclusion is a surprise, in that to find that particu- lar conclusion as a result of the problems initially having been posed is a surprise. In the usual argument, as in a debate, the reader begins know- ing where he expects to end. In the meandering sort of argument infused with dramatic search, such as we seem to have here, the ending seems uncertain after all. Yet it is also not uncertain. As a cunning piece of per- suasion it is certain; as drama and search it is not, except that there is something inevitable in the way any Blakean seed sprouts the same tree. This process is synecdochic, by which I mean here that the small issue with which we begin seems to have become the larger with which we end. In the case of Blake, we have the impression that no matter what the issue with which we begin the process will take us to this conclu- sion. All the way along there are questions. The first of these is one unre- solved in critical theory: is unity to be located in the work or only in the critical constitution of it, or somehow in both? The second is: what is this unity being mentioned? The situation is confounded by what appears (if we view the text as argument) to be an equivocation on "unity." It appears that the first statement says that in order to qualify as a poem a work must have unity. But perhaps it says that the idea of unity is a hypothesis with which anyone reading a text begins (which is the way Northrop Frye has read it). This is to say that one searches the text for some principle of unity that will be appropriate to it.  Antithetical Essays 54 Antithetical Essays 54 Antithetical Essays It is as if Blake has been trying out ideas of unity with the Iliad as we enter this scene of search, continues in the first paragraph, and declares perplexity. The first unity he seems to propose is unity of plot. On the basis of this idea, at least as it is initially conceived, he concludes that the Iliad does not seem to have unity. Not only is part of Homer's subject missing; it is a principal part. Why? Because the judgment of Paris ought to be, Blake thinks, part of the plot of the Iliad, for it is implicit in the unraveling, which involves the enmity of Athena against Paris and there- fore Troy. Now the story of Bellerophon is not claimed by Blake to be inappropriate to the Iliad. Blake claims only that if one includes it one is hard pressed to explain why the judgment of Paris is not included. The Bellerophon story is told at modest length in Book 6 of the Iliad by Glaucos to his enemy in the field, Diomedes, and causes Diomedes to recognize an ancient family friendship. They agree to avoid fighting. The story explains why they do not fight, and it is also an example of Homer's including something that fills out the complex web of relations that char- acterizes and guides behavior in the Hellenic world. Blake mentions none of this, which could be used to explain its pres- ence; but none of it would be relevant to the question of unity of plot. The episode seems to Blake less necessary to unity than the judgment of Paris, which Blake regards as an element of plot, presumably since it includes the motivation of a goddess to affect events that are told. It is therefore a "principal part of Homers subject," that is, his story. Athena's motivation stretches through the later events of the text and in that sense includes those events as the seed includes the oak. This appears to be Blake's notion of unity at this stage of his essay. It is a causal situation that can be treated as a synecdochic unity, where the fragment implies the whole while still being a part. Blake's own great poems are based on a synecdochic notion of unity. Blake maintains this notion in his second paragraph, implying with "but" that what he next has to say is not always clearly recognized: the Belvedere Torso, a fragment, is as much a unity as the complete Laocoon. A fragment can implicitly project and thus include its absent whole. One thinks of the charming story told by Castelvetro of Michelangelo's restora- tion of the lost part of a river god's statue by quick study of the surviving fragment.' Blake seems to think that the judgment of Paris is implied in the Iliad and ought to be there. In this sense, the Iliad is a fragment, 1. Lodovico Castelvetro, "The oetics of Aristotle Translated and Explained," in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971) 151. It is as if Blake has been trying out ideas of unity with the Iliad as we enter this scene of search, continues in the first paragraph, and declares perplexity. The first unity he seems to propose is unity of plot. On the basis of this idea, at least as it is initially conceived, he concludes that the Iliad does not seem to have unity. Not only is part of Homer's subject missing; it is a principal part. Why? Because the judgment of Paris ought to be, Blake thinks, part of the plot of the Iliad, for it is implicit in the unraveling, which involves the enmity of Athena against Paris and there- fore Troy. Now the story of Bellerophon is not claimed by Blake to be inappropriate to the Iliad. Blake claims only that if one includes it one is hard pressed to explain why the judgment of Paris is not included. The Bellerophon story is told at modest length in Book 6 of the Iliad by Glaucos to his enemy in the field, Diomedes, and causes Diomedes to recognize an ancient family friendship. They agree to avoid fighting. The story explains why they do not fight, and it is also an example of Homer's including something that fills out the complex web of relations that char- acterizes and guides behavior in the Hellenic world. Blake mentions none of this, which could be used to explain its pres- ence; but none of it would be relevant to the question of unity of plot. The episode seems to Blake less necessary to unity than the judgment of Paris, which Blake regards as an element of plot, presumably since it includes the motivation of a goddess to affect events that are told. It is therefore a "principal part of Homers subject," that is, his story. Athena's motivation stretches through the later events of the text and in that sense includes those events as the seed includes the oak. This appears to be Blake's notion of unity at this stage of his essay. It is a causal situation that can be treated as a synecdochic unity, where the fragment implies the whole while still being a part. Blake's own great poems are based on a synecdochic notion of unity. Blake maintains this notion in his second paragraph, implying with "but" that what he next has to say is not always clearly recognized: the Belvedere Torso, a fragment, is as much a unity as the complete Laocoon. A fragment can implicitly project and thus include its absent whole. One thinks of the charming story told by Castelvetro of Michelangelo's restora- tion of the lost part of a river god's statue by quick study of the surviving fragment.' Blake seems to think that the judgment of Paris is implied in the Iliad and ought to be there. In this sense, the Iliad is a fragment, 1. Lodovico Castelvetro, "The Poetics of Aristotle Translated and Explained," in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), is1. It is as if Blake has been trying out ideas of unity with the Iliad as we enter this scene of search, continues in the first paragraph, and declares perplexity. The first unity he seems to propose is unity of plot. On the basis of this idea, at least as it is initially conceived, he concludes that the Iliad does not seem to have unity. Not only is part of Homer's subject missing; it is a principal part. Why? Because the judgment of Paris ought to be, Blake thinks, part of the plot of the Iliad, for it is implicit in the unraveling, which involves the enmity of Athena against Paris and there- fore Troy. Now the story of Bellerophon is not claimed by Blake to be inappropriate to the Iliad. Blake claims only that if one includes it one is hard pressed to explain why the judgment of Paris is not included. The Bellerophon story is told at modest length in Book 6 of the Iliad by Glaucos to his enemy in the field, Diomedes, and causes Diomedes to recognize an ancient family friendship. They agree to avoid fighting. The story explains why they do not fight, and it is also an example of Homer's including something that fills out the complex web of relations that char- acterizes and guides behavior in the Hellenic world. Blake mentions none of this, which could be used to explain its pres- ence; but none of it would be relevant to the question of unity of plot. The episode seems to Blake less necessary to unity than the judgment of Paris, which Blake regards as an element of plot, presumably since it includes the motivation of a goddess to affect events that are told. It is therefore a "principal part of Homers subject," that is, his story. Athena's motivation stretches through the later events of the text and in that sense includes those events as the seed includes the oak. This appears to be Blake's notion of unity at this stage of his essay. It is a causal situation that can be treated as a synecdochic unity, where the fragment implies the whole while still being a part. Blake's own great poems are based on a synecdochic notion of unity. Blake maintains this notion in his second paragraph, implying with "but" that what he next has to say is not always clearly recognized: the Belvedere Torso, a fragment, is as much a unity as the complete Laocoon. A fragment can implicitly project and thus include its absent whole. One thinks of the charming story told by Castelvetro of Michelangelo's restora- tion of the lost part of a river god's statue by quick study of the surviving fragment.' Blake seems to think that the judgment of Paris is implied in the Iliad and ought to be there. In this sense, the Iliad is a fragment, 1. Lodovic Castelvetro, "The Poetics of Aristotle Translated and Explained," in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 151.  Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 55 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 55 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 55 like the statue Michelangelo restored, that Blake constitutes as complete. This completing act presents an interesting-and I think characteristically romantic-extension of the synecdochic notion that a part (fragment) projects the whole by bringing into presence by implication the absent part. The notion accounts in one way for the interest in fragments and tolerance of unfinished works in the romantic age. But if this is the case, on Blake's own principle (enunciated in the sec- ond paragraph) the Iliad may be unified after all. Blake seems to have restored to the text a unity he seems also to have denied to it. But is this unity the same unity to which Blake's third paragraph refers? It does not seem so. The "unity" of paragraph three-unity as the cloak of folly- Blake definitely attributes to impositions on the text by certain readers of Homer. It is not clear whether this form of unity is really in Homer or not. That is, are readers who find this different sort of unity in Homer imposing it ruthlessly, or is it there to be found? From this point on, there are two meanings of "unity" at odds in the text. We have trouble deciding which one to apply: (a) a unity of synecdoche, (b) a unity which Blake seems to identify with a consistent moral allegory either imposed on or found in the text. Perhaps unity" lurked all along in Blake's first paragraph and we didn't see it. Indeed, the first use of "unity" seems problematic when we reread the whole first paragraph, with its own "but." In the see- ond paragraph unity' gains control, and it only appears to give way in para- graph three, where unityb takes over and is apparently the imposition of moral allegory on the text. At this point, Blake's text is unsettled and the uncertainty of the first use of the term reinforced. The reason is that Blake's introduction (with a certain violence) of unity' forces us in rereading to impose the notion in the first paragraph, even as we had been invited to settle on unitya as the only possible way finally to make sense of the passage. But this unity' Blake abhors. It is for him imposition of moral allegory on materials that embody a different logic. The logic, Blake seems to believe, is misapplied in such situations and is viciously reductive. It converts interpretation into a witch hunt which allows the knave's morality to prevail. This is why such notions of unity are the "cloke of folly." The folly of misreading is cloaked by the appear- ance of moral rectitude. Imposition of unity' turns texts into the moral precepts extracted from them, privileging precept over the minute par- ticular. Unityt is associated with philosophy, unity" with poetry; and, as Plato remarked, there has always been a struggle between them. In the fourth paragraph the text is further complicated by Blake's introducing rule and like the statue Michelangelo restored, that Blake constitutes as complete. This completing act presents an interesting-and I think characteristically romantic-extension of the synecdochic notion that a part (fragment) projects the whole by bringing into presence by implication the absent part. The notion accounts in one way for the interest in fragments and tolerance of unfinished works in the romantic age. But if this is the case, on Blake's own principle (enunciated in the sec- ond paragraph) the Iliad may be unified after all. Blake seems to have restored to the text a unity he seems also to have denied to it. But is this unity the same unity to which Blake's third paragraph refers? It does not seem so. The "unity" of paragraph three-unity as the cloak of folly- Blake definitely attributes to impositions on the text by certain readers of Homer. It is not clear whether this form of unity is really in Homer or not. That is, are readers who find this different sort of unity in Homer imposing it ruthlessly, or is it there to be found? From this point on, there are two meanings of "unity" at odds in the text. We have trouble deciding which one to apply: (a) a unity of synecdoche, (b) a unity which Blake seems to identify with a consistent moral allegory either imposed on or found in the text. Perhaps unity" lurked all along in Blake's first paragraph and we didn't see it. Indeed, the first use of "unity" seems problematic when we reread the whole first paragraph, with its own "but." In the sec- ond paragraph unity" gains control, and it only appears to give way in para- graph three, where unity' takes over and is apparently the imposition of moral allegory on the text. At this point, Blake's text is unsettled and the uncertainty of the first use of the term reinforced. The reason is that Blake's introduction (with a certain violence) of unity' forces us in rereading to impose the notion in the first paragraph, even as we had been invited to settle on unitya as the only possible way finally to make sense of the passage. But this unityb Blake abhors. It is for him imposition of moral allegory on materials that embody a different logic. The logic, Blake seems to believe, is misapplied in such situations and is viciously reductive. It converts interpretation into a witch hunt which allows the knave's morality to prevail. This is why such notions of unity are the "cloke of folly." The folly of misreading is cloaked by the appear- ance of moral rectitude. Imposition of unity' turns texts into the moral precepts extracted from them, privileging precept over the minute par- ticular. Unityt is associated with philosophy, unitya with poetry; and, as Plato remarked, there has always been a struggle between them. In the fourth paragraph the text is further complicated by Blake's introducing rule and like the statue Michelangelo restored, that Blake constitutes as complete. This completing act presents an interesting-and I think characteristically romantir-extension of the synecdochic notion that a part (fragment) projects the whole by bringing into presence by implication the absent part. The notion accounts in one way for the interest in fragments and tolerance of unfinished works in the romantic age. But if this is the case, on Blake's own principle (enunciated in the sec- ond paragraph) the Iliad may be unified after all. Blake seems to have restored to the text a unity he seems also to have denied to it. But is this unity the same unity to which Blake's third paragraph refers? It does not seem so. The "unity" of paragraph three-unity as the cloak of folly- Blake definitely attributes to impositions on the text by certain readers of Homer. It is not clear whether this form of unity is really in Homer or not. That is, are readers who find this different sort of unity in Homer imposing it ruthlessly, or is it there to be found? From this point on, there are two meanings of "unity" at odds in the text. We have trouble deciding which one to apply: (a) a unity of synecdoche, (b) a unity which Blake seems to identify with a consistent moral allegory either imposed on or found in the text. Perhaps unity lurked all along in Blake's first paragraph and we didn't see it. Indeed, the first use of "unity" seems problematic when we reread the whole first paragraph, with its own "but." In the sec- ond paragraph unity gains control, and it only appears to give way in para- graph three, where unity' takes over and is apparently the imposition of moral allegory on the text. At this point, Blake's text is unsettled and the uncertainty of the first use of the term reinforced. The reason is that Blake's introduction (with a certain violence) of unity forces us in rereading to impose the notion in the first paragraph, even as we had been invited to settle on unity" as the only possible way finally to make sense of the passage. But this unity' Blake abhors. It is for him imposition of moral allegory on materials that embody a different logic. The logic, Blake seems to believe, is misapplied in such situations and is viciously reductive. It converts interpretation into a witch hunt which allows the knave's morality to prevail. This is why such notions of unity are the "cloke of folly." The folly of misreading is cloaked by the appear- ance of moral rectitude. Imposition of unity' turns texts into the moral precepts extracted from them, privileging precept over the minute par- ticular. Unity' is associated with philosophy, unity" with poetry; and, as Plato remarked, there has always been a struggle between them. In the fourth paragraph the text is further complicated by Blake's introducing rule and  56 Antithetical Essays substance on the side of poetry, exception and accident on the side of philosophy, reversing the classical locations and once again quarreling with Aristotle. Rule, now identified with poetry, must be the rule already applied in the text when unity was an acceptable term under its first meaning. This is the rule of synecdoche; substance becomes the unity of part and whole, or identity. This notion of identity includes both individ- uality and sameness; to traditional philosophy is relegated the either/or of difference and indifference and the necessity of a negating choice. In a companion piece called "On Virgil" (Virgil seems to have irritated Blake more than Homer, representing for him a more decadent form of the clas- sic), Blake identifies unity with Grecian "mathematic form" and unity" with Gothic "living form." From that he proceeds to identify the classics with "war and dominion"-on the ground that "mathematic form," being abstract, is like moral allegory, which leads to the attempt to bury everything under one law or negation: "Virgil in the Eneid Book VI. line 848 says Let others study Art: Rome has somewhat better to do, namely War & Dominion" (E270). In observing the struggle that goes on in Blake's search between the two meanings of unity we come to see that from the point of view of unity, the sort of literary work of which Blake approved is not unified: meaning appears dispersed, variable, unstable, undecidable, and resistant to alle- gorical reduction. We could read the first paragraph from this point of view and be puzzled as to why the exclusion or admission of the stories Blake mentions are offered as evidence of the failure of the Iliad to mea- sure up to unitya, unless we were to decide that Blake thinks a unity predi- cated on reason requires the presence of the judgment of Paris actually to demonstrate causal relations. But then Homer would come out all right in Blake's view, and surely on the ground Blake offers in the second paragraph-the ground of synecdoche-for that concept of unity, added in, restores the judgment of Paris to the Iliad in its demonstrable absence. Why otherwise would Blake have noted its absence? The presence of Bel- lerophon is not a flaw. It is only that if it were missing we could not imag- ine its absence. Up to the third paragraph, Blake's apparent complaint about Homer seems to turn upon itself to reveal the two faces of unity. At this point unityb takes the stage, and we learn that it is the classical imposition of unityb on poetic texts that is wrong. It is wrong because it is criticism imposing itself as reason on a work whose logic is synce- dochic. Antithetical Essays 56 Antithetical Essays substance on the side of poetry, exception and accident on the side of philosophy, reversing the classical locations and once again quarreling with Aristotle. Rule, now identified with poetry, must be the rule already applied in the text when unity was an acceptable term under its first meaning. This is the rule of synecdoche; substance becomes the unity of part and whole, or identity. This notion of identity includes both individ- uality and sameness; to traditional philosophy is relegated the either/or of difference and indifference and the necessity of a negating choice. In a companion piece called "On Virgil" (Virgil seems to have irritated Blake more than Homer, representing for him a more decadent form of the clas- sic), Blake identifies unityb with Grecian "mathematic form" and unity' with Gothic "living form." From that he proceeds to identify the classics with "war and dominion"-on the ground that "mathematic form," being abstract, is like moral allegory, which leads to the attempt to bury everything under one law or negation: "Virgil in the Eneid Book VI. line 848 says Let others study Art: Rome has somewhat better to do, namely War & Dominion" (E270). In observing the struggle that goes on in Blake's search between the two meanings of unity we come to see that from the point of view of unityb, the sort of literary work of which Blake approved is not unified: meaning appears dispersed, variable, unstable, undecidable, and resistant to alle- gorical reduction. We could read the first paragraph from this point of view and be puzzled as to why the exclusion or admission of the stories Blake mentions are offered as evidence of the failure of the Iliad to mea- sure up to unity', unless we were to decide that Blake thinks a unity predi- cated on reason requires the presence of the judgment of Paris actually to demonstrate causal relations. But then Homer would come out all right in Blake's view, and surely on the ground Blake offers in the second paragraph-the ground of synecdoche-for that concept of unity, added in, restores the judgment of Paris to the Iliad in its demonstrable absence. Why otherwise would Blake have noted its absence? The presence of Bel- lerophon is not a flaw. It is only that if it were missing we could not imag- ine its absence. Up to the third paragraph, Blake's apparent complaint about Homer seems to turn upon itself to reveal the two faces of unity. At this point unityb takes the stage, and we learn that it is the classical imposition of unityb on poetic texts that is wrong. It is wrong because it is criticism imposing itself as reason on a work whose logic is synec- dochic. substance on the side of poetry, exception and accident on the side of philosophy, reversing the classical locations and once again quarreling with Aristotle. Rule, now identified with poetry, must be the rule already applied in the text when unity was an acceptable term under its first meaning. This is the rule of synecdoche; substance becomes the unity of part and whole, or identity. This notion of identity includes both individ- uality and sameness; to traditional philosophy is relegated the either/or of difference and indifference and the necessity of a negating choice. In a companion piece called "On Virgil" (Virgil seems to have irritated Blake more than Homer, representing for him a more decadent form of the clas- sic), Blake identifies unityb with Grecian "mathematic form" and unitya with Gothic "living form." From that he proceeds to identify the classics with "war and dominion"-on the ground that "mathematic form," being abstract, is like moral allegory, which leads to the attempt to bury everything under one law or negation: "Virgil in the Eneid Book VI. line 848 says Let others study Art: Rome has somewhat better to do, namely War & Dominion" (E270). In observing the struggle that goes on in Blake's search between the two meanings of unity we come to see that from the point of view of unity5, the sort of literary work of which Blake approved is not unified: meaning appears dispersed, variable, unstable, undecidable, and resistant to alle- gorical reduction. We could read the first paragraph from this point of view and be puzzled as to why the exclusion or admission of the stories Blake mentions are offered as evidence of the failure of the Iliad to mea- sure up to unitya, unless we were to decide that Blake thinks a unity predi- cated on reason requires the presence of the judgment of Paris actually to demonstrate causal relations. But then Homer would come out all right in Blake's view, and surely on the ground Blake offers in the second paragraph-the ground of synecdoche-for that concept of unity, added in, restores the judgment of Paris to the Iliad in its demonstrable absence. Why otherwise would Blake have noted its absence? The presence of Bel- lerophon is not a flaw. It is only that if it were missing we could not imag- ine its absence. Up to the third paragraph, Blake's apparent complaint about Homer seems to turn upon itself to reveal the two faces of unity. At this point unityb takes the stage, and we learn that it is the classical imposition of unity on poetic texts that is wrong. It is wrong because it is criticism imposing itself as reason on a work whose logic is synce- dochic.  Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 57 The romantics' introduction of a new interest in the fragment as a work of art was an expression of unity' against unityb. But, poor Homer! He is the victim of classical allegorizing toward unity. Is he to be responsible for his interpreters? Blake apparently thinks so, and in "On Virgil" he sim- ply condemns the whole classical tradition, which he identifies with sources in Babylon and Egypt, as allegorical: "Rome & Greece swept Art into their maw & destroyed it." This domineering tradition, which im- poses meaning "like a sting in the tail," created the sort of tyranny and negation that has led and always leads, according to Blake, to war and repression. If readers could read, that is, constitute a text purely as a (dis)unity' then everything would presumably be all right. This is never entirely pos- sible. If we are to talk about texts (i.e., converse over them, as surely Blake would want us to do) we must constitute them as well as recognize them and thus raise all of the problems that Blake dramatizes and argues over here. We must speak to some extent in a logic of unityb (or, logic), while yet respecting the texts logica where we recognize it. One must say, therefore, that it is not merely a text that is deconstructed but our own constitution of a text as purely a piece of logic. If this were all that decon- struction is then William Blake himself might well be placed among deconstructors. But deconstruction, with its radical rejection of the writ- ten as in any way connected with speech and its adoption of an infinite regress, at one time phrased as differance, detaches the text from any capacity to project human action. Theoretically, according to this view, there is no way for us to infer that, say, Browning's "My Last Duchess" has within it a speaker and an auditor. Without this inference we are left only with the text, and there quickly rises to the surface a pure tropologi- cal substratum now unaffected by questions of who "speaks," who listens, where all this occurs, etc. In such a text the tropological is certainly there, in the way that Blake seems to privilege the rule of synecdoche in works of art, but there is also the dramatic inference. From the burning fountain of pure trope to the icy regions of the extremity of logicb there is a con- tinuum, and the reading of a text is initially a placing of that text on this continuum, during which sensible decisions about internal intentions and so forth must be made. Some things in this process can be inferred, some things are uncertain, and some things are an- decidable. My sense of deconstruction is that in deconstructing logic it de- Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 57 The romantics' introduction of a new interest in the fragment as a work of art was an expression of unitya against unityb. But, poor Homer! He is the victim of classical allegorizing toward unityb. Is he to be responsible for his interpreters? Blake apparently thinks so, and in "On Virgil" he sim- ply condemns the whole classical tradition, which he identifies with sources in Babylon and Egypt, as allegorical: "Rome & Greece swept Art into their maw & destroyed it." This domineering tradition, which im- poses meaning "like a sting in the tail," created the sort of tyranny and negation that has led and always leads, according to Blake, to war and repression. If readers could read, that is, constitute a text purely as a (dis)unity' then everything would presumably be all right. This is never entirely pos- sible. If we are to talk about texts (i.e., converse over them, as surely Blake would want us to do) we must constitute them as well as recognize them and thus raise all of the problems that Blake dramatizes and argues over here. We must speak to some extent in a logic of unityb (or, logicb), while yet respecting the text's logic" where we recognize it. One must say, therefore, that it is not merely a text that is deconstructed but our own constitution of a text as purely a piece of logicb. If this were all that decon- struction is then William Blake himself might well be placed among deconstructors. But deconstruction, with its radical rejection of the writ- ten as in any way connected with speech and its adoption of an infinite regress, at one time phrased as differance, detaches the text from any capacity to project human action. Theoretically, according to this view, there is no way for us to infer that, say, Browning's "My Last Duchess" has within it a speaker and an auditor. Without this inference we are left only with the text, and there quickly rises to the surface a pure tropologi- cal substratum now unaffected by questions of who "speaks," who listens, where all this occurs, etc. In such a text the tropological is certainly there, in the way that Blake seems to privilege the rule of synecdoche in works of art, but there is also the dramatic inference. From the burning fountain of pure trope to the icy regions of the extremity of logicb there is a con- tinuum, and the reading of a text is initially a placing of that text on this continuum, during which sensible decisions about internal intentions and so forth must be made. Some things in this process can be inferred, some things are uncertain, and some things are on- decidable. My sense of deconstruction is that in deconstructing logicb it de- Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 57 The romantics' introduction of a new interest in the fragment as a work of art was an expression of unitya against unityb. But, poor Homer! He is the victim of classical allegorizing toward unityb. Is he to be responsible for his interpreters? Blake apparently thinks so, and in "On Virgil" he sim- ply condemns the whole classical tradition, which he identifies with sources in Babylon and Egypt, as allegorical: "Rome & Greece swept Art into their maw & destroyed it." This domineering tradition, which im- poses meaning "like a sting in the tail," created the sort of tyranny and negation that has led and always leads, according to Blake, to war and repression. If readers could read, that is, constitute a text purely as a (dis)unitya then everything would presumably be all right. This is never entirely pos- sible. If we are to talk about texts (i.e., converse over them, as surely Blake would want us to do) we must constitute them as well as recognize them and thus raise all of the problems that Blake dramatizes and argues over here. We must speak to some extent in a logic of unityb (or, logicb), while yet respecting the texts logica where we recognize it. One must say, therefore, that it is not merely a text that is deconstructed but our own constitution of a text as purely a piece of logicb. If this were all that decon- struction is then William Blake himself might well be placed among deconstructors. But deconstruction, with its radical rejection of the writ- ten as in any way connected with speech and its adoption of an infinite regress, at one time phrased as differance, detaches the text from any capacity to project human action. Theoretically, according to this view, there is no way for us to infer that, say, Browning's "My Last Duchess" has within it a speaker and an auditor. Without this inference we are left only with the text, and there quickly rises to the surface a pure tropologi- cal substratum now unaffected by questions of who "speaks," who listens, where all this occurs, etc. In such a text the tropological is certainly there, in the way that Blake seems to privilege the rule of synecdoche in works of art, but there is also the dramatic inference. From the burning fountain of pure trope to the icy regions of the extremity of logic there is a con- tinuum, and the reading of a text is initially a placing of that text on this continuum, during which sensible decisions about internal intentions and so forth must be made. Some things in this process can be inferred, some things are uncertain, and some things are an- decidable. My sense of deconstruction is that in deconstructing logicb it de-  Antithetical Essays 58 Antithetical Essays 58 Antithetical Essays pends on that logic, continues to play logich's game, because in spite of its careful attention to tropes it can never posit, that is, establish as positive a logica It seems to me that Blake took tropes seriously as capable of constituting experience in a certain way, but not just tropes-also drama. Dramatic and synecdochic literality seems to me what holds Blake's Jerusalem together (in its terms, not the terms of logic") rather than diffusing the text endlessly. I acknowledge gratefully that deconstruction confirms me in my view that this is at the very least a very tricky matter. If deconstruction were to attempt to take seriously logic', as a logic, or as I have called it elsewhere a mythic antithetical (to use Yeats's term) logic, rather than drowning it in infinite dissemination, its aim, albeit ironic with respect to its own curious assumption that logicb is really the only positive logic after all, would become an effort to engage in a positive conversation. This conversation would be about how logic' uneasily con- tains logicb in texts we have traditionally called literary and how logic even more uneasily (and this is what we have really learned from deconstruc- tion) contains logic' in texts we have thought of as philosophical or scien- tific. That there are different forms of narrative, dramatic, and argumen- tative progress, including intriguing mixtures like Blake's, and that we can infer their natures with enough confidence to have sensible conversa- tions about them and that these inferences enable us to arrest the flow of dissemination of meaning seem to me certain enough that we should go on making such inferences. This critical constitution of the text is more fundamental, even as it is more tentative, than the establishment of a de- terminate meaning, which threatens always to be an imposition of logic" upon the text like "a sting in the tail," the old romantic "allegory." W.J.T. Mitchell notes the current anxiety about not being able to fix finally the meaning of texts "as if there were a time when we could."' But this does not mean that the inferences of action and internal intention I have men- tioned cannot be made or that the text shakes its finger silencing our con- versation about it. The text is a potentiality for conversation. A text so constituted-and such a constitution is always temporary-comes into contrariety with other cultural objects, sometimes as a restraint, some- times as liberation, always as an antitheticality. Antitheticality or contrari- ety resists romantic allegory and abstract law based on reason. It insists on the particular and exercises its ability to provide the other (but an in- volved other) in any cultural situation, any cultural moment always threatening the establishment of an external authority and the negation z. W.J.T. Mitchell, "Visible Language," in Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism, ed. Morris Eaves and Michael Fischer (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 87. pends on that logic, continues to play logicr's game, because in spite of its careful attention to tropes it can never posit, that is, establish as positive a logic'. It seems to me that Blake took tropes seriously as capable of constituting experience in a certain way, but not just tropes-also drama. Dramatic and synecdochic literality seems to me what holds Blake's Jerusalem together (in its terms, not the terms of logic") rather than diffusing the text endlessly. I acknowledge gratefully that deconstruction confirms me in my view that this is at the very least a very tricky matter. If deconstruction were to attempt to take seriously logic', as a logic, or as I have called it elsewhere a mythic antithetical (to use Yeats's term) logic, rather than drowning it in infinite dissemination, its aim, albeit ironic with respect to its own curious assumption that logicb is really the only positive logic after all, would become an effort to engage in a positive conversation. This conversation would be about how logic' uneasily con- tains logicb in texts we have traditionally called literary and how logicb even more uneasily (and this is what we have really learned from deconstrue- tion) contains logic' in texts we have thought of as philosophical or scien- tific. That there are different forms of narrative, dramatic, and argumen- tative progress, including intriguing mixtures like Blake's, and that we can infer their natures with enough confidence to have sensible conversa- tions about them and that these inferences enable us to arrest the flow of dissemination of meaning seem to me certain enough that we should go on making such inferences. This critical constitution of the text is more fundamental, even as it is more tentative, than the establishment of a de- terminate meaning, which threatens always to be an imposition of logieb upon the text like "a sting in the tail," the old romantic "allegory." W.J.T. Mitchell notes the current anxiety about not being able to fix finally the meaning of texts "as if there were a time when we could."' But this does not mean that the inferences of action and internal intention I have men- tioned cannot be made or that the text shakes its finger silencing our con- versation about it. The text is a potentiality for conversation. A text so constituted-and such a constitution is always temporary-comes into contrariety with other cultural objects, sometimes as a restraint, some- times as liberation, always as an antitheticality. Antitheticality or contrari- ety resists romantic allegory and abstract law based on reason. It insists on the particular and exercises its ability to provide the other (but an in- volved other) in any cultural situation, any cultural moment always threatening the establishment of an external authority and the negation a. W.J.T. Mitchell, "Visible Language," in Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism, ed. Morris Eaves and Michael Fischer (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 87. pends on that logic, continues to play logicb's game, because in spite of its careful attention to tropes it can never posit, that is, establish as positive a logic'. It seems to me that Blake took tropes seriously as capable of constituting experience in a certain way, but not just tropes-also drama. Dramatic and synecdochic literality seems to me what holds Blake's Jerusalem together (in its terms, not the terms of logicb) rather than diffusing the text endlessly. I acknowledge gratefully that deconstruction confirms me in my view that this is at the very least a very tricky matter. If deconstruction were to attempt to take seriously logic', as a logic, or as I have called it elsewhere a mythic antithetical (to use Yeats's term) logic, rather than drowning it in infinite dissemination, its aim, albeit ironic with respect to its own curious assumption that logic" is really the only positive logic after all, would become an effort to engage in a positive conversation. This conversation would be about how logic' uneasily con- tains logic" in texts we have traditionally called literary and how logieb even more uneasily (and this is what we have really learned from deconstrue- tion) contains logic' in texts we have thought of as philosophical or scien- tific. That there are different forms of narrative, dramatic, and argumen- tative progress, including intriguing mixtures like Blake's, and that we can infer their natures with enough confidence to have sensible conversa- tions about them and that these inferences enable us to arrest the flow of dissemination of meaning seem to me certain enough that we should go on making such inferences. This critical constitution of the text is more fundamental, even as it is more tentative, than the establishment of a de- terminate meaning, which threatens always to be an imposition of logic" upon the text like "a sting in the tail," the old romantic "allegory." W.J.T. Mitchell notes the current anxiety about not being able to fix finally the meaning of texts "as if there were a time when we could."' But this does not mean that the inferences of action and internal intention I have men- tioned cannot be made or that the text shakes its finger silencing our con- versation about it. The text is a potentiality for conversation. A text so constituted-and such a constitution is always temporary-comes into contrariety with other cultural objects, sometimes as a restraint, some- times as liberation, always as an antitheticality. Antitheticality or contrari- ety resists romantic allegory and abstract law based on reason. It insists on the particular and exercises its ability to provide the other (but an in- volved other) in any cultural situation, any cultural moment always threatening the establishment of an external authority and the negation a. W.J.T. Mitchell, "Visible Language," in Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism, ed. Morris Eaves and Michael Fischer (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 87.  Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 59 of freedom. But it is more than this resistance. It is also the ground of creation. Because it does not fix meaning according to logicb, it allows al- ways for possibility, though its use will be likely eventually to die into a tyranny and require a repetition of the antithetical gesture, which is the gesture Blake makes when he dramatizes his argument. Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 59 Must a Poem Be a Perfect Unity? 59 of freedom. But it is more than this resistance. It is also the ground of creation. Because it does not fix meaning according to logic', it allows al- ways for possibility, though its use will be likely eventually to die into a tyranny and require a repetition of the antithetical gesture, which is the gesture Blake makes when he dramatizes his argument. of freedom. But it is more than this resistance. It is also the ground of creation. Because it does not fix meaning according to logib, it allows al- ways for possibility, though its use will be likely eventually to die into a tyranny and require a repetition of the antithetical gesture, which is the gesture Blake makes when he dramatizes his argument.  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy Joy and woe are woven fine. BLAKE In this centenary year, as we pause to salute a great achievement, it is well to remind ourselves that Yeats wrote not only poems and plays but also two of the most remarkable books of his time-the Autobiographies and A Vision. Perhaps because we are still staggered by Yeats's poetic ac- complishments we are inclined to overlook the fact that these works are, so to speak, books in themselves. Of course, we have read them with care, but usually as if they were mines of interpretation situated some- where underneath the poetry. Because they have been so very helpful to us as mines, the qualities which they possess in themselves are not often remarked. One of their most absorbing qualities is the comic. Nevertheless, in a recent excellent study, The Irish Comic Tradition, Pro- fessor Vivian Mercier has disregarded both books; indeed Yeats has usu- ally been considered an essentially tragic writer. There is nothing funda- mentally wrong with such an assessment: all of us know that the tragic and the comic, rather than being incompatible, are necessary contraries. But the scales of Yeats criticism have long been tipped rather too far in the direction of high seriousness. The result is that without fail we have tended to discover behind Yeats's poetic ironies a brooding solemnity, and we have tended to treat it as more fundamental than the gesture of the language itself. Although I accept the essential tragedy in many of Yeats's poems, I must insist that when we examine Autobiographies and A Vision it will positively not do to pass through Yeats's outward gesture too rap- idly. Autobiographies and A Vision are serious books, but their serious- ness comes to us in a very complicated way and is perhaps more the act of coming than what comes. The books are gestures. That this is so should not surprise us when we consider the emphasis which Yeats himself put upon drama and gesture not only in art but in life as well. The comic in Autobiographies and A Vision is more than casually re- lated to Yeats's strong but peculiar sense of fate. Fatality is, of course, the source or vehicle of much tragedy. To couple it with comedy may call for explanation. Fatality in Yeats is curiously different from that irrepressible cosmic force in, say, Hardy. Yeats's vision is at all time dialectical, and one finds his idea of fatality inevitably attached to a curious freedom. Al- Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy Joy and woe are woven fine. BLAKE In this centenary year, as we pause to salute a great achievement, it is well to remind ourselves that Yeats wrote not only poems and plays but also two of the most remarkable books of his time-the Autobiographies and A Vision. Perhaps because we are still staggered by Yeats's poetic ac- complishments we are inclined to overlook the fact that these works are, so to speak, books in themselves. Of course, we have read them with care, but usually as if they were mines of interpretation situated some- where underneath the poetry. Because they have been so very helpful to us as mines, the qualities which they possess in themselves are not often remarked. One of their most absorbing qualities is the comic. Nevertheless, in a recent excellent study, The Irish Comic Tradition, Pro- fessor Vivian Mercier has disregarded both books; indeed Yeats has usu- ally been considered an essentially tragic writer. There is nothing funda- mentally wrong with such an assessment: all of us know that the tragic and the comic, rather than being incompatible, are necessary contraries. But the scales of Yeats criticism have long been tipped rather too far in the direction of high seriousness. The result is that without fail we have tended to discover behind Yeats's poetic ironies a brooding solemnity, and we have tended to treat it as more fundamental than the gesture of the language itself Although I accept the essential tragedy in many of Yeats's poems, I must insist that when we examine Autobiographies and A Vision it will positively not do to pass through Yeats's outward gesture too rap- idly. Autobiographies and A Vision are serious books, but their serious- ness comes to us in a very complicated way and is perhaps more the act of coming than what comes. The books are gestures. That this is so should not surprise us when we consider the emphasis which Yeats himself put upon drama and gesture not only in art but in life as well. The comic in Autobiographies and A Vision is more than casually re- lated to Yeats's strong but peculiar sense of fate. Fatality is, of course, the source or vehicle of much tragedy. To couple it with comedy may call for explanation. Fatality in Yeats is curiously different from that irrepressible cosmic force in, say, Hardy. Yeats's vision is at all time dialectical, and one finds his idea of fatality inevitably attached to a curious freedom. Al- Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy Joy and woe are woven fine. BLAKE In this centenary year, as we pause to salute a great achievement, it is well to remind ourselves that Yeats wrote not only poems and plays but also two of the most remarkable books of his time-the Autobiographies and A Vision. Perhaps because we are still staggered by Yeats's poetic ac- complishments we are inclined to overlook the fact that these works are, so to speak, books in themselves. Of course, we have read them with care, but usually as if they were mines of interpretation situated some- where underneath the poetry. Because they have been so very helpful to us as mines, the qualities which they possess in themselves are not often remarked. One of their most absorbing qualities is the comic. Nevertheless, in a recent excellent study, The Irish Comic Tradition, Pro- fessor Vivian Mercier has disregarded both books; indeed Yeats has usu- ally been considered an essentially tragic writer. There is nothing funda- mentally wrong with such an assessment: all of us know that the tragic and the comic, rather than being incompatible, are necessary contraries. But the scales of Yeats criticism have long been tipped rather too far in the direction of high seriousness. The result is that without fail we have tended to discover behind Yeats's poetic ironies a brooding solemnity, and we have tended to treat it as more fundamental than the gesture of the language itself. Although I accept the essential tragedy in many of Yeats's poems, I must insist that when we examine Autobiographies and A Vision it will positively not do to pass through Yeats's outward gesture too rap- idly. Autobiographies and A Vision are serious books, but their serious- ness comes to us in a very complicated way and is perhaps more the act of coming than what comes. The books are gestures. That this is so should not surprise us when we consider the emphasis which Yeats himself put upon drama and gesture not only in art but in life as well. The comic in Autobiographies and A Vision is more than casually re- lated to Yeats's strong but peculiar sense of fate. Fatality is, of course, the source or vehicle of much tragedy. To couple it with comedy may call for explanation. Fatality in Yeats is curiously different from that irrepressible cosmic force in, say, Hardy. Yeats's vision is at all time dialectical, and one finds his idea of fatality inevitably attached to a curious freedom. Al-  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 61 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 61 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy though Yeats refers to exterior fate in a prose passage I am about to quote, generally we can say that Yeatsian fate flows outward from within the indi- vidual; it is not primarily an outer force pressing down on the hero but something generated out of his human nature and even his own individu- ality. Furthermore, the idea of fate has ultimately no meaning for Yeats without the contrary existence of the will. Yeats writes in The Trembling of the Veil: Among subjective men (in all those, that is, who must spin a web out of their own bowels) the victory is an intellectual daily recreation of all that exterior fate snatches away, and so that fate's antithesis; while what I have called 'the Mask' is an emotional antithesis to all that comes out of their internal na- ture. We begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy.' (p. 116) We have here the dialectic of the gyres. The last sentence tips the balance for tragedy just as critics of Yeats have so often done, but we must remem- ber that much of Yeats's writing takes up where this quotation ends: what does one do after one makes such a formulation of experience? What does one do after one has begun to live? One must take a stance before tragic truth. One must make one's laughter contain the tragic perception, rather than allowing tragedy to smother one's will: Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. ('Lapis Lazuli') Is it not important to remember, then, the following passage from Es- trangement? Tragedy is passion alone, and rejecting character, it gets form from motives, from the wandering of passion; while com- edy is the clash of character. Eliminate character from comedy and you get farce. Farce is bound together by incident alone. In practice most works are mixed: Shakespeare being tragi- 1. I am not referring here to what Yeats calls in A Vision the "body of fate," which is the outer world and its events, but am using the word "fate" to stand for something never directly named in his work except perhaps at the end of A Vision, where it is called pecu- liarly "freedom." a. All quotations from Yeats's autobiographical writings are taken from The Autobiogra- phy of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953). Page numbers following quota- tions refer to this edition. though Yeats refers to exterior fate in a prose passage I am about to quote, generally we can say that Yeatsian fate flows outward from within the indi- vidual; it is not primarily an outer force pressing down on the hero but something generated out of his human nature and even his own individu- ality.' Furthermore, the idea of fate has ultimately no meaning for Yeats without the contrary existence of the will. Yeats writes in The Trembling of the Veil: Among subjective men (in all those, that is, who must spin a web out of their own bowels) the victory is an intellectual daily recreation of all that exterior fate snatches away, and so that fate's antithesis; while what I have called 'the Mask' is an emotional antithesis to all that comes out of their internal na- ture. We begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy.' (p. 11) We have here the dialectic of the gyres. The last sentence tips the balance for tragedy just as critics of Yeats have so often done, but we must remem- ber that much of Yeats's writing takes up where this quotation ends: what does one do after one makes such a formulation of experience? What does one do after one has begun to live? One must take a stance before tragic truth. One must make one's laughter contain the tragic perception, rather than allowing tragedy to smother one's will: Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. ('Lapis Lazuli') Is it not important to remember, then, the following passage from Es- trangement? Tragedy is passion alone, and rejecting character, it gets form from motives, from the wandering of passion; while com- edy is the clash of character. Eliminate character from comedy and you get farce. Farce is bound together by incident alone. In practice most works are mixed: Shakespeare being tragi- t. I am not referring here to what Yeats calls in A Vision the "body of fate," which is the outer world and its events, but am using the word "fate" to stand for something never directly named in his work except perhaps at the end of A Vision, where it is called pecu- liarly "freedom." 2. All quotations from Yeats's autobiographical writings are taken from The Autobiogra- phy of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953). Page numbers following quota- tions refer to this edition. though Yeats refers to exterior fate in a prose passage I am about to quote, generally we can say that Yeatsian fate flows outward from within the indi- vidual; it is not primarily an outer force pressing down on the hero but something generated out of his human nature and even his own individu- ality.' Furthermore, the idea of fate has ultimately no meaning for Yeats without the contrary existence of the will. Yeats writes in The Trembling of the Veil: Among subjective men (in all those, that is, who must spin a web out of their own bowels) the victory is an intellectual daily recreation of all that exterior fate snatches away, and so that fate's antithesis; while what I have called 'the Mask' is an emotional antithesis to all that comes out of their internal na- ture. We begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy.' (p. 116) We have here the dialectic of the gyres. The last sentence tips the balance for tragedy just as critics of Yeats have so often done, but we must remem- ber that much of Yeats's writing takes up where this quotation ends: what does one do after one makes such a formulation of experience? What does one do after one has begun to live? One must take a stance before tragic truth. One must make one's laughter contain the tragic perception, rather than allowing tragedy to smother one's will: Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. ('Lapis Lazuli') Is it not important to remember, then, the following passage from Es- trangement? Tragedy is passion alone, and rejecting character, it gets form from motives, from the wandering of passion; while com- edy is the clash of character. Eliminate character from comedy and you get farce. Farce is bound together by incident alone. In practice most works are mixed: Shakespeare being tragi- a. I am not referring here to what Yeats calls in A Vision the "body of fate," which is the outer world and its events, but am using the word "fate" to stand for something never directly named in his work except perhaps at the end of A Vision, where it is called pecu- liarly "freedom." z. All quotations from Yeats's autobiographical writings are taken from The Autobiogra- phy of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953). Page numbers following quota- tions refer to this edition.  62 Antithetical Essays 62 Antithetical Essays 62 Antithetical Essays comedy. Comedy is joyous because all assumption of a part, of a personal mask, whether of the individualised face of com- edy or of the grotesque face of farce, is a display of energy, and all energy is joyous. (p. 286) The remark about farce here is interesting, particularly with respect to A Vision, and I shall return to it. But I am more concerned with the im- plied interweaving of comedy and tragedy and with Yeats's association of the comic with the mask. In examining Reveries over Childhood and Youth we might well note that the Yeats of that book is well masked, in- deed twice masked. He is masked first by the "confessional" nature of the work, which invites us by its own inner form to neglect judging it on the basis of biographical veracity and to remember as we read that the speaker himself is part of the construction. In this case he is a character thinking, and the book as a whole is the familiar romantic monologue of a created voice. But because the character is speaking of his past there is a further removal. The character re-created by the monologist is in turn the child, the young man, and the dramatist of about 1900. All of these, it is well to remember, are creations from a point of view. We might call the whole thing an intimate distancing, in which romantic expressiveness is balanced by what T. S. Eliot characterized as the necessary extinguish- ing of the personality. The whole book might be called an excellent exam- ple of Keats's "negative capability" exhibited in autobiographical circum- stances. Yeats's flowers come not upon the highway to be doted upon. The source of Yeats's comedy is similar to that of fatalistic tragedy. It lies in the relation of the individual to fate; but rather than Hardy's brood- ing cosmic or natural force, Yeats's fate seems to be generated out of self. I know now that revelation is from the self, but from that age-long memoried self, that shapes the elaborate shell of the mollusc and the child in the womb, that teaches the birds to make their nest; and that genius is a crisis that joins that bur- ied self for certain moments to our trivial daily mind. There are, indeed, personifying spirits that we had best call but Gates and Gate-keepers, because through their dramatic power they bring our souls to crisis, to Mask and Image, car- ing not a straw whether we be Juliet going to her wedding, 3. It is important to remember that Yeats means nothing derogatory by his use of the word "mask." We associate masks perhaps with criminals and Hallowe'en hobgoblins, or a puritanism within us associates it with the impropriety of mimesis in the theatre, a sort of deception. But Yeats's aesthetic stance makes the tools of drama the avenue not to magical delusion but to ideal reality. comedy. Comedy is joyous because all assumption of a part, of a personal mask, whether of the individualised face of com- edy or of the grotesque face of farce, is a display of energy, and all energy is joyous. (p. 286) The remark about farce here is interesting, particularly with respect to A Vision, and I shall return to it. But I am more concerned with the im- plied interweaving of comedy and tragedy and with Yeats's association of the comic with the mask.' In examining Reveries over Childhood and Youth we might well note that the Yeats of that book is well masked, in- deed twice masked. He is masked first by the "confessional" nature of the work, which invites us by its own inner form to neglect judging it on the basis of biographical veracity and to remember as we read that the speaker himself is part of the construction. In this case he is a character thinking, and the book as a whole is the familiar romantic monologue of a created voice. But because the character is speaking of his past there is a further removal. The character re-created by the monologist is in turn the child, the young man, and the dramatist of about span. All of these, it is well to remember, are creations from a point of view. We might call the whole thing an intimate distancing, in which romantic expressiveness is balanced by what T. S. Eliot characterized as the necessary extinguish- ing of the personality. The whole book might be called an excellent exam- ple of Keats's "negative capability" exhibited in autobiographical circum- stances. Yeats's flowers come not upon the highway to be doted upon. The source of Yeats's comedy is similar to that of fatalistic tragedy. It lies in the relation of the individual to fate; but rather than Hardy's brood- ing cosmic or natural force, Yeats's fate seems to be generated out of self. I know now that revelation is from the self, but from that age-long memoried self, that shapes the elaborate shell of the mollusc and the child in the womb, that teaches the birds to make their nest; and that genius is a crisis that joins that bur- ied self for certain moments to our trivial daily mind. There are, indeed, personifying spirits that we had best call but Gates and Gate-keepers, because through their dramatic power they bring our souls to crisis, to Mask and Image, car- ing not a straw whether we be Juliet going to her wedding, 3. It is important to remember that Yeats means nothing derogatory by his use of the word "mask." We associate masks perhaps with criminals and Hallowe'en hobgoblins, or a puritanism within us associates it with the impropriety of mimesis in the theatre, a sort of deception. But Yeats's aesthetic stance makes the tools of drama the avenue not to magical delusion but to ideal reality. comedy. Comedy is joyous because all assumption of a part, of a personal mask, whether of the individualised face of com- edy or of the grotesque face of farce, is a display of energy, and all energy is joyous. (p. 286) The remark about farce here is interesting, particularly with respect to A Vision, and I shall return to it. But I am more concerned with the im- plied interweaving of comedy and tragedy and with Yeats's association of the comic with the mask.' In examining Reveries over Childhood and Youth we might well note that the Yeats of that book is well masked, in- deed twice masked. He is masked first by the "confessional" nature of the work, which invites us by its own inner form to neglect judging it on the basis of biographical veracity and to remember as we read that the speaker himself is part of the construction. In this case he is a character thinking, and the book as a whole is the familiar romantic monologue of a created voice. But because the character is speaking of his past there is a further removal. The character re-created by the monologist is in turn the child, the young man, and the dramatist of about s900. All of these, it is well to remember, are creations from a point of view. We might call the whole thing an intimate distancing, in which romantic expressiveness is balanced by what T. S. Eliot characterized as the necessary extinguish- ing of the personality. The whole book might be called an excellent exam- ple of Keats's "negative capability" exhibited in autobiographical circum- stances. Yeats's flowers come not upon the highway to be doted upon. The source of Yeats's comedy is similar to that of fatalistic tragedy. It lies in the relation of the individual to fate; but rather than Hardy's brood- ing cosmic or natural force, Yeats's fate seems to be generated out of self. I know now that revelation is from the self, but from that age-long memoried self, that shapes the elaborate shell of the mollusc and the child in the womb, that teaches the birds to make their nest; and that genius is a crisis that joins that bur- ied self for certain moments to our trivial daily mind. There are, indeed, personifying spirits that we had best call but Gates and Gate-keepers, because through their dramatic power they bring our souls to crisis, to Mask and Image, car- ing not a straw whether we be Juliet going to her wedding, 3. It is important to remember that Yeats means nothing derogatory by his use of the word "mask." We associate masks perhaps with criminals and Hallowe'en hobgoblins, or a puritanism within us associates it with the impropriety of mimesis in the theatre, a sort of deception. But Yeats's aesthetic stance makes the tools of drama the avenue not to magical delusion but to ideal reality.  SoeYasanVrtn o oey6 Som etian ~ u Vesin ofCmd 3uoeYasanVrin o oey6 or Cleopatra to her death; for in their eyes nothing has weight but passion. We have dreamed a foolish dream these many centuries in thinking that they value a life of contemplation, for they scorn that more than any possible life, unless it be but a name for the worst crisis of all. They have but one pur- pose, to bring their chosen man to the greatest obstacle he may confront without despair. (pp. 164-65) We must always remember that we ourselves contain the gates and gate- keepers here mentioned. We look through gates much as, according to Kant, we wear involuntarily the spectacles of time and space. Because he acknowledges this undesired wilfulness in us, Yeats often sees us fool- like and doltish in ridiculous conflict not only with our time and place ("body of fate") but also with the fate we ourselves apparently and mysteri- ously generate. Yeats's versions of comedy lie in his sense of the funda- mental irrationality of life, glimpsed from a position as rational as we partly irrational creatures can make it. Unfortunately under the circum- stances no position is ever either irrational or rational enough. Therefore, the speaker of Yeats's books becomes involved in farce as both observer and object of comedy, and the comedy is ironic. In Reveries Over Childhood and Youth the Yeats recalled is a child, the Yeats speaking an adult. As the speaker views the child he generates an ironic distance not unusual in reminiscences of youth. There is some- thing conventionally comic in observing childish activities from an adult point of view or observing adult life from the point of view of childhood. But it is clear that this manipulation of point of view in Reveries, which is apparently conventional, becomes less so in the later books, where the author watches the young man Yeats observing not adults from childhood but other adults. Finally in A Vision the author's curious treatment of himself as a character in the book controls the work's whole drama. The result of this sort of distance is not primarily tragic but curiously humor- ous. Indeed, if we look back at Reveries after reading the whole ofAutobi- ographies we sense that the humor there is not quite the sentimental humor we conventionally thought it to be, that the author means more by the distance established in the discussion of childhood because he maintains it in the later books. We must now examine what he does mean. In Reveries observations of the child lend considerable humor, and this fact is particularly inter- esting in the light of an assertion made in The Trembling of the Veil about "imaginative men who must always, I think, find youth bitter" (p. 225) and an even more personal statement early in Reveries: or Cleopatra to her death; for in their eyes nothing has weight but passion. We have dreamed a foolish dream these many centuries in thinking that they value a life of contemplation, for they scorn that more than any possible life, unless it be but a name for the worst crisis of all. They have but one pur- pose, to bring their chosen man to the greatest obstacle he may confront without despair. (pp. 164-65) We must always remember that we ourselves contain the gates and gate- keepers here mentioned. We look through gates much as, according to Kant, we wear involuntarily the spectacles of time and space. Because he acknowledges this undesired wilfulness in us, Yeats often sees us fool- like and doltish in ridiculous conflict not only with our time and place ("body of fate") but also with the fate we ourselves apparently and mysteri- ously generate. Yeats's versions of comedy lie in his sense of the funda- mental irrationality of life, glimpsed from a position as rational as we partly irrational creatures can make it. Unfortunately under the circum- stances no position is ever either irrational or rational enough. Therefore, the speaker of Yeats's books becomes involved in farce as both observer and object of comedy, and the comedy is ironic. In Reveries Over Childhood and Youth the Yeats recalled is a child, the Yeats speaking an adult. As the speaker views the child he generates an ironic distance not unusual in reminiscences of youth. There is some- thing conventionally comic in observing childish activities from an adult point of view or observing adult life from the point of view of childhood. But it is clear that this manipulation of point of view in Reveries, which is apparently conventional, becomes less so in the later books, where the author watches the young man Yeats observing not adults from childhood but other adults. Finally in A Viison the author's curious treatment of himself as a character in the book controls the work's whole drama. The result of this sort of distance is not primarily tragic but curiously humor- ous. Indeed, if we look back at Reveries after reading the whole of Autobi- ographies we sense that the humor there is not quite the sentimental humor we conventionally thought it to be, that the author means more by the distance established in the discussion of childhood because he maintains it in the later books. We must now examine what he does mean. In Reveries observations of the child lend considerable humor, and this fact is particularly inter- esting in the light of an assertion made in The Trembling of the Veil about "imaginative men who must always, I think, find youth bitter" (p. 225) and an even more personal statement early in Reveries: or Cleopatra to her death; for in their eyes nothing has weight but passion. We have dreamed a foolish dream these many centuries in thinking that they value a life of contemplation, for they scorn that more than any possible life, unless it be but a name for the worst crisis of all. They have but one pur- pose, to bring their chosen man to the greatest obstacle he may confront without despair. (pp. 164-65) We must always remember that we ourselves contain the gates and gate- keepers here mentioned. We look through gates much as, according to Kant, we wear involuntarily the spectacles of time and space. Because he acknowledges this undesired wilfulness in us, Yeats often sees us fool- like and doltish in ridiculous conflict not only with our time and place ("body of fate") but also with the fate we ourselves apparently and mysteri- ously generate. Yeats's versions of comedy lie in his sense of the funda- mental irrationality of life, glimpsed from a position as rational as we partly irrational creatures can make it. Unfortunately under the circum- stances no position is ever either irrational or rational enough. Therefore, the speaker of Yeats's books becomes involved in farce as both observer and object of comedy, and the comedy is ironic. In Reveries Over Childhood and Youth the Yeats recalled is a child, the Yeats speaking an adult. As the speaker views the child he generates an ironic distance not unusual in reminiscences of youth. There is some- thing conventionally comic in observing childish activities from an adult point of view or observing adult life from the point of view of childhood. But it is clear that this manipulation of point of view in Reveries, which is apparently conventional, becomes less so in the later books, where the author watches the young man Yeats observing not adults from childhood but other adults. Finally in A Vision the author's curious treatment of himself as a character in the book controls the work's whole drama. The result of this sort of distance is not primarily tragic but curiously humor- ous. Indeed, if we look back at Reveries after reading the whole ofAutobi- ographies we sense that the humor there is not quite the sentimental humor we conventionally thought it to be, that the author means more by the distance established in the discussion of childhood because he maintains it in the later books. We must now examine what he does mean. In Reveries observations of the child lend considerable humor, and this fact is particularly inter- esting in the light of an assertion made in The Trembling of the Veil about "imaginative men who must always, I think, find youth bitter" (p. 225) and an even more personal statement early in Reveries:  64 Antithetical Essays Indeed I remember little of childhood but its pain. I have grown happier with every year of life as though gradually con- quering something in myself, for certainly my miseries were not made by others but were a part of my own mind. (p. 7) Bitterness is not, however, the tone of Reveries. Rather the child is shown confused by the irrationalities of his intercourse with adults. The speak- er's tone is that of a wondering, searching contemplation of human na- ture. The child himself is the comic victim of rapid shifts of attitude, sometimes his own: . . . having prayed for several days that I might die, I began to be afraid that I was dying and prayed that I might live. (p. 3) This childish changeability does not, as we might expect, disappear in the later books. Instead it seems to be characteristic even of adulthood. Nor is the child's inconsistency the only peculiarity of life. The world itself is strange: . . . everybody had told me that English people ate skates and even dog-fish, and I myself had only just arrived in En- gland when I saw an old man put marmalade in his porridge. (p. 21) So all that had been told him of the English was true ! And more ! But then his grandfather, though Irish, spoke approvingly of the eating of skates. How strange ! Perhaps the child is asking too much of the world. Perhaps he takes things too much at their face value: . . . because my grandfather had said the English were in the right to eat skates, I carried a large skate all the six miles or so from Bosses Point, but my grandfather did not eat it. (p. 31) Is the moral here that words do not lead to deeds and that causality is complex? Does the child discover anything quite so precise as all that? He discovers certainly that his grandfather did not eat the skate. Does he conclude, too, that the world is irrational? In an unexpectedly irrational world, perhaps it is the naively rational creature who is its victim or dolt because he is out of step with experi- ence. Certainly adults misunderstand the child as much as the child mis- understands them: 64 Antithetical Essays Indeed I remember little of childhood but its pain. I have grown happier with every year of life as though gradually con- quering something in myself, for certainly my miseries were not made by others but were a part of my own mind. (p. 7) 64 Antithetical Essays Indeed I remember little of childhood but its pain. I have grown happier with every year of life as though gradually con- quering something in myself, for certainly my miseries were not made by others but were a part of my own mind. (p. 7) Bitterness is not, however, the tone of Reveries. Rather the child is shown confused by the irrationalities of his intercourse with adults. The speak- er's tone is that of a wondering, searching contemplation of human na- ture. The child himself is the comic victim of rapid shifts of attitude, sometimes his own: . . . having prayed for several days that I might die, I began to be afraid that I was dying and prayed that I might live. (p. 3) This childish changeability does not, as we might expect, disappear in the later books. Instead it seems to be characteristic even of adulthood. Nor is the child's inconsistency the only peculiarity of life. The world itself is strange: . everybody had told me that English people ate skates and even dog-fish, and I myself had only just arrived in En- gland when I saw an old man put marmalade in his porridge. (p. as) So all that had been told him of the English was true ! And more ! But then his grandfather, though Irish, spoke approvingly of the eating of skates. How strange ! Perhaps the child is asking too much of the world. Perhaps he takes things too much at their face value: . . . because my grandfather had said the English were in the right to eat skates, I carried a large skate all the six miles or so from Bosses Point, but my grandfather did not eat it. (p. 31) Is the moral here that words do not lead to deeds and that causality is complex? Does the child discover anything quite so precise as all that? He discovers certainly that his grandfather did not eat the skate. Does he conclude, too, that the world is irrational? In an unexpectedly irrational world, perhaps it is the naively rational creature who is its victim or dolt because he is out of step with experi- ence. Certainly adults misunderstand the child as much as the child mis- understands them: Bitterness is not, however, the tone of Reveries. Rather the child is shown confused by the irrationalities of his intercourse with adults. The speak- er's tone is that of a wondering, searching contemplation of human na- ture. The child himself is the comic victim of rapid shifts of attitude, sometimes his own: . . . having prayed for several days that I might die, I began to be afraid that I was dying and prayed that I might live. (p. 3) This childish changeability does not, as we might expect, disappear in the later books. Instead it seems to be characteristic even of adulthood. Nor is the child's inconsistency the only peculiarity of life. The world itself is strange: . . . everybody had told me that English people ate skates and even dog-fish, and I myself had only just arrived in En- gland when I saw an old man put marmalade in his porridge. (p. 21) So all that had been told him of the English was true ! And more ! But then his grandfather, though Irish, spoke approvingly of the eating of skates. How strange ) Perhaps the child is asking too much of the world. Perhaps he takes things too much at their face value: . . . because my grandfather had said the English were in the right to eat skates, I carried a large skate all the six miles or so from Bosses Point, but my grandfather did not eat it. (p. 31) Is the moral here that words do not lead to deeds and that causality is complex? Does the child discover anything quite so precise as all that? He discovers certainly that his grandfather did not eat the skate. Does he conclude, too, that the world is irrational? In an unexpectedly irrational world, perhaps it is the naively rational creature who is its victim or dolt because he is out of step with experi- ence. Certainly adults misunderstand the child as much as the child mis- understands them:  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 65 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 65 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy Several of my uncles and aunts had tried to teach me to read, and because they could not, and because I was much older than children who read easily, had come to think, as I have learned since, that I had not all my faculties. (p. 14) The speaker often remembers his childish incapacities: My father was still at Sligo when I came back from my first lesson and asked me what I had been taught. I said I had been taught to sing, and he said, 'Sing then' and I sang Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean, And the pleasant land. high up in my head. So my father wrote to the old woman that I was never to be taught to sing again. (p. 15) In the face of these peculiar adult acts it is no wonder that thought be- comes unmanageable for the child. But there is also something working within the child himself that is responsible: My thoughts were a great excitement, but when I tried to do anything with them, it was like trying to pack a balloon into a shed in a high wind. (p. 25) Indeed, the irrationality of the "real" world of adulthood seems to be- come even for the older narrator its central form, and the experience of it in childhood seems permanently to have affected his adult attitudes to- wards people and the supernatural. There is no doubt that, as he looks back, the speaker of Autobiographies relishes the remembrance of what seems to be wild eccentricity in others. He likes to think of this wildness as characteristically Irish. His remembrance of people has a mythical qual- ity beginning as early as the appearance of an Irish schoolmaster in his English school: There was but one interruption of our quiet habits, the brief engagement of an Irish master, a fine Greek scholar and vehement teacher, but of fantastic speech. He would open the class by saying, 'There he goes, there he goes,' or some like words as the headmaster passed by at the end of the hall. (p. 25) Several of my uncles and aunts had tried to teach me to read, and because they could not, and because I was much older than children who read easily, had come to think, as I have learned since, that I had not all my faculties. (p. 14) The speaker often remembers his childish incapacities: My father was still at Sligo when I came back from my first lesson and asked me what I had been taught. I said I had been taught to sing, and he said, 'Sing then' and I sang Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean, And the pleasant land. high up in my head. So my father wrote to the old woman that I was never to be taught to sing again. (p. 15) In the face of these peculiar adult acts it is no wonder that thought be- comes unmanageable for the child. But there is also something working within the child himself that is responsible: My thoughts were a great excitement, but when I tried to do anything with them, it was like trying to pack a balloon into a shed in a high wind. (p. 25) Indeed, the irrationality of the "real" world of adulthood seems to be- come even for the older narrator its central form, and the experience of it in childhood seems permanently to have affected his adult attitudes to- wards people and the supernatural. There is no doubt that, as he looks back, the speaker of Autobiographies relishes the remembrance of what seems to be wild eccentricity in others. He likes to think of this wildness as characteristically Irish. His remembrance of people has a mythical qual- ity beginning as early as the appearance of an Irish schoolmaster in his English school: There was but one interruption of our quiet habits, the brief engagement of an Irish master, a fine Greek scholar and vehement teacher, but of fantastic speech. He would open the class by saying, 'There he goes, there he goes,' or some like words as the headmaster passed by at the end of the hall. (p. 25) Several of my uncles and aunts had tried to teach me to read, and because they could not, and because I was much older than children who read easily, had come to think, as I have learned since, that I had not all my faculties. (p- 14) The speaker often remembers his childish incapacities: My father was still at Sligo when I came back from my first lesson and asked me what I had been taught. I said I had been taught to sing, and he said, 'Sing then' and I sang Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean, And the pleasant land. high up in my head. So my father wrote to the old woman that I was never to be taught to sing again. (p. 15) In the face of these peculiar adult acts it is no wonder that thought be- comes unmanageable for the child. But there is also something working within the child himself that is responsible: My thoughts were a great excitement, but when I tried to do anything with them, it was like trying to pack a balloon into a shed in a high wind. (p. 25) Indeed, the irrationality of the "real" world of adulthood seems to be- come even for the older narrator its central form, and the experience of it in childhood seems permanently to have affected his adult attitudes to- wards people and the supernatural. There is no doubt that, as he looks back, the speaker of Autobiographies relishes the remembrance of what seems to be wild eccentricity in others. He likes to think of this wildness as characteristically Irish. His remembrance of people has a mythical qual- ity beginning as early as the appearance of an Irish schoolmaster in his English school: There was but one interruption of our quiet habits, the brief engagement of an Irish master, a fine Greek scholar and vehement teacher, but of fantastic speech. He would open the class by saying, 'There he goes, there he goes,' or some like words as the headmaster passed by at the end of the hall. (p. 25)  66 Antithetical Essays 66 Antithetical Essays 66 Antithetical Essays Wild eccentricity Yeats associates with freedom, but because Yeats also believes in a fate generated from within, he sees that freedom must be positively asserted against some other aspect of the self. Therefore he de- tects in the people he mythicizes and most admires a certain theatricality. He recalls in various episodes the theatricality ofhis Pollexfen grandfather and several of the Yeatses, including his father. The Middletons, on the other hand, lacked "the instinctive playing before themselves that be- longs to those who strike the popular imagination" (p. so), and Yeats's rev- erie seldom includes them. The theatrical sense is what separates Yeats's comic heroes from those unconsciously heroic and world-defying grand- parents, uncles, and aunts of James Thurber. In the many reminiscences of his studies in and experience of the oc- cult, this love of the great character is combined with that comic self- disparagement recognizable in the treatment of his own youth. In the midst of a serious description of a seance there appears the following com- ment: I was now struggling vainly with this force which compelled me to movements I had not willed, and my movements be- came so violent that the table was broken. I tried to pray, and because I could not remember a prayer, repeated in a loud voice- "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe . Sing, Heavenly Muse." (p. 64) The ridiculousness here plays off Yeats's upbringing against conventional life, but in the most unexpected way, making his incapacity not pathetic but comical and in some curious way even possibly admirable. There is no pose implied by Yeats's quoting Milton in his excitement. Rather there is quite the opposite-an unwilled gesture-a sort of desperation in his recognition that something must be said. The speaker sees, alas, no theat- ricality in these early past selves. He would like to see it, but the world and himself get in the way. Or, to put it another way, he has been rudely thrust out upon the stage without a proper part. A little different are inci- dents and thoughts described in The Trembling of the Veil: I had various women friends on whom I would call towards five o'clock mainly to discuss my thoughts that I could not bring to a man without meeting some competing thought, but partly because their tea and toast saved my pennies for the Wild eccentricity Yeats associates with freedom, but because Yeats also believes in a fate generated from within, he sees that freedom must be positively asserted against some other aspect of the self. Therefore he de- tects in the people he mythicizes and most admires a certain theatricality. He recalls in various episodes the theatricality of his Pollexfen grandfather and several of the Yeatses, including his father. The Middletons, on the other hand, lacked "the instinctive playing before themselves that be- longs to those who strike the popular imagination" (p. so), and Yeats's rev- erie seldom includes them. The theatrical sense is what separates Yeats's comic heroes from those unconsciously heroic and world-defying grand- parents, uncles, and aunts of James Thurber. In the many reminiscences of his studies in and experience of the oc- cult, this love of the great character is combined with that comic self- disparagement recognizable in the treatment of his own youth. In the midst of a serious description of a seance there appears the following com- ment: I was now struggling vainly with this force which compelled me to movements I had not willed, and my movements be- came so violent that the table was broken. I tried to pray, and because I could not remember a prayer, repeated in a loud voice- "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe . . . Sing, Heavenly Muse." (p. 64) The ridiculousness here plays off Yeats's upbringing against conventional life, but in the most unexpected way, making his incapacity not pathetic but comical and in some curious way even possibly admirable. There is no pose implied by Yeats's quoting Milton in his excitement. Rather there is quite the opposite-an unwilled gesture-a sort of desperation in his recognition that something must be said. The speaker sees, alas, no theat- ricality in these early past selves. He would like to see it, but the world and himself get in the way. Or, to put it another way, he has been rudely thrust out upon the stage without a proper part. A little different are inci- dents and thoughts described in The Trembling of the Veil: I had various women friends on whom I would call towards five o'clock mainly to discuss my thoughts that I could not bring to a man without meeting some competing thought, but partly because their tea and toast saved my pennies for the Wild eccentricity Yeats associates with freedom, but because Yeats also believes in a fate generated from within, he sees that freedom must be positively asserted against some other aspect of the self. Therefore he de- tects in the people he mythicizes and most admires a certain theatricality. He recalls in various episodes the theatricality of his Pollexfen grandfather and several of the Yeatses, including his father. The Middletons, on the other hand, lacked "the instinctive playing before themselves that be- longs to those who strike the popular imagination" (p. so), and Yeats's rev- erie seldom includes them. The theatrical sense is what separates Yeats's comic heroes from those unconsciously heroic and world-defying grand- parents, uncles, and aunts of James Thurber. In the many reminiscences of his studies in and experience of the oc- cult, this love of the great character is combined with that comic self- disparagement recognizable in the treatment of his own youth. In the midst of a serious description of a seance there appears the following com- ment: I was now struggling vainly with this force which compelled me to movements I had not willed, and my movements be- came so violent that the table was broken. I tried to pray, and because I could not remember a prayer, repeated in a loud voice- "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe . . . Sing, Heavenly Muse." (p. 64) The ridiculousness here plays off Yeats's upbringing against conventional life, but in the most unexpected way, making his incapacity not pathetic but comical and in some curious way even possibly admirable. There is no pose implied by Yeats's quoting Milton in his excitement. Rather there is quite the opposite-an unwilled gesture-a sort of desperation in his recognition that something must be said. The speaker sees, alas, no theat- ricality in these early past selves. He would like to see it, but the world and himself get in the way. Or, to put it another way, he has been rudely thrust out upon the stage without a proper part. A little different are inci- dents and thoughts described in The Trembling of the Veil: I had various women friends on whom I would call towards five o'clock mainly to discuss my thoughts that I could not bring to a man without meeting some competing thought, but partly because their tea and toast saved my pennies for the  UoeYasaeson fCmd 7 Sm Yeain aVerin ofCoey 7 oeeths eif Coed 6 'bus ride home; but with women, apart from their intimate ex- changes of thought, I was timid and abashed. I was sitting on a seat in front of the British Museum feeding pigeons when a couple of girls sat near and began enticing my pigeons away, laughing and whispering to one another, and I looked straight in front of me, very indignant, and presently went into the Museum without turning my head towards them. Since then I have often wondered if they were pretty or merely very young. Sometimes I told myself very adventurous love-stories with myself for hero, and at other times I planned out a life of lonely austerity, and at other times mixed the ideals and planned a life of lonely austerity mitigated by periodical lapses. (pp. 93-94) Here the young man either fails to "act" or locks his theatricality in his own fantasy, finds no mask. Behind this story we must remember the voice of its teller, the dramatic masked Yeats, a speaker with the requisite stage presence, consumed by his part. The actor must be able to commu- nicate his maskedness. As Dr. Johnson long ago pointed out, we never assume the play to be "real". Indeed we want to know that the players are players so that we may admire them, escaping out of the sense of the disagreeable or agreeable into a sense of the beautiful. For Yeats aesthetic distance is a state of mind relevant to the contemplation not merely of works of art but of all life itself. The young Yeats described is present in Autobiographies partly in order to allow the speaking actor to blow off dramatic steam. The point is not merely that egoistic masking is necessary to us all but that the mask is a sort of ideal. (Therefore, when in A Vision Mary Bell holds up the egg which will hatch the great rough beast of the new era, Denise de l'Isle Adam [a pseudonym] comments, "She has done very well, but Robartes should have asked me to hold it, for I am taller, and my training as a model would have helped." [p. 53]) Behind this sort of gesture, often farcical, as above, lies a very serious conception enunciated most clearly in Estrangement: There is a relation between discipline and the theatrical sense. If we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are and assume that second self, we cannot impose a disci- pline upon ourselves, though we may accept one from others. Active virtue as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a current code is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask. (p. 285) 'bus ride home; but with women, apart from their intimate ex- changes of thought, I was timid and abashed. I was sitting on a seat in front of the British Museum feeding pigeons when a couple of girls sat near and began enticing my pigeons away, laughing and whispering to one another, and I looked straight in front of me, very indignant, and presently went into the Museum without turning my head towards them. Since then I have often wondered if they were pretty or merely very young. Sometimes I told myself very adventurous love-stories with myself for hero, and at other times I planned out a life of lonely austerity, and at other times mixed the ideals and planned a life of lonely austerity mitigated by periodical lapses. (pp. 93-94) Here the young man either fails to "act" or locks his theatricality in his own fantasy, finds no mask. Behind this story we must remember the voice of its teller, the dramatic masked Yeats, a speaker with the requisite stage presence, consumed by his part. The actor must be able to commu- nicate his maskedness. As Dr. Johnson long ago pointed out, we never assume the play to be "real". Indeed we want to know that the players are players so that we may admire them, escaping out of the sense of the disagreeable or agreeable into a sense of the beautiful. For Yeats aesthetic distance is a state of mind relevant to the contemplation not merely of works of art but of all life itself. The young Yeats described is present in Autobiographies partly in order to allow the speaking actor to blow off dramatic steam. The point is not merely that egoistic masking is necessary to us all but that the mask is a sort of ideal. (Therefore, when in A Vision Mary Bell holds up the egg which will hatch the great rough beast of the new era, Denise de l'Isle Adam [a pseudonym] comments, "She has done very well, but Robartes should have asked me to hold it, for I am taller, and my training as a model would have helped." [p. 53]) Behind this sort of gesture, often farcical, as above, lies a very serious conception enunciated most clearly in Estrangement: There is a relation between discipline and the theatrical sense. If we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are and assume that second self, we cannot impose a disci- pline upon ourselves, though we may accept one from others. Active virtue as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a current code is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask. (p. 285) 'bus ride home; but with women, apart from their intimate ex- changes of thought, I was timid and abashed. I was sitting on a seat in front of the British Museum feeding pigeons when a couple of girls sat near and began enticing my pigeons away, laughing and whispering to one another, and I looked straight in front of me, very indignant, and presently went into the Museum without turning my head towards them. Since then I have often wondered if they were pretty or merely very young. Sometimes I told myself very adventurous love-stories with myself for hero, and at other times I planned out a life of lonely austerity, and at other times mixed the ideals and planned a life of lonely austerity mitigated by periodical lapses. (pp. 93-94) Here the young man either fails to "act" or locks his theatricality in his own fantasy, finds no mask. Behind this story we must remember the voice of its teller, the dramatic masked Yeats, a speaker with the requisite stage presence, consumed by his part. The actor must be able to commu- nicate his maskedness. As Dr. Johnson long ago pointed out, we never assume the play to be "real". Indeed we want to know that the players are players so that we may admire them, escaping out of the sense of the disagreeable or agreeable into a sense of the beautiful. For Yeats aesthetic distance is a state of mind relevant to the contemplation not merely of works of art but of all life itself. The young Yeats described is present in Autobiographies partly in order to allow the speaking actor to blow off dramatic steam. The point is not merely that egoistic masking is necessary to us all but that the mask is a sort of ideal. (Therefore, when in A Vision Mary Bell holds up the egg which will hatch the great rough beast of the new era, Denise de l'Isle Adam [a pseudonym] comments, "She has done very well, but Robartes should have asked me to hold it, for I am taller, and my training as a model would have helped." [p. 53]) Behind this sort of gesture, often farcical, as above, lies a very serious conception enunciated most clearly in Estrangement: There is a relation between discipline and the theatrical sense. If we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are and assume that second self, we cannot impose a disci- pline upon ourselves, though we may accept one from others. Active virtue as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a current code is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask. (p. 285)  Antithetical Essays 68 Antithetical Essays 68 Antithetical Essays Romantic imaginative creativity is here given a curious twist. In order truly to create, the individual must seek a mask, an opposite perhaps im- possible to attain, and thus freedom is "fated" in so far as our natures are not freely chosen. All such activity defies the logic of society as well as of language: "Style, personality-deliberately adopted and therefore a mask-is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and the money changers" (p. 279). Indeed, logic is the villain. "Logic is a machine, one can leave it to itself; unhelped it will force those present to exhaust the subject, the fool is as likely as the sage to speak the appropriate answer" (p. 279). When Yeats describes others in the Autobiographies it is a similar the- atricality expressed with some strange irrational dlan that he most ad- mires. Of Madame Blavatsky Yeats remembers that Henley said to him, "Of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genius has to do something" (p. 107). Yeats's meeting with her emphasizes her eccentricity, not the crazy heroism of Thurber's grandfather, insisting upon his own world and brandishing his sword against the Sciota River or breaking the spirit of his electric car, but that of a great lady on a stage: I was kept a long time kicking my heels. Presently I was admitted and found an old woman in a plain loose dark dress: a sort of old Irish peasant woman with an air of humour and audacious power. I was still kept waiting, for she was deep in conversation with a woman visitor. I strayed through folding doors into the next room and stood, in sheer idleness of mind, looking at a cuckoo clock. It was certainly stopped, for the weights were off and lying upon the ground, and yet, as I stood there the cuckoo came out and cuckooed at me. I inter- rupted Madame Blavatsky to say, 'Your clock has hooted me.' 'If often hoots at a stranger,' she replied. 'Is there a spirit in it?' I said. 'I do not know,' she said, 'I should have to be alone to know what is in it.' I went back to the clock and began ex- amining it and heard her say, 'Do not break my clock.' (pp. 106-7) The reminiscing Yeats admires nothing more than a person about whom a good story can be told. A good story seems to be one which contains a grain of comic irrationality or at least something unsuspected by logic. Madame Blavatsky provided that sort of story: When I first began to frequent her house, as I soon did very constantly, I noticed a handsome clever woman of the world Romantic imaginative creativity is here given a curious twist. In order truly to create, the individual must seek a mask, an opposite perhaps im- possible to attain, and thus freedom is "fated" in so far as our natures are not freely chosen. All such activity defies the logic of society as well as of language: "Style, personality-deliberately adopted and therefore a mask-is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and the money changers" (p. 279). Indeed, logic is the villain. "Logic is a machine, one can leave it to itself; unhelped it will force those present to exhaust the subject, the fool is as likely as the sage to speak the appropriate answer" (p. 279). When Yeats describes others in the Autobiographies it is a similar the- atricality expressed with some strange irrational alan that he most ad- mires. Of Madame Blavatsky Yeats remembers that Henley said to him, "Of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genius has to do something" (p. 107). Yeats's meeting with her emphasizes her eccentricity, not the crazy heroism of Thurber's grandfather, insisting upon his own world and brandishing his sword against the Sciota River or breaking the spirit of his electric car, but that of a great lady on a stage: S. . I was kept a long time kicking my heels. Presently I was admitted and found an old woman in a plain loose dark dress: a sort of old Irish peasant woman with an air of humour and audacious power. I was still kept waiting, for she was deep in conversation with a woman visitor. I strayed through folding doors into the next room and stood, in sheer idleness of mind, looking at a cuckoo clock. It was certainly stopped, for the weights were off and lying upon the ground, and yet, as I stood there the cuckoo came out and cuckooed at me. I inter- rupted Madame Blavatsky to say, 'Your clock has hooted me.' 'If often hoots at a stranger,' she replied. 'Is there a spirit in it?' I said. 'I do not know,' she said, 'I should have to be alone to know what is in it.' I went back to the clock and began ex- amining it and heard her say, 'Do not break my clock.' (pp. 106-7) The reminiscing Yeats admires nothing more than a person about whom a good story can be told. A good story seems to be one which contains a grain of comic irrationality or at least something unsuspected by logic. Madame Blavatsky provided that sort of story: When I first began to frequent her house, as I soon did very constantly, I noticed a handsome clever woman of the world Romantic imaginative creativity is here given a curious twist. In order truly to create, the individual must seek a mask, an opposite perhaps im- possible to attain, and thus freedom is "fated" in so far as our natures are not freely chosen. All such activity defies the logic of society as well as of language: "Style, personality-deliberately adopted and therefore a mask-is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and the money changers" (p. 279). Indeed, logic is the villain. "Logic is a machine, one can leave it to itself; unhelped it will force those present to exhaust the subject, the fool is as likely as the sage to speak the appropriate answer" (p. 279). When Yeats describes others in the Autobiographies it is a similar the- atricality expressed with some strange irrational alan that he most ad- mires. Of Madame Blavatsky Yeats remembers that Henley said to him, "Of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genius has to do something" (p. 107). Yeats's meeting with her emphasizes her eccentricity, not the crazy heroism of Thurber's grandfather, insisting upon his own world and brandishing his sword against the Sciota River or breaking the spirit of his electric car, but that of a great lady on a stage: I was kept a long time kicking my heels. Presently I was admitted and found an old woman in a plain loose dark dress: a sort of old Irish peasant woman with an air of humour and audacious power. I was still kept waiting, for she was deep in conversation with a woman visitor. I strayed through folding doors into the next room and stood, in sheer idleness of mind, looking at a cuckoo clock. It was certainly stopped, for the weights were off and lying upon the ground, and yet, as I stood there the cuckoo came out and cuckooed at me. I inter- rupted Madame Blavatsky to say, 'Your clock has hooted me.' 'If often hoots at a stranger,' she replied. 'Is there a spirit in it?' I said. 'I do not know,' she said, 'I should have to be alone to know what is in it.' I went back to the clock and began ex- amining it and heard her say, 'Do not break my clock.' (pp. 106-7) The reminiscing Yeats admires nothing more than a person about whom a good story can be told. A good story seems to be one which contains a grain of comic irrationality or at least something unsuspected by logic. Madame Blavatsky provided that sort of story: When I first began to frequent her house, as I soon did very constantly, I noticed a handsome clever woman of the world  SomYatia VrsinsofCoed*6 SomYeta ersosfCm*d 69 Som . Yetsarns of Coad there, who seemed certainly very much out of place, penitent though she thought herself. Presently there was much scandal and gossip for the penitent was plainly entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. The scandal was so great that Madame Blavatsky had to call the penitent before her to speak after this fashion, 'We think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. Initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste,' but after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, 'I cannot permit you more than one.' (p. tog) The turnabout spoken in the grand style Yeats inevitably recalls. He also always remembers the paradoxical quip, true beyond apparent logic. So he quotes with great admiration Wilde's words about Shaw: "Mr. Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his friends". He fol- lows Wilde's lead himself in a letter of 1911 to T. Sturge Moore: "When a man is so outrageously in the wrong as Shaw he is indispensable, if it were for no other purpose than to fight people like Hewlett, who corrupt the truth by believing in it".' He remembers also Madame Blavatsky saying that people sell their souls to the devil "to have somebody on their side". He delights in her de- scription of religions: 'That is the Greek Church, a triangle like all true religion,' I recall her saying, as she chalked out a triangle on the green baize, and then as she made it disappear in meaningless scrib- bles, 'It spread out and became a bramble bush like the Church of Rome.' Then rubbing it all out except one straight line, 'Now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick and that is protestantism.' (p. s1o) Precisely what kind of theatricality is characteristic of the great 'actors' Yeats observes? It is difficult to say, because Yeats, the actor in his book, quite consciously and for the sake of drama obfuscates the issue. The he. roic, almost mythical figures of Autobiographies have a sort of discipline, but how it is achieved remains a mystery to the speaker. Yeats describes his own search for it: 4. W. B. Yeats and T. Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence, 1901-1937 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953) P. 19. there, who seemed certainly very much out of place, penitent though she thought herself. Presently there was much scandal and gossip for the penitent was plainly entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. The scandal was so great that Madame Blavatsky had to call the penitent before her to speak after this fashion, 'We think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. Initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste,' but after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, 'I cannot permit you more than one:' (p. sag) The turnabout spoken in the grand style Yeats inevitably recalls. He also always remembers the paradoxical quip, true beyond apparent logic. So he quotes with great admiration Wilde's words about Shaw: "Mr. Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his friends". He fol- lows Wilde's lead himself in a letter of 1ga1 to T. Sturge Moore: "When a man is so outrageously in the wrong as Shaw he is indispensable, if it were for no other purpose than to fight people like Hewlett, who corrupt the truth by believing in it".' He remembers also Madame Blavatsky saying that people sell their souls to the devil "to have somebody on their side". He delights in her de- scription of religions: 'That is the Greek Church, a triangle like all true religion,' I recall her saying, as she chalked out a triangle on the green baize, and then as she made it disappear in meaningless scrib- bles, 'It spread out and became a bramble bush like the Church of Rome.' Then rubbing it all out except one straight line, 'Now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick and that is protestantism.' (p. san) Precisely what kind of theatricality is characteristic of the great 'actors' Yeats observes? It is difficult to say, because Yeats, the actor in his book, quite consciously and for the sake of drama obfuscates the issue. The he- roic, almost mythical figures of Autobiographies have a sort of discipline, but how it is achieved remains a mystery to the speaker. Yeats describes his own search for it: ± W. . Yeats and T. Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence, 1901-1937 (London; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953) p. 19. there, who seemed certainly very much out of place, penitent though she thought herself. Presently there was much scandal and gossip for the penitent was plainly entangled with two young men, who were expected to grow into ascetic sages. The scandal was so great that Madame Blavatsky had to call the penitent before her to speak after this fashion, 'We think that it is necessary to crush the animal nature; you should live in chastity in act and thought. Initiation is granted only to those who are entirely chaste,' but after some minutes in that vehement style, the penitent standing crushed and shamed before her, she had wound up, 'I cannot permit you more than one.' (p. sag) The turnabout spoken in the grand style Yeats inevitably recalls. He also always remembers the paradoxical quip, true beyond apparent logic. So he quotes with great admiration Wilde's words about Shaw: "Mr. Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his friends". He fol- lows Wilde's lead himself in a letter of sgs1 to T. Sturge Moore: "When a man is so outrageously in the wrong as Shaw he is indispensable, if it were for no other purpose than to fight people like Hewlett, who corrupt the truth by believing in it".' He remembers also Madame Blavatsky saying that people sell their souls to the devil "to have somebody on their side". He delights in her de- scription of religions: 'That is the Greek Church, a triangle like all true religion,' I recall her saying, as she chalked out a triangle on the green baize, and then as she made it disappear in meaningless scrib- bles, 'It spread out and became a bramble bush like the Church of Rome.' Then rubbing it all out except one straight line, 'Now they have lopped off the branches and turned it into a broomstick and that is protestantism.' (p. 11o) Precisely what kind of theatricality is characteristic of the great 'actors' Yeats observes? It is difficult to say, because Yeats, the actor in his book, quite consciously and for the sake of drama obfuscates the issue. The he- roic, almost mythical figures of Autobiographies have a sort of discipline, but how it is achieved remains a mystery to the speaker. Yeats describes his own search for it: 4. W. B. Yeats and T. Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence, 190-1937 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953) P. 19.  Antithetical Essays 70 Antithetical Essays 70 Antithetical Essays Discovering that I was only self-possessed with people I knew intimately, I would often go to a strange house where I knew I would spend a wretched hour for schooling sake. I did not discover that Hamlet had his self-possession from no schooling but from indifference and passion-conquering sweetness, and that less heroic minds can but hope it from old age. (p. 57) We can agree that the speaker of these words has schooled himself in the- atrical discipline. Much of Reveries is therefore composed of (1) a great actor's recollections of his own past fumblings for the mask of nonchalance and (2) remembrance of those in his life who lived their theatricality with glorious abandon, whether willed or fated. Such a gesture is apparently necessary to creative life, and it is essentially comic. By the time that Yeats came to write A Vision he seems to have raised the idea of heroic theatricality and cosmic irrationality to principles of human existence. These ideas actually control the form of the work. In 1928 he was involved in the now well-known exchange of letters on epis- temology, or more specifically John Ruskin's cat, with T. Sturge Moore. In one of these letters he wrote: If Kant is right the antinomy is in our method of reasoning; but if the Platonists are right may one not think that the antin- omy is itself 'constitutive', that the consciousness by which we know ourselves and exist is itself irrational? I do not yet put this forward as certainly the thought of my instructors, but at present it seems the natural interpretation of their symbols.' This sort of statement needs a great deal of qualification and perhaps some correction if it is to become philosophically responsible. Nevertheless it is quite helpful to us as we look at A Vision and its comedy. The comedy of A Vision arises constantly out of the idea that we cannot adequately know all things by logic or indeed by means of any symbolic system avail- able to us. The comedy is often farcical in Yeats's sense; that is, it is com- edy with character eliminated and full of grotesquerie. A Vision is not a discursive work with the aim of communicating a phil- osophical or pseudo-scientific system of thought. Its so-called "system" must be abstracted up and out of it with the greatest care, for the book as a whole has a dramatic shape and a recognizable, though complicated, 5. Ibid., p. 131. 6. See chap. ss of my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 287-324. Discovering that I was only self-possessed with people I knew intimately, I would often go to a strange house where I knew I would spend a wretched hour for schooling sake. I did not discover that Hamlet had his self-possession from no schooling but from indifference and passion-conquering sweetness, and that less heroic minds can but hope it from old age. (p. 57) We can agree that the speaker of these words has schooled himself in the- atrical discipline. Much of Reveries is therefore composed of (1) a great actor's recollections of his own past fumblings for the mask of nonchalance and (2) remembrance of those in his life who lived their theatricality with glorious abandon, whether willed or fated. Such a gesture is apparently necessary to creative life, and it is essentially comic. By the time that Yeats came to write A Vision he seems to have raised the idea of heroic theatricality and cosmic irrationality to principles of human existence. These ideas actually control the form of the work. In 1928 he was involved in the now well-known exchange of letters on epis- temology, or more specifically John Ruskin's cat, with T. Sturge Moore. In one of these letters he wrote: If Kant is right the antinomy is in our method of reasoning; but if the Platonists are right may one not think that the antin- omy is itself 'constitutive', that the consciousness by which we know ourselves and exist is itself irrational? I do not yet put this forward as certainly the thought of my instructors, but at present it seems the natural interpretation of their symbols.' This sort of statement needs a great deal of qualification and perhaps some correction if it is to become philosophically responsible. Nevertheless it is quite helpful to us as we look at A Vision and its comedy. The comedy of A Vision arises constantly out of the idea that we cannot adequately know all things by logic or indeed by means of any symbolic system avail- able to us.' The comedy is often farcical in Yeats's sense; that is, it is com- edy with character eliminated and full of grotesquerie. A Vision is not a discursive work with the aim of communicating a phil- osophical or pseudo-scientific system of thought. Its so-called "system" must be abstracted up and out of it with the greatest care, for the book as a whole has a dramatic shape and a recognizable, though complicated, 5. Ibid., p. 131. 6. See chap. ss of my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 287-324. Discovering that I was only self-possessed with people I knew intimately, I would often go to a strange house where I knew I would spend a wretched hour for schooling sake. I did not discover that Hamlet had his self-possession from no schooling but from indifference and passion-conquering sweetness, and that less heroic minds can but hope it from old age. (p. 57) We can agree that the speaker of these words has schooled himself in the- atrical discipline. Much of Reveries is therefore composed of (1) a great actor's recollections of his own past fumblings for the mask of nonchalance and (2) remembrance of those in his life who lived their theatricality with glorious abandon, whether willed or fated. Such a gesture is apparently necessary to creative life, and it is essentially comic. By the time that Yeats came to write A Vision he seems to have raised the idea of heroic theatricality and cosmic irrationality to principles of human existence. These ideas actually control the form of the work. In 1928 he was involved in the now well-known exchange of letters on epis- temology, or more specifically John Ruskin's cat, with T. Sturge Moore. In one of these letters he wrote: If Kant is right the antinomy is in our method of reasoning; but if the Platonists are right may one not think that the antin- omy is itself 'constitutive', that the consciousness by which we know ourselves and exist is itself irrational? I do not yet put this forward as certainly the thought of my instructors, but at present it seems the natural interpretation of their symbols.' This sort of statement needs a great deal of qualification and perhaps some correction if it is to become philosophically responsible. Nevertheless it is quite helpful to us as we look at A Vision and its comedy. The comedy of A Vision arises constantly out of the idea that we cannot adequately know all things by logic or indeed by means of any symbolic system avail- able to us.' The comedy is often farcical in Yeats's sense; that is, it is com- edy with character eliminated and full of grotesquerie. A Vision is not a discursive work with the aim of communicating a phil- osophical or pseudo-scientific system of thought. Its so-called "system" must be abstracted up and out of it with the greatest care, for the book as a whole has a dramatic shape and a recognizable, though complicated, 5. Ibid., p. 131. 6. See chap. 1 of my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 287-324.  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 71 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 71 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy gesture. Taken in this way the introductory material of the book must be considered as intimately related to the more technical parts. In A Vision, as in Autobiographies, the speaker is contained by the total form of the book, and his gesture is a fictional one. Within this form, Yeats the speaker reminisces about Yeats the questor for mysterious cosmic knowl- edge. At the same time Yeats the speaker creates fabulous farcical stories about the discovery of the system of thought he is about to expound. These stories seem to reflect in life what the system puts to us more ab- stractly, the idea that the "antinomies cannot be solved."' The characters in the stories about Michael Robartes and the preparation of the cosmic egg to hatch the new cultural cycle are characterless characters. They are, in fact, nearly allegories representing aspects of their author's being. The world they inhabit is irrational, the author's treatment of them ridiculous, though at bottom the issues raised are quite serious. All the characters are driven, in the Yeatsian sense, towards mask and image. There is not enough space here to make a long analysis of the introduc- tory sections of A Vision, and one example of what Yeats is doing must therefore suffice.' In Stories of Michael Robartes and his Friends a man named John Bond tells a very strange story of falling in love with Mary Bell, wed to an elderly man who early in their marriage decided to devote his life to some philanthropic endeavour, namely teaching cuckoos to make nests. This virtually mad, certainly hopeless effort everyone in the story seems to take seriously enough, and indeed there is in the end a sort of Don Quixotish heroism about the old gentleman. John Bond and Mary Bell between them make him believe on his deathbed that one of his more intelligent students has at last succeeded in weaving a nest. The absurdity of the ideal and the seriousness of it from the old man's point of view emphasize the strangeness of those many efforts we all know about which are perhaps only a little less absurd. John Bond and Mary Bell are names taken from William Blake's "William Bond" and "Long John Brown & Little Mary Bell", the latter of which is one of Blake's most raucous poems about sexual relations and their failure when the "selfhood" triumphs over the desire to annihilate the self in love. There is much giv- ing of the self in John Bond's story. It does not result in a closer apprehen- sion of reality on the part of any of the characters, but it does result in a limited sort of satisfaction. The old man dies content. Mary Bell has 7. Quoted from Yeats's "Genealogical Tree of Revolution," in A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), p. 351. 8. For a longer discussion see my Blake and Yeats: The Contrany Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), pp. 162-9. gesture. Taken in this way the introductory material of the book must be considered as intimately related to the more technical parts. In A Vision, as in Autobiographies, the speaker is contained by the total form of the book, and his gesture is a fictional one. Within this form, Yeats the speaker reminisces about Yeats the questor for mysterious cosmic knowl- edge. At the same time Yeats the speaker creates fabulous farcical stories about the discovery of the system of thought he is about to expound. These stories seem to reflect in life what the system puts to us more ab- stractly, the idea that the "antinomies cannot be solved."' The characters in the stories about Michael Robartes and the preparation of the cosmic egg to hatch the new cultural cycle are characterless characters. They are, in fact, nearly allegories representing aspects of their author's being. The world they inhabit is irrational, the author's treatment of them ridiculous, though at bottom the issues raised are quite serious. All the characters are driven, in the Yeatsian sense, towards mask and image. There is not enough space here to make a long analysis of the introduc- tory sections of A Vision, and one example of what Yeats is doing must therefore suflice.' In Stories of Michael Robartes and his Friends a man named John Bond tells a very strange story of falling in love with Mary Bell, wed to an elderly man who early in their marriage decided to devote his life to some philanthropic endeavour, namely teaching cuckoos to make nests. This virtually mad, certainly hopeless effort everyone in the story seems to take seriously enough, and indeed there is in the end a sort of Don Quixotish heroism about the old gentleman. John Bond and Mary Bell between them make him believe on his deathbed that one of his more intelligent students has at last succeeded in weaving a nest. The absurdity of the ideal and the seriousness of it from the old man's point of view emphasize the strangeness of those many efforts we all know about which are perhaps only a little less absurd. John Bond and Mary Bell are names taken from William Blake's "William Bond" and "Long John Brown & Little Mary Bell", the latter of which is one of Blake's most raucous poems about sexual relations and their failure when the "selfhood" triumphs over the desire to annihilate the self in love. There is much giv- ing of the self in John Bond's story. It does not result in a closer apprehen- sion of reality on the part of any of the characters, but it does result in a limited sort of satisfaction. The old man dies content. Mary Bell has 7. Quoted from Yeats's "Genealogical Tree of Revolution," in A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949) P. 351. 8. For a longer discussion see my Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), PP. 162-gg. gesture. Taken in this way the introductory material of the book must be considered as intimately related to the more technical parts. In A Vision, as in Autobiographies, the speaker is contained by the total form of the book, and his gesture is a fictional one. Within this form, Yeats the speaker reminisces about Yeats the questor for mysterious cosmic knowl- edge. At the same time Yeats the speaker creates fabulous farcical stories about the discovery of the system of thought he is about to expound. These stories seem to reflect in life what the system puts to us more ab- stractly, the idea that the "antinomies cannot be solved."' The characters in the stories about Michael Robartes and the preparation of the cosmic egg to hatch the new cultural cycle are characterless characters. They are, in fact, nearly allegories representing aspects of their author's being. The world they inhabit is irrational, the author's treatment of them ridiculous, though at bottom the issues raised are quite serious. All the characters are driven, in the Yeatsian sense, towards mask and image. There is not enough space here to make a long analysis of the introduc- tory sections of A Vision, and one example of what Yeats is doing must therefore suffice.' In Stories of Michael Robartes and his Friends a man named John Bond tells a very strange story of falling in love with Mary Bell, wed to an elderly man who early in their marriage decided to devote his life to some philanthropic endeavour, namely teaching euckoos to make nests. This virtually mad, certainly hopeless effort everyone in the story seems to take seriously enough, and indeed there is in the end a sort of Don Quixotish heroism about the old gentleman. John Bond and Mary Bell between them make him believe on his deathbed that one of his more intelligent students has at last succeeded in weaving a nest. The absurdity of the ideal and the seriousness of it from the old man's point of view emphasize the strangeness of those many efforts we all know about which are perhaps only a little less absurd. John Bond and Mary Bell are names taken from William Blake's "William Bond" and "Long John Brown & Little Mary Bell", the latter of which is one of Blake's most raucous poems about sexual relations and their failure when the "selfhood" triumphs over the desire to annihilate the self in love. There is much giv- ing of the self in John Bond's story. It does not result in a closer apprehen- sion of reality on the part of any of the characters, but it does result in a limited sort of satisfaction. The old man dies content. Mary Bell has 7. Quoted from Yeats's "Genealogical Tree of Revolution," in A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 194g), p. 351- 8. For a longer discussion see my Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), PP 162-gg.  Antithetical Essays 72 Antithetical Essays 72 Antithetical Essays helped him to contentment through her efforts to produce a cuckoo's nest from her own hands and therefore she is to a degree content herself, and John Bond, an expert on birds, has been of service to both. But more important even than these things is the epistemological prob- lem of inner fate implied by the whole matter of teaching, or trying to coax cuckoos, who do not naturally build nests, to an unnatural effort. This matter is, in fact, taken up in Autobiographies: When Locke's French translator Coste asked him how, if there were no 'innate ideas', he could explain the skill shown by a bird in making its nest, Locke replied, "I did not write to explain the actions of dumb creatures", and his translator thought the answer 'very good, seeing that he had named his book A Philosophical Essay upon Hnman Understanding.' Henry More, upon the other hand, considered that the bird's instinct proved the existence of the Anima Mundi, with its ideas and memories. Did modem enlightenment think with Coste that Locke had the better logic, because it was not free to think otherwise? (p. 16o) A few pages later, Yeats tells us that he himself keeps canaries and at one time provided them with an artificial nest, 'a hollow vessel like a sau- cer', so that they were not in need of the wild bird's skill. The canaries would twist stems of grass around the nest. Yeats observed the mother and father birds taking care of the young, and he has observed his own children, concluding: When a man writes any work of genius, or invents some creative action, is it not because some knowledge or power has come into his mind from beyond his mind? It is called up by an image, as I think . . . but our images must be given to us, we cannot choose them deliberately. (p. 064) We cannot, like the cuckoos, get very interested in nest-making if we are not nest-making creatures. But we are poem-makers, perhaps-or at least some of us are-and Yeats seems here to express a romantic individ- ualistic version of that old idea called possession by the Muse. In any case, revelation is "from the self", but from an "age-long memoried self". In the farcical story of A Vision in which Yeats recounts his experience with the mysterious instructors, he casts himself much as he remembers himself in Autobiographies, incapacitated by an irrational reality in which the whole direction of modern society with its logical education refuses to believe. The instructors come to him from within and yet from some helped him to contentment through her efforts to produce a cuckoo's nest from her own hands and therefore she is to a degree content herself, and John Bond, an expert on birds, has been of service to both. But more important even than these things is the epistemological prob- lem of inner fate implied by the whole matter of teaching, or trying to coax cuckoos, who do not naturally build nests, to an unnatural effort. This matter is, in fact, taken up in Autobiographies: When Locke's French translator Coste asked him how, if there were no 'innate ideas', he could explain the skill shown by a bird in making its nest, Locke replied, "I did not write to explain the actions of dumb creatures", and his translator thought the answer 'very good, seeing that he had named his book A Philosophical Essay upon Human Understanding.' Henry More, upon the other hand, considered that the bird's instinct proved the existence of the Anima Mundi, with its ideas and memories. Did modern enlightenment think with Coste that Locke had the better logic, because it was not free to think otherwise? (p. sh) A few pages later, Yeats tells us that he himself keeps canaries and at one time provided them with an artificial nest, 'a hollow vessel like a sau- cer', so that they were not in need of the wild bird's skill. The canaries would twist stems of grass around the nest. Yeats observed the mother and father birds taking care of the young, and he has observed his own children, concluding: When a man writes any work of genius, or invents some creative action, is it not because some knowledge or power has come into his mind from beyond his mind? It is called up by an image, as I think . . . but our images must be given to us, we cannot choose them deliberately. (p. 164) We cannot, like the cuckoos, get very interested in nest-making if we are not nest-making creatures. But we are poem-makers, perhaps-or at least some of us are-and Yeats seems here to express a romantic individ- ualistic version of that old idea called possession by the Muse. In any case, revelation is "from the self', but from an "age-long memoried self". In the farcical story of A Vision in which Yeats recounts his experience with the mysterious instructors, he casts himself much as he remembers himself in Autobiographies, incapacitated by an irrational reality in which the whole direction of modern society with its logical education refuses to believe. The instructors come to him from within and yet from some helped him to contentment through her efforts to produce a cuckoo's nest from her own hands and therefore she is to a degree content herself, and John Bond, an expert on birds, has been of service to both. But more important even than these things is the epistemological prob- lem of inner fate implied by the whole matter of teaching, or trying to coax cuckoos, who do not naturally build nests, to an unnatural effort. This matter is, in fact, taken up in Autobiographies: When Locke's French translator Coste asked him how, if there were no 'innate ideas', he could explain the skill shown by a bird in making its nest, Locke replied, "I did not write to explain the actions of dumb creatures", and his translator thought the answer 'very good, seeing that he had named his book A Philosophical Essay upon Human Understanding.' Henry More, upon the other hand, considered that the bird's instinct proved the existence of the Anima Mundi, with its ideas and memories. Did modern enlightenment think with Coste that Locke had the better logic, because it was not free to think otherwise? (p. 16) A few pages later, Yeats tells us that he himself keeps canaries and at one time provided them with an artificial nest, 'a hollow vessel like a sau- cer', so that they were not in need of the wild bird's skill. The canaries would twist stems of grass around the nest. Yeats observed the mother and father birds taking care of the young, and he has observed his own children, concluding: When a man writes any work of genius, or invents some creative action, is it not because some knowledge or power has come into his mind from beyond his mind? It is called up by an image, as I think . . . but our images must be given to us, we cannot choose them deliberately. (p. 164) We cannot, like the cuckoos, get very interested in nest-making if we are not nest-making creatures. But we are poem-makers, perhaps-or at least some of us are-and Yeats seems here to express a romantic individ- ualistic version of that old idea called possession by the Muse. In any case, revelation is "from the self", but from an "age-long memoried self". In the farcical story of A Vision in which Yeats recounts his experience with the mysterious instructors, he casts himself much as he remembers himself in Autobiographies, incapacitated by an irrational reality in which the whole direction of modem society with its logical education refuses to believe. The instructors come to him from within and yet from some  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 73 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 73 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 73 strange "other" world as well. They are some part of himself, and yet he cannot control them or even communicate adequately with them. The re- sults are farcical events-his wife falls into a trance in a restaurant be- cause the instructors think them to be in a garden, the instructors com- plain about Yeats's slowness and literalness of mind, Yeats tries to drive away his wife's dream that she is a cat by barking like a dog. These events are very funny, verging sometimes upon the slapstick. The result is quite similar to that of the comedy in Autobiographies. It emphasizes the limits of man's control over himself and the naivet6 of man's faith in simple 'real- ity'. It suggests that man inhabits a world where he will always look a bit foolish and will always confront something beyond his powers to un- derstand. As a result, the gesture that man makes towards his situation is his most important function. Yeats recommends a fine balance of tragic irony and ironic comedy, the laughing lip praised by the red man in The Green Helmet,a the glittering eyes of the Chinese sages in "Lapis Lazuli", gay joy in the contemplation of theatrical eccentricity, willing acceptance of the joke upon oneself, even when that joke is a cosmic one. All of these stances imply the necessity of discovering what dignity one can salvage from cosmic farce: I think that the true poetic movement of our time is to- wards some heroic discipline. . . . When there is despair, pub- lic or private, when settled order seems lost, people look for strength within or without. Auden, Spender, all that seem the new movement, look for strength in Marxian Socialism, or in Major Douglas; they want marching feet. The lasting expres- sion of our time is not this obvious choice but in a sense of something steel-like and cold within the will, something pas- sionate and cold.)' At first glance steel-like coldness seems antithetical to the comic, but perhaps if we study comedy carefully we shall see that it is not. In any case, the comedy which Yeats offers us is ironic comedy, laughter emanat- ing from a mask of cold ideality. It leads oddly enough to a great sense g. The relevant lines are: . And I choose the laughing lip That shall not turn from laughing, whatever rise or fall; The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all; The hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler's throw. so. The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955). strange "other" world as well. They are some part of himself, and yet he cannot control them or even communicate adequately with them. The re- sults are farcical events-his wife falls into a trance in a restaurant be- cause the instructors think them to be in a garden, the instructors com- plain about Yeats's slowness and literalness of mind, Yeats tries to drive away his wife's dream that she is a cat by barking like a dog. These events are very funny, verging sometimes upon the slapstick. The result is quite similar to that of the comedy in Autobiographies. It emphasizes the limits of man's control over himself and the naivete of man's faith in simple 'real- ity'. It suggests that man inhabits a world where he will always look a bit foolish and will always confront something beyond his powers to un- derstand. As a result, the gesture that man makes towards his situation is his most important function. Yeats recommends a fine balance of tragic irony and ironic comedy, the laughing lip praised by the red man in The Green Helmet,' the glittering eyes of the Chinese sages in "Lapis Lazuli", gay joy in the contemplation of theatrical eccentricity, willing acceptance of the joke upon oneself, even when that joke is a cosmic one. All of these stances imply the necessity of discovering what dignity one can salvage from cosmic farce: I think that the true poetic movement of our time is to- wards some heroic discipline. . . . When there is despair, pub- lie or private, when settled order seems lost, people look for strength within or without. Auden, Spender, all that seem the new movement, look for strength in Marxian Socialism, or in Major Douglas; they want marching feet. The lasting expres- sion of our time is not this obvious choice but in a sense of something steel-like and cold within the will, something pas- sionate and cold." At first glance steel-like coldness seems antithetical to the comic, but perhaps if we study comedy carefully we shall see that it is not. In any case, the comedy which Yeats offers us is ironic comedy, laughter emanat- ing from a mask of cold ideality. It leads oddly enough to a great sense 9. The relevant lines are: . And I choose the laughing lip That shall not turn from laughing, whatever rise or fall; The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all; The hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler's throw. so. The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955). strange "other" world as well. They are some part of himself, and yet he cannot control them or even communicate adequately with them. The re- sults are farcical events-his wife falls into a trance in a restaurant be- cause the instructors think them to be in a garden, the instructors com- plain about Yeats's slowness and literalness of mind, Yeats tries to drive away his wife's dream that she is a cat by barking like a dog. These events are very funny, verging sometimes upon the slapstick. The result is quite similar to that of the comedy in Autobiographies. It emphasizes the limits of man's control over himself and the naivete of man's faith in simple 'real- ity'. It suggests that man inhabits a world where he will always look a bit foolish and will always confront something beyond his powers to un- derstand. As a result, the gesture that man makes towards his situation is his most important function. Yeats recommends a fine balance of tragic irony and ironic comedy, the laughing lip praised by the red man in The Green Helmet,' the glittering eyes of the Chinese sages in "Lapis Lazuli", gay joy in the contemplation of theatrical eccentricity, willing acceptance of the joke upon oneself, even when that joke is a cosmic one. All of these stances imply the necessity of discovering what dignity one can salvage from cosmic farce: I think that the true poetic movement of our time is to- wards some heroic discipline. . . . When there is despair, pub- lie or private, when settled order seems lost, people look for strength within or without. Auden, Spender, all that seem the new movement, look for strength in Marxian Socialism, or in Major Douglas; they want marching feet. The lasting expres- sion of our time is not this obvious choice but in a sense of something steel-like and cold within the will, something pas- sionate and cold.0 At first glance steel-like coldness seems antithetical to the comic, but perhaps if we study comedy carefully we shall see that it is not. In any case, the comedy which Yeats offers us is ironic comedy, laughter emanat- ing from a mask of cold ideality. It leads oddly enough to a great sense g. The relevant lines are: . And I choose the laughing lip That shall not turn from laughing, whatever rise or fall; The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all; The hand that loves to scatter; the life like a gambler's throw. so. The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955).  Antithetical Essays 74 Antithetical Essays 74 Antithetical Essays of humanity which is nowhere better shown than in the ironic conclusion of A Vision. There, the absurd relationship between himself and his in- structors having been set forth, Yeats admits to the limitations of his pow- ers to interpret the instructors' message. Indeed does the message con- tain knowledge at all? Sitting in his chair, meditating upon the symbols of gyre and cone, he discovers, like Faust, that ultimate knowledge will not be his. For a moment he grieves, but Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and knows all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (p. 302) Yeats seems almost to exult in this conclusion. It does after all represent the achievement of a kind of knowledge-though ironic like that in which Kant takes pleasure-but more important it completes a total gesture and concludes the ironic comedy of which it is a part. Reveries over Childhood and Youth ends with a statement not unre- lated to it: For some months now I have lived with my own youth and childhood, not always writing indeed but thinking of it almost every day, and I am sorrowful and disturbed. It is not that I have accomplished too few of my plans, for I am not ambi- tious, but when I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens. (p. 65) Indeed this passage appears very much the antithesis of comedy, but by a sort of negative appraisal one can see, I think, that the statement is meant to reveal that there is a possible contrary to its speaker: a masked figure who cares not a fig for "preparation" or for some great day, a figure who believes in the "now" of things, in momentary gay gesture and in drama, a figure who believes that there are things more important than all that is laboriously achieved by material effort or consumed by the mill of the mind. In Autobiographies this contrary figure, a perhaps coarse and indecorous artist, insists on a considerable substance of comedy, seri- ous as it may be, some of it satirizing the too-solemn, insufficiently masked young man remembered by the speaker, much of it remembering of humanity which is nowhere better shown than in the ironic conclusion of A Vision. There, the absurd relationship between himself and his in- structors having been set forth, Yeats admits to the limitations of his pow- ers to interpret the instructors' message. Indeed does the message con- tain knowledge at all? Sitting in his chair, meditating upon the symbols of gyre and cone, he discovers, like Faust, that ultimate knowledge will not be his. For a moment he grieves, but Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and knows all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (p. 302) Yeats seems almost to exult in this conclusion. It does after all represent the achievement of a kind of knowledge-though ironic like that in which Kant takes pleasure-but more important it completes a total gesture and concludes the ironic comedy of which it is a part. Reveries over Childhood and Youth ends with a statement not unre- lated to it: For some months now I have lived with my own youth and childhood, not always writing indeed but thinking of it almost every day, and I am sorrowful and disturbed. It is not that I have accomplished too few of my plans, for I am not ambi- tious, but when I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens. (p. 65) Indeed this passage appears very much the antithesis of comedy, but by a sort of negative appraisal one can see, I think, that the statement is meant to reveal that there is a possible contrary to its speaker: a masked figure who cares not a fig for "preparation" or for some great day, a figure who believes in the "now" of things, in momentary gay gesture and in drama, a figure who believes that there are things more important than all that is laboriously achieved by material effort or consumed by the mill of the mind. In Autobiographies this contrary figure, a perhaps coarse and indecorous artist, insists on a considerable substance of comedy, seri- ous as it may be, some of it satirizing the too-solemn, insufficiently masked young man remembered by the speaker, much of it remembering of humanity which is nowhere better shown than in the ironic conclusion of A Vision. There, the absurd relationship between himself and his in- structors having been set forth, Yeats admits to the limitations of his pow- ers to interpret the instructors' message. Indeed does the message con- tain knowledge at all? Sitting in his chair, meditating upon the symbols of gyre and cone, he discovers, like Faust, that ultimate knowledge will not be his. For a moment he grieves, but Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and knows all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (p. 302) Yeats seems almost to exult in this conclusion. It does after all represent the achievement of a kind of knowledge-though ironic like that in which Kant takes pleasure-but more important it completes a total gesture and concludes the ironic comedy of which it is a part. Reveries over Childhood and Youth ends with a statement not unre- lated to it: For some months now I have lived with my own youth and childhood, not always writing indeed but thinking of it almost every day, and I am sorrowful and disturbed. It is not that I have accomplished too few of my plans, for I am not ambi- tious, but when I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens. (p. 65) Indeed this passage appears very much the antithesis of comedy, but by a sort of negative appraisal one can see, I think, that the statement is meant to reveal that there is a possible contrary to its speaker: a masked figure who cares not a fig for "preparation" or for some great day, a figure who believes in the "now" of things, in momentary gay gesture and in drama, a figure who believes that there are things more important than all that is laboriously achieved by material effort or consumed by the mill of the mind. In Autobiographies this contrary figure, a perhaps coarse and indecorous artist, insists on a considerable substance of comedy, seri- ous as it may be, some of it satirizing the too-solemn, insufficiently masked young man remembered by the speaker, much of it remembering  Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 75 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 75 Some Yeatsian Versions of Comedy 75 with affectionate awe great comedians among old acquaintances and their momentary acts. Beautiful lofty things: O'Leary's noble head; My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd: 'This Land of Saints', and then as the applause died out, 'Of plaster Saints'; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back. ("Beautiful Lofty Things") The comic is a necessary aspect of Yeats's art that should not be neglected. Its apprehension is necessary to any tragic perception we discover in Yeats's work. On the great poet's tombstone famous words advise the passing horseman to "Cast a cold eye/On life, on death". Let us remember that the warm eye laments and overflows. It is the cold eye, high on the mountain or on horseback, that, seeing abroad, glitters. with affectionate awe great comedians among old acquaintances and their momentary acts. Beautiful lofty things: O'Leary's noble head; My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd: 'This Land of Saints', and then as the applause died out, 'Of plaster Saints'; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back. ("Beautiful Lofty Things") The comic is a necessary aspect of Yeats's art that should not be neglected. Its apprehension is necessary to any tragic perception we discover in Yeats's work. On the great poet's tombstone famous words advise the passing horseman to "Cast a cold eye/On life, on death". Let us remember that the warm eye laments and overflows. It is the cold eye, high on the mountain or on horseback, that, seeing abroad, glitters. with affectionate awe great comedians among old acquaintances and their momentary acts. Beautiful lofty things: O'Leary's noble head; My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd: 'This Land of Saints', and then as the applause died out, 'Of plaster Saints'; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back. ("Beautiful Lofty Things") The comic is a necessary aspect of Yeats's art that should not be neglected. Its apprehension is necessary to any tragic perception we discover in Yeats's work. On the great poet's tombstone famous words advise the passing horseman to "Cast a cold eye/On life, on death". Let us remember that the warm eye laments and overflows. It is the cold eye, high on the mountain or on horseback, that, seeing abroad, glitters.  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic In the early stages of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, it is hard to determine who the author of the relatively long perorations is until, at their conclu- sions, the "speaker" is finally identified as Harold. The delays leave one for a time likely to attribute these thoughts to the narrator or to be uncer- tain about their source. By the beginning of Canto IV, in the dedicatory letter to Hobhouse, Byron declares himself wearied of "drawing a line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive." He as much as ad- mits that he had failed to draw it effectively and goes on to say that he will no longer make the effort. It was wrecking his poem: ". . . the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it un- availing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether-and have done so." The continual delay in identifying Harold as speaker we can regard as an indication of Byron's reluctance to give his poem over in any large part to a character other than his narrator, whom he clearly identifies with himself. The anxiety to which he confesses is perhaps generated by an underlying impatience with the device from the beginning. Exactly how conscious Byron was of his own impatience when he wrote the early can- tos is uncertain and is in any case not my concern here. However, a re- mark he makes in the dedicatory letter to Canto IV is of considerable in- terest for understanding his methods. There he adds to the sentences I have already quoted, "The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are now a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors." By this he implies that the completed work excludes the author as an historical per- sonage, and his true reputation becomes only the work's reputation. That has not been the case from the point of view of most readers, the historical Byron's notoriety having prevented it. He was, however, quite properly displacing the question of who speaks in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage from himself as historical author to a fictive narrator, who gradually assimilates Harold to himself. That narrator's initial position is one of barely suppressed reluctance to allow his hero full sway. So we have two removals: one from the huge presiding ego of George Gordon 76 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic In the early stages of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, it is hard to determine who the author of the relatively long perorations is until, at their conclu- sions, the "speaker" is finally identified as Harold. The delays leave one for a time likely to attribute these thoughts to the narrator or to be uncer- tain about their source. By the beginning of Canto IV, in the dedicatory letter to Hobhouse, Byron declares himself wearied of "drawing a line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive." He as much as ad- mits that he had failed to draw it effectively and goes on to say that he will no longer make the effort. It was wrecking his poem: ". . . the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it un- availing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether-and have done so." The continual delay in identifying Harold as speaker we can regard as an indication of Byron's reluctance to give his poem over in any large part to a character other than his narrator, whom he clearly identifies with himself. The anxiety to which he confesses is perhaps generated by an underlying impatience with the device from the beginning. Exactly how conscious Byron was of his own impatience when he wrote the early can- tos is uncertain and is in any case not my concern here. However, a re- mark he makes in the dedicatory letter to Canto IV is of considerable in- terest for understanding his methods. There he adds to the sentences I have already quoted, "The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are now a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors." By this he implies that the completed work excludes the author as an historical per- sonage, and his true reputation becomes only the work's reputation. That has not been the case from the point of view of most readers, the historical Byron's notoriety having prevented it. He was, however, quite properly displacing the question of who speaks in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage from himself as historical author to a fictive narrator, who gradually assimilates Harold to himself. That narrator's initial position is one of barely suppressed reluctance to allow his hero full sway. So we have two removals: one from the huge presiding ego of George Gordon Byron, Yeats, and Joyce: Heroism and Technic In the early stages of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, it is hard to determine who the author of the relatively long perorations is until, at their conclu- sions, the "speaker" is finally identified as Harold. The delays leave one for a time likely to attribute these thoughts to the narrator or to be uncer- tain about their source. By the beginning of Canto IV, in the dedicatory letter to Hobhouse, Byron declares himself wearied of "drawing a line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive." He as much as ad- mits that he had failed to draw it effectively and goes on to say that he will no longer make the effort. It was wrecking his poem: ".. . the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it un- availing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether-and have done so." The continual delay in identifying Harold as speaker we can regard as an indication of Byron's reluctance to give his poem over in any large part to a character other than his narrator, whom he clearly identifies with himself. The anxiety to which he confesses is perhaps generated by an underlying impatience with the device from the beginning. Exactly how conscious Byron was of his own impatience when he wrote the early can- tos is uncertain and is in any case not my concern here. However, a re- mark he makes in the dedicatory letter to Canto IV is of considerable in- terest for understanding his methods. There he adds to the sentences I have already quoted, "The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are now a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors." By this he implies that the completed work excludes the author as an historical per- sonage, and his true reputation becomes only the work's reputation. That has not been the case from the point of view of most readers, the historical Byron's notoriety having prevented it. He was, however, quite properly displacing the question of who speaks in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage from himself as historical author to a fictive narrator, who gradually assimilates Harold to himself. That narrator's initial position is one of barely suppressed reluctance to allow his hero full sway. So we have two removals: one from the huge presiding ego of George Gordon  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 77 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 77 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 77 Lord Byron to the narrator, and one moving in the other direction from Harold again to the narrator. In the process of observing this latter re- moval we have asked who the hero of the poem is: narrator or Harold? To pursue the question into the dedicatory letter to Canto IV from its beginnings in Canto I is to discover a line of drama expressing a struggle for supremacy. The story is not only the story of a pilgrimage but also of a curious contest, won ultimately by the narrator over his hero. How- ever, we cannot say that this struggle is at the very forefront of the poem. It is rather a secondary, though circumferential, action that comes into importance as the work proceeds and of which the narrator is himself per- haps not fully conscious. It serves to complicate the thematic materials of romantic quest by introducing a developing metafictional drama. II Don Juan is, of course, the poem in which this matter becomes urgent, central, and clearly calculated. From the outset of Don Juan, it is clear that Byron's text quite rigorously controls a drama of struggle between the narrator on the one hand and his story with its hero on the other. The containing technique of Don Juan lies in the performance of the nar- rator and the gestures that he makes toward his story and hero and toward his reader. This performance is in a curious way a sort of doubling of the characteristic behavior of Juan himself. The gestures can be provisionally described by the word "reckless," though it is a performance of reckless- ness and therefore has an element of self-consciousness and purposive- ness lacking in Juan's impulsive and marvelously thoughtless heroic acts and his naturally courtierlike behavior. Space does not allow a detailed discussion of this very interesting mat- ter, including the immense variety of the narrator's gesturing, in Don Juan. If I were to attempt it I would never arrive at certain remarkable developments of this same romantic phenomenon in Yeatsian recklessness and heroic narrative arrangement in Joyce. A general account is necessary in the form of two reductive theses: 1. The importance of the narrated story and the hero of Don Juan is called in question at the outset and in a variety of ways there-often by a narrator who is unwilling to allow his ego to be dwarfed by that of his hero. The difference from Childe Harold, and a sophisticated develop- ment from it, is that this narrator is well aware of what he is doing and what it means to do it. It means that the narrator knows he is protecting his own ego or perhaps asserting it at the expense of or at least through a subtle resistance to his story. This makes the story complicitous in his Lord Byron to the narrator, and one moving in the other direction from Harold again to the narrator. In the process of observing this latter re- moval we have asked who the hero of the poem is: narrator or Harold? To pursue the question into the dedicatory letter to Canto IV from its beginnings in Canto I is to discover a line of drama expressing a struggle for supremacy. The story is not only the story of a pilgrimage but also of a curious contest, won ultimately by the narrator over his hero. How- ever, we cannot say that this struggle is at the very forefront of the poem. It is rather a secondary, though circumferential, action that comes into importance as the work proceeds and of which the narrator is himself per- haps not fully conscious. It serves to complicate the thematic materials of romantic quest by introducing a developing metafictional drama. II Don Juan is, of course, the poem in which this matter becomes urgent, central, and clearly calculated. From the outset of Don Juan, it is clear that Byron's text quite rigorously controls a drama of struggle between the narrator on the one hand and his story with its hero on the other. The containing technique of Don Juan lies in the performance of the nar- rator and the gestures that he makes toward his story and hero and toward his reader. This performance is in a curious way a sort of doubling of the characteristic behavior of Juan himself. The gestures can be provisionally described by the word "reckless," though it is a performance of reckless- ness and therefore has an element of self-consciousness and purposive- ness lacking in Juan's impulsive and marvelously thoughtless heroic acts and his naturally courtierlike behavior. Space does not allow a detailed discussion of this very interesting mat- ter, including the immense variety of the narrator's gesturing, in Don Juan. If I were to attempt it I would never arrive at certain remarkable developments of this same romantic phenomenon in Yeatsian recklessness and heroic narrative arrangement in Joyce. A general account is necessary in the form of two reductive theses: a. The importance of the narrated story and the herm of Don Juan is called in question at the outset and in a variety of ways there-often by a narrator who is unwilling to allow his ego to be dwarfed by that of his hero. The difference from Childe Harold, and a sophisticated develop- ment from it, is that this narrator is well aware of what he is doing and what it means to do it. It means that the narrator knows he is protecting his own ego or perhaps asserting it at the expense of or at least through a subtle resistance to his story. This makes the story complicitous in his Lord Byron to the narrator, and one moving in the other direction from Harold again to the narrator. In the process of observing this latter re- moval we have asked who the hero of the poem is: narrator or Harold? To pursue the question into the dedicatory letter to Canto IV from its beginnings in Canto I is to discover a line of drama expressing a struggle for supremacy. The story is not only the story of a pilgrimage but also of a curious contest, won ultimately by the narrator over his hero. How- ever, we cannot say that this struggle is at the very forefront of the poem. It is rather a secondary, though circumferential, action that comes into importance as the work proceeds and of which the narrator is himself per- haps not fully conscious. It serves to complicate the thematic materials of romantic quest by introducing a developing metafictional drama. II Don Juan is, of course, the poem in which this matter becomes urgent, central, and clearly calculated. From the outset of Don Juan, it is clear that Byron's text quite rigorously controls a drama of struggle between the narrator on the one hand and his story with its hero on the other. The containing technique of Don Juan lies in the performance of the nar- rator and the gestures that he makes toward his story and hero and toward his reader. This performance is in a curious way a sort of doubling of the characteristic behavior of Juan himself The gestures can be provisionally described by the word "reckless," though it is a performance of reckless- ness and therefore has an element of self-consciousness and purposive- ness lacking in Juan's impulsive and marvelously thoughtless heroic acts and his naturally courtierlike behavior. Space does not allow a detailed discussion of this very interesting mat- ter, including the immense variety of the narrator's gesturing, in Don Juan. If I were to attempt it I would never arrive at certain remarkable developments of this same romantic phenomenon in Yeatsian recklessness and heroic narrative arrangement in Joyce. A general account is necessary in the form of two reductive theses: a. The importance of the narrated story and the hero of Don Juan is called in question at the outset and in a variety of ways there-often by a narrator who is unwilling to allow his ego to be dwarfed by that of his hero. The difference from Childe Harold, and a sophisticated develop- ment from it, is that this narrator is well aware of what he is doing and what it means to do it. It means that the narrator knows he is protecting his own ego or perhaps asserting it at the expense of or at least through a subtle resistance to his story. This makes the story complicitous in his  Antithetical Essays 78 Antithetical Essays 78 Antithetical Essays self-aggrandization. Further, he is mature enough to recognize that there is something ridiculous about compelling himself to do this, and therefore he constantly views his own behavior with a saving self-satire or indulges in comic posturing. This does not lessen our sense of the considerable ego of the narrator but in fact enlarges it, for we come to realize that where the narrator seems to be out of control of his narration, he is most decisively in control. His carelessness and digressiveness are part of a de- liberate performance, no less in control because it is of the commedia dell'arte sort, but in fact more admirable because it must constantly be improvised. The story of Juan inside the poem must be read, then, as one pole of a continuing dramatic performance composed, directed, and acted, by the narrator, in which the narrator, acting his part, sets for him- self a threefold challenge: (a) to tell an interesting story, (b) to maintain his presence before the reader as a controlling force, (c) to express through these two activities his own nature. 2. All of the foregoing drama is contained by what I call the authority of the text, which draws a circle around this narrator. This circle has an interesting ambiguity about it, suggesting an ever-so-slight schism be- tween the authority of the text and narrator, as if the poem wishes to gain its independence from the narrator, even as the narrator wishes to be in- dependent of his story. I shall have more to say about this and the need of criticism to recognize such differences further along. I am referring here to the prose preface and the verse dedication. The first of these Byron himself seems to have been ambivalent about. Written at the end of Canto I and left unfinished, it was not published until s901. If we wish to constitute it as part of the poem, we must treat it as a circle around the narrator's behavior and introduce an "author" of that narrator. This "author," now another character with whom we must deal, the controller of the narrator, turns out to be at least as reckless a gesturer as the narra- tor he had created. His description of the narrator's manner, surround- ing, and listeners, is deliberately preposterous, not just because of its im- possibility but also because it is a parody of a Wordsworthian explanation. The method is a reductio ad absurdum by means of a dogged, garrulous excess of specificity that cannot by any means be applied to the narrator as we come to experience him, though he is garrulous enough. It is even in itself contradictory. Further, this "author," now himself a narrator at a larger circumference, declares that the verse dedication, a mockery of Robert Southey, has been interpolated by an English editor, either a Tory turned Whig or a rival poet, or someone with a grudge. These playful obfuscations deliberately do not describe the narrator but rather empha- size their writer, a containing presence who unsettles the narrative situa- tion and thus calls attention to himself. This text, threatening perhaps an self-aggrandization. Further, he is mature enough to recognize that there is something ridiculous about compelling himself to do this, and therefore he constantly views his own behavior with a saving self-satire or indulges in comic posturing. This does not lessen our sense of the considerable ego of the narrator but in fact enlarges it, for we come to realize that where the narrator seems to be out of control of his narration, he is most decisively in control. His carelessness and digressiveness are part of a de- liberate performance, no less in control because it is of the commedia dell'arte sort, but in fact more admirable because it must constantly be improvised. The story of Juan inside the poem must be read, then, as one pole of a continuing dramatic performance composed, directed, and acted, by the narrator, in which the narrator, acting his part, sets for him- self a threefold challenge: (a) to tell an interesting story, (b) to maintain his presence before the reader as a controlling force, (c) to express through these two activities his own nature. 2. All of the foregoing drama is contained by what I call the authority of the text, which draws a circle around this narrator. This circle has an interesting ambiguity about it, suggesting an ever-so-slight schism be- tween the authority of the text and narrator, as if the poem wishes to gain its independence from the narrator, even as the narrator wishes to be in- dependent of his story. I shall have more to say about this and the need of criticism to recognize such differences further along. I am referring here to the prose preface and the verse dedication. The first of these Byron himself seems to have been ambivalent about. Written at the end of Canto I and left unfinished, it was not published until s901. If we wish to constitute it as part of the poem, we must treat it as a circle around the narrator's behavior and introduce an "author" of that narrator. This "author," now another character with whom we must deal, the controller of the narrator, turns out to be at least as reckless a gesturer as the narra- tor he had created. His description of the narrator's manner, surround- ing, and listeners, is deliberately preposterous, not just because of its im- possibility but also because it is a parody of a Wordsworthian explanation. The method is a reductio ad absurdum by means of a dogged, garrulous excess of specificity that cannot by any means be applied to the narrator as we come to experience him, though he is garrulous enough. It is even in itself contradictory. Further, this "author," now himself a narrator at a larger circumference, declares that the verse dedication, a mockery of Robert Southey, has been interpolated by an English editor, either a Tory turned Whig or a rival poet, or someone with a grudge. These playful obfuscations deliberately do not describe the narrator but rather empha- size their writer, a containing presence who unsettles the narrative situa- tion and thus calls attention to himself. This text, threatening perhaps an self-aggrandization. Further, he is mature enough to recognize that there is something ridiculous about compelling himself to do this, and therefore he constantly views his own behavior with a saving self-satire or indulges in comic posturing. This does not lessen our sense of the considerable ego of the narrator but in fact enlarges it, for we come to realize that where the narrator seems to be out of control of his narration, he is most decisively in control. His carelessness and digressiveness are part of a de- liberate performance, no less in control because it is of the commedia dellarte sort, but in fact more admirable because it must constantly be improvised. The story of Juan inside the poem must be read, then, as one pole of a continuing dramatic performance composed, directed, and acted, by the narrator, in which the narrator, acting his part, sets for him- self a threefold challenge: (a) to tell an interesting story, (b) to maintain his presence before the reader as a controlling force, (c) to express through these two activities his own nature. 2. All of the foregoing drama is contained by what I call the authority of the text, which draws a circle around this narrator. This circle has an interesting ambiguity about it, suggesting an ever-so-slight schism be- tween the authority of the text and narrator, as if the poem wishes to gain its independence from the narrator, even as the narrator wishes to be in- dependent of his story. I shall have more to say about this and the need of criticism to recognize such differences further along. I am referring here to the prose preface and the verse dedication. The first of these Byron himself seems to have been ambivalent about. Written at the end of Canto I and left unfinished, it was not published until s9ot. If we wish to constitute it as part of the poem, we must treat it as a circle around the narrator's behavior and introduce an "author" of that narrator. This "author," now another character with whom we must deal, the controller of the narrator, turns out to be at least as reckless a gesturer as the narra- tor he had created. His description of the narrator's manner, surround- ing, and listeners, is deliberately preposterous, not just because of its im- possibility but also because it is a parody of a Wordsworthian explanation. The method is a reductio ad absurdum by means of a dogged, garrulous excess of specificity that cannot by any means be applied to the narrator as we come to experience him, though he is garrulous enough. It is even in itself contradictory. Further, this "author," now himself a narrator at a larger circumference, declares that the verse dedication, a mockery of Robert Southey, has been interpolated by an English editor, either a Tory turned Whig or a rival poet, or someone with a grudge. These playful obfuscations deliberately do not describe the narrator but rather empha- size their writer, a containing presence who unsettles the narrative situa- tion and thus calls attention to himself. This text, threatening perhaps an  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 79 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 79 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 79 infinite regress of such controlling figures, forces our attention on the poet's self-expression even as it seems to be removing that self-expression from us into still another fictive "author." We have here the recession of the poet's ego beyond fictive circumferences, but it may be that this sort of behavior actually displays the ultimate poetic egoism. The contained narrator, once he begins, wants very much to be re- garded as real, that is to say a character in his own right. Further, he wants his story to be regarded as both real and unreal, protecting his own presence and control. This is clear from the beginning, when the narrator indicates how he is to choose his hero. We recognize that this choice is a gesture implying the narrator's impatience with official notions of hero- ism. He is certain that his is not a heroic time. But he goes beyond this and rejects traditional literary notions of heroes and displays a cavalier attitude toward the traditional requirement that his poem have a hero other than his own fascinating self. He lays claim to common sense, one evidence offered being his intention to abandon Horatian rules and begin with the beginning. He indicates that what we see before us is the very writing of the poem itself, about which he continues frequently to com- ment. His gestures at the outset are outrageous and in all directions: to- ward his story, toward Juan, and even toward the reader, as for example the following: And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning) Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother if you'd rather. (1:7) The rime is a gesture of impudence toward the reader. However, beyond this impudence is the narrator's growing trust in the reader to understand and appreciate his general attitude and his witticisms. We later discover the narrator speaking to his reader quite familiarly and referring with dis- dain to those others who will not catch some of his more subtle moves. This division of readers into two groups allows him to have his impudence and his familiarity too. As the poem proceeds, the narrator gains self-confidence and the im- pudence toward the reader begins to give way to a comic vision of him- self, though this in the end contributes to the narration as a cumulative act of self-aggrandization: our interest in the narrator continues to be piqued, and our respect for his capacity for performance grows. A performer is aware of an audience. This is the fundamental differ- ence between the narrator and Juan himself, for Juan performs only under duress, as he must in the harem scene of Canto V. It is not in his nature infinite regress of such controlling figures, forces our attention on the poet's self-expression even as it seems to be removing that self-expression from us into still another fictive "author." We have here the recession of the poet's ego beyond fictive circumferences, but it may be that this sort of behavior actually displays the ultimate poetic egoism. The contained narrator, once he begins, wants very much to be re- garded as real, that is to say a character in his own right. Further, he wants his story to be regarded as both real and unreal, protecting his own presence and control. This is clear from the beginning, when the narrator indicates how he is to choose his hero. We recognize that this choice is a gesture implying the narrator's impatience with official notions of hero- ism. He is certain that his is not a heroic time. But he goes beyond this and rejects traditional literary notions of heroes and displays a cavalier attitude toward the traditional requirement that his poem have a hero other than his own fascinating self. He lays claim to common sense, one evidence offered being his intention to abandon Horatian rules and begin with the beginning. He indicates that what we see before us is the very writing of the poem itself, about which he continues frequently to com- ment. His gestures at the outset are outrageous and in all directions: to- ward his story, toward Juan, and even toward the reader, as for example the following: And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning) Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother if you'd rather. (1:7) The rime is a gesture of impudence toward the reader. However, beyond this impudence is the narrator's growing trust in the reader to understand and appreciate his general attitude and his witticisms. We later discover the narrator speaking to his reader quite familiarly and referring with dis- dain to those others who will not catch some of his more subtle moves. This division of readers into two groups allows him to have his impudence and his familiarity too. As the poem proceeds, the narrator gains self-confidence and the im- pudence toward the reader begins to give way to a comic vision of him- self, though this in the end contributes to the narration as a cumulative act of self-aggrandization: our interest in the narrator continues to be piqued, and our respect for his capacity for performance grows. A performer is aware of an audience. This is the fundamental differ- ence between the narrator and Juan himself, for Juan performs only under duress, as he must in the harem scene of Canto V. It is not in his nature infinite regress of such controlling figures, forces our attention on the poet's self-expression even as it seems to be removing that self-expression from us into still another fictive "author." We have here the recession of the poet's ego beyond fictive circumferences, but it may be that this sort of behavior actually displays the ultimate poetic egoism. The contained narrator, once he begins, wants very much to be re- garded as real, that is to say a character in his own right. Further, he wants his story to be regarded as both real and unreal, protecting his own presence and control. This is clear from the beginning, when the narrator indicates how he is to choose his hero. We recognize that this choice is a gesture implying the narrator's impatience with official notions of hero- ism. He is certain that his is not a heroic time. But he goes beyond this and rejects traditional literary notions of heroes and displays a cavalier attitude toward the traditional requirement that his poem have a hero other than his own fascinating self. He lays claim to common sense, one evidence offered being his intention to abandon Horatian rules and begin with the beginning. He indicates that what we see before us is the very writing of the poem itself, about which he continues frequently to com- ment. His gestures at the outset are outrageous and in all directions: to- ward his story, toward Juan, and even toward the reader, as for example the following: And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning) Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother if you'd rather. (1:7) The rime is a gesture of impudence toward the reader. However, beyond this impudence is the narrator's growing trust in the reader to understand and appreciate his general attitude and his witticisms. We later discover the narrator speaking to his reader quite familiarly and referring with dis- dain to those others who will not catch some of his more subtle moves. This division of readers into two groups allows him to have his impudence and his familiarity too. As the poem proceeds, the narrator gains self-confidence and the im- pudence toward the reader begins to give way to a comic vision of him- self, though this in the end contributes to the narration as a cumulative act of self-aggrandization: our interest in the narrator continues to be piqued, and our respect for his capacity for performance grows. A performer is aware of an audience. This is the fundamental differ- ence between the narrator and Juan himself, for Juan performs only under duress, as he must in the harem scene of Canto V. It is not in his nature  Antithetical Essays 80 Antithetical Essays So Antithetical Essays to think to be a Thespian, though he can play a part if he must. In that sense, he is the alter ego of the narrator. For the most part Juan is created by this narrator as a creature of pure gesture, acting without apparent external purposiveness or rational self-interest. This behavior, the capac- ity for which will be greatly taxed in English high society, is impossible in the "real" world of the narrator. There it would be a hopeless naivete, leading to innumerable disasters. The narrator knows this above all else, and that is one reason why he constantly implies the fictiveness of his story even as he insists on its reality. The reality to which he refers is his own presence and his relation to his story as well as a certain faithful- ness to the real in the scenes depicted. In the narrator's inversion of the Juan legend, it is the world that is the cynic, not Juan, just as it is Juan who is pursued, not the women; the narrator declares this to be the real world. The narrator's gestures would approach Juan's in heroic impul- sive recklessness, but they can never become pure gesture because the narrator, being real, must have in every gesture the element of self- consciousness, therefore performance. Juan, being unreal, at least in the early stages of the poem, can be ideal. This is the reason that the narrator both respects his hero and denigrates his story. He respects him because of his capacity for the pure act of feeling, for his right impulses, and ulti- mately his morality. He denigrates the story partly out of jealousy, be- cause, being unreal, Juan has the luxury of not having to perform. The narrator may be impure, but he feels his superiority in knowing that his performance of recklessness is the product of an admirably created self- discipline: his quest for purity of action cannot be completed. That is one reason that he threatens to proceed through one hundred cantos. The poem might well be endless, as is the usual romantic quest. The narrator declares that he is in the real world. His heroism is to deal with a situation the opposite of the ideal. The narrator, then, would copy his alter ego if he could. He describes himself as too old to be a true hero. This is a way of saying that he himself is real, in contrast to Juan. He must settle for the performance of heroic gesture, which therefore contains an element of irony. But we had better have another look at how Don Juan proceeds into the so-called En- glish cantos, for we may discover there even a further circumference of irony. There the narrator begins to set for himself a new task, which is to submit Juan not only to the trials of English society but also to those of the inner real, that is, self-consciousness, from which he has been, as ideal, free. It is interesting that at this very point the narrator actually intrudes into the external real of the story as a guest at the great house of the Amundevilles. These acts, which are related to each other, indicate (as if we did not to think to be a Thespian, though he can play a part if he must. In that sense, he is the alter ego of the narrator. For the most part Juan is created by this narrator as a creature of pure gesture, acting without apparent external purposiveness or rational self-interest. This behavior, the capac- ity for which will be greatly taxed in English high society, is impossible in the "real" world of the narrator. There it would be a hopeless naivete, leading to innumerable disasters. The narrator knows this above all else, and that is one reason why he constantly implies the fictiveness of his story even as he insists on its reality. The reality to which he refers is his own presence and his relation to his story as well as a certain faithful- ness to the real in the scenes depicted. In the narrator's inversion of the Juan legend, it is the world that is the cynic, not Juan, just as it is Juan who is pursued, not the women; the narrator declares this to be the real world. The narrator's gestures would approach Juan's in heroic impul- sive recklessness, but they can never become pure gesture because the narrator, being real, must have in every gesture the element of self- consciousness, therefore performance. Juan, being unreal, at least in the early stages of the poem, can be ideal. This is the reason that the narrator both respects his hero and denigrates his story. He respects him because of his capacity for the pure act of feeling, for his right impulses, and ulti- mately his morality. He denigrates the story partly out of jealousy, be- cause, being unreal, Juan has the luxury of not having to perform. The narrator may be impure, but he feels his superiority in knowing that his performance of recklessness is the product of an admirably created self- discipline: his quest for purity of action cannot be completed. That is one reason that he threatens to proceed through one hundred cantos. The poem might well be endless, as is the usual romantic quest. The narrator declares that he is in the real world. His heroism is to deal with a situation the opposite of the ideal. The narrator, then, would copy his alter ego if he could. He describes himself as too old to be a true hero. This is a way of saying that he himself is real, in contrast to Juan. He must settle for the performance of heroic gesture, which therefore contains an element of irony. But we had better have another look at how Don Juan proceeds into the so-called En- glish cantos, for we may discover there even a further circumference of irony. There the narrator begins to set for himself a new task, which is to submit Juan not only to the trials of English society but also to those of the inner real, that is, self-consciousness, from which he has been, as ideal, free. It is interesting that at this very point the narrator actually intrudes into the external real of the story as a guest at the great house of the Amundevilles. These acts, which are related to each other, indicate (as if we did not to think to be a Thespian, though he can play a part if he must. In that sense, he is the alter ego of the narrator. For the most part Juan is created by this narrator as a creature of pure gesture, acting without apparent external purposiveness or rational self-interest. This behavior, the capac- ity for which will be greatly taxed in English high society, is impossible in the "real" world of the narrator. There it would be a hopeless naivete, leading to innumerable disasters. The narrator knows this above all else, and that is one reason why he constantly implies the fictiveness of his story even as he insists on its reality. The reality to which he refers is his own presence and his relation to his story as well as a certain faithful- ness to the real in the scenes depicted. In the narrator's inversion of the Juan legend, it is the world that is the cynic, not Juan, just as it is Juan who is pursued, not the women; the narrator declares this to be the real world. The narrator's gestures would approach Juan's in heroic impul- sive recklessness, but they can never become pure gesture because the narrator, being real, must have in every gesture the element of self- consciousness, therefore performance. Juan, being unreal, at least in the early stages of the poem, can be ideal. This is the reason that the narrator both respects his hero and denigrates his story. He respects him because of his capacity for the pure act of feeling, for his right impulses, and ulti- mately his morality. He denigrates the story partly out of jealousy, be- cause, being unreal, Juan has the luxury of not having to perform. The narrator may be impure, but he feels his superiority in knowing that his performance of recklessness is the product of an admirably created self- discipline: his quest for purity of action cannot be completed. That is one reason that he threatens to proceed through one hundred cantos. The poem might well be endless, as is the usual romantic quest. The narrator declares that he is in the real world. His heroism is to deal with a situation the opposite of the ideal. The narrator, then, would copy his alter ego if he could. He describes himself as too old to be a true hero. This is a way of saying that he himself is real, in contrast to Juan. He must settle for the performance of heroic gesture, which therefore contains an element of irony. But we had better have another look at how Don Juan proceeds into the so-called En- glish cantos, for we may discover there even a further circumference of irony. There the narrator begins to set for himself a new task, which is to submit Juan not only to the trials of English society but also to those of the inner real, that is, self-consciousness, from which he has been, as ideal, free. It is interesting that at this very point the narrator actually intrudes into the external real of the story as a guest at the great house of the Amundevilles. These acts, which are related to each other, indicate (as if we did not  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 81 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 81 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce already know) the narrator's willingness to take ever new chances. To make these decisions is to give the story a dignity his previous distance has withheld. We can see this, perhaps, in a number of different ways. Perhaps, it is an expression merely of the narrator's boredom and/or ca- priciousness. He had made himself problematic before. Or perhaps it is the author's character we should focus on-that fictive author who wrote the preface. Perhaps we are witnessing a narrator's revenge on a charac- ter whose ideality has irritated him. In any case, from here onwards (had Byron been able to write more) it appears that for a while at least Juan must himself consciously strive to maintain sprezzatura. This will be real heroism, because impure like the narrator's. This turn of the story, then, challenges Juan, but it is also a supreme reckless adventurousness by the narrator, who, by recharacterizing him- self and placing Juan under the stress of self-consciousness, has set him- self yet again the heroic task of creation and especially self-creation. It is this continual and unending gesturing that is Byron's romanticism and his modernism. III Not very much has been written about Byron and the moderns. In an interesting recent book Hermione de Almeida has paid careful attention to the Homeric parallels in Don Juan and Ulysses.' But earlier studies such as George Bornstein's Transformations of Romanticism in Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens find very little to say about Byron.' There have been books on Yeats relation to Blake, Shelley, and Keats, but virtually no comment on Yeats's and Byron.' Bornstein speaks of Byron's "heroic, isolated figures emblematic of passions and mood" (p. 44) as interesting to Yeats, but does not pursue the possibility that Byron's heroic figures are close to Yeats's in certain respects. Nor does Alex Zwerdling in his Yeats and the Heroic Ideal evoke Byron.' Even Harold Bloom, ever interested in influence, L Hermione de Almeida, Byron and Joyce Through Homer: Don Juan and Ulysses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). z. Bornstein, Transformations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). 3. Hazard Adams, Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955); George Bornstein, Yeats and Shelley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); James Land Jones, Adam's Dream: Mythic Consciousness in Keats and Yeats (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975). 4. Zwerdling, Yeats and the Heroic Ideal (New York: New York University Press, 1965). already know) the narrator's willingness to take ever new chances. To make these decisions is to give the story a dignity his previous distance has withheld. We can see this, perhaps, in a number of different ways. Perhaps, it is an expression merely of the narrator's boredom and/or ca- priciousness. He had made himself problematic before. Or perhaps it is the author's character we should focus on-that fictive author who wrote the preface. Perhaps we are witnessing a narrator's revenge on a charac- ter whose ideality has irritated him. In any case, from here onwards (had Byron been able to write more) it appears that for a while at least Juan must himself consciously strive to maintain sprezzatura. This will be real heroism, because impure like the narrator's. This turn of the story, then, challenges Juan, but it is also a supreme reckless adventurousness by the narrator, who, by recharacterizing him- self and placing Juan under the stress of self-consciousness, has set him- self yet again the heroic task of creation and especially self-creation. It is this continual and unending gesturing that is Byron's romanticism and his modernism. III Not very much has been written about Byron and the moderns. In an interesting recent book Hermione de Almeida has paid careful attention to the Homeric parallels in Don Juan and Ulysses.' But earlier studies such as George Bornstein's Transformations of Romanticism in Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens find very little to say about Byron.' There have been books on Yeats relation to Blake, Shelley, and Keats, but virtually no comment on Yeats's and Byron.' Bornstein speaks of Byron's "heroic, isolated figures emblematic of passions and mood" (p. 44) as interesting to Yeats, but does not pursue the possibility that Byron's heroic figures are close to Yeats's in certain respects. Nor does Alex Zwerdling in his Yeats and the Heroic Ideal evoke Byron.' Even Harold Bloom, ever interested in influence, a. Hermione de Almeida, Byron andfoyce Through Homer: Don Juan and Ulysses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). a. Bornstein, Transformations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). 3. Hazard Adams, Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955); George Bornstein, Yeats and Shelley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 197); James Land Jones, Adam's Dream: Mythic Consciousness in Keats and Yeats (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975). 4. Zwerdling, Yeats and the Heroic Ideal (New York: New York University Press, 1965). already know) the narrator's willingness to take ever new chances. To make these decisions is to give the story a dignity his previous distance has withheld. We can see this, perhaps, in a number of different ways. Perhaps, it is an expression merely of the narrator's boredom and/or ca- priciousness. He had made himself problematic before. Or perhaps it is the author's character we should focus on-that fictive author who wrote the preface. Perhaps we are witnessing a narrator's revenge on a charac- ter whose ideality has irritated him. In any case, from here onwards (had Byron been able to write more) it appears that for a while at least Juan must himself consciously strive to maintain sprezzatura. This will be real heroism, because impure like the narrator's. This turn of the story, then, challenges Juan, but it is also a supreme reckless adventurousness by the narrator, who, by recharacterizing him- self and placing Juan under the stress of self-consciousness, has set him- self yet again the heroic task of creation and especially self-creation. It is this continual and unending gesturing that is Byron's romanticism and his modernism. III Not very much has been written about Byron and the moderns. In an interesting recent book Hermione de Almeida has paid careful attention to the Homeric parallels in Don Juan and Ulysses.' But earlier studies such as George Bornstein's Transformations of Romanticism in Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens find very little to say about Byron.' There have been books on Yeats relation to Blake, Shelley, and Keats, but virtually no comment on Yeats's and Byron.' Bornstein speaks of Byron's "heroic, isolated figures emblematic of passions and mood" (p. 44) as interesting to Yeats, but does not pursue the possibility that Byron's heroic figures are close to Yeats's in certain respects. Nor does Alex Zwerdling in his Yeats and the Heroic Ideal evoke Byron.' Even Harold Bloom, ever interested in influence, L Hermione de Almeida, Byron andJoyce Through Homer: Don Juan and Ulysses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). a. Bornstein, Transformations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ig76). 3. Hazard Adams, Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955); George Bornstein, Yeats and Shelley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); James Land Jones, Adam's Dream: Mythic Consciousness in Keats and Yeats (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975). 4. Zwerdling, Yeats and the Heroic Ideal (New York: New York University Press, 1965).  Antithetical Essays 82 Antsatithetical Essays 82 Antithetical Essays finds almost nothing to say about Byron and Yeats in his long study of Yeats's writing.' Yeats himself seems to have had an amibivalent attitude toward Byron. In 19a6, he wrote to Sidney Cockerell: I have always felt that Byron was one of the great problems, the great mysteries-a first-rate man, who was somehow not first-rate when he wrote. And yet the very fascination of him grows from the same root with his faults. One feels that he is a man of action made writer by accident, and that, in an age where great style was the habit of his class, he might have been one of the greatest of all writers. His disaster was that he lived in an age when great style could only be bought by the giving up of everything else.' Yeats also noted favorably what he regarded as Byron's achievement of a natural momentum in his syntax, though he regretted that it was not often sustained. Still he complained that Lord Lovelace's book on Byron underestimated Byron's imaginative power, but much of this power he found in the letters rather than the poetry.' There is one quite early remark mentioning Byron that is worth greater thought: When the time was ripe the English spirit cast up that lyrical outburst of which Byron, Shelley, and Keats were the most characteristic writers. Character, no longer loved for its own sake, or as an expression of the general bustle of life, became merely the mask for some mood or passion, as in "Manfred" and in his "Don Juan." In other words, the poets began to write but little of individual men and women, but rather of great types, great symbols of passion and mood like Alastor, Don Juan, Manfred, Ahaseurus, Prometheus, and Isabella of the Basil Pot. When they tried, as in Byron's plays, to display character for its own sake they failed.' This is Yeats exploiting a distinction between works of characterization and works of passion, elaborated most fully in "The Tragic Theatre" of 1Yo. Yeats apparently did not see in Don Juan the displacement of char- s. Bloom, Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). 6. Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. A. Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 467. 7. Ibid., 473. 8. Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, ed. J. . PFrayne (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 1:270-71. finds almost nothing to say about Byron and Yeats in his long study of Yeats's writing.' Yeats himself seems to have had an amibivalent attitude toward Byron. In 19o6, he wrote to Sidney Cockerell: I have always felt that Byron was one of the great problems, the great mysteries-a first-rate man, who was somehow not first-rate when he wrote. And yet the very fascination of him grows from the same root with his faults. One feels that he is a man of action made writer by accident, and that, in an age where great style was the habit of his class, he might have been one of the greatest of all writers. His disaster was that he lived in an age when great style could only be bought by the giving up of everything else.' Yeats also noted favorably what he regarded as Byron's achievement of a natural momentum in his syntax, though he regretted that it was not often sustained. Still he complained that Lord Lovelace's book on Byron underestimated Byron's imaginative power, but much of this power he found in the letters rather than the poetry.' There is one quite early remark mentioning Byron that is worth greater thought: When the time was ripe the English spirit cast up that lyrical outburst of which Byron, Shelley, and Keats were the most characteristic writers. Character, no longer loved for its own sake, or as an expression of the general bustle of life, became merely the mask for some mood or passion, as in "Manfred" and in his "Don Juan." In other words, the poets began to write but little of individual men and women, but rather of great types, great symbols of passion and mood like Alastor, Don Juan, Manfred, Ahaseurus, Prometheus, and Isabella of the Basil Pot. When they tried, as in Byron's plays, to display character for its own sake they failed.' This is Yeats exploiting a distinction between works of characterization and works of passion, elaborated most fully in "The Tragic Theatre" of s91o. Yeats apparently did not see in Don Juan the displacement of char- s. Bloom, Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 197o). 6. Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. A. Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955) 467. 7. Ibid., 473-. 8. Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, ed. J. P. Frayne (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 1:270-71. finds almost nothing to say about Byron and Yeats in his long study of Yeats's writing.' Yeats himself seems to have had an amibivalent attitude toward Byron. In 19o6, he wrote to Sidney Cockerel: I have always felt that Byron was one of the great problems, the great mysteries-a first-rate man, who was somehow not first-rate when he wrote. And yet the very fascination of him grows from the same root with his faults. One feels that he is a man of action made writer by accident, and that, in an age where great style was the habit of his class, he might have been one of the greatest of all writers. His disaster was that he lived in an age when great style could only be bought by the giving up of everything else.' Yeats also noted favorably what he regarded as Byron's achievement of a natural momentum in his syntax, though he regretted that it was not often sustained. Still he complained that Lord Lovelace's book on Byron underestimated Byron's imaginative power, but much of this power he found in the letters rather than the poetry.7 There is one quite early remark mentioning Byron that is worth greater thought: When the time was ripe the English spirit cast up that lyrical outburst of which Byron, Shelley, and Keats were the most characteristic writers. Character, no longer loved for its own sake, or as an expression of the general bustle of life, became merely the mask for some mood or passion, as in "Manfred" and in his "Don Juan." In other words, the poets began to write but little of individual men and women, but rather of great types, great symbols of passion and mood like Alastor, Don Juan, Manfred, Ahaseurus, Prometheus, and Isabella of the Basil Pot. When they tried, as in Byron's plays, to display character for its own sake they failed.' This is Yeats exploiting a distinction between works of characterization and works of passion, elaborated most fully in "The Tragic Theatre" of s91o. Yeats apparently did not see in Don Juan the displacement of char- 5. Bloom, Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). 6. Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. A. Wade (New York: Macmillan, 1955). 467. 7. Ibid., 473. 8. Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, ed. J. P. Frayne (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 1:270-71.  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 83 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 83 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce acterization to the narrator. What he could have noticed there was the emphasis not only on the passionate, characterless Juan but also on the passionate, yet world-wise character, the narrator. Byron restores charac- terization to his poem at a level Yeats does not attend to in his extant re- marks about Don Juan, but this narrator's character is one of Yeatsian pas- sion and seeks to wear the Yeatsian mask. What Yeats keeps apart Byron joins together in his narrator. Yeats's Cuchulain, unlike Juan in so many ways, resembles him in recklessness, as against the prudent statesman Conchubar, who is all Yeatsian character. Yeats valued also the quality of nonchalance. Recklessness and nonchalance along with courtesy come as close as it has yet been possible to a translation of the Italian term sprezzatura, which Yeats found in Castiglione's Courtier, a book he read in translation in 1907.' Byron's narrator is a complicated example of a style of performance like that of Castiglione's courtier. The aim of the courtier is to appear to do things without self-consciousness or any particular effort, and above all, without thinking too much upon the act. Byron's narrator clearly strives for this. He gets better at it as he goes along. He matures. This sort of striving and facing of difficulty Yeats admires. His thought demands the attempt of the passionate man to overcome difficulty, but with an appar- ently natural grace: When I wish for some general idea which will describe the Great Wheel as an individual life I go to the Commedia dell'Arte or improvised drama of Italy. The stage manager, or Daimon, offers his actor an inherited scenario, the Body of Fate, and a Mask or role as unlike as possible to his natural ego or Will, and leaves him to improvise through his Creative Mind the dialogue and the plot." This is Yeats's so-called "antithetical" man. He emphasizes a conflict be- tween self and situation more extreme than we find in Byron's narrator or, for that matter, perhaps, in Byron himself. Still, we can see in the narrator what Yeats most admired in certain people, "the instinctive play- ing before themselves that belongs to those who strike the popular imagi- nation."" Thus, for Yeats Byron was a "first-rate man,"a man of action, per- formance. But he does not notice this in Byron's narrator. For Juan, as I have remarked, there is no playing before himself. He is a fiction impos- 9. On Yeats and Castiglione see Corinna Salvadori, Yeats and Castiglione: Poet and Courtier (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965). so. A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 83-84. 11. The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 10. acterization to the narrator. What he could have noticed there was the emphasis not only on the passionate, characterless Juan but also on the passionate, yet world-wise character, the narrator. Byron restores charac- terization to his poem at a level Yeats does not attend to in his extant re- marks about Don Juan, but this narrator's character is one of Yeatsian pas- sion and seeks to wear the Yeatsian mask. What Yeats keeps apart Byron joins together in his narrator. Yeats's Cuchulain, unlike Juan in so many ways, resembles him in recklessness, as against the prudent statesman Conchubar, who is all Yeatsian character. Yeats valued also the quality of nonchalance. Recklessness and nonchalance along with courtesy come as close as it has yet been possible to a translation of the Italian term sprezzatura, which Yeats found in Castiglione's Courtier, a book he read in translation in 1907.' Byron's narrator is a complicated example of a style of performance like that of Castiglione's courtier. The aim of the courtier is to appear to do things without self-consciousness or any particular effort, and above all, without thinking too much upon the act. Byron's narrator clearly strives for this. He gets better at it as he goes along. He matures. This sort of striving and facing of difficulty Yeats admires. His thought demands the attempt of the passionate man to overcome difficulty, but with an appar- ently natural grace: When I wish for some general idea which will describe the Great Wheel as an individual life I go to the Commedia dell'Arte or improvised drama of Italy. The stage manager, or Daimon, offers his actor an inherited scenario, the Body of Fate, and a Mask or role as unlike as possible to his natural ego or Will, and leaves him to improvise through his Creative Mind the dialogue and the plot.'o This is Yeats's so-called "antithetical" man. He emphasizes a conflict be- tween self and situation more extreme than we find in Byron's narrator or, for that matter, perhaps, in Byron himself. Still, we can see in the narrator what Yeats most admired in certain people, "the instinctive play- ing before themselves that belongs to those who strike the popular imagi- nation."" Thus, for Yeats Byron was a "first-rate man," a man of action, per- formance. But he does not notice this in Byron's narrator. For Juan, as I have remarked, there is no playing before himself He is a fiction impos- g. On Yeats and Castiglione see Corinna Salvadori, Yeats and Castiglione: Poet and Courtier (New York: Barnes & Noble, sg65). 10. A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 83-84. ss. The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 10. acterization to the narrator. What he could have noticed there was the emphasis not only on the passionate, characterless Juan but also on the passionate, yet world-wise character, the narrator. Byron restores charac- terization to his poem at a level Yeats does not attend to in his extant re- marks about Don Juan, but this narrator's character is one of Yeatsian pas- sion and seeks to wear the Yeatsian mask. What Yeats keeps apart Byron joins together in his narrator. Yeats's Cuchulain, unlike Juan in so many ways, resembles him in recklessness, as against the prudent statesman Conchubar, who is all Yeatsian character. Yeats valued also the quality of nonchalance. Recklessness and nonchalance along with courtesy come as close as it has yet been possible to a translation of the Italian term sprezzatura, which Yeats found in Castiglione's Courtier, a book he read in translation in 1907.' Byron's narrator is a complicated example of a style of performance like that of Castiglione's courtier. The aim of the courtier is to appear to do things without self-consciousness or any particular effort, and above all, without thinking too much upon the act. Byron's narrator clearly strives for this. He gets better at it as he goes along. He matures. This sort of striving and facing of difficulty Yeats admires. His thought demands the attempt of the passionate man to overcome difficulty, but with an appar- ently natural grace: When I wish for some general idea which will describe the Great Wheel as an individual life I go to the Commedia dell'Arte or improvised drama of Italy. The stage manager, or Daimon, offers his actor an inherited scenario, the Body of Fate, and a Mask or role as unlike as possible to his natural ego or Will, and leaves him to improvise through his Creative Mind the dialogue and the plot." This is Yeats's so-called "antithetical" man. He emphasizes a conflict be- tween self and situation more extreme than we find in Byron's narrator or, for that matter, perhaps, in Byron himself. Still, we can see in the narrator what Yeats most admired in certain people, "the instinctive play- ing before themselves that belongs to those who strike the popular imagi- nation."' Thus, for Yeats Byron was a "first-rate man," a man of action, per- formance. But he does not notice this in Byron's narrator. For Juan, as I have remarked, there is no playing before himself. He is a fiction impos- g. On Yeats and Castiglione see Corinna Salvadori, Yeats and Castiglione: Poet and Courtier (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965). 10. A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 83-84 se. The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 00.  Antithetical Essays 84 Antithetical Essays 84 Antithetical Essays sible in life. In Byron's narrator, we have this behavior, which Yeats never tires of describing in its various facets-the quality of the appearance of purposelessness, the striving for which he attributes even to his old crane of Gort: It's certain there are trout somewhere And maybe I shall take a trout If but I do not seem to care.5 I suspect that Byron's narrator would complain that these lines give too much away, that one cannot afford the certainty that there are trout avail- able. My point is that we can quite easily imagine a dialogue between Yeats's and Byron's narrators on this and related points and that they would be speaking the same language of the heroic: In the real world, heroism is nonchalant, reckless performance. IV For the young Stephen Dedalus and for both the young and the mature James Joyce, Byron was the greatest of poets. Stephen suffered for this belief in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the scene was drawn from Joyce's life. Joyce's admiration for Byron was lifelong, and we know that he made a present of a copy of Don Juan to a close friend. The matur- ing Joyce could have learned something from his respect for Byron and probably did. But, if he did, he characteristically went a step beyond Byron's influence. He seems not to have had much anxiety about his liter- ary forebears, except perhaps Shakespeare, or he sought to overcome it in a sort of theatrical arrogance. His notion seems to have been to com- plete their tasks, as his deliberately having tried to execute the typological antitype of the Odyssey and then of all western literature seems to dem- onstrate. Joyce takes Byron's heroic narrative technique to a greater cir- cumference. If Byron displaces the heroic center from his story to the surrounding act of narration, Joyce displaces it further to the larger cir- cumferential act of arranging. There is nothing particularly heroic about Joyce's initial and subse- quent narrators in Ulysses. The initial narrator is definable by his reti- cences as much as his overt behavior. From the beginning, there are things the narrator will not tell us, forcing us to occupy certain posi- 1o. "The Three Beggars," Collected Poes (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 111. sible in life. In Byron's narrator, we have this behavior, which Yeats never tires of describing in its various facets-the quality of the appearance of purposelessness, the striving for which he attributes even to his old crane of Gort: It's certain there are trout somewhere And maybe I shall take a trout If but I do not seem to care.' I suspect that Byron's narrator would complain that these lines give too much away, that one cannot afford the certainty that there are trout avail- able. My point is that we can quite easily imagine a dialogue between Yeats's and Byron's narrators on this and related points and that they would be speaking the same language of the heroic: In the real world, heroism is nonchalant, reckless performance. IV For the young Stephen Dedalus and for both the young and the mature James Joyce, Byron was the greatest of poets. Stephen suffered for this belief in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the scene was drawn from Joyce's life. Joyce's admiration for Byron was lifelong, and we know that he made a present of a copy of Don Juan to a close friend. The matur- ing Joyce could have learned something from his respect for Byron and probably did. But, if he did, he characteristically went a step beyond Byron's influence. He seems not to have had much anxiety about his liter- ary forebears, except perhaps Shakespeare, or he sought to overcome it in a sort of theatrical arrogance. His notion seems to have been to com- plete their tasks, as his deliberately having tried to execute the typological antitype of the Odyssey and then of all western literature seems to dem- onstrate. Joyce takes Byron's heroic narrative technique to a greater cir- cumference. If Byron displaces the heroic center from his story to the surrounding act of narration, Joyce displaces it further to the larger cir- cumferential act of arranging. There is nothing particularly heroic about Joyce's initial and subse- quent narrators in Ulysses. The initial narrator is definable by his reti- cences as much as his overt behavior. From the beginning, there are things the narrator will not tell us, forcing us to occupy certain posi- 12. "The Three Beggars," Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 111. sible in life. In Byron's narrator, we have this behavior, which Yeats never tires of describing in its various facets-the quality of the appearance of purposelessness, the striving for which he attributes even to his old crane of Gort: It's certain there are trout somewhere And maybe I shall take a trout If but I do not seem to care.1 I suspect that Byron's narrator would complain that these lines give too much away, that one cannot afford the certainty that there are trout avail- able. My point is that we can quite easily imagine a dialogue between Yeats's and Byron's narrators on this and related points and that they would be speaking the same language of the heroic: In the real world, heroism is nonchalant, reckless performance. IV For the young Stephen Dedalus and for both the young and the mature James Joyce, Byron was the greatest of poets. Stephen suffered for this belief in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the scene was drawn from Joyce's life. Joyce's admiration for Byron was lifelong, and we know that he made a present of a copy of Don Juan to a close friend. The matur- ing Joyce could have learned something from his respect for Byron and probably did. But, if he did, he characteristically went a step beyond Byron's influence. He seems not to have had much anxiety about his liter- ary forebears, except perhaps Shakespeare, or he sought to overcome it in a sort of theatrical arrogance. His notion seems to have been to com- plete their tasks, as his deliberately having tried to execute the typological antitype of the Odyssey and then of all western literature seems to dem- onstrate. Joyce takes Byron's heroic narrative technique to a greater cir- cumference. If Byron displaces the heroic center from his story to the surrounding act of narration, Joyce displaces it further to the larger cir- cumferential act of arranging. There is nothing particularly heroic about Joyce's initial and subse- quent narrators in Ulysses. The initial narrator is definable by his reti- cences as much as his overt behavior. From the beginning, there are things the narrator will not tell us, forcing us to occupy certain posi- so. "The Three Beggars," Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 111.  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 85 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 85 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce tions. He is unknown to us as a person and has caused some critics to claim that he should not be referred to as a narrator, that there is merely narration in Ulysses, or even that narration is an inappropriate term. However, though we cannot characterize him as we can Byron's, I think we can continue to speak of a narrator. In spite of this charac- terlessness, there is some similarity to Byron's narrator, though trans- posed into another key. Byron's narrator will also not do certain things, but he calls attention to his refusals or leaves such a gaping hole in his text that we cannot avoid assuming his deliberate decision to go his own way, even against the story he tells. As Canto VI begins, we are not told how Juan has escaped his predicament in the harem. The nar- rator merely lets us know that new subjects have taken his attention. Joyce's narrator, too, finds himself in conflict with his story at times, but in some of these cases, it is the characters who win out, not the nar- rator, as for example when he is actually interrupted by a character in Sirens. Joyce's initial narrator is, furthermore, less and less in control of Ulys- ses, and is from time to time replaced by other narrators, as in Cyclops, Nausicaa, and Eumaeus. Finally, in Ithaca and Penelope narration ceases entirely. Most important, we see a displacement of Byron's narrator's be- havior. As Ulysses proceeds past its first six chapters, we discover that an act of arrangement, which draws a circle around narration, comes into domination of the text. Even in the first six chapters, Joyce's narrator does not achieve the domination of Byron's, nor apparently seek it. Joyce's ar- ranger seeks more, and achieves it-by an amazingly strenuous route. The arranger does not speak or write but rather causes others to act in situations he constructs. He invents new narrators or narrations. In Si- rens, for example, the characters and narrator are inside the arranger's fugal structure, in which the narrator is the victim of fugal stretto or inter- ruption. Wandering Rocks, the slightly off-centered central chapter of the text, is divided into nineteen sections of narration, with Leopold Bloom occupying the tenth or middle section and perusing a book called Sweets of Sin-S.O.S. The first and last letters of Ulysses are S and S. The middle letter of Bloom's name is O. Thus positioned is the allround man. This arranger is a bold show-off; he is inquisitive and ever discovering new devices to include and eventually subdue narration. He gets himself into situations that challenge us to imagine what their point is. Soon we see that Bloom is not the only antitype of Homer's hero in the text. The arranger is one also, in the way that Byron's narrator is the hero of his text. But this arranger-hero is different from Byron's, and the difference has to do with romantic expressivism. tions. He is unknown to us as a person and has caused some critics to claim that he should not be referred to as a narrator, that there is merely narration in Ulysses, or even that narration is an inappropriate term. However, though we cannot characterize him as we can Byron's, I think we can continue to speak of a narrator. In spite of this charac- terlessness, there is some similarity to Byron's narrator, though trans- posed into another key. Byron's narrator will also not do certain things, but he calls attention to his refusals or leaves such a gaping hole in his text that we cannot avoid assuming his deliberate decision to go his own way, even against the story he tells. As Canto VI begins, we are not told how Juan has escaped his predicament in the harem. The nar- rator merely lets us know that new subjects have taken his attention. Joyce's narrator, too, finds himself in conflict with his story at times, but in some of these cases, it is the characters who win out, not the nar- rator, as for example when he is actually interrupted by a character in Sirens. Joyce's initial narrator is, furthermore, less and less in control of Ulys- ses, and is from time to time replaced by other narrators, as in Cyclops, Nausicaa, and Eumaeus. Finally, in Ithaca and Penelope narration ceases entirely. Most important, we see a displacement of Byron's narrator's be- havior. As Ulysses proceeds past its first six chapters, we discover that an act of arrangement, which draws a circle around narration, comes into domination of the text. Even in the first six chapters, Joyce's narrator does not achieve the domination of Byron's, nor apparently seek it. Joyce's ar- ranger seeks more, and achieves it-by an amazingly strenuous route. The arranger does not speak or write but rather causes others to act in situations he constructs. He invents new narrators or narrations. In Si- rens, for example, the characters and narrator are inside the arranger's fugal structure, in which the narrator is the victim of fugal stretto or inter- ruption. Wandering Rocks, the slightly off-centered central chapter of the text, is divided into nineteen sections of narration, with Leopold Bloom occupying the tenth or middle section and perusing a book called Sweets of Sin-S.O.S. The first and last letters of Ulysses are S and S. The middle letter of Bloom's name is O. Thus positioned is the allround man. This arranger is a bold show-off; he is inquisitive and ever discovering new devices to include and eventually subdue narration. He gets himself into situations that challenge us to imagine what their point is. Soon we see that Bloom is not the only antitype of Homer's hero in the text. The arranger is one also, in the way that Byron's narrator is the hero of his text. But this arranger-hero is different from Byron's, and the difference has to do with romantic expressivism. tions. He is unknown to us as a person and has caused some critics to claim that he should not be referred to as a narrator, that there is merely narration in Ulysses, or even that narration is an inappropriate term. However, though we cannot characterize him as we can Byron's, I think we can continue to speak of a narrator. In spite of this charac- terlessness, there is some similarity to Byron's narrator, though trans- posed into another key. Byron's narrator will also not do certain things, but he calls attention to his refusals or leaves such a gaping hole in his text that we cannot avoid assuming his deliberate decision to go his own way, even against the story he tells. As Canto VI begins, we are not told how Juan has escaped his predicament in the harem. The nar- rator merely lets us know that new subjects have taken his attention. Joyce's narrator, too, finds himself in conflict with his story at times, but in some of these cases, it is the characters who win out, not the nar- rator, as for example when he is actually interrupted by a character in Sirens. Joyce's initial narrator is, furthermore, less and less in control of Ulys- ses, and is from time to time replaced by other narrators, as in Cyclops, Nausicaa, and Eumaeus. Finally, in Ithaca and Penelope narration ceases entirely. Most important, we see a displacement of Byron's narrator's be- havior. As Ulysses proceeds past its first six chapters, we discover that an act of arrangement, which draws a circle around narration, comes into domination of the text. Even in the first six chapters, Joyce's narrator does not achieve the domination of Byron's, nor apparently seek it. Joyce's ar- ranger seeks more, and achieves it-by an amazingly strenuous route. The arranger does not speak or write but rather causes others to act in situations he constructs. He invents new narrators or narrations. In Si- rens, for example, the characters and narrator are inside the arranger's fugal structure, in which the narrator is the victim of fugal stretto or inter- ruption. Wandering Rocks, the slightly off-centered central chapter of the text, is divided into nineteen sections of narration, with Leopold Bloom occupying the tenth or middle section and perusing a book called Sweets of Sin-S.O.S. The first and last letters of Ulysses are S and S. The middle letter of Bloom's name is O. Thus positioned is the allround man. This arranger is a bold show-off; he is inquisitive and ever discovering new devices to include and eventually subdue narration. He gets himself into situations that challenge us to imagine what their point is. Soon we see that Bloom is not the only antitype of Homer's hero in the text. The arranger is one also, in the way that Byron's narrator is the hero of his text. But this arranger-hero is different from Byron's, and the difference has to do with romantic expressivism.  Antithetical Essays 86 Antithetical Essays 86 Antithetical Essays V In the criticism of romantic literature and especially Byron criticism, there has always been the vexed problem of the relation between the hist- orical author, in this case George Gordon Lord Byron, and his narrator; in the early days of thinking about his poems, these were too easily conflated with one another. For good theoretical reasons involving prob- lems of intention and fictionality, modern narrative theory drew a hard and fast line between them that will, I think, continue to stand in some form. Yet we all recognize that Byron's narrator stands in relation to his author in a way different from Henry James's to Henry James or Joseph Conrad's to Joseph Conrad. We need a name for this that yet preserves a degree of difference: perhaps "narrative self-expression" will serve, if in such a case we recognize the self projected in narration as a fictive, that is to say a created, self. Any narrator, or arranger for that matter, projected as a self remains fictive, but of a different fictive order from a narrator or arranger projected as Joyce's or James's is. Byron's narrator virtually calls on us, especially in the later cantos, to think of him as a Byron, and certainly he does so in the dedication in spite of the ironic hijinks of the prose preface, which only plays with deflecting us from such identifications. This relation of poet to narrator, however, needs a little more discussion than these remarks have yet provided. Let us begin again by reconsidering whether a purely expressive poem is possible and what we mean by one in practice if it is not. A reason to think it impossible is that the poet has to be conscious of himself per- forming the act of composition, and that self he is aware of we must pre- sume is in a sense fictive and different, if ever-so-slightly, from himself as observer. A question arises as to which self is the primary or "more real" one-the "himself" which when we are not thinking philosophically we regard as the source of self-consciousness or the self that we regard as constituted in the act of observation (as observed). Now it is certainly somewhat odd to common sense, at least, to declare that the self consti- tuted as observed is the real one, but the unphilosophical alternative is not attractive, since it threatens an infinite regress: any self posited as observer easily becomes to the philosophical attitude a constituted self, which must then have an observer ad infinitum. We can imagine the same situation between the self-expresser and the expressed. Can we, after all, turn the matter around and declare the apparent oddity to be the better situation? Can we imagine that in a romantic expressive poem, or perhaps in some way in any poem, the being of the poet, or historic self, is some- V In the criticism of romantic literature and especially Byron criticism, there has always been the vexed problem of the relation between the hist- orical author, in this case George Gordon Lord Byron, and his narrator; in the early days of thinking about his poems, these were too easily conflated with one another. For good theoretical reasons involving prob- lems of intention and fictionality, modern narrative theory drew a hard and fast line between them that will, I think, continue to stand in some form. Yet we all recognize that Byron's narrator stands in relation to his author in a way different from Henry James's to Henry James or Joseph Conrad's to Joseph Conrad. We need a name for this that yet preserves a degree of difference: perhaps "narrative self-expression" will serve, if in such a case we recognize the self projected in narration as a fictive, that is to say a created, self. Any narrator, or arranger for that matter, projected as a self remains fictive, but of a different fictive order from a narrator or arranger projected as Joyce's or James's is. Byron's narrator virtually calls on us, especially in the later cantos, to think of him as a Byron, and certainly he does so in the dedication in spite of the ironic hijinks of the prose preface, which only plays with deflecting us from such identifications. This relation of poet to narrator, however, needs a little more discussion than these remarks have yet provided. Let us begin again by reconsidering whether a purely expressive poem is possible and what we mean by one in practice if it is not. A reason to think it impossible is that the poet has to be conscious of himself per- forming the act of composition, and that self he is aware of we must pre- sume is in a sense fictive and different, if ever-so-slightly, from himself as observer. A question arises as to which self is the primary or "more real" one-the "himself" which when we are not thinking philosophically we regard as the source of self-consciousness or the self that we regard as constituted in the act of observation (as observed). Now it is certainly somewhat odd to common sense, at least, to declare that the self consti- tuted as observed is the real one, but the unphilosophical alternative is not attractive, since it threatens an infinite regress: any self posited as observer easily becomes to the philosophical attitude a constituted self, which must then have an observer ad infinitum. We can imagine the same situation between the self-expresser and the expressed. Can we, after all, turn the matter around and declare the apparent oddity to be the better situation? Can we imagine that in a romantic expressive poem, or perhaps in some way in any poem, the being of the poet, or historic self, is some- In the criticism of romantic literature and especially Byron criticism, there has always been the vexed problem of the relation between the hist- orical author, in this case George Gordon Lord Byron, and his narrator; in the early days of thinking about his poems, these were too easily conflated with one another. For good theoretical reasons involving prob- lems of intention and fictionality, modern narrative theory drew a hard and fast line between them that will, I think, continue to stand in some form. Yet we all recognize that Byron's narrator stands in relation to his author in a way different from Henry James's to Henry James or Joseph Conrad's to Joseph Conrad. We need a name for this that yet preserves a degree of difference: perhaps "narrative self-expression" will serve, if in such a case we recognize the self projected in narration as a fictive, that is to say a created, self. Any narrator, or arranger for that matter, projected as a self remains fictive, but of a different fictive order from a narrator or arranger projected as Joyce's or James's is. Byron's narrator virtually calls on us, especially in the later cantos, to think of him as a Byron, and certainly he does so in the dedication in spite of the ironic hijinks of the prose preface, which only plays with deflecting us from such identifications. This relation of poet to narrator, however, needs a little more discussion than these remarks have yet provided. Let us begin again by reconsidering whether a purely expressive poem is possible and what we mean by one in practice if it is not. A reason to think it impossible is that the poet has to be conscious of himself per- forming the act of composition, and that self he is aware of we must pre- sume is in a sense fictive and different, if ever-so-slightly, from himself as observer. A question arises as to which self is the primary or "more real" one-the "himself" which when we are not thinking philosophically we regard as the source of self-consciousness or the self that we regard as constituted in the act of observation (as observed). Now it is certainly somewhat odd to common sense, at least, to declare that the self consti- tuted as observed is the real one, but the unphilosophical alternative is not attractive, since it threatens an infinite regress: any self posited as observer easily becomes to the philosophical attitude a constituted self, which must then have an observer ad infinitum. We can imagine the same situation between the self-expresser and the expressed. Can we, after all, turn the matter around and declare the apparent oddity to be the better situation? Can we imagine that in a romantic expressive poem, or perhaps in some way in any poem, the being of the poet, or historic self, is some-  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 87 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 87 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 87 thing constantly emerging in language as the fiction constituted (ob- served) rather than something that has been prior and then is to be ex- pressed in the poem? But, of course, given what we have already noticed, it is never ultimately expressible as a prior self. Is this self something on the way to being composed, incomplete except in an ever incomplete constitutive expression? Such a self would not be what I have called the historical author. (A parallel seems to be developing here between what Benedetto Croce called intuition and expression and what here I have called prior self and constituted self, Croce claiming that there is no such thing as an intuition left unexpressed.) We might imagine the Byronic self coming to constitution or completion in the poem Don Juan or, given its peculiar romantic expressive nature, as the poem's narrative act or actor. Perhaps we would want to say that the poem is Byron as act or perfor- mance. In this matter we may see an analogy yet again in Yeats's no- tion of the human will as a commedia dell'arte actor seeking to form a mask, which would be that actor's ultimate reality were such reality pos- sible as complete. It would always be a reality in process, the completion of which does not occur as an end but is present in the endless act of quest. Behind these remarks has been a notion of romantic morality, that for purposes of explanation, can be derived from the Kantian idea of internal purposiveness or purpose without purpose in objects constituted as beau- tiful. Friedrich Schiller in his Letters on Aesthetic Education converted this aesthetic principle into the ethical concept of disinterested action or play. Given the concurrent notion of romantic irony, this state can only be approached, never actually achieved, because of self-conscious- ness. But this is its saving grace, since achievement would negate the will to be disinterested, and morality as that desire would disappear. Consequently, pure play is only posited as an objectless object of quest, or the endless search for the Yeatsian mask, the mask of recklessness and nonchalance. Rather than actually finding a self in expression there is a seeking, but to express the seeking is to constitute a moral self in the act. The fictive narrator of Don Juan is the major vehicle of the poem's act, performance, or gesture. That gesture we can constitute as an act of mak- ing a fictive self by George Gordon Lord Byron, more than a fictive self as we have usually thought of it. Byron might well have thought that the only true self is a fictive self made in gesture, his gesture being reckless, an effort at ethically motivated internal purposiveness. Thus Don Juan be- comes a constitution of the being in and as language of Byron, more real than the historical Byron. thing constantly emerging in language as the fiction constituted (ob- served) rather than something that has been prior and then is to be ex- pressed in the poem? But, of course, given what we have already noticed, it is never ultimately expressible as a prior self. Is this self something on the way to being composed, incomplete except in an ever incomplete constitutive expression? Such a self would not be what I have called the historical author. (A parallel seems to be developing here between what Benedetto Croce called intuition and expression and what here I have called prior self and constituted self, Croce claiming that there is no such thing as an intuition left unexpressed.) We might imagine the Byronic self coming to constitution or completion in the poem Don Juan or, given its peculiar romantic expressive nature, as the poem's narrative act or actor. Perhaps we would want to say that the poem is Byron as act or perfor- mance. In this matter we may see an analogy yet again in Yeats's no- tion of the human will as a commedia dell'arte actor seeking to form a mask, which would be that actor's ultimate reality were such reality pos- sible as complete. It would always be a reality in process, the completion of which does not occur as an end but is present in the endless act of quest. Behind these remarks has been a notion of romantic morality, that for purposes of explanation, can be derived from the Kantian idea of internal purposiveness or purpose without purpose in objects constituted as beau- tiful. Friedrich Schiller in his Letters on Aesthetic Education converted this aesthetic principle into the ethical concept of disinterested action or play. Given the concurrent notion of romantic irony, this state can only be approached, never actually achieved, because of self-conscious- ness. But this is its saving grace, since achievement would negate the will to be disinterested, and morality as that desire would disappear. Consequently, pure play is only posited as an objectless object of quest, or the endless search for the Yeatsian mask, the mask of recklessness and nonchalance. Rather than actually finding a self in expression there is a seeking, but to express the seeking is to constitute a moral self in the act. The fictive narrator of Don Juan is the major vehicle of the poem's act, performance, or gesture. That gesture we can constitute as an act of mak- ing a fictive self by George Gordon Lord Byron, more than a fictive self as we have usually thought of it. Byron might well have thought that the only true self is a fictive self made in gesture, his gesture being reckless, an effort at ethically motivated internal purposiveness. Thus Don Juan be- comes a constitution of the being in and as language of Byron, more real than the historical Byron. thing constantly emerging in language as the fiction constituted (ob- served) rather than something that has been prior and then is to be ex- pressed in the poem? But, of course, given what we have already noticed, it is never ultimately expressible as a prior self. Is this self something on the way to being composed, incomplete except in an ever incomplete constitutive expression? Such a self would not be what I have called the historical author. (A parallel seems to be developing here between what Benedetto Croce called intuition and expression and what here I have called prior self and constituted self, Croce claiming that there is no such thing as an intuition left unexpressed.) We might imagine the Byronic self coming to constitution or completion in the poem Don Juan or, given its peculiar romantic expressive nature, as the poem's narrative act or actor. Perhaps we would want to say that the poem is Byron as act or perfor- mance. In this matter we may see an analogy yet again in Yeats's no- tion of the human will as a commedia dell'arte actor seeking to form a mask, which would be that actor's ultimate reality were such reality pos- sible as complete. It would always be a reality in process, the completion of which does not occur as an end but is present in the endless act of quest. Behind these remarks has been a notion of romantic morality, that for purposes of explanation, can be derived from the Kantian idea of internal purposiveness or purpose without purpose in objects constituted as beau- tiful. Friedrich Schiller in his Letters on Aesthetic Education converted this aesthetic principle into the ethical concept of disinterested action or play. Given the concurrent notion of romantic irony, this state can only be approached, never actually achieved, because of self-conscious- ness. But this is its saving grace, since achievement would negate the will to be disinterested, and morality as that desire would disappear. Consequently, pure play is only posited as an objectless object of quest, or the endless search for the Yeatsian mask, the mask of recklessness and nonchalance. Rather than actually finding a self in expression there is a seeking, but to express the seeking is to constitute a moral self in the act. The fictive narrator of Don Juan is the major vehicle of the poem's act, performance, or gesture. That gesture we can constitute as an act of mak- ing a fictive self by George Gordon Lord Byron, more than a fictive self as we have usually thought of it. Byron might well have thought that the only true self is a fictive self made in gesture, his gesture being reckless, an effort at ethically motivated internal purposiveness. Thus DonJuan be- comes a constitution of the being in and as language of Byron, more real than the historical Byron.  Antithetical Essays 88 Antithetical Essays 88 Antithetical Essays Here let me call on an example from Blake that I have used before." Blake seems to have regarded the historical Jesus, that is, the construct of historians outside the Bible, as Antichrist. In Blake's view this construct has been the cause of religious error, or, in his language, "churches." Let us imagine the historical construct Byron as the Anti-byron, more valu- able, particularly in Leslie Marchand's version, than Blake regarded the churches. Blake thought that the real Jesus is the one immediately pres- ent to us as his acts in the Bible. Our reading of the Bible becomes his second (actually first) coming. Therefore, the real Jesus is the Biblical fic- tion, more real as constituted than in an unfortunate historical antifiction of the sort that Oscar Wilde claimed always copies art. Has there been a Byron created in art who is his poem and is in his poem as narrator? Certainly we come away from Don Juan with a sense of having been ad- dressed by a personality constituting himself as gesturing and both suc- ceeding and failing, that is, endlessly questing to make the complete ges- ture. It may or may not be true that all poems are in some sense acts toward the completion of pure gesture, the peculiar constitution of a linguistic self. Byron's radical example is the result of or the finding of an ethic. The ethic is the ethic of internal purposiveness. Since purposiveness had been so clearly identified with rational procedures in the eighteenth cen- tury, it is not surprising that ethical acts could be or had to be set forth as purposeless and even the result of impulse. Thus Juan's sudden rescue of the child Leila in Canto VIII, but also the peculiar movement of the poem and its rejection of rational shapes and forms even as it comically mimics them, while at the same time undercutting them when they threaten in the least to dominate. The whole nature of Don Juan follows from this. It is, of course, not successful, quite, as a purely nonpurposive act. The concurrent allegiance to romantic irony prevents this: to succeed would be to fail. But it is surely successful as one that seeks some ideal of such an act-an act that would be pure gesture, a language that would gesture rather than assert, yet say something in and as gesture. VI Perhaps we had better have another look at Joyce's arranger. Clearly the reticence of narration, giving way to characterized narrators and to disem- 13. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 108. Here let me call on an example from Blake that I have used before." Blake seems to have regarded the historical Jesus, that is, the construct of historians outside the Bible, as Antichrist. In Blake's view this construct has been the cause of religious error, or, in his language, "churches." Let us imagine the historical construct Byron as the Anti-byron, more valu- able, particularly in Leslie Marchand's version, than Blake regarded the churches. Blake thought that the real Jesus is the one immediately pres- ent to us as his acts in the Bible. Our reading of the Bible becomes his second (actually first) coming. Therefore, the real Jesus is the Biblical fie- tion, more real as constituted than in an unfortunate historical antifiction of the sort that Oscar Wilde claimed always copies art. Has there been a Byron created in art who is his poem and is in his poem as narrator? Certainly we come away from Don Juan with a sense of having been ad- dressed by a personality constituting himself as gesturing and both suc- ceeding and failing, that is, endlessly questing to make the complete ges- ture. It may or may not be true that all poems are in some sense acts toward the completion of pure gesture, the peculiar constitution of a linguistic self. Byron's radical example is the result of or the finding of an ethic. The ethic is the ethic of internal purposiveness. Since purposiveness had been so clearly identified with rational procedures in the eighteenth cen- tury, it is not surprising that ethical acts could be or had to be set forth as purposeless and even the result of impulse. Thus Juan's sudden rescue of the child Leila in Canto VIII, but also the peculiar movement of the poem and its rejection of rational shapes and forms even as it comically mimics them, while at the same time undercutting them when they threaten in the least to dominate. The whole nature of Don Juan follows from this. It is, of course, not successful, quite, as a purely nonpurposive act. The concurrent allegiance to romantic irony prevents this: to succeed would be to fail. But it is surely successful as one that seeks some ideal of such an act-an act that would be pure gesture, a language that would gesture rather than assert, yet say something in and as gesture. VI Perhaps we had better have another look at Joyce's arranger. Clearly the reticence of narration, giving way to characterized narrators and to disem- 13. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 108. Here let me call on an example from Blake that I have used before." Blake seems to have regarded the historical Jesus, that is, the construct of historians outside the Bible, as Antichrist. In Blake's view this construct has been the cause of religious error, or, in his language, "churches." Let us imagine the historical construct Byron as the Anti-byron, more valu- able, particularly in Leslie Marchand's version, than Blake regarded the churches. Blake thought that the real Jesus is the one immediately pres- ent to us as his acts in the Bible. Our reading of the Bible becomes his second (actually first) coming. Therefore, the real Jesus is the Biblical fic- tion, more real as constituted than in an unfortunate historical antifiction of the sort that Oscar Wilde claimed always copies art. Has there been a Byron created in art who is his poem and is in his poem as narrator? Certainly we come away from Don Juan with a sense of having been ad- dressed by a personality constituting himself as gesturing and both suc- ceeding and failing, that is, endlessly questing to make the complete ges- ture. It may or may not be true that all poems are in some sense acts toward the completion of pure gesture, the peculiar constitution of a linguistic self. Byron's radical example is the result of or the finding of an ethic. The ethic is the ethic of internal purposiveness. Since purposiveness had been so clearly identified with rational procedures in the eighteenth cen- tury, it is not surprising that ethical acts could be or had to be set forth as purposeless and even the result of impulse. Thus Juan's sudden rescue of the child Leila in Canto VIII, but also the peculiar movement of the poem and its rejection of rational shapes and forms even as it comically mimics them, while at the same time undercutting them when they threaten in the least to dominate. The whole nature of Don Juan follows from this. It is, of course, not successful, quite, as a purely nonpurposive act. The concurrent allegiance to romantic irony prevents this: to succeed would be to fail. But it is surely successful as one that seeks some ideal of such an act-an act that would be pure gesture, a language that would gesture rather than assert, yet say something in and as gesture. VI Perhaps we had better have another look at Joyce's arranger. Clearly the reticence of narration, giving way to characterized narrators and to disem- 13. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), so.  Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 89 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 89 Byron, Yeats, and Joyce 89 bodied writing, suggests that the authorial god of Ulysses pares his finger- nails, as Stephen Dedalus describes the author in the Portrait. He seems to be a modernist author, the opposite of Byron. Yet there is a last- moment act in Ulysses that reminds us of the presence of an arranger. It is oddly and characteristically offhand and sly. In her soliloquy, sitting on her chamberpot as Ulysses nears its conclu- sion, Molly Bloom seems to address no man in particular: "O Jamsey, let me up out of this pooh."" Surely it is but a coincidence that James Joyce should be addressed. But the world of Ulysses is held together by coinci- dences which nevertheless have an air of design. It may be less a coinci- dence when we introduce the idea of an arranger, whom by coincidence, residing beyond the circumference of story, a character has unwittingly addressed. There is here and elsewhere in the text reason to think that the arranger of Ulysses-this show-off, this performer, this quester for new effects-has been all along a more mature Stephen Dedalus." Now we consider that Stephen Dedalus has been a pseudonym, a fictive consti- tution of the self of James Joyce. The author has not been sitting aside paring his fingernails but performing toward a complete self, his Yeatsian mask. Perhaps a romantic expressionist all along, he has but performed the nonchalant role of a modem impersonal author. But then what is more heroic, more romantically (and modernly?) heroic, than to appear to be what one's historical self is unable ever quite to be? 14. Ulysses (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 76g. 15. I discuss the whole matter of arranger and narrator in Ulysses in the essay that fol- lows. bodied writing, suggests that the authorial god of Ulysses pares his finger- nails, as Stephen Dedalus describes the author in the Portrait. He seems to be a modernist author, the opposite of Byron. Yet there is a last- moment act in Ulysses that reminds us of the presence of an arranger. It is oddly and characteristically offhand and sly. In her soliloquy, sitting on her chamberpot as Ulysses nears its conclu- sion, Molly Bloom seems to address no man in particular: "O Jamsey, let me up out of this pooh."" Surely it is but a coincidence that James Joyce should be addressed. But the world of Ulysses is held together by coinci- dences which nevertheless have an air of design. It may be less a coinci- dence when we introduce the idea of an arranger, whom by coincidence, residing beyond the circumference of story, a character has unwittingly addressed. There is here and elsewhere in the text reason to think that the arranger of Ulysses-this show-off, this performer, this quester for new effects-has been all along a more mature Stephen Dedalus" Now we consider that Stephen Dedalus has been a pseudonym, a fictive consti- tution of the self of James Joyce. The author has not been sitting aside paring his fingernails but performing toward a complete self, his Yeatsian mask. Perhaps a romantic expressionist all along, he has but performed the nonchalant role of a modern impersonal author. But then what is more heroic, more romantically (and modernly?) heroic, than to appear to be what one's historical self is unable ever quite to be? 14. Ulysses (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 769. 15. t discuss the whole matter of arranger and narrator in Ulysses in the essay that fol- lows. bodied writing, suggests that the authorial god of Ulysses pares his finger- nails, as Stephen Dedalus describes the author in the Portrait. He seems to be a modernist author, the opposite of Byron. Yet there is a last- moment act in Ulysses that reminds us of the presence of an arranger. It is oddly and characteristically offhand and sly. In her soliloquy, sitting on her chamberpot as Ulysses nears its conclu- sion, Molly Bloom seems to address no man in particular: "o Jamsey, let me up out of this pooh."" Surely it is but a coincidence that James Joyce should be addressed. But the world of Ulysses is held together by coinci- dences which nevertheless have an air of design. It may be less a coinci- dence when we introduce the idea of an arranger, whom by coincidence, residing beyond the circumference of story, a character has unwittingly addressed. There is here and elsewhere in the text reason to think that the arranger of Ulysses-this show-off, this performer, this quester for new effects-has been all along a more mature Stephen Dedalus." Now we consider that Stephen Dedalus has been a pseudonym, a fictive consti- tution of the self of James Joyce. The author has not been sitting aside paring his fingernails but performing toward a complete self, his Yeatsian mask. Perhaps a romantic expressionist all along, he has but performed the nonchalant role of a modern impersonal author. But then what is more heroic, more romantically (and modernly?) heroic, than to appear to be what one's historical self is unable ever quite to be? 14. Ulysses (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 769. 15. I discuss the whole matter of arranger and narrator in Ulysses in the essay that fol- lows.  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses The Example of Ulysses The Example of Ulysses In a recent book on Joyce Cary's trilogies I laid out a schema of eleven perspectives which seemed to me those minimally necessary to saying what one might want to say about a literary narrative text. I regarded them as necessary categories of the critical understanding. (There cer- tainly are others, but the trouble with categories is that the more you have past a certain indeterminate point the less valuable they become.) I took them up one at a time, focusing on the many issues that arise with respect principally to the narrative text of Cary's two trilogies. They were: (1) our notion of an author, (2) historical authors, (3) authority (including the ar- ranger), (4) narrators and foci of narration, (5) the fictive story, (6) characters-heroes, heroines, and protagonists, (7) fictive internal read- ers, (8) fictive external readers, (g) empirically or ideologically con- structed readers, (so) the authoritively projected reader, and (is) our no- tion of ourselves.' In the study of many texts, certain of these perspectives shade into their neighbors. With respect to the work of Cary- particularly interesting because, beyond the titles of the individual nov- els, there is no authorial voice or narrative voice ever speaking directly apart from voices of the characters-one need not conflate these perspec- tives with their neighbors. There are other works, however, that tempt one to do so, as in the case, say, of Wordsworth's Prelude or Byron's Childe Harold, where the authority of the text is apparently very close to the historical author on the one hand and the narrator on the other. At the least, the identification of these perspectives as provisionally dis- crete provides us with a language when we feel it necessary to conflate them, make problematic their discreteness, or invent some new perspec- tive between two of them. My testing ground here will be principally Joyce's Ulysses, with some occasional comment on Finnegans Wake. These works have always been regarded as taking liberties with our usual sense of what goes on in a literary narrative. In what follows, I shall again identify the eleven parts of my schema, in some cases more briefly than . Hazard Adams, Joyce Cacs Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 246-64. Those interested in fundamental descriptions of these perspectives may consult these pages. In a recent book on Joyce Cary's trilogies I laid out a schema of eleven perspectives which seemed to me those minimally necessary to saying what one might want to say about a literary narrative text. I regarded them as necessary categories of the critical understanding. (There cer- tainly are others, but the trouble with categories is that the more you have past a certain indeterminate point the less valuable they become.) I took them up one at a time, focusing on the many issues that arise with respect principally to the narrative text of Cary's two trilogies. They were: (s) our notion of an author, (o) historical authors, (3) authority (including the ar- ranger), (4) narrators and foci of narration, (5) the fictive story, (6) characters-heroes, heroines, and protagonists, (7) fictive internal read- ers, (8) fictive external readers, (9) empirically or ideologically con- structed readers, (1o) the authoritively projected reader, and (n) our no- tion of ourselves.' In the study of many texts, certain of these perspectives shade into their neighbors. With respect to the work of Cary- particularly interesting because, beyond the titles of the individual nov- els, there is no authorial voice or narrative voice ever speaking directly apart from voices of the characters-one need not conflate these perspec- tives with their neighbors. There are other works, however, that tempt one to do so, as in the case, say, of Wordsworth's Prelude or Byron's Childe Harold, where the authority of the text is apparently very close to the historical author on the one hand and the narrator on the other. At the least, the identification of these perspectives as provisionally dis- crete provides us with a language when we feel it necessary to conflate them, make problematic their discreteness, or invent some new perspec- tive between two of them. My testing ground heere will be principally Joyce's Ulysses, with some occasional comment on Finnegans Wake. These works have always been regarded as taking liberties with our usual sense of what goes on in a literary narrative. In what follows, I shall again identify the eleven parts of my schema, in some cases more briefly than 1. Hazard Adams, Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 246-64. Those interested in fundamental descriptions of these perspectives may consult these pages. In a recent book on Joyce Cary's trilogies I laid out a schema of eleven perspectives which seemed to me those minimally necessary to saying what one might want to say about a literary narrative text. I regarded them as necessary categories of the critical understanding. (There cer- tainly are others, but the trouble with categories is that the more you have past a certain indeterminate point the less valuable they become.) I took them up one at a time, focusing on the many issues that arise with respect principally to the narrative text of Cary's two trilogies. They were: (1) our notion of an author, (2) historical authors, (3) authority (including the ar- ranger), (4) narrators and foci of narration, (5) the fictive story, (6) characters-heroes, heroines, and protagonists, (7) fictive internal read- ers, (8) fictive external readers, (g) empirically or ideologically con- structed readers, (so) the authoritively projected reader, and (11) our no- tion of ourselves.' In the study of many texts, certain of these perspectives shade into their neighbors. With respect to the work of Cary- particularly interesting because, beyond the titles of the individual nov- els, there is no authorial voice or narrative voice ever speaking directly apart from voices of the characters-one need not conflate these perspec- tives with their neighbors. There are other works, however, that tempt one to do so, as in the case, say, of Wordsworth's Prelude or Byron's Childe Harold, where the authority of the text is apparently very close to the historical author on the one hand and the narrator on the other. At the least, the identification of these perspectives as provisionally dis- crete provides us with a language when we feel it necessary to conflate them, make problematic their discreteness, or invent some new perspec- tive between two of them. My testing ground here will be principally Joyce's Ulysses, with some occasional comment on Finnegans Wake. These works have always been regarded as taking liberties with our usual sense of what goes on in a literary narrative. In what follows, I shall again identify the eleven parts of my schema, in some cases more briefly than 1. Hazard Adams, Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 46-64. Those interested in fundamental descriptions of these perspectives may consult these pages. 90  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text g Cs-tical Constitution of the Literary Text 91 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text in my Cary study and in others more elaborately. Further, I shall find myself required not only to add a new category separating the arranger or arrangement from authority but also to provide different or additional names for some of the categories I have already mentioned. Little need be said here about the first one, our notion of an author. It is a naive perspective that seems to dominate perspectives two and three until we begin to think seriously about it. I believe I can assume that even the poststructuralist proponents of pure textuality will acknowl- edge its existence as such-that is, as naive-even though they will reject it as a category relevant to theoretical discourse about a text. In any case, my aim is to acknowledge all perspectives actually employed by readers, whether theoretically defensible or not. We all assume that a text has had an author or authors. Before an author or authors are subjected to schol- arly study, they are only vaguely present to our imaginations, taking shapes, perhaps in reverie, from a jumble of subjective fantasies. I my- self, or rather myself as the notion of an author, have been in a minor way the subject of such fantasies. As a little-known novelist, I published a book some years ago the narrator of which was a dragon.2 This struck the imagination of a few readers in a way that may be instructive. They developed for themselves somewhat bizarre notions of the author and wrote to him, conflating those notions symbolically (I hope) with the nar- rator. Our notion of an author, a product in this case of a charming though somewhat frightening ignorance, quickly gives place to a more sophisti- cated notion, the historical author, once an author becomes well enough known and respected to evoke biographical study. This historical author, who may take many forms in the hands of scholars and is constantly being remade, is of considerable importance as a critical tool, but is not to be conflated easily with what I call the authority of the text, for historical authors are notoriously untrustworthy, not only as commentators on their work but also as authorities in any sense. The work of Joyce presents a particularly interesting and puzzling problem here. We know that there is a very close relationship between Joyce's character Stephen Dedalus and the historical Joyce. We also know that many characters in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and even Finnegans Wake (if we can assume it to have char- acters) are, as we say, "drawn from life." We know that what Richard Ellmann tells us in his biography of Joyce is of importance to criticism, but it is important, like anything else, only within certain theoretical lim- its. Leaving aside other characters, what is the critical relation between a. Hazard Adams, The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). in my Cary study and in others more elaborately. Further, I shall find myself required not only to add a new category separating the arranger or arrangement from authority but also to provide different or additional names for some of the categories I have already mentioned. Little need be said here about the first one, our notion of an author. It is a naive perspective that seems to dominate perspectives two and three until we begin to think seriously about it. I believe I can assume that even the poststructuralist proponents of pure textuality will acknowl- edge its existence as such-that is, as naive-even though they will reject it as a category relevant to theoretical discourse about a text. In any case, my aim is to acknowledge all perspectives actually employed by readers, whether theoretically defensible or not. We all assume that a text has had an author or authors. Before an author or authors are subjected to schol- arly study, they are only vaguely present to our imaginations, taking shapes, perhaps in reverie, from a jumble of subjective fantasies. I my- self, or rather myself as the notion of an author, have been in a minor way the subject of such fantasies. As a little-known novelist, I published a book some years ago the narrator of which was a dragon.' This struck the imagination of a few readers in a way that may be instructive. They developed for themselves somewhat bizarre notions of the author and wrote to him, conflating those notions symbolically (I hope) with the nar- rator. Our notion of an author, a product in this case of a charming though somewhat frightening ignorance, quickly gives place to a more sophisti- cated notion, the historical author, once an author becomes well enough known and respected to evoke biographical study. This historical author, who may take many forms in the hands of scholars and is constantly being remade, is of considerable importance as a critical tool, but is not to be conflated easily with what I call the authority of the text, for historical authors are notoriously untrustworthy, not only as commentators on their work but also as authorities in any sense. The work of Joyce presents a particularly interesting and puzzling problem here. We know that there is a very close relationship between Joyce's character Stephen Dedalus and the historical Joyce. We also know that many characters in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and even Finnegano Wake (if we can assume it to have char- acters) are, as we say, "drawn from life." We know that what Richard Ellmann tells us in his biography of Joyce is of importance to criticism, but it is important, like anything else, only within certain theoretical lim- its. Leaving aside other characters, what is the critical relation between z. Hazard Adams, The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). in my Cary study and in others more elaborately. Further, I shall find myself required not only to add a new category separating the arranger or arrangement from authority but also to provide different or additional names for some of the categories I have already mentioned. Little need be said here about the first one, our notion of an author. It is a naive perspective that seems to dominate perspectives two and three until we begin to think seriously about it. I believe I can assume that even the poststructuralist proponents of pure textuality will acknowl- edge its existence as such-that is, as naive-even though they will reject it as a category relevant to theoretical discourse about a text. In any case, my aim is to acknowledge all perspectives actually employed by readers, whether theoretically defensible or not. We all assume that a text has had an author or authors. Before an author or authors are subjected to schol- arly study, they are only vaguely present to our imaginations, taking shapes, perhaps in reverie, from a jumble of subjective fantasies. I my- self, or rather myself as the notion of an author, have been in a minor way the subject of such fantasies. As a little-known novelist, I published a book some years ago the narrator of which was a dragon.' This struck the imagination of a few readers in a way that may be instructive. They developed for themselves somewhat bizarre notions of the author and wrote to him, conflating those notions symbolically (I hope) with the nar- rator. Our notion of an author, a product in this case of a charming though somewhat frightening ignorance, quickly gives place to a more sophisti- cated notion, the historical author, once an author becomes well enough known and respected to evoke biographical study. This historical author, who may take many forms in the hands of scholars and is constantly being remade, is of considerable importance as a critical tool, but is not to be conflated easily with what I call the authority of the text, for historical authors are notoriously untrustworthy, not only as commentators on their work but also as authorities in any sense. The work of Joyce presents a particularly interesting and puzzling problem here. We know that there is a very close relationship between Joyce's character Stephen Dedalus and the historical Joyce. We also know that many characters in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and even Finnegans Wake (if we can assume it to have char- acters) are, as we say, "drawn from life." We know that what Richard Ellmann tells us in his biography of Joyce is of importance to criticism, but it is important, like anything else, only within certain theoretical lim- its. Leaving aside other characters, what is the critical relation between a. Hazard Adams, The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).  Antithetical Essays gz2 Antithetical Essays 9 Antithetical Essays James Joyce, the historical author constituted by Ellmann and others, and Stephen Dedalus? Some criticism, for example, has erred in too easily attributing the aesthetic theory of Stephen in A Portrait to Joyce, albeit a young Joyce. Yet the problem is complicated by our knowledge that Joyce signed an early work "Stephen Daedalus," inviting us to think of it as his "name." This is a tantalizing fact; yet we must be wary of it, even as it remains suggestive and, as such, perhaps useful, which is all that information about or statements by the historical author can be. Some modern theories have tried to assert more, only to come tacitly to a simi- lar conclusion. For example, certain phenomenological theories posit the notion of a work as expressing an authorial consciousness (I am thinking specifically of George Poulet), but they usually end by separating that consciousness theoretically from anything known about the author except through and in the work or perhaps all the author's works taken as a whole. This notion of consciousness returns, then, to what I have called the authority of the text or of texts, which is the perspective in which I therefore locate phenomenological theories of literary consciousness. In Ulysses, all of this raises the interesting question of the relation be- tween the authority of the text and Stephen Dedalus, a character in it. It is a tricky business, but before I come to it, let me consider the relation of this authority to the narrator, or, in the case of Ulysses, narrators; for criticism faces the possibility that, once it clearly defines authority, the authority may well turn into still another narrator or character in the text, causing us to constitute a new and larger circumference of authority to contain it. In radical theories of dissemination and intertextuality like Jacques Derrida's, this notion of authority, being infinite, has no circum- ferential limit. Indeed, in all theories of deconstruction, there is always an authority beyond any formal notion of authority. It is language itself, which is duplicitous and a chain of infinite deferral and can therefore never be spoken. Or, if one attempts to speak it, one ends by fictively and provisionally investing in one's own critical language the power to deconstruct the apparent but duplicitous so-called authority of the text, even though one knows this to be impossible because of the duplicity of one's own language. I locate the work of Paul de Man in this perspective, now infinitely enlarged in order to contain a text's undoing. I would add to the category of authority at this point, therefore, the concept of anti- authority to include the possibility of all such deconstructions. What I have said implies that no narrator can, without question, be regarded as the text's authority, though again we are aware of texts like The Prelude, where the distance may seem to be hypothetical only and not worth seri- ous delineation. The identity of narrator and authority cannot be unam- biguously adjudicated by the historical author's remarks, even when they James Joyce, the historical author constituted by Ellmann and others, and Stephen Dedalus? Some criticism, for example, has erred in too easily attributing the aesthetic theory of Stephen in A Portrait to Joyce, albeit a young Joyce. Yet the problem is complicated by our knowledge that Joyce signed an early work "Stephen Daedalus," inviting us to think of it as his "name." This is a tantalizing fact; yet we must be wary of it, even as it remains suggestive and, as such, perhaps useful, which is all that information about or statements by the historical author can be. Some modern theories have tried to assert more, only to come tacitly to a simi- lar conclusion. For example, certain phenomenological theories posit the notion of a work as expressing an authorial consciousness (I am thinking specifically of George Poulet), but they usually end by separating that consciousness theoretically from anything known about the author except through and in the work or perhaps all the author's works taken as a whole. This notion of consciousness returns, then, to what I have called the authority of the text or of texts, which is the perspective in which I therefore locate phenomenological theories of literary consciousness. In Ulysses, all of this raises the interesting question of the relation be- tween the authority of the text and Stephen Dedalus, a character in it. It is a tricky business, but before I come to it, let me consider the relation of this authority to the narrator, or, in the case of Ulysses, narrators; for criticism faces the possibility that, once it clearly defines authority, the authority may well turn into still another narrator or character in the text, causing us to constitute a new and larger circumference of authority to contain it. In radical theories of dissemination and intertextuality like Jacques Derrida's, this notion of authority, being infinite, has no circum- ferential limit. Indeed, in all theories of deconstruction, there is always an authority beyond any formal notion of authority. It is language itself, which is duplicitous and a chain of infinite deferral and can therefore never be spoken. Or, if one attempts to speak it, one ends by fictively and provisionally investing in one's own critical language the power to deconstruct the apparent but duplicitous so-called authority of the text, even though one knows this to be impossible because of the duplicity of one's own language. I locate the work of Paul de Man in this perspective, now infinitely enlarged in order to contain a text's undoing. I would add to the category of authority at this point, therefore, the concept of anti- authority to include the possibility of all such deconstructions. What I have said implies that no narrator can, without question, be regarded as the text's authority, though again we are aware of texts like The Prelude, where the distance may seem to be hypothetical only and not worth seri- ous delineation. The identity of narrator and authority cannot be unam- biguously adjudicated by the historical author's remarks, even when they James Joyce, the historical author constituted by Ellmann and others, and Stephen Dedalus? Some criticism, for example, has erred in too easily attributing the aesthetic theory of Stephen in A Portrait to Joyce, albeit a young Joyce. Yet the problem is complicated by our knowledge that Joyce signed an early work "Stephen Daedalus," inviting us to think of it as his "name." This is a tantalizing fact; yet we must be wary of it, even as it remains suggestive and, as such, perhaps useful, which is all that information about or statements by the historical author can be. Some modern theories have tried to assert more, only to come tacitly to a simi- lar conclusion. For example, certain phenomenological theories posit the notion of a work as expressing an authorial consciousness (I am thinking specifically of George Poulet), but they usually end by separating that consciousness theoretically from anything known about the author except through and in the work or perhaps all the author's works taken as a whole. This notion of consciousness returns, then, to what I have called the authority of the text or of texts, which is the perspective in which I therefore locate phenomenological theories of literary consciousness. In Ulysses, all of this raises the interesting question of the relation be- tween the authority of the text and Stephen Dedalus, a character in it. It is a tricky business, but before I come to it, let me consider the relation of this authority to the narrator, or, in the case of Ulysses, narrators; for criticism faces the possibility that, once it clearly defines authority, the authority may well turn into still another narrator or character in the text, causing us to constitute a new and larger circumference of authority to contain it. In radical theories of dissemination and intertextuality like Jacques Derrida's, this notion of authority, being infinite, has no circum- ferential limit. Indeed, in all theories of deconstruction, there is always an authority beyond any formal notion of authority. It is language itself, which is duplicitous and a chain of infinite deferral and can therefore never be spoken. Or, if one attempts to speak it, one ends by fictively and provisionally investing in one's own critical language the power to deconstruct the apparent but duplicitous so-called authority of the text, even though one knows this to be impossible because of the duplicity of one's own language. I locate the work of Paul de Man in this perspective, now infinitely enlarged in order to contain a text's undoing. I would add to the category of authority at this point, therefore, the concept of anti- authority to include the possibility of all such deconstructions. What I have said implies that no narrator can, without question, be regarded as the text's authority, though again we are aware of texts like The Prelude, where the distance may seem to be hypothetical only and not worth seri- ous delineation. The identity of narrator and authority cannot be unam- biguously adjudicated by the historical author's remarks, even when they  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 93 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 93 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 93 appear in an explanatory preface, as in Byron's prefaces to Childe Harold I and IV, even perhaps least when they do so, for their inclusion in that case invites us to identify them with a fictive narrator, incorporating the prefaces into the text. If we look at the prefatory material to Don Juan, it becomes quite clear that we are supposed to do this. The material be- longs in the text as do the obviously fictive explanatory materials of Sartor Resartus or A Vision. The problem in Ulysses is more complex, because there are so many different narrators, sometimes nameless or even virtually characterless. As Shari and Bernard Benstock have observed, there can be a serious problem, created by sedimented language and the tradition of commen- tary on narrative, in thinking of narration as always being narrated by someone.' Certainly there are situations when the term "narrator" seems to be an unnecessary and misleading anthropomorphism or at least an overspecification. They are, I think, uneasy about even the term "narra- tion," for, as I understand them, it too carries the notion of an act of speech by someone. However, I cannot think of a better one and there- fore add "narration" to category four for use in situations where narration is radically disembodied. Further, I am unconvinced by the Benstocks that the notion of a narrator of the first six chapters and elsewhere in Ulys- ses is any more misleading than their own efforts to erase it. I do, how- ever, recognize that there are in Ulysses situations where there is no nar- rator at all and others where there is very little narration. As the book proceeds, arrangement begins to dominate narration and even the acts of the heroes, heroines, and protagonists (if that is what we may call them) to such an extent that arranging seems to be the act of a character working from some greater, more inclusive circumference. I acknowledge the possibility of pure arrangement, not accomplished by an arranger re- garded as a character, just as I acknowledge the possibility of disembodied narration. However, when this occurs, as it often does in fiction, arrange- ment is conflated with authority as in the schema I devised for Joyce Cary's Trilogies. My view is that the notion of an arranger as a character is a constitutive critical (that is to say heuristic) category that works for Ulysses to isolate for discussion the curious sense one has of the text including a perform- ance, a showing-off, and an intent in this performance frequently to sub- due narrators and characters. It is well to think of this performance as having a performer, and I believe the text invites us to do this, as I shall 3. Shari Benstock and Bernard Benstock, "The Benstock Principle," in The Seventh of Joyce, ed. Bernard Benstock (Bloomington and Sussex: Indiana University Press, 1982), appear in an explanatory preface, as in Byron's prefaces to Childe Harold I and IV, even perhaps least when they do so, for their inclusion in that case invites us to identify them with a fictive narrator, incorporating the prefaces into the text. If we look at the prefatory material to Don Juan, it becomes quite clear that we are supposed to do this. The material be- longs in the text as do the obviously fictive explanatory materials of Sartor Resartus or A Vision. The problem in Ulysses is more complex, because there are so many different narrators, sometimes nameless or even virtually characterless. As Shari and Bernard Benstock have observed, there can be a serious problem, created by sedimented language and the tradition of commen- tary on narrative, in thinking of narration as always being narrated by someone.' Certainly there are situations when the term "narrator" seems to be an unnecessary and misleading anthropomorphism or at least an overspecification. They are, I think, uneasy about even the term "narra- tion," for, as I understand them, it too carries the notion of an act of speech by someone. However, I cannot think of a better one and there- fore add "narration" to category four for use in situations where narration is radically disembodied. Further, I am unconvinced by the Benstocks that the notion of a narrator of the first six chapters and elsewhere in Ulys- ses is any more misleading than their own efforts to erase it. I do, how- ever, recognize that there are in Ulysses situations where there is no nar- rator at all and others where there is very little narration. As the book proceeds, arrangement begins to dominate narration and even the acts of the heroes, heroines, and protagonists (if that is what we may call them) to such an extent that arranging seems to be the act of a character working from some greater, more inclusive circumference. I acknowledge the possibility of pure arrangement, not accomplished by an arranger re- garded as a character, just as I acknowledge the possibility of disembodied narration. However, when this occurs, as it often does in fiction, arrange- ment is conflated with authority as in the schema I devised for Joyce Cary's Trilogies. My view is that the notion of an arranger as a character is a constitutive critical (that is to say heuristic) category that works for Ulysses to isolate for discussion the curious sense one has of the text including a perform- ance, a showing-off, and an intent in this performance frequently to sub- due narrators and characters. It is well to think of this performance as having a performer, and I believe the text invites us to do this, as I shall 3. Shari Benstock and Bernard Benstock, "The Benstock Principle," in The Seventh of Joyce, ed. Bernard Benstock (Bloomington and Sussex: Indiana University Press, i82), appear in an explanatory preface, as in Byron's prefaces to Childe Harold I and IV, even perhaps least when they do so, for their inclusion in that case invites us to identify them with a fictive narrator, incorporating the prefaces into the text. If we look at the prefatory material to Don Juan, it becomes quite clear that we are supposed to do this. The material be- longs in the text as do the obviously fictive explanatory materials of Sartor Resartus or A Vision. The problem in Ulysses is more complex, because there are so many different narrators, sometimes nameless or even virtually characterless. As Shari and Bernard Benstock have observed, there can be a serious problem, created by sedimented language and the tradition of commen- tary on narrative, in thinking of narration as always being narrated by someone.' Certainly there are situations when the term "narrator" seems to be an unnecessary and misleading anthropomorphism or at least an overspecification. They are, I think, uneasy about even the term "narra- tion," for, as I understand them, it too carries the notion of an act of speech by someone. However, I cannot think of a better one and there- fore add "narration" to category four for use in situations where narration is radically disembodied. Further, I am unconvinced by the Benstocks that the notion of a narrator of the first six chapters and elsewhere in Ulys- ses is any more misleading than their own efforts to erase it. I do, how- ever, recognize that there are in Ulysses situations where there is no nar- rator at all and others where there is very little narration. As the book proceeds, arrangement begins to dominate narration and even the acts of the heroes, heroines, and protagonists (if that is what we may call them) to such an extent that arranging seems to be the act of a character working from some greater, more inclusive circumference. I acknowledge the possibility of pure arrangement, not accomplished by an arranger re- garded as a character, just as I acknowledge the possibility of disembodied narration. However, when this occurs, as it often does in fiction, arrange- ment is conflated with authority as in the schema I devised for Joyce Cary's Trilogies. My view is that the notion of an arranger as a character is a constitutive critical (that is to say heuristic) category that works for Ulysses to isolate for discussion the curious sense one has of the text including a perform- ance, a showing-off, and an intent in this performance frequently to sub- due narrators and characters. It is well to think of this performance as having a performer, and I believe the text invites us to do this, as I shall 3. Shari Benstock and Bernard Benstock, "The Benstock Principle," in The Seventh of Joyce, ed. Bernard Benstock (Bloomington and Sussex: Indiana University Press, 182),  94 Antithetical Essays 94 Antithetical Essays g4 Antithetical Essays try to show, though it does so very coyly. In this matter, Ulysses could and may well have taken a cue from and gone beyond Byron's Don Juan, where the narrator asserts his domination over his hero at the outset, thereby claiming for himself an unusual power in the text. In constituting Don Juan we are faced with the need to displace authority to a greater circumferential position in order to contain the presumptuous narrator, unless we are willing to conflate narrator with authority and perhaps the historical Byron as well, which has been the tendency of much criticism of Romantic poetry in the past. One of the reasons that the criticism of Romantic narrative poetry did not develop much sophistication for so long must be this conflation, typical of purely expressivist critical orientations. In Ulysses the situation is significantly different, as if Joyce were going one better than Byron, whose work he admired. In Ulysses what we have is a displacement of the center of our attention not merely from the he- roes and characters to the narration as in Don Juan (though we do have that in many places) but from the narration to the arrangement, the ar- ranger of which has become in some way the hero of the text at a greater circumference, perhaps a Ulysses-figure himself. There is even the possi- bility, or let us say the hint, that this arranger, who controls all the narra- tors as well as all spatial and temporal order, may be, like the narrator of The Prelude, an older, more sophisticated form of a character in the text. Wordsworth's text calls this younger character "I." Joyce's calls him "Stephen Dedalus." Is an older, more mature Stephen arranging Ulysses? If so, we must draw a circle around this arranger and reestablish the au- thority of the text out beyond it as a containing, though perhaps infinite, form. I shall return to this matter, content now to suggest that my elevenfold schema has to become twelvefold in order to contain this dif- ference we find in Joyce between arranger and authority on the one hand and arranger and narrators or narration on the other. First let me examine the behavior of this arranger and the narrators or narrations he controls through the text. I think of arrangement as ar- ranged by someone in Ulysses, for reasons I shall advance. In Finnegans Wake, on the other hand, I find only arrangement and I am doubtful that I would want to call what goes on as narrated by anyone. I say this be- cause though there are narrators or narrations in Finnegans Wake, their status as "people" or as by "people" is in doubt. My account of arranger, narrators, and narrations in Ulysses must here be brief relative to the space a full account deserves, for to my knowledge the variety of arrange- ment and narration in Ulysses surpasses that of any literary narrative text.' 4. Nor does my commentary make claim to very many original specific examples. Many critics have taken note of matters I mention. David Hayman, in particular, has try to show, though it does so very coyly. In this matter, Ulysses could and may well have taken a cue from and gone beyond Byron's Don Juan, where the narrator asserts his domination over his hero at the outset, thereby claiming for himself an unusual power in the text. In constituting Don Juan we are faced with the need to displace authority to a greater circumferential position in order to contain the presumptuous narrator, unless we are willing to conflate narrator with authority and perhaps the historical Byron as well, which has been the tendency of much criticism of Romantic poetry in the past. One of the reasons that the criticism of Romantic narrative poetry did not develop much sophistication for so long must be this conflation, typical of purely expressivist critical orientations. In Ulysses the situation is significantly different, as if Joyce were going one better than Byron, whose work he admired. In Ulysses what we have is a displacement of the center of our attention not merely from the he- roes and characters to the narration as in Don Juan (though we do have that in many places) but from the narration to the arrangement, the ar- ranger of which has become in some way the hero of the text at a greater circumference, perhaps a Ulysses-figure himself. There is even the possi- bility, or let us say the hint, that this arranger, who controls all the narra- tors as well as all spatial and temporal order, may be, like the narrator of The Prelude, an older, more sophisticated form of a character in the text. Wordsworth's text calls this younger character "I." Joyce's calls him "Stephen Dedalus." Is an older, more mature Stephen arranging Ulysses? If so, we must draw a circle around this arranger and reestablish the au- thority of the text out beyond it as a containing, though perhaps infinite, form. I shall return to this matter, content now to suggest that my elevenfold schema has to become twelvefold in order to contain this dif- ference we find in Joyce between arranger and authority on the one hand and arranger and narrators or narration on the other. First let me examine the behavior of this arranger and the narrators or narrations he controls through the text. I think of arrangement as ar- ranged by someone in Ulysses, for reasons I shall advance. In Finnegans Wake, on the other hand, I find only arrangement and I am doubtful that I would want to call what goes on as narrated by anyone. I say this be- cause though there are narrators or narrations in Finnegans Wake, their status as "people" or as by "people" is in doubt. My account of arranger, narrators, and narrations in Ulysses must here be brief relative to the space a full account deserves, for to my knowledge the variety of arrange- ment and narration in Ulysses surpasses that of any literary narrative text.' 4. Nor does my commentary make claim to very many original specific examples. Many critics have taken note of matters I mention. David Hayman, in particular, has try to show, though it does so very coyly. In this matter, Ulysses could and may well have taken a cue from and gone beyond Byron's Don Juan, where the narrator asserts his domination over his hero at the outset, thereby claiming for himself an unusual power in the text. In constituting Don Juan we are faced with the need to displace authority to a greater circumferential position in order to contain the presumptuous narrator, unless we are willing to conflate narrator with authority and perhaps the historical Byron as well, which has been the tendency of much criticism of Romantic poetry in the past. One of the reasons that the criticism of Romantic narrative poetry did not develop much sophistication for so long must be this conflation, typical of purely expressivist critical orientations. In Ulysses the situation is significantly different, as if Joyce were going one better than Byron, whose work he admired. In Ulysses what we have is a displacement of the center of our attention not merely from the he- roes and characters to the narration as in Don Juan (though we do have that in many places) but from the narration to the arrangement, the ar- ranger of which has become in some way the hero of the text at a greater circumference, perhaps a Ulysses-figure himself. There is even the possi- bility, or let us say the hint, that this arranger, who controls all the narra- tors as well as all spatial and temporal order, may be, like the narrator of The Prelude, an older, more sophisticated form of a character in the text. Wordsworth's text calls this younger character "I." Joyce's calls him "Stephen Dedalus." Is an older, more mature Stephen arranging Ulysses? If so, we must draw a circle around this arranger and reestablish the au- thority of the text out beyond it as a containing, though perhaps infinite, form. I shall return to this matter, content now to suggest that my elevenfold schema has to become twelvefold in order to contain this dif- ference we find in Joyce between arranger and authority on the one hand and arranger and narrators or narration on the other. First let me examine the behavior of this arranger and the narrators or narrations he controls through the text. I think of arrangement as ar- ranged by someone in Ulysses, for reasons I shall advance. In Finnegans Wake, on the other hand, I find only arrangement and I am doubtful that I would want to call what goes on as narrated by anyone. I say this be- cause though there are narrators or narrations in Finnegans Wake, their status as "people" or as by "people" is in doubt. My account of arranger, narrators, and narrations in Ulysses must here be brief relative to the space a full account deserves, for to my knowledge the variety of arrange- ment and narration in Ulysses surpasses that of any literary narrative text.' 4. Nor does my commentary make claim to very many original specific examples. Many critics have taken note of matters I mention. David Hayman, in particular, has  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 95 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 95 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 95 It surpasses even Finnegans Wake which in other ways goes beyond it by calling in question the notion of narration in any conventional sense. By its complexity Ulysses severely tests any critical language claiming to constitute it. That is the reason, of course, that I am employing it as an example here. We note at once that the initial narration of Ulysses is unusual, not so much for what is done as for what is quite stubbornly not done. Hugh Kenner believes there is a narrator here and that he takes the story for granted. I agree with Kenner that there is a narrator, that he does take much for granted, and that this is a sign of a narrator and not just narra- tion. At the same time I think it fair to say that the narrator is hiding himself by comparison to his later behavior. His hiding and his presence are of a piece. He does not provide transitions, does not tell the story, chooses his stance or the focus for what narration he provides very care- fully, does not worry much about pronoun reference, leaves sentences unfinished, and omits narration of events that we must infer. For exam- ple, we have to infer during "Telemachus" that Haines has just spoken in Irish to the milkwoman; we don't hear it or hear about it.' Only the conversation we do hear lets us infer it. Talbot's recitation of "Lycidas" is not fully provided in "Nestor." Why do we have these omissions? In part because the focus of narration is such that we are with Stephen, and he is so preoccupied that he is paying no attention. Thus, the omission is a mimesis of the subjective silence Stephen has created. Joyce has a habit of carrying every narrative issue to the next experimental level, as if he were fulfilling a set of potentialities bequeathed to him. (I shall say more about this later.) Here he has taken realism to a new level, omitting in the story what a character in the focus of narration would not pay atten- tion to. This process invades the internal monologues where Bloom, Ste- phen, and Molly are allowed no narrational role. They are, for example, not allowed to identify someone by name, rather than "he" or "she," un- less it is "realistic" for them to have done so. There are few compromises here. But this rigor has not merely the function of taking realism to an ex- treme. It also makes clear to us the relation of the narrator to the story, causing us, with respect to this extension of realistic technique, to recog- nize the narrator as a character in a text the circumference of authority of which has been enlarged. Now, in a sense, there is no story apart from discussed the narrator of Ulysses as an "arranger" in his Ulysses: The Mechanics of Mean- ing (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, sg7o). I hope to have collected current criti- cal insights about Joyce and narrative in a general theory. 5. James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1961), 14; hereafter cited in text. It surpasses even Finnegans Wake which in other ways goes beyond it by calling in question the notion of narration in any conventional sense. By its complexity Ulysses severely tests any critical language claiming to constitute it. That is the reason, of course, that I am employing it as an example here. We note at once that the initial narration of Ulysses is unusual, not so much for what is done as for what is quite stubbornly not done. Hugh Kenner believes there is a narrator here and that he takes the story for granted. I agree with Kenner that there is a narrator, that he does take much for granted, and that this is a sign of a narrator and not just narra- tion. At the same time I think it fair to say that the narrator is hiding himself by comparison to his later behavior. His hiding and his presence are of a piece. He does not provide transitions, does not tell the story, chooses his stance or the focus for what narration he provides very care- fully, does not worry much about pronoun reference, leaves sentences unfinished, and omits narration of events that we must infer. For exam- ple, we have to infer during "Telemachus" that Haines has just spoken in Irish to the milkwoman; we don't hear it or hear about it.' Only the conversation we do hear lets us infer it. Talbot's recitation of "Lycidas" is not fully provided in "Nestor." Why do we have these omissions? In part because the focus of narration is such that we are with Stephen, and he is so preoccupied that he is paying no attention. Thus, the omission is a mimesis of the subjective silence Stephen has created. Joyce has a habit of carrying every narrative issue to the next experimental level, as if he were fulfilling a set of potentialities bequeathed to him. (I shall say more about this later.) Here he has taken realism to a new level, omitting in the story what a character in the focus of narration would not pay atten- tion to. This process invades the internal monologues where Bloom, Ste- phen, and Molly are allowed no narrational role. They are, for example, not allowed to identify someone by name, rather than "he" or "she," un- less it is "realistic" for them to have done so. There are few compromises here. But this rigor has not merely the function of taking realism to an ex- treme. It also makes clear to us the relation of the narrator to the story, causing us, with respect to this extension of realistic technique, to recog- nize the narrator as a character in a text the circumference of authority of which has been enlarged. Now, in a sense, there is no story apart from discussed the narrator of Ulysses as an "arranger" in his Ulysses: The Mechanics of Mean- ing (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970). I hope to have collected current criti- cal insights about Joyce and narrative in a general theory. 5. James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1961), 14; hereaner cited in text. It surpasses even Finnegans Wake which in other ways goes beyond it by calling in question the notion of narration in any conventional sense. By its complexity Ulysses severely tests any critical language claiming to constitute it. That is the reason, of course, that I am employing it as an example here. We note at once that the initial narration of Ulysses is unusual, not so much for what is done as for what is quite stubbornly not done. Hugh Kenner believes there is a narrator here and that he takes the story for granted. I agree with Kenner that there is a narrator, that he does take much for granted, and that this is a sign of a narrator and not just narra- tion. At the same time I think it fair to say that the narrator is hiding himself by comparison to his later behavior. His hiding and his presence are of a piece. He does not provide transitions, does not tell the story, chooses his stance or the focus for what narration he provides very care- fully, does not worry much about pronoun reference, leaves sentences unfinished, and omits narration of events that we must infer. For exam- ple, we have to infer during "Telemachus" that Haines has just spoken in Irish to the milkwoman; we don't hear it or hear about it.' Only the conversation we do hear lets us infer it. Talbot's recitation of "Lycidas" is not fully provided in "Nestor." Why do we have these omissions? In part because the focus of narration is such that we are with Stephen, and he is so preoccupied that he is paying no attention. Thus, the omission is a mimesis of the subjective silence Stephen has created. Joyce has a habit of carrying every narrative issue to the next experimental level, as if he were fulfilling a set of potentialities bequeathed to him. (I shall say more about this later.) Her be has taken realism to a new level, omitting in the story what a character in the focus of narration would not pay atten- tion to. This process invades the internal monologues where Bloom, Ste- phen, and Molly are allowed no narrational role. They are, for example, not allowed to identify someone by name, rather than "he" or "she," un- less it is "realistic" for them to have done so. There are few compromises here. But this rigor has not merely the function of taking realism to an ex- treme. It also makes clear to us the relation of the narrator to the story, causing us, with respect to this extension of realistic technique, to recog- nize the narrator as a character in a text the circumference of authority of which has been enlarged. Now, in a sense, there is no story apart from discussed the narrator of Ulysses as an "arranger" in his Ulysses: The Mechanics of Mean- ing (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970). I hope to have coected current criti- cal insights about Joyce and narrative in a general theory. 5. James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1961), 14; hereafter cited in text.  Antithetical Essays g6 what is told us. Shakespeare's heroines had no girlhood. Some specula- tions about fictive characters, though often amusing, are critically point- less. They are merely grounds for other possible works of art that carry the characters into new situations, as in the play Horatio's Solution, which carries the events of Hamlet on into a court of inquiry early in Fortinbras's reign. The story, apart from narration, has been thought of as a critically constituted fiction pieced together by readerly inference, since it has seemed impossible to locate it elsewhere. This matter ofinfer- ence plays a huge part in Ulysses, particularly when we come to see that the pattern of story inferred by John Raleigh in his book The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom is at the most fundamental level and that there may be an additional story to be inferred about the narrators and even about the arranger, once we see the arranger as a performer. The narrators of Ulysses are, for the most part, self-conscious. The first one, who performs in the first six chapters and is more problematically present in subsequent ones, is quite fastidious about what not to say, what to say, and from where to say it. Sometimes this narrator asserts by his acts a decisive independence from his heroes, Stephen and Bloom. These assertions are generally more subtle and indirect than those of Byron's narrator in Don Juan, who denigrates his story and sometimes his hero as if he were competing with them for attention. Joyce's narrator also calls attention to himself or at least to his angle of vision. For example, there is the curious repeated treatment of actions early in the text. It is Bloom's hand that accepts the pork kidney from Dlugacz, not Bloom. It is his eye that sees Molly glance at the letter from Boylan. It is Molly's lips that smile. These precise observations, detaching some part of a character and making it the actor suggest, among other things, the narrator's desire to establish his own perspective apart from the characters, even as the focus of narration claims closeness to a character. The narrative gesture is one of claiming a certain separateness and independence that invites us not only to characterize the character but also to characterize the narration. This is a built-in opposition to the main tendency of the early narrative, which can be described in Hugh Kenner's phrase as operating on the "Uncle Charles Principle," where narration takes on the coloration of vo- cabulary and style of a character.' The principle operates in increasingly subtle ways as the text proceeds into and through "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus." At the same time, the early narrator indulges himself in mannerisms that separate him from other 6. Hugh Kenner, Joyce's Voices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 25-38. Kenner has invented the name and applied it to Joyce, but this technique is a mode of narra- tion remarked on before. what is told us. Shakespeare's heroines had no girlho tions about fictive characters, though often amusing, a less. They are merely grounds for other possible work the characters into new situations, as in the play H which carries the eventi of Hamldet on into a courto Fortinbras's reign. The story, apart from narration, ha as a critically constituted fiction pieced together by r since it has seemed impossible to locate it elsewhere. T ence plays a huge part in Ulysses, particularly when w the pattern of story inferred by John Raleigh in his b of Leopold and Molly Bloom is at the most fundame there may be an additional story to be inferred about even about the arranger, once we see the arranger as The narrators of Ulysses are, for the most part, self-c one, who performs in the first six chapters and is mo present in subsequent ones, is quite fastidious about w to say, and from where to say it. Sometimes this narr acts a decisive independence from his heroes, Stephen assertions are generally more subtle and indirect tha narrator in Don Juan, who denigrates his story and s as if he were competing with them for attention. Joyce' attention to himself or at least to his angle of vision. F is the curious repeated treatment of actions early in the hand that accepts the pork kidney from Dlugacz, not that sees Molly glance at the letter from Boylan. It i smile. These precise observations, detaching some part making it the actor suggest, among other things, the establish his own perspective apart from the characters of narration claims closeness to a character. The narra of claiming a certain separateness and independence only to characterize the character but also to characte This is a built-in opposition to the main tendency oft which can be described in Hugh Kenner's phrase as "Uncle Charles Principle," where narration takes on th cabulary and style of a character.' The principle operates in increasingly subtle ways a into and through "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus." At the sa narrator indulges himself in mannerisms that separat 6. Hugh Kenner, Joyce's Voices (Berkeley: University of Califon Kenner has invented the name and applied it to Joyce, but this techn tion remarked on before. Antithetical Essays 96 Antithetical Essays od. Some specula- what is told us. Shakespeare's heroines had no girlhood. Some specula- re critically point- tions about fictive characters, though often amusing, are critically point- s of art that carry less. They are merely grounds for other possible works of art that carry oratio's Solution, the characters into new situations, as in the play Horatio's Solution, of inquiry early in which carries the events of Hamlet on into a court of inquiry early in as been thought of Fortinbras's reign. The story, apart from narration, has been thought of eaderly inference, as a critically constituted fiction pieced together by readerly inference, his matter of infer- since it has seemed impossible to locate it elsewhere. This matter of infer- e come to see that ence plays a huge part in Ulysses, particularly when we come to see that ook The Chronicle the pattern of story inferred by John Raleigh in his book The Chronicle ntal level and that of Leopold and Molly Bloom is at the most fundamental level and that the narrators and there may be an additional story to be inferred about the narrators and a performer. even about the arranger, once we see the arranger as a performer. onscious. The first The narrators of Ulysses are, for the most part, self-conscious. The first re problematically one, who performs in the first six chapters and is more problematically oat not to say, what present in subsequent ones, is quite fastidious about what not to say, what ator asserts by his to say, and from where to say it. Sometimes this narrator asserts by his and Bloom. These acts a decisive independence from his heroes, Stephen and Bloom. These those of Byron's assertions are generally more subtle and indirect than those of Byron's ometimes his hero narrator in Don Juan, who denigrates his story and sometimes his hero s narrator also calls as if he were competing with them for attention. Joyce's narrator also calls For example, there attention to himself or at least to his angle of vision. For example, there text. It is Bloom's is the curious repeated treatment of actions early in the text. It is Bloom's loom. It is his eye hand that accepts the pork kidney from Dlugacz, not Bloom. It is his eye s Molly's lips that that sees Molly glance at the letter from Boylan. It is Molly's lips that of a character and smile. These precise observations, detaching some part of a character and narrator's desire to making it the actor suggest, among other things, the narrator's desire to even as the focus establish his own perspective apart from the characters, even as the focus tive gesture is one of narration claims closeness to a character. The narrative gesture is one that invites us not of claiming a certain separateness and independence that invites us not rize the narration. only to characterize the character but also to characterize the narration. he early narrative, This is a built-in opposition to the main tendency of the early narrative, operating on the which can be described in Hugh Kenner's phrase as operating on the e coloration of vo- "Uncle Charles Principle," where narration takes on the coloration of vo- cabulary and style of a character.' sthe text proceeds The principle operates in increasingly subtle ways as the text proceeds me time, the early into and through "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus." At the same time, the early o him from other narrator indulges himself in mannerisms that separate him from other ia Press, 1978), 25-38. 6. Hugh Kenner, Joyce's Voices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 25-38. ique is a mode of narra- Kenner has invented the name and applied it to Joyce, but this technique is a mode of nrra- tion remarked on before.  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text g7 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 97 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 97 characters. He offers onomatopoetic passages not attributable to Bloom (116) and repeats himself in a kind of shorthand, as if to say he cannot tarry to explain anything (117), and in any case assumes that his reader ought to have gotten it all the first time. He casts shadows in advance, thereby preparing the reader for what is to come. The first indication of internal monologue in the book is the single isolated word 'Chrysost- omos" (3). Most important, once we are fully comfortable with this narra- tor and his characteristic closeness to Stephen or Bloom, he breaks apart from them, particularly Bloom. He does this without notice to us, fore- shadowing future deviations and indicating that in him we have an inde- pendence of mind that refuses to remain content with a certain narrative method and has decided to search out or voyage through new possibili- ties. With this turn (viewing it with hindsight) we have the first inkling that the early narrator may be a character in the text acting out a voyage of his own. Clearly he is concerned with the rhetoric of his narration; ap- parently he would, in Blake's words, "rouse the [reader's] faculties to act." But it is not the early narrator who comes to dominate the text. By the end of the first six chapters, we sense the presence of a circumferen- tial arranger, who seems occasionally to provide words in the text free from a narrative consciousness and eventually will come to compete with his narrators, heroes, and heroines. At least there is ambiguity about to whom to attribute certain words. This begins with the word "pause" on page s1n in "Hades," attributable perhaps to Bloom's internal monologue, perhaps to the narrator, and perhaps to the arranger, and foreshadowing the appearance of certain words harder to attribute to character or narra- tor alone in "Scylla and Charybdis" and "Sirens." The definite appearance of this arranger as an independent force comes, as has often been observed, in "Aeolus." Not only is narration shaped in new ways in this chapter, it is obviously subordinated to ar- rangement. The notorious headlines (or whatever they are) and the vari- ous noises of the city and pressroom, offered to us directly, are not quite attributable to the narrator to whom we have become accustomed. They are simply present like the train whistle in "Penelope" or the curious "Pflaap," several limes repeated in "Oxen of the Sun." These presented noises may, of course, be attributed to things we might call "characters"- trains, the fire brigade, a machine, a cat. But in any case they need not be the narrator, and the headlines in "Aeolus" are clearly the work of some force outside of or surrounding narration, the characters, and the basic story. Internal monologue remains, but it is divided between Bloom and Stephen, whereas in earlier chapters one or the other dominated. This lessens the power of each. The arranger knows the previous text and has been present all along. For awhile he was content to be silent, as the characters. He offers onomatopoetic passages not attributable to Bloom (116) and repeats himself in a kind of shorthand, as if to say he cannot tarry to explain anything (107), and in any case assumes that his reader ought to have gotten it all the first time. He casts shadows in advance, thereby preparing the reader for what is to come. The first indication of internal monologue in the book is the single isolated word "Chrysost- omos" (3). Most important, once we are fully comfortable with this narra- tor and his characteristic closeness to Stephen or Bloom, he breaks apart from them, particularly Bloom. He does this without notice to us, fore- shadowing future deviations and indicating that in him we have an inde- pendence of mind that refuses to remain content with a certain narrative method and has decided to search out or voyage through new possibili- ties. With this turn (viewing it with hindsight) we have the first inkling that the early narrator may be a character in the text acting out a voyage of his own. Clearly he is concerned with the rhetoric of his narration; ap- parently he would, in Blake's words, "rouse the [reader's] faculties to act." But it is not the early narrator who comes to dominate the text. By the end of the first six chapters, we sense the presence of a circumferen- tial arranger, who seems occasionally to provide words in the text free from a narrative consciousness and eventually will come to compete with his narrators, heroes, and heroines. At least there is ambiguity about to whom to attribute certain words. This begins with the word "pause" on page son in "Hades," attributable perhaps to Bloom's internal monologue, perhaps to the narrator, and perhaps to the arranger, and foreshadowing the appearance of certain words harder to attribute to character or narra- tor alone in "Scylla and Charybdis" and "Sirens." The definite appearance of this arranger as an independent force comes, as has often been observed, in "Aeolus." Not only is narration shaped in new ways in this chapter, it is obviously subordinated to ar- rangement. The notorious headlines (or whatever they are) and the vari- ous noises of the city and pressroom, offered to us directly, are not quite attributable to the narrator to whom we have become accustomed. They are simply present like the train whistle in "Penelope" or the curious "Pflaap," several times repeated in "Oxen of the Sun." These presented noises may, of course, be attributed to things we might call "characters"- trains, the fire brigade, a machine, a cat. But in any case they need not be the narrator, and the headlines in "Aeolus" are clearly the work of some force outside of or surrounding narration, the characters, and the basic story. Internal monologue remains, but it is divided between Bloom and Stephen, whereas in earlier chapters one or the other dominated. This lessens the power of each. The arranger knows the previous text and has been present all along. For awhile he was content to be silent, as the characters. He offers onomatopoetic passages not attributable to Bloom (as6) and repeats himself in a kind of shorthand, as if to say he cannot tarry to explain anything (117), and in any case assumes that his reader ought to have gotten it all the first time. He casts shadows in advance, thereby preparing the reader for what is to come. The first indication of internal monologue in the book is the single isolated word "Chrysost- omos" (3). Most important, once we are fully comfortable with this narra- tor and his characteristic closeness to Stephen or Bloom, he breaks apart from them, particularly Bloom. He does this without notice to us, fore- shadowing future deviations and indicating that in him we have an inde- pendence of mind that refuses to remain content with a certain narrative method and has decided to search out or voyage through new possibili- ties. With this turn (viewing it with hindsight) we have the first inkling that the early narrator may be a character in the text acting out a voyage of his own. Clearly he is concerned with the rhetoric of his narration; ap- parently he would, in Blake's words, "rouse the [reader's] faculties to act." But it is not the early narrator who comes to dominate the text. By the end of the first six chapters, we sense the presence of a circumferen- tial arranger, who seems occasionally to provide words in the text free from a narrative consciousness and eventually will come to compete with his narrators, heroes, and heroines. At least there is ambiguity about to whom to attribute certain words. This begins with the word "pause" on page 11 in "Hades," attributable perhaps to Bloom's internal monologue, perhaps to the narrator, and perhaps to the arranger, and foreshadowing the appearance of certain words harder to attribute to character or narra- tor alone in "Seylla and Charybdis" and "Sirens." The definite appearance of this arranger as an independent force comes, as has often been observed, in "Aeolus." Not only is narration shaped in new ways in this chapter, it is obviously subordinated to ar- rangement. The notorious headlines (or whatever they are) and the vari- ous noises of the city and pressroom, offered to us directly, are not quite attributable to the narrator to whom we have become accustomed. They are simply present like the train whistle in "Penelope" or the curious "Pflaap," several times repeated in "Oxen of the Sun." These presented noises may, of course, be attributed to things we might call "characters"- trains, the fire brigade, a machine, a cat. But in any case they need not be the narrator, and the headlines in "Aeolus" are clearly the work of some force outside of or surrounding narration, the characters, and the basic story. Internal monologue remains, but it is divided between Bloom and Stephen, whereas in earlier chapters one or the other dominated. This lessens the power of each. The arranger knows the previous text and has been present all along. For awhile he was content to be silent, as the  Antithetical Essays 98 Antithetical Essays 98 Antithetical Essays arranger of Cary's trilogies is ever silent. He knows, for example, about the bar of soap Bloom purchased in "Lotus-Eaters," for he introduces it into a headline in "Aeolus" ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP" (123). Incur- sions of the arranger continue from this point onward and are character- ized by their variety, as if he is not content with merely establishing a method and keeping to it but wants instead to demonstrate domination over narrator, heroes, and story. The show of arbitrariness, which has worried some commentators, enforces the role and aim of the arranger, who acts arbitrarily to get attention and to dominate the other elements. The arranger may be thought to be deliberately manipulating the distance between technique and story or even theme. The denigration of apparent themes is a gesture and may have a thematic point at a larger circumfer- ence. In any case, Ulysses seems to tell us that we ought not to expect grand thematic points because life isn't like that. Again, realism is taken a step further than we might expect. The arranger, indeed, seems to be somewhat like Ulysses. Ulysses was not always prudent. Rather, he was inquisitive, sometimes recklessly so; and this arranger's activity is a continuous inquiry into how to control a text, sometimes with a toss of caution to the winds. Once we recognize this activity as having been continuously present, though much muted in the early going, we tend to turn the arranger into a heroie character in the text with actions to perform and problems he sets for himself. He is, we conclude, a bit of a show-off, a performer, in the sense of an actor or circus acrobat. We are tempted to consider him (and reconsider the text at this larger circumference) somewhat as we consider Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan. Joyce's arranger vies with the limits of arranging behav- ior as it has been defined by novelistic tradition. The arranger deliber- ately does things that seem to be irrelevant to the fundamental story. This turns out sometimes not to be the case, however, for indeed though his behavior seems impudent, as is Byron's narrator's, still both he and we discover in the process that his new techniques afford opportunities to deepen characterization and event. In this sense, the arranger is indeed a voyager not only inquisitive but also pragmatic, quite similar at his cir- cumference to Bloom at his, as well as to Ulysses in the Odyssey. Further, the arranger's tendency to show off is involved in the comedy of the text as a whole, in which the reader, also voyaging, discovers improbable and delightful interventions and connections and can congratulate himself for doing so, as Ulysses might have congratulated himself upon his return to Ithaca and as Bloom might have done, if only momentarily, anticipating the morning's breakfast. Yet this arranging Ulysses is not content. Later we observe him setting forth on the vast sea of Finnegans Wake. Legend arranger of Cary's trilogies is ever silent. He knows, for example, about the bar of soap Bloom purchased in "Lotus-Eaters," for he introduces it into a headline in "Aeolus": ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP' (123). Incur- sions of the arranger continue from this point onward and are character- ized by their variety, as if he is not content with merely establishing a method and keeping to it but wants instead to demonstrate domination over narrator, heroes, and story. The show of arbitrariness, which has worried some commentators, enforces the role and aim of the arranger, who acts arbitrarily to get attention and to dominate the other elements. The arranger may be thought to be deliberately manipulating the distance between technique and story or even theme. The denigration of apparent themes is a gesture and may have a thematic point at a larger circumfer- ence. In any case, Ulysses seems to tell us that we ought not to expect grand thematic points because life isn't like that. Again, realism is taken a step further than we might expect. The arranger, indeed, seems to be somewhat like Ulysses. Ulysses was not always prudent. Rather, he was inquisitive, sometimes recklessly so; and this arranger's activity is a continuous inquiry into how to control a text, sometimes with a toss of caution to the winds. Once we recognize this activity as having been continuously present, though much muted in the early going, we tend to turn the arranger into a heroic character in the text with actions to perform and problems he sets for himself. He is, we conclude, a bit of a show-off, a performer, in the sense of an actor or circus acrobat. We are tempted to consider him (and reconsider the text at this larger circumference) somewhat as we consider Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan. Joyce's arranger vies with the limits of arranging behav- ior as it has been defined by novelistic tradition. The arranger deliber- ately does things that seem to be irrelevant to the fundamental story. This turns out sometimes not to be the case, however, for indeed though his behavior seems impudent, as is Byron's narrator's, still both he and we discover in the process that his new techniques afford opportunities to deepen characterization and event. In this sense, the arranger is indeed a voyager not only inquisitive but also pragmatic, quite similar at his cir- cumference to Bloom at his, as well as to Ulysses in the Odyssey. Further, the arranger's tendency to show off is involved in the comedy of the text as a whole, in which the reader, also voyaging, discovers improbable and delightful interventions and connections and can congratulate himself for doing so, as Ulysses might have congratulated himself upon his return to Ithaca and as Bloom might have done, if only momentarily, anticipating the morning's breakfast. Yet this arranging Ulysses is not content. Later we observe him setting forth on the vast sea of Finnegans Wake. Legend arranger of Cary's trilogies is ever silent. He knows, for example, about the bar of soap Bloom purchased in "Lotus-Eaters," for he introduces it into a headline in "Aeolus": ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP" (123). Incur- sions of the arranger continue from this point onward and are character- ized by their variety, as if he is not content with merely establishing a method and keeping to it but wants instead to demonstrate domination over narrator, heroes, and story. The show of arbitrariness, which has worried some commentators, enforces the role and aim of the arranger, who acts arbitrarily to get attention and to dominate the other elements. The arranger may be thought to be deliberately manipulating the distance between technique and story or even theme. The denigration of apparent themes is a gesture and may have a thematic point at a larger circumfer- ence. In any case, Ulysses seems to tell us that we ought not to expect grand thematic points because life isn't like that. Again, realism is taken a step further than we might expect. The arranger, indeed, seems to be somewhat like Ulysses. Ulysses was not always prudent. Rather, he was inquisitive, sometimes recklessly so; and this arranger's activity is a continuous inquiry into how to control a text, sometimes with a toss of caution to the winds. Once we recognize this activity as having been continuously present, though much muted in the early going, we tend to turn the arranger into a heroic character in the text with actions to perform and problems he sets for himself. He is, we conclude, a bit of a show-off, a performer, in the sense of an actor or circus acrobat. We are tempted to consider him (and reconsider the text at this larger circumference) somewhat as we consider Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan. Joyce's arranger vies with the limits of arranging behav- ior as it has been defined by novelistic tradition. The arranger deliber- ately does things that seem to be irrelevant to the fundamental story. This turns out sometimes not to be the case, however, for indeed though his behavior seems impudent, as is Byron's narrator's, still both he and we discover in the process that his new techniques afford opportunities to deepen characterization and event. In this sense, the arranger is indeed a voyager not only inquisitive but also pragmatic, quite similar at his cir- cumference to Bloom at his, as well as to Ulysses in the Odyssey. Further, the arranger's tendency to show off is involved in the comedy of the text as a whole, in which the reader, also voyaging, discovers improbable and delightful interventions and connections and can congratulate himself for doing so, as Ulysses might have congratulated himself upon his return to Ithaca and as Bloom might have done, if only momentarily, anticipating the morning's breakfast. Yet this arranging Ulysses is not content. Later we observe him setting forth on the vast sea of Finnegans Wake. Legend  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text gg Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 99 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 99 and many writers tell us that the original Ulysses set forth again. Neither can we presume that Bloom would not. In "Lestrygonians" we see intervention with the sudden appearance of a Stephen style in a narrative dominated by Bloom's consciousness. This is the first occasion to speculate that an older Stephen is the ar- ranger, dominating the Bloom-oriented narration, indeed standing in as narrator. For example, take the sentence "As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet" (152), the allitera- tion of which suggests the Stephen we know from A Portrait. It is hardly Bloomian. Or the famous sentences of a few pages later: "Perfume of em- braces all him, assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore" (18). These sentences are so mannered as to go beyond the usual narrative treatment of Bloom's thoughts to express, in a breakup of the usual thought and syntax of Ulysses, his pure sensations and feel- ings. The hints of Stephen in these flourishes indicate that this early nar- rator is nearly conflated with the arranger of the text or, to put it differ- ently, dominated by the arranger. The arranger's domination or intrusion has the quality of hijinks at times, even at times competing with the narra- tor and his heroes. This activity becomes more pronounced through "Scylla and Charybdis," "Wandering Rocks," and "Sirens." A decision is made to invent new narrators or narrations, who are clearly separate from and subordinate to the arranger. They are limited and confined to single chapters or parts of chapters, as in "Cyclops," "Nausicaa," "Oxen of the Sun," and "Eumaeus." In three important chapters-"Circe," "Ithaca," and "Penelope"-narration is dispensed with entirely (unless we want to call the odd stage directions in "Circe" narration). Let us look briefly at this behavior: "Scylla and Charbydis" begins with a narrator not affected entirely by contiguity to Stephen but by the im- pending theme of the discussion in the library. Renaissance words appear in the narrative. At the same time, the arranger continues to show an interest, begun in "Aeolus," in the appearance of words on the page. He offers the title of a play in the form of a sort of handbill, reflects Stephen's consciousness by rendering a passage of conversation in verse and another in dramatic form, and provides a cast of characters for Mulligan's fancied drama. The old, relatively objective narrator is still present, but in a di- minished role and is interrupted in mid-sentence by Stephen's internal monologue (215). The narrator is also surrounded by the playful mimesis of a drama that seems to be going on in Stephen's mind. The mimesis reflects Stephen's creative consciousness, but there is an ambiguity about how much to attribute to him and how much to attribute to the arranger. This ambiguity comes to a head with the one-word paragraph "Entr'acte," and many writers tell us that the original Ulysses set forth again. Neither can we presume that Bloom would not. In "Lestrygonians" we see intervention with the sudden appearance of a Stephen style in a narrative dominated by Bloom's consciousness. This is the first occasion to speculate that an older Stephen is the ar- ranger, dominating the Bloom-oriented narration, indeed standing in as narrator. For example, take the sentence "As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet" (152), the allitera- tion of which suggests the Stephen we know from A Portrait. It is hardly Bloomian. Or the famous sentences of a few pages later: "Perfume of em- braces all him, assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore" (168). These sentences are so mannered as to go beyond the usual narrative treatment of Bloom's thoughts to express, in a breakup of the usual thought and syntax of Ulysses, his pure sensations and feel- ings. The hints of Stephen in these flourishes indicate that this early nar- rator is nearly conflated with the arranger of the text or, to put it differ- ently, dominated by the arranger. The arranger's domination or intrusion has the quality of hijinks at times, even at times competing with the narra- tor and his heroes. This activity becomes more pronounced through "Scylla and Charybdis," "Wandering Rocks," and "Sirens." A decision is made to invent new narrators or narrations, who are clearly separate from and subordinate to the arranger. They are limited and confined to single chapters or parts of chapters, as in "Cyclops," "Nausicaa," "Oxen of the Sun," and "Eumaeus." In three important chapters-"Circe," "Ithaca," and "Penelope"-narration is dispensed with entirely (unless we want to call the odd stage directions in "Circe" narration). Let us look briefly at this behavior: "Scylla and Charbydis" begins with a narrator not affected entirely by contiguity to Stephen but by the im- pending theme of the discussion in the library. Renaissance words appear in the narrative. At the same time, the arranger continues to show an interest, begun in "Aeolus," in the appearance of words on the page. He offers the title of a play in the form of a sort of handbill, reflects Stephen's consciousness by rendering a passage of conversation in verse and another in dramatic form, and provides a cast of characters for Mulligan's fancied drama. The old, relatively objective narrator is still present, but in a di- minished role and is interrupted in mid-sentence by Stephen's internal monologue (215). The narrator is also surrounded by the playful mimesis of a drama that seems to be going on in Stephen's mind. The mimesis reflects Stephen's creative consciousness, but there is an ambiguity about how much to attribute to him and how much to attribute to the arranger. This ambiguity comes to a head with the one-word paragraph "Entr'acte," and many writers tell us that the original Ulysses set forth again. Neither can we presume that Bloom would not. In "Lestrygonians" we see intervention with the sudden appearance of a Stephen style in a narrative dominated by Bloom's consciousness. This is the first occasion to speculate that an older Stephen is the ar- ranger, dominating the Bloom-oriented narration, indeed standing in as narrator. For example, take the sentence "As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet" (152), the allitera- tion of which suggests the Stephen we know from A Portrait. It is hardly Bloomian. Or the famous sentences of a few pages later: "Perfume of em- braces all him, assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore" (168). These sentences are so mannered as to go beyond the usual narrative treatment of Bloom's thoughts to express, in a breakup of the usual thought and syntax of Ulysses, his pure sensations and feel- ings. The hints of Stephen in these flourishes indicate that this early nar- rator is nearly conflated with the arranger of the text or, to put it differ- ently, dominated by the arranger. The arranger's domination or intrusion has the quality of hijinks at times, even at times competing with the narra- tor and his heroes. This activity becomes more pronounced through "Scylla and Charybdis," "Wandering Rocks," and "Sirens." A decision is made to invent new narrators or narrations, who are clearly separate from and subordinate to the arranger. They are limited and confined to single chapters or parts of chapters, as in "Cyclops," "Nausicaa," "Oxen of the Sun," and "Eumaeus." In three important chapters-"Circe," "Ithaca," and "Penelope"-narration is dispensed with entirely (unless we want to call the odd stage directions in "Circe" narration). Let us look briefly at this behavior: "Scylla and Charbydis" begins with a narrator not affected entirely by contiguity to Stephen but by the im- pending theme of the discussion in the library. Renaissance words appear in the narrative. At the same time, the arranger continues to show an interest, begun in "Aeolus," in the appearance of words on the page. He offers the title of a play in the form of a sort of handbill, reflects Stephen's consciousness by rendering a passage of conversation in verse and another in dramatic form, and provides a cast of characters for Mulligan's fancied drama. The old, relatively objective narrator is still present, but in a di- minished role and is interrupted in mid-sentence by Stephen's internal monologue (215). The narrator is also surrounded by the playful mimesis of a drama that seems to be going on in Stephen's mind. The mimesis reflects Stephen's creative consciousness, but there is an ambiguity about how much to attribute to him and how much to attribute to the arranger. This ambiguity comes to ahead with the one-word paragraph "Entr'acte,"  Antithetical Essays 100 Antithetical Essays 100 Antithetical Essays (197) which, with Mulligan's arrival, marks the end of one performance and the beginning of another. Mulligan not only enters as a player but even adopts an accent as if he were a character out of Synge. Ste- phen can be thought of as a sort of director-observer of this drama, as well as a player in it, indeed the maker of it inasmuch as his conscious- ness turns these events into a sort of play; but one is uncertain that he fully controls all of the suggestions of dramatic performance that can be detected, including the incursion of part of a musical score into the text. After seeing what the arranger has the impudence to do later in "Wandering Rocks" and "Sirens," we become, with hindsight, even more uncertain. In "Wandering Rocks" the narrator is ironical and exerts a definite con- trol over the characters, but he is in turn controlled by an arranger who divides the chapter into nineteen discrete parts with Bloom appearing in the central or tenth part and Stephen in parts six and thirteen, not quite a symmetrical surrounding of Bloom but perhaps elliptical, there being no perfect circles in nature and, therefore, in realistic fiction, which this text is-with exuberant vengeance. Further out on the circumference of narration are wanderers moving through Dublin, the containers being Fa- ther Conmee and the viceregal procession. At the circumference of ar- rangement the words and phrases that represent characters are "rocks" that have wandered from one part of the text to another. The arranger thinks spatially, situating Bloom, described by a character in the chapter as an "allroundman" (235), in the center of the text buying a book entitled Sweets of Sin, the initials of which (as has been pointed out by others) reflect the abstract spatial shape of Ulysses, which begins with an S, ends with an S, and locates the allroundman Bloom, whose own name has a central O, at the center as O. But there is a complication, typical of the behavior of this arranger. There are eighteen chapters in Ulysses, so "Wandering Rocks," as center of the text, is a bit off center, like Stephen's placement in the chapter relative to Bloom, and like the movement of earth around the sun result- ing in the necessity of a leap year and, from time to time, further adjust- ment of the calendar. There is, furthermore, a foreshadowing in "Wan- dering Rocks" (246) of the next chapter, "Sirens." "Sirens" is a notorious chapter of arrangement, taken in the musical sense. The mimesis of a fugue is dominant at the level of arranger, but the arranger seems to be playing a role in this himself, so that we must displace the fugal arrange- ment to the outer circumference of authority. The arranger appears to be conducting the text, which, like a fugue, seems to offer exposition (256-57), subject, variation, episode, and stretto. The arranger's direction is first made manifest at the end of the exposition with (197) which, with Mulligan's arrival, marks the end of one performance and the beginning of another. Mulligan not only enters as a player but even adopts an accent as if he were a character out of Synge. Ste- phen can be thought of as a sort of director-observer of this drama, as well as a player in it, indeed the maker of it inasmuch as his conscious- ness turns these events into a sort of play; but one is uncertain that he fully controls all of the suggestions of dramatic performance that can be detected, including the incursion of part of a musical score into the text. After seeing what the arranger has the impudence to do later in "Wandering Rocks" and "Sirens," we become, with hindsight, even more uncertain. In "Wandering Rocks" the narrator is ironical and exerts a definite con- trol over the characters, but he is in turn controlled by an arranger who divides the chapter into nineteen discrete parts with Bloom appearing in the central or tenth part and Stephen in parts six and thirteen, not quite a symmetrical surrounding of Bloom but perhaps elliptical, there being no perfect circles in nature and, therefore, in realistic fiction, which this text is-with exuberant vengeance. Further out on the circumference of narration are wanderers moving through Dublin, the containers being Fa- ther Conmee and the viceregal procession. At the circumference of ar- rangement the words and phrases that represent characters are "rocks" that have wandered from one part of the text to another. The arranger thinks spatially, situating Bloom, described by a character in the chapter as an "allroundman" (235), in the center of the text buying a book entitled Sweets of Sin, the initials of which (as has been pointed out by others) reflect the abstract spatial shape of Ulysses, which begins with an S, ends with an S, and locates the allroundman Bloom, whose own name has a central O, at the center as O. But there is a complication, typical of the behavior of this arranger. There are eighteen chapters in Ulysses, so "Wandering Rocks," as center of the text, is a bit off center, like Stephen's placement in the chapter relative to Bloom, and like the movement of earth around the sun result- ing in the necessity of a leap year and, from time to time, further adjust- ment of the calendar. There is, furthermore, a foreshadowing in "Wan- dering Rocks" (246) of the next chapter, "Sirens." "Sirens" is a notorious chapter of arrangement, taken in the musical sense. The mimesis of a fugue is dominant at the level of arranger, but the arranger seems to be playing a role in this himself, so that we must displace the fugal arrange- ment to the outer circumference of authority. The arranger appears to be conducting the text, which, like a fugue, seems to offer exposition (256-57), subject, variation, episode, and stretto. The arranger's direction is first made manifest at the end of the exposition with (197) which, with Mulligan's arrival, marks the end of one performance and the beginning of another. Mulligan not only enters as a player but even adopts an accent as if he were a character out of Synge. Ste- phen can be thought of as a sort of director-observer of this drama, as well as a player in it, indeed the maker of it inasmuch as his conscious- ness turns these events into a sort of play; but one is uncertain that he fully controls all of the suggestions of dramatic performance that can be detected, including the incursion of part of a musical score into the text. After seeing what the arranger has the impudence to do later in "Wandering Rocks" and "Sirens," we become, with hindsight, even more uncertain. In "Wandering Rocks" the narrator is ironical and exerts a definite con- trol over the characters, but he is in turn controlled by an arranger who divides the chapter into nineteen discrete parts with Bloom appearing in the central or tenth part and Stephen in parts six and thirteen, not quite a symmetrical surrounding of Bloom but perhaps elliptical, there being no perfect circles in nature and, therefore, in realistic fiction, which this text is-with exuberant vengeance. Further out on the circumference of narration are wanderers moving through Dublin, the containers being Fa- ther Conmee and the viceregal procession. At the circumference of ar- rangement the words and phrases that represent characters are "rocks" that have wandered from one part of the text to another. The arranger thinks spatially, situating Bloom, described by a character in the chapter as an "allroundman" (235), in the center of the text buying a book entitled Sweets of Sin, the initials of which (as has been pointed out by others) reflect the abstract spatial shape of Ulysses, which begins with an S, ends with an S, and locates the allroundman Bloom, whose own name has a central O, at the center as O. But there is a complication, typical of the behavior of this arranger. There are eighteen chapters in Ulysses, so "Wandering Rocks," as center of the text, is a bit off center, like Stephen's placement in the chapter relative to Bloom, and like the movement of earth around the sun result- ing in the necessity of a leap year and, from time to time, further adjust- ment of the calendar. There is, furthermore, a foreshadowing in "Wan- dering Rocks" (246) of the next chapter, "Sirens." "Sirens" is a notorious chapter of arrangement, taken in the musical sense. The mimesis of a fugue is dominant at the level of arranger, but the arranger seems to be playing a role in this himself, so that we must displace the fugal arrange- ment to the outer circumference of authority. The arranger appears to be conducting the text, which, like a fugue, seems to offer exposition (256-57), subject, variation, episode, and stretto. The arranger's direction is first made manifest at the end of the exposition with  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 1a t Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 101 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text Done. Begin! -hardly attributable to a narrator, who in any case is clearly seduced, as is Bloom in the story, by the music. A mimesis of a musical form, the chapter is the arranger's effort to voyage on from the earlier spatial cre- ation of "Wandering Rocks" to the mimesis of a temporal art. The seduced narrator plays a role in the fugue in a precise way, being interrupted by speaking characters on two occasions (258, 259) in keeping with the stretto device characteristic of the fugal form. These interruptions or pre- mature entrances tend to call in question the narrator's control and re- duce him to no more than another character, all now considered elements in the fugue. In addition to this, we find that some wandering rocks have gone even further astray than we might have expected and appear in the text here: the curse of the blind stripling (263, repeated with variation and interrupted on 284). There are also condensations, the words of "The Croppy Boy" being compressed (284), for example, though we infer the singing of the whole song. It is as if the arranger is on a voyage of his own to subdue the story and produce at all levels the response of pure musical feeling, or, more accurately, a mimesis of it. Further, as this Dublin day passes, the narrator tends to tire, like Bloom, and his hold on the text diminishes. This is shown by the narrator's growing garrulous- ness, repetitiveness, and anxiety to get on with it: "As said before" (a69). It is perhaps the same narrator as in the early chapters, but under greater pressure, reporting conversations in condensed form, and deeply affected by the fugue he inhabits (275-76), much as Bloom is affected by the music he hears. The most interesting rock thrown in "Sirens" comes not from "Wander- ing Rocks" but, oddly, from "Scylla and Charybdis": "In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyed-auburn. One life is all. One body. Do" (280). Although Stephen is not present, this passage picks up in somewhat different form snatches of Stephen's internal monologue in that previous chapter (202). There is an ambiguity about it which suggests the intrusive presence of an older arranging Stephen who recalls thinking these words. Not precisely a wandering rock, because not belonging originally to that chapter, it nevertheless has the same effect, though its main purpose seems to be to identify an arranger who remembers either the whole pre- vious text or the actual event of his own thinking in the library. In a sense, then, it is a wandering rock after all, because the arranger tends to allow his devices to expand beyond the chapter in which they were in- vented. Narration is by now a thing of play for the arranger. The chapters up Done. Begin! -hardly attributable to a narrator, who in any case is clearly seduced, as is Bloom in the story, by the music. A mimesis of a musical form, the chapter is the arranger's effort to voyage on from the earlier spatial cre- ation of "Wandering Rocks" to the mimesis of a temporal art. The seduced narrator plays a role in the fugue in a precise way, being interrupted by speaking characters on two occasions (258, 259) in keeping with the stretto device characteristic of the fugal form. These interruptions or pre- mature entrances tend to call in question the narrator's control and re- duce him to no more than another character, all now considered elements in the fugue. In addition to this, we find that some wandering rocks have gone even further astray than we might have expected and appear in the text here: the curse of the blind stripling (263, repeated with variation and interrupted on 284). There are also condensations, the words of "The Croppy Boy" being compressed (284), for example, though we infer the singing of the whole song. It is as if the arranger is on a voyage of his own to subdue the story and produce at all levels the response of pure musical feeling, or, more accurately, a mimesis of it. Further, as this Dublin day passes, the narrator tends to tire, like Bloom, and his hold on the text diminishes. This is shown by the narrator's growing garrulous- ness, repetitiveness, and anxiety to get on with it: "As said before" (269). It is perhaps the same narrator as in the early chapters, but under greater pressure, reporting conversations in condensed form, and deeply affected by the fugue he inhabits (275-76), much as Bloom is affected by the music he hears. The most interesting rock thrown in "Sirens" comes not from "Wander- ing Rocks" but, oddly, from "Scylla and Charybdis": "In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyed-auburn. One life is all. One body. Do" (280). Although Stephen is not present, this passage picks up in somewhat different form snatches of Stephen's internal monologue in that previous chapter (202). There is an ambiguity about it which suggests the intrusive presence of an older arranging Stephen who recalls thinking these words. Not precisely a wandering rock, because not belonging originally to that chapter, it nevertheless has the same effect, though its main purpose seems to be to identify an arranger who remembers either the whole pre- vious text or the actual event of his own thinking in the library. In a sense, then, it is a wandering rock after all, because the arranger tends to allow his devices to expand beyond the chapter in which they were in- vented. Narration is by now a thing of play for the arranger. The chapters up Done. Begin! -hardly attributable to a narrator, who in any case is clearly seduced, as is Bloom in the story, by the music. A mimesis of a musical form, the chapter is the arranger's effort to voyage on from the earlier spatial cre- ation of "Wandering Rocks" to the mimesis of a temporal art. The seduced narrator plays a role in the fugue in a precise way, being interrupted by speaking characters on two occasions (258, 259) in keeping with the stretto device characteristic of the fugal form. These interruptions or pre- mature entrances tend to call in question the narrator's control and re- duce him to no more than another character, all now considered elements in the fugue. In addition to this, we find that some wandering rocks have gone even further astray than we might have expected and appear in the text here: the curse of the blind stripling (263, repeated with variation and interrupted on 284). There are also condensations, the words of "The Croppy Boy" being compressed (284), for example, though we infer the singing of the whole song. It is as if the arranger is on a voyage of his own to subdue the story and produce at all levels the response of pure musical feeling, or, more accurately, a mimesis of it. Further, as this Dublin day passes, the narrator tends to tire, like Bloom, and his hold on the text diminishes. This is shown by the narrator's growing garrulous- ness, repetitiveness, and anxiety to get on with it "As said before" (269). It is perhaps the same narrator as in the early chapters, but under greater pressure, reporting conversations in condensed form, and deeply affected by the fugue he inhabits (275-76), much as Bloom is affected by the music he hears. The most interesting rock thrown in "Sirens" comes not from "Wander- ing Rocks" but, oddly, from "Scylla and Charybdis": "In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyed-auburn. One life is all. One body. Do" (28o). Although Stephen is not present, this passage picks up in somewhat different form snatches of Stephen's internal monologue in that previous chapter (202). There is an ambiguity about it which suggests the intrusive presence of an older arranging Stephen who recalls thinking these words. Not precisely a wandering rock, because not belonging originally to that chapter, it nevertheless has the same effect, though its main purpose seems to be to identify an arranger who remembers either the whole pre- vious text or the actual event of his own thinking in the library. In a sense, then, it is a wandering rock after all, because the arranger tends to allow his devices to expand beyond the chapter in which they were in- vented. Narration is by now a thing of play for the arranger. The chapters up  Antithetical Essays 102 Antithetical Essays 1os Antithetical Essays to "Circe" reveal the arranger providing a variety of narrators, some of whom are difficult and perhaps impossible to treat strictly as characters. The nameless principal narrator of "Cyclops" seems to be telling his tale to an unnamed auditor in a pub and, in part, in the jakes, though, too, he may be merely speaking or even thinking to himself. Nor does the arranger care to make the situation unambiguous. To him it does not mat- ter. His presence, revealed in the making of some things undecidable, is what we are supposed to attend to. The narrator cannot know he is making a series of jokes related to the blinding of Polyphemus; only the arranger can be so directing him. Nor is it quite in character for him to speak at such great length without describing his own behavior at Barney Kiernan's at least to some extent. Further, he has a clear remembrance of Bloom's behavior, and he treats it at a critical point with considerable respect and without sarcastic comment. This is out of character and casts these events into sharp relief. We begin to think that the narration hovers somewhere between narrator and arranger, and that is perhaps why the narrator has no name (in addition to the play on Ulysses' ruse of "Noman" in the Odyssey). He is a narrator present for the convenience of the ar- ranger. The other narrations, which are sometimes hyperbolic, some- times parody, culminate at their ends in an odd mixture where two differ- ent narrative voices inhabit the same paragraph, one taking over the last few lines (345). This has been preceded by a parody of graffiti (333) which is not really attributable to a narrator at all, present only by courtesy of the arranger, who has placed them on the wall of the text and again dis- plays his presiding knowledge by revealing something about the mysteri- ous man in the mackintosh. Can we trust this information as real knowl- edge of a character in the text, coming as it does from arrangement? Or is it gossip? Or are these words only an extreme example of the problem of words in the text as a whole? They seem at the circumference of ar- rangement to threaten to work free of the very story that they at first seem to be representing, putting us in the radical position of having to infer a story that may not be there. Perhaps all texts do this. Ulysses seems to tell us that it is doing it. "Nausicaa," which follows "Cyclops," does not seem to be "spoken" but "written." This narrative, as "written," seems radically detached from a narrator or character. We are perhaps supposed to "hear" the principal "Cyclops" narrator and infer a listener, but we cannot do this with the "Nausicaa" narration, which is radically anonymous. The whole situation is on the one hand overlaid with euphemism and on the other made clear by what Gerty MacDowell herself might think an appropriate style. This Gerty narration is frequently interrupted by a narration of events in a to "Circe" reveal the arranger providing a variety of narrators, some of whom are difficult and perhaps impossible to treat strictly as characters. The nameless principal narrator of "Cyclops" seems to be telling his tale to an unnamed auditor in a pub and, in part, in the jakes, though, too, he may be merely speaking or even thinking to himself. Nor does the arranger care to make the situation unambiguous. To him it does not mat- ter. His presence, revealed in the making of some things undecidable, is what we are supposed to attend to. The narrator cannot know he is making a series of jokes related to the blinding of Polyphemus; only the arranger can be so directing him. Nor is it quite in character for him to speak at such great length without describing his own behavior at Barney Kiernan's at least to some extent. Further, he has a clear remembrance of Bloom's behavior, and he treats it at a critical point with considerable respect and without sarcastic comment. This is out of character and casts these events into sharp relief. We begin to think that the narration hovers somewhere between narrator and arranger, and that is perhaps why the narrator has no name (in addition to the play on Ulysses' ruse of"Noman" in the Odyssey). He is a narrator present for the convenience of the ar- ranger. The other narrations, which are sometimes hyperbolic, some- times parody, culminate at their ends in an odd mixture where two differ- ent narrative voices inhabit the same paragraph, one taking over the last few lines (345). This has been preceded by a parody of graffiti (333) which is not really attributable to a narrator at all, present only by courtesy of the arranger, who has placed them on the wall of the text and again dis- plays his presiding knowledge by revealing something about the mysteri- ous man in the mackintosh. Can we trust this information as real knowl- edge of a character in the text, coming as it does from arrangement? Or is it gossip? Or are these words only an extreme example of the problem of words in the text as a whole? They seem at the circumference of ar- rangement to threaten to work free of the very story that they at first seem to be representing, putting us in the radical position of having to infer a story that may not be there. Perhaps all texts do this. Ulysses seems to tell us that it is doing it. "Nausicaa," which follows "Cyclops," does not seem to be "spoken" but "written." This narrative, as "written," seems radically detached from a narrator or character. We are perhaps supposed to "hear" the principal "Cyclops" narrator and infer a listener, but we cannot do this with the "Nausicaa" narration, which is radically anonymous. The whole situation is on the one hand overlaid with euphemism and on the other made clear by what Gerty MacDowell herself might think an appropriate style. This Gerty narration is frequently interrupted by a narration of events in a to "Circe" reveal the arranger providing a variety of narrators, some of whom are difficult and perhaps impossible to treat strictly as characters. The nameless principal narrator of "Cyclops" seems to be telling his tale to an unnamed auditor in a pub and, in part, in the jakes, though, too, he may be merely speaking or even thinking to himself. Nor does the arranger care to make the situation unambiguous. To him it does not mat- ter. His presence, revealed in the making of some things undecidable, is what we are supposed to attend to. The narrator cannot know he is making a series of jokes related to the blinding of Polyphemus; only the arranger can be so directing him. Nor is it quite in character for him to speak at such great length without describing his own behavior at Barney Kiernan's at least to some extent. Further, he has a clear remembrance of Bloom's behavior, and he treats it at a critical point with considerable respect and without sarcastic comment. This is out of character and casts these events into sharp relief. We begin to think that the narration hovers somewhere between narrator and arranger, and that is perhaps why the narrator has no name (in addition to the play on Ulysses' ruse of "Noman" in the Odyssey). He is a narrator present for the convenience of the ar- ranger. The other narrations, which are sometimes hyperbolic, some- times parody, culminate at their ends in an odd mixture where two differ- ent narrative voices inhabit the same paragraph, one taking over the last few lines (345). This has been preceded by a parody of graffiti (333) which is not really attributable to a narrator at all, present only by courtesy of the arranger, who has placed them on the wall of the text and again dis- plays his presiding knowledge by revealing something about the mysteri- ous man in the mackintosh. Can we trust this information as real knowl- edge of a character in the text, coming as it does from arrangement? Or is it gossip? Or are these words only an extreme example of the problem of words in the text as a whole? They seem at the circumference of ar- rangement to threaten to work free of the very story that they at first seem to be representing, putting us in the radical position of having to infer a story that may not be there. Perhaps all texts do this. Ulysses seems to tell us that it is doing it. "Nausicaa," which follows "Cyclops," does not seem to be "spoken" but "written." This narrative, as "written," seems radically detached from a narrator or character. We are perhaps supposed to "hear" the principal "Cyclops" narrator and infer a listener, but we cannot do this with the "Nausicaa" narration, which is radically anonymous. The whole situation is on the one hand overlaid with euphemism and on the other made clear by what Gerty MacDowell herself might think an appropriate style. This Gerty narration is frequently interrupted by a narration of events in a  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 103 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 103 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text nearby church, first in the Gerty style, later in a somewhat different style influenced by the events themselves in the same way that the primary narration is influenced by Gerty's sensibility. There is but one line of in- ternal monologue attributable to Gerty in the chapter (367), and that is interrupted by the narrator in a stretto left over or having wandered in like a rock from "Sirens." The familiar Bloom internal monologue takes up but half the chapter, the arranger no longer allowing either Bloom or Stephen to dominate a whole part of the text. "Oxen of the Sun," of course, reveals the arranger in full control. The different narrations, drawing on historical prose styles, are experiments in perspective, filters which provide new insights while blocking out oth- ers. Thus we see Bloom early as the knight of prudence in a mimesis of a medieval prose style, which is not so much a parody as a vehicle of inter- pretation. Bloom is thrown thereby into a new light. In the strange last section (424-28) echoes of former phrases, some from earlier chapters, remind us of a presiding arranger. "Circe," like a Romantic drama, is an unplayable play where all is ar- rangement, and we can see the arranger in the stage directions. Rocks have wandered in from elsewhere: "Booloohoom" from "Sirens" (434), "Chrysostomos" from "Telemachus" (494). In one stage direction it is a question whether the arranger takes on Stephen's hallucination or Ste- phen projects the arranger's. "Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling ma- sonry" (583). At one point the arranger's stage direction sounds as if it were a throwback to the "Nausicaa" narration (521), at another to the nar- ration of "Sirens" (6o8). Also, the narration of "Eumaeus" is anticipated (6o8, 613). All of this shows us that the arranger now dominates and has been inventing narrators and narrations, even the early relatively objec- tive one, and that they are all his words. This arranger has been gradually calling attention to himself and his medium, and he has been accumulat- ing techniques in various chapters which he tends now to appropriate at will. With this knowledge we observe the Bloomian narration of "Eu- maeus," knowing that the arranger can do without narrators if he chooses and now employs narration only in order to achieve new angles of presentation. The "Eumaeus" narration, the last in the book, is like the early "Nausicaa" narration in that it is a presentation of a Bloomian sensibility as it would appear to us through a Bloomian sense of appropri- ate prose style. Bloom himself is said to think about writing something: "My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter" (647), the actual sub- ject of the chapter. The chapter, as Kenner has pointed out, is as if writ- nearby church, first in the Gerty style, later in a somewhat different style influenced by the events themselves in the same way that the primary narration is influenced by Gerty's sensibility. There is but one line of in- ternal monologue attributable to Gerty in the chapter (367), and that is interrupted by the narrator in a stretto left over or having wandered in like a rock from "Sirens." The familiar Bloom internal monologue takes up but half the chapter, the arranger no longer allowing either Bloom or Stephen to dominate a whole part of the text. "Oxen of the Sun," of course, reveals the arranger in full control. The different narrations, drawing on historical prose styles, are experiments in perspective, filters which provide new insights while blocking out oth- ers. Thus we see Bloom early as the knight of prudence in a mimesis of a medieval prose style, which is not so much a parody as a vehicle of inter- pretation. Bloom is thrown thereby into a new light. In the strange last section (424-28) echoes of former phrases, some from earlier chapters, remind us of a presiding arranger. "Circe," like a Romantic drama, is an unplayable play where all is ar- rangement, and we can see the arranger in the stage directions. Rocks have wandered in from elsewhere: "Booloohoom" from "Sirens" (434), "Chrysostomos" from "Telemachus" (494). In one stage direction it is a question whether the arranger takes on Stephen's hallucination or Ste- phen projects the arranger's. "Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling ma- sonry" (583). At one point the arranger's stage direction sounds as if it were a throwback to the "Nausicaa" narration (521), at another to the nar- ration of "Sirens" (68). Also, the narration of 'Eumaeus' is anticipated (6o8, 613). All of this shows us that the arranger now dominates and has been inventing narrators and narrations, even the early relatively objec- tive one, and that they are all his words. This arranger has been gradually calling attention to himself and his medium, and he has been accumulat- ing techniques in various chapters which he tends now to appropriate at will. With this knowledge we observe the Bloomian narration of "Eu- maeus," knowing that the arranger can do without narrators if he chooses and now employs narration only in order to achieve new angles of presentation. The "Eumaeus" narration, the last in the book, is like the early "Nausicaa" narration in that it is a presentation of a Bloomian sensibility as it would appear to us through a Bloomian sense of appropri- ate prose style. Bloom himself is said to think about writing something: "My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter" (647), the actual sub- ject of the chapter. The chapter, as Kenner has pointed out, is as if writ- nearby church, first in the Gerty style, later in a somewhat different style influenced by the events themselves in the same way that the primary narration is influenced by Gerty's sensibility. There is but one line of in- ternal monologue attributable to Gerty in the chapter (367), and that is interrupted by the narrator in a stretto left over or having wandered in like a rock from "Sirens." The familiar Bloom internal monologue takes up but half the chapter, the arranger no longer allowing either Bloom or Stephen to dominate a whole part of the text. "Oxen of the Sun," of course, reveals the arranger in full control. The different narrations, drawing on historical prose styles, are experiments in perspective, filters which provide new insights while blocking out oth- ers. Thus we see Bloom early as the knight of prudence in a mimesis of a medieval prose style, which is not so much a parody as a vehicle of inter- pretation. Bloom is thrown thereby into a new light. In the strange last section (424-28) echoes of former phrases, some from earlier chapters, remind us of a presiding arranger. "Circe," like a Romantic drama, is an unplayable play where all is ar- rangement, and we can see the arranger in the stage directions. Rocks have wandered in from elsewhere: "Booloohoom" from "Sirens" (434), "Chrysostomos" from "Telemachus" (494). In one stage direction it is a question whether the arranger takes on Stephen's hallucination or Ste- phen projects the arranger's. "Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling ma- sonry" (583). At one point the arranger's stage direction sounds as if it were a throwback to the "Nausicaa" narration (521), at another to the nar- ration of "Sirens" (6o8). Also, the narration of "Eumaeus" is anticipated (6b8, 613). All of this shows us that the arranger now dominates and has been inventing narrators and narrations, even the early relatively objec- tive one, and that they are all his words. This arranger has been gradually calling attention to himself and his medium, and he has been accumulat- ing techniques in various chapters which he tends now to appropriate at will. With this knowledge we observe the Bloomian narration of "Eu- maeus," knowing that the arranger can do without narrators if he chooses and now employs narration only in order to achieve new angles of presentation. The "Eumaeus" narration, the last in the book, is like the early "Nausicaa" narration in that it is a presentation of a Bloomian sensibility as it would appear to us through a Bloomian sense of appropri- ate prose style. Bloom himself is said to think about writing something: "My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter" (647), the actual sub- ject of the chapter. The chapter, as Kenner has pointed out, is as if writ-  Antithetical Essays 104 Antithetical Essays 104 Antithetical Essays ten by Bloom.' However, the narration is affected not only by the sort of style with which Bloom is familiar, it is also tired, as is Bloom. It is now late in the text as well as early morning. The narration is garrulous, inaccurate, forgetful, and the chapter ends with the narration interrupted by the words of Stephen's song. Arrangement fully dominates "Ithaca," which is a piece of what Plato would have called pure mimesis, except that mimesis does imply copying or representation, and here the catechistic dialogue is completely disem- bodied, not a copy of people talking. There are questions and answers but hardly voices. The arranger's triumph is complete, both narrators and heroes having been dispatched as speakers or internal monologists. They are "reduced," as the text says of Bloom. This is to turn the Uncle Charles Principle inside out. According to that principle the narrative is colored by a character's language. Here the character is reduced in our eyes by the absence of narration and the filtering of all through disembodied dia- logue. This nearly pure arrangement comes as close to the voice of the text's authority as it is likely for us to get. It is true that what conventional climax Ulysses has occurs here, though it is perhaps better to call it a sum- ming up. These voiceless voices that demand and provide catalogues of the contents of Bloom's library, a kitchen shelf, and a bureau drawer eventually do, however, take on a sort of character-enough to fall asleep with Bloom as the chapter concludes. At least something has gone to sleep or fallen into the darkness of that last answer, a black dot. "Penelope," too, has no narrator, being all Platonic mimesis, all inter- nal monologue. The narrators and narration, first fastidious and careful, later stylized and anonymous, finally exhausted, do not return. Pure ar- rangement or Platonic mimesis, purified of characters, falls asleep. There remains the internal speech-thought of Molly Bloom, who, sitting on the chamber pot, says "O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh" (769). It is, of course, Molly's slangy apostrophe to no one in particular, but if we now recognize the arranger as a presence, even a character, in the text, we can hear Molly's words addressing him across circumferences as the text's god, so to speak, but more appropriately its demiurge, since a greater authority surrounds him and inevitably surrounds any arranger made into a character. Has Molly's apostrophe, here exceeding circumferential de- corum, accidentally named this arranger? We have seen things no less strange already. Ulysses has been a book of accidents and coincidences, and at the level of story, it tells us that such things are what hold our lives together. Further, at the level of arrangement we see not the coinci- ten by Bloom.' However, the narration is affected not only by the sort of style with which Bloom is familiar, it is also tired, as is Bloom. It is now late in the text as well as early morning. The narration is garrulous, inaccurate, forgetful, and the chapter ends with the narration interrupted by the words of Stephen's song. Arrangement fully dominates "Ithaca," which is a piece of what Plato would have called pure mimesis, except that mimesis does imply copying or representation, and here the catechistic dialogue is completely disem- bodied, not a copy of people talking. There are questions and answers but hardly voices. The arranger's triumph is complete, both narrators and heroes having been dispatched as speakers or internal monologists. They are "reduced," as the text says of Bloom. This is to turn the Uncle Charles Principle inside out. According to that principle the narrative is colored by a character's language. Here the character is reduced in our eyes by the absence of narration and the filtering of all through disembodied dia- logue. This nearly pure arrangement comes as close to the voice of the text's authority as it is likely for us to get. It is true that what conventional climax Ulysses has occurs here, though it is perhaps better to call it a sum- ming up. These voiceless voices that demand and provide catalogues of the contents of Bloom's library, a kitchen shelf, and a bureau drawer eventually do, however, take on a sort of character-enough to fall asleep with Bloom as the chapter concludes. At least something has gone to sleep or fallen into the darkness of that last answer, a black dot. "Penelope," too, has no narrator, being all Platonic mimesis, all inter- nal monologue. The narrators and narration, first fastidious and careful, later stylized and anonymous, finally exhausted, do not return. Pure ar- rangement or Platonic mimesis, purified of characters, falls asleep. There remains the internal speech-thought of Molly Bloom, who, sitting on the chamber pot, says "O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh" (769). It is, of course, Molly's slangy apostrophe to no one in particular, but if we now recognize the arranger as a presence, even a character, in the text, we can hear Molly's words addressing him across circumferences as the text's god, so to speak, but more appropriately its demiurge, since a greater authority surrounds him and inevitably surrounds any arranger made into a character. Has Molly's apostrophe, here exceeding circumferential de- corum, accidentally named this arranger? We have seen things no less strange already. Ulysses has been a book of accidents and coincidences, and at the level of story, it tells us that such things are what hold our lives together. Further, at the level of arrangement we see not the coinci- ten by Bloom.' However, the narration is affected not only by the sort of style with which Bloom is familiar, it is also tired, as is Bloom. It is now late in the text as well as early morning. The narration is garrulous, inaccurate, forgetful, and the chapter ends with the narration interrupted by the words of Stephen's song. Arrangement fully dominates "Ithaca," which is a piece of what Plato would have called pure mimesis, except that mimesis does imply copying or representation, and here the catechistic dialogue is completely disem- bodied, not a copy of people talking. There are questions and answers but hardly voices. The arranger's triumph is complete, both narrators and heroes having been dispatched as speakers or internal monologists. They are "reduced," as the text says of Bloom. This is to turn the Uncle Charles Principle inside out. According to that principle the narrative is colored by a character's language. Here the character is reduced in our eyes by the absence of narration and the filtering of all through disembodied dia- logue. This nearly pure arrangement comes as close to the voice of the text's authority as it is likely for us to get. It is true that what conventional climax Ulysses has occurs here, though it is perhaps better to call it a sum- ming up. These voiceless voices that demand and provide catalogues of the contents of Bloom's library, a kitchen shelf, and a bureau drawer eventually do, however, take on a sort of character-enough to fall asleep with Bloom as the chapter concludes. At least something has gone to sleep or fallen into the darkness of that last answer, a black dot. "Penelope," too, has no narrator, being all Platonic mimesis, all inter- nal monologue. The narrators and narration, first fastidious and careful, later stylized and anonymous, finally exhausted, do not return. Pure ar- rangement or Platonic mimesis, purified of characters, falls asleep. There remains the internal speech-thought of Molly Bloom, who, sitting on the chamber pot, says "O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh" (769). It is, of course, Molly's slangy apostrophe to no one in particular, but if we now recognize the arranger as a presence, even a character, in the text, we can hear Molly's words addressing him across circumferences as the text's god, so to speak, but more appropriately its demiurge, since a greater authority surrounds him and inevitably surrounds any arranger made into a character. Has Molly's apostrophe, here exceeding circumferential de- corum, accidentally named this arranger? We have seen things no less strange already. Ulysses has been a book of accidents and coincidences, and at the level of story, it tells us that such things are what hold our lives together. Further, at the level of arrangement we see not the coinci- 7. Ibid., 35. 7. Ibid-, 35- 7. Ibid., 35.  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 105 Critical Constitution of the Literary Textt 105 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text dence of events or things, but the coincidence of words. Do we see here yet a new kind of coincidence and accident that traverses the differences between circumferences and for a moment breaks down these differences revealing a name? This name is not the name we might have expected- "Stephen"-who we have thought may be, at a more advanced age, the fictive arranger, the only character introduced to us who could write Ulys- ses, imagining himself into those areas of the text where at a level of story he could not have been and constructing narrations and making arrange- ments to do this, apart from his younger self. Stephen as he "was" in Ulys- ses, as against the Stephen as he is, the arranger, is but preparing to write Dubliners, his "Parable of the Plums" being an embryonic Dubliners story and prefaced by the single internal monologue word "Dubliners" (145). Further, this arranger knows the text of both Dubliners and A Portrait, having arranged the names of characters from those books into the text. He has become himself an allroundman. The coincidental call of Molly is not, however, to "Stephen" but to "Jamesy," traversing beyond the cir- cumference of arrangement to grasp at authority. Here, surrounded only by authority, of course, there are no coincidences. However, for us to name this authority, as we are tempted to do, "James Joyce" is to dissolve authority into the historical author and raise all those problems of the rela- tion between text and historical author that have plagued debates over intention for half a century or more. We had better leave the name as Molly has it, secure within the circumference of hero and heroine and tantalizing us with the perpetual hope that criticism can grasp and encom- pass and finally constitute the authority of the text, even as we know it cannot.' II I have discussed now, with respect to Ulysses, the first six categories of the eleven mentioned at the outset, and I have shown that Ulysses brings narrators and arranger into the text and makes them operate, at their re- spective circumferences, as characters. As a result, we see not merely that the Ulysses theme of voyaging and adventure exists at the circumfer- ence of the basic story, but also that a new and parallel story is established at these outward circumferences and that we are observing an arranger 8. So we come to the state of irony, the condition of critical constitution. See my Philoso. phy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 339-45. dence of events or things, but the coincidence of words. Do we see here yet a new kind of coincidence and accident that traverses the differences between circumferences and for a moment breaks down these differences revealing a name? This name is not the name we might have expected- "Stephen"-who we have thought may be, at a more advanced age, the fictive arranger, the only character introduced to us who could write Ulys- ses, imagining himself into those areas of the text where at a level of story he could not have been and constructing narrations and making arrange- ments to do this, apart from his younger self. Stephen as he "was" in Ulys- ses, as against the Stephen as he is, the arranger, is but preparing to write Dubliners, his "Parable of the Plums" being an embryonic Dubliners story and prefaced by the single internal monologue word "Dubliners" (145). Further, this arranger knows the text of both Dubliners and A Portrait, having arranged the names of characters from those books into the text. He has become himself an allroundman. The coincidental call of Molly is not, however, to "Stephen" but to "Jamesy," traversing beyond the cir- cumference of arrangement to grasp at authority. Here, surrounded only by authority, of course, there are no coincidences. However, for us to name this authority, as we are tempted to do, "James Joyce" is to dissolve authority into the historical author and raise all those problems of the rela- tion between text and historical author that have plagued debates over intention for half a century or more. We had better leave the name as Molly has it, secure within the circumference of hero and heroine and tantalizing us with the perpetual hope that criticism can grasp and encom- pass and finally constitute the authority of the text, even as we know it cannot.' II I have discussed now, with respect to Ulysses, the first six categories of the eleven mentioned at the outset, and I have shown that Ulysses brings narrators and arranger into the text and makes them operate, at their re- spective circumferences, as characters. As a result, we see not merely that the Ulysses theme of voyaging and adventure exists at the circumfer- ence of the basic story, but also that a new and parallel story is established at these outward circumferences and that we are observing an arranger 8. So we come to the state of irony, the condition of critical constitution. See my Philoso- phy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 339-45. dence of events or things, but the coincidence of words. Do we see here yet a new kind of coincidence and accident that traverses the differences between circumferences and for a moment breaks down these differences revealing a name? This name is not the name we might have expected- "Stephen"-who we have thought may be, at a more advanced age, the fictive arranger, the only character introduced to us who could write Ulys- ses, imagining himself into those areas of the text where at a level of story he could not have been and constructing narrations and making arrange- ments to do this, apart from his younger self. Stephen as he "was" in Ulys- ses, as against the Stephen as he is, the arranger, is but preparing to write Dubliners, his "Parable of the Plums" being an embryonic Dubliners story and prefaced by the single internal monologue word "Dubliners" (145)- Further, this arranger knows the text of both Dubliners and A Portrait, having arranged the names of characters from those books into the text. He has become himself an allroundman. The coincidental call of Molly is not, however, to "Stephen" but to "Jamesy," traversing beyond the cir- cumference of arrangement to grasp at authority. Here, surrounded only by authority, of course, there are no coincidences. However, for us to name this authority, as we are tempted to do, "James Joyce" is to dissolve authority into the historical author and raise all those problems of the rela- tion between text and historical author that have plagued debates over intention for half a century or more. We had better leave the name as Molly has it, secure within the circumference of hero and heroine and tantalizing us with the perpetual hope that criticism can grasp and encom- pass and finally constitute the authority of the text, even as we know it cannot.' II I have discussed now, with respect to Ulysses, the first six categories of the eleven mentioned at the outset, and I have shown that Ulysses brings narrators and arranger into the text and makes them operate, at their re- spective circumferences, as characters. As a result, we see not merely that the Ulysses theme of voyaging and adventure exists at the circumfer- ence of the basic story, but also that a new and parallel story is established at these outward circumferences and that we are observing an arranger 8. So we come to the state of irony, the condition of critical constitution. See my Philoso- phy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 339-45-  Antithetical Essays s06 Antithetical Essays so6 Antithetical Essays who is daring, inquisitive, and inventive, and gets himself into as many fixes as his illustrious predecessor Ulysses. It seems to me that Ulysses is not a parody or ironic treatment of the Odyssey story but instead its antitype, that Joyce considered it a fulfillment of the Odyssey, the secular old testament of the Western world, that it demands a secular typological reading, which is to say that although the Odyssey is a wonderful work alone, its secular fulfillment in Ulysses makes it even more wonderful by completing the job, so to speak. This finishing is present, first, at the cir- cumference of story and hero. Here Ulysses fulfills the Odyssey not by providing an ironic trivialization but by bringing to fulfillment the realism of which the Odyssey is a heroic exaggeration. It is present, second, as the fulfillment of arranging possibility. Homer did not see that his ar- ranger was also Ulysses. Joyce sees this and fulfills the possibility only prophesied by the Odyssey, just as Bloom's adventures fulfill Ulysses' by being brought into the compass of everyday life as a secular "word." There is another aspect of all this where, as I have already indicated, we may find still another Ulysses. The remaining categories are involved: (7) fictive internal readers, (8) fictive external readers, (g) empirically or ideologically constructed readers, (so) the authoritively projected reader, and (ss) our notion of ourselves. Fictive internal readers are all those readers or auditors or viewers mentioned, addressed, or implied by a nar- rator in a text. Wordsworth brought a "Coleridge," a "Dorothy," and a "reader" into his text. These are at different levels, and it would be inter- esting to study to what extent each affects narration. In Ulysses, there is an unnamed, perhaps nonexistent, that is to say only imagined, auditor of "Cyclops"; and there is the case of "Jamesy," not the product of a narra- tor but ambiguously of a monologist "overheard" by us. Because there is an ambiguity in both cases, it is possible to say that there may be no fic- tive internal readers in Ulysses, that strictly speaking this category is pres- ent only when a text has a single narrator, as in the novels of Cary's trilo- gies taken discretely. Otherwise such readers are merely characters in the text. The fictive external reader is a rather special case. I am dissatisfied with the term as I first proposed it and now prefer to call it the narrator's artistic ideal. I first noticed it when I compared the narration of Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth to that of the other two less sophisticated narrators of the trilogy. Jimson seems to be writing (actually dictating) to an ideal of artistry, not just to some fictive internal reader. This is, I would suppose, true of any writer or performer, but some efforts are more conscious of and posit a more demanding ideal than others do. The narra- tions of "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus" reveal notions of how to write, but they are naive and unfortunate, and the result of the pressure of the text who is daring, inquisitive, and inventive, and gets himself into as many fixes as his illustrious predecessor Ulysses. It seems to me that Ulysses is not a parody or ironic treatment of the Odyssey story but instead its antitype, that Joyce considered it a fulfillment of the Odyssey, the secular old testament of the Western world, that it demands a secular typological reading, which is to say that although the Odyssey is a wonderful work alone, its secular fulfillment in Ulysses makes it even more wonderful by completing the job, so to speak. This finishing is present, first, at the cir- cumference of story and hero. Here Ulysses fulfills the Odyssey not by providing an ironic trivialization but by bringing to fulfillment the realism of which the Odyssey is a heroic exaggeration. It is present, second, as the fulfillment of arranging possibility. Homer did not see that his ar- ranger was also Ulysses. Joyce sees this and fulfills the possibility only prophesied by the Odyssey, just as Bloom's adventures fulfill Ulysses' by being brought into the compass of everyday life as a secular "word." There is another aspect of all this where, as I have already indicated, we may find still another Ulysses. The remaining categories are involved: (7) fictive internal readers, (8) fictive external readers, (g) empirically or ideologically constructed readers, (no) the authoritively projected reader, and (11) our notion of ourselves. Fictive internal readers are all those readers or auditors or viewers mentioned, addressed, or implied by a nar- rator in a text. Wordsworth brought a "Coleridge," a "Dorothy," and a "reader" into his text. These are at different levels, and it would be inter- esting to study to what extent each affects narration. In Ulysses, there is an unnamed, perhaps nonexistent, that is to say only imagined, auditor of "Cyclops"; and there is the case of "Jamesy," not the product of a narra- tor but ambiguously of a monologist "overheard" by us. Because there is an ambiguity in both cases, it is possible to say that there may be no fic- tive internal readers in Ulysses, that strictly speaking this category is pres- ent only when a text has a single narrator, as in the novels of Cary's trilo- gies taken discretely. Otherwise such readers are merely characters in the text. The fictive external reader is a rather special case. I am dissatisfied with the term as I first proposed it and now prefer to call it the narrator's artistic ideal. I first noticed it when I compared the narration of Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth to that of the other two less sophisticated narrators of the trilogy. Jimson seems to be writing (actually dictating) to an ideal of artistry, not just to some fictive internal reader. This is, I would suppose, true of any writer or performer, but some efforts are more conscious of and posit a more demanding ideal than others do. The narra- tions of "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus" reveal notions of how to write, but they are naive and unfortunate, and the result of the pressure of the text who is daring, inquisitive, and inventive, and gets himself into as many fixes as his illustrious predecessor Ulysses. It seems to me that Ulysses is not a parody or ironic treatment of the Odyssey story but instead its antitype, that Joyce considered it a fulfillment of the Odyssey, the secular old testament of the Western world, that it demands a secular typological reading, which is to say that although the Odyssey is a wonderful work alone, its secular fulfillment in Ulysses makes it even more wonderful by completing the job, so to speak. This finishing is present, first, at the cir- cumference of story and hero. Here Ulysses fulfills the Odyssey not by providing an ironic trivialization but by bringing to fulfillment the realism of which the Odyssey is a heroic exaggeration. It is present, second, as the fulfillment of arranging possibility. Homer did not see that his ar- ranger was also Ulysses. Joyce sees this and fulfills the possibility only prophesied by the Odyssey, just as Bloom's adventures fulfill Ulysses' by being brought into the compass of everyday life as a secular "word." There is another aspect of all this where, as I have already indicated, we may find still another Ulysses. The remaining categories are involved: (7) fictive internal readers, (8) fictive external readers, (g) empirically or ideologically constructed readers, (so) the authoritively projected reader, and (n) our notion of ourselves. Fictive internal readers are all those readers or auditors or viewers mentioned, addressed, or implied by a nar- rator in a text. Wordsworth brought a "Coleridge," a "Dorothy,' and a "reader" into his text. These are at different levels, and it would be inter- esting to study to what extent each affects narration. In Ulysses, there is an unnamed, perhaps nonexistent, that is to say only imagined, auditor of"Cyclops"; and there is the case of "Jamesy," not the product of a narra- tor but ambiguously of a monologist "overheard" by us. Because there is an ambiguity in both cases, it is possible to say that there may be no fic- tive internal readers in Ulysses, that strictly speaking this category is pres- ent only when a text has a single narrator, as in the novels of Cary's trilo- gies taken discretely. Otherwise such readers are merely characters in the text. The fictive external reader is a rather special case. I am dissatisfied with the term as I first proposed it and now prefer to call it the narrator's artistic ideal. I first noticed it when I compared the narration of Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth to that of the other two less sophisticated narrators of the trilogy. Jimson seems to be writing (actually dictating) to an ideal of artistry, not just to some fictive internal reader. This is, I would suppose, true of any writer or performer, but some efforts are more conscious of and posit a more demanding ideal than others do. The narra- tions of "Nausicaa" and "Eumaeus" reveal notions of how to write, but they are naive and unfortunate, and the result of the pressure of the text  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 107 Critical Constitution of the Literary Texts 107 Critical Constitution of the Literary Text on them is irony. The fastidious early narrator of Ulysses writes to a rigor- ous ideal and escapes for a time the arranger's irony. I pass through category nine quickly because such readers are critical constitutions previous to texts. As readings from vantage points produced by some system of ideology, they are usually expressions of judgments that end by seeing how the text measures up. This brings us to the authoritively projected reader, for none of the above is the reader addressed by the authority of the text. We tend to conflate this reader with our notion of ourselves (category ss), but this last category is not an adequate theoretical notion, though one necessary to us. When I have spoken of "we" or "us" here I have been referring to the authoritively projected reader, not our notion of ourselves. Indeed, it is no more than the text as it is, the reader we would become if it were possible. It is the reading that can never quite be constituted, the critic we would constitute ourselves as, if we could. Because the arranger voy- ages in this text, so does this reader. Because this text is constantly in the making, this reader is not a static notion. Voyaging in the text, this reader must constitute and reconstitute it, performing feats of inference when the early narrator elects not to reveal something directly, refuses to provide easy pronoun antecedents, and drops into the text puzzles like the mysterious man in the mackintosh. Some of these inferences must be that this or that is undecidable, that one ought not to push a closure of interpretation. This reader must per- form feats of memory equivalent to those of the arranger, who seems to have forgotten nothing. Involved is not merely memory of events and character, but of words, pauses, and absences, of odd narrative events. That is to say, this reader is not only voyaging to constitute the basic story but is also voyaging outward from this center across circumferences to detect the relations among them. This reader must be prepared to consti- tute the relation of authority to arranger to narration to heroes as some- times one of deliberate disrelation, mended at a higher level by a percep- tion that in this text, and potentially in any text, an area of action lies within the effort of the arranger to control, to dominate narration. Thus in Ulysses there is the deception of apparent irrelevance. What appears to be a random variable in the story of "Sirens" turns out to be part of the fugue at the circumference of arrangement. What appear to be tech- niques insufficiently subordinated to their thematic purposes, as many readers have complained, are acts of the arranger in his own story, which is one of struggle to control his narrators. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster complained of the necessity of the story. Joyce makes a story of this sort of complaint. The technique, Peake complains, is too powerful, but this is by design. Ulysses is a text in which this excess helps to on them is irony. The fastidious early narrator of Ulysses writes to a rigor- ous ideal and escapes for a time the arranger's irony. I pass through category nine quickly because such readers are critical constitutions previous to texts. As readings from vantage points produced by some system of ideology, they are usually expressions of judgments that end by seeing how the text measures up. This brings us to the authoritively projected reader, for none of the above is the reader addressed by the authority of the text. We tend to conflate this reader with our notion of ourselves (category in), but this last category is not an adequate theoretical notion, though one necessary to us. When I have spoken of "we" or "us" here I have been referring to the authoritively projected reader, not our notion of ourselves. Indeed, it is no more than the text as it is, the reader we would become if it were possible. It is the reading that can never quite be constituted, the critic we would constitute ourselves as, if we could. Because the arranger voy- ages in this text, so does this reader. Because this text is constantly in the making, this reader is not a static notion. Voyaging in the text, this reader must constitute and reconstitute it, performing feats of inference when the early narrator elects not to reveal something directly, refuses to provide easy pronoun antecedents, and drops into the text puzzles like the mysterious man in the mackintosh. Some of these inferences must be that this or that is undecidable, that one ought not to push a closure of interpretation. This reader must per- form feats of memory equivalent to those of the arranger, who seems to have forgotten nothing. Involved is not merely memory of events and character, but of words, pauses, and absences, of odd narrative events. That is to say, this reader is not only voyaging to constitute the basic story but is also voyaging outward from this center across circumferences to detect the relations among them. This reader must be prepared to consti- tute the relation of authority to arranger to narration to heroes as some- times one of deliberate disrelation, mended at a higher level by a percep- tion that in this text, and potentially in any text, an area of action lies within the effort of the arranger to control, to dominate narration. Thus in Ulysses there is the deception of apparent irrelevance. What appears to be a random variable in the story of "Sirens" turns out to be part of the fugue at the circumference of arrangement. What appear to be tech- niques insufficiently subordinated to their thematic purposes, as many readers have complained, are acts of the arranger in his own story, which is one of struggle to control his narrators. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster complained of the necessity of the story. Joyce makes a story of this sort of complaint. The technique, Peake complains, is too powerful, but this is by design. Ulysses is a text in which this excess helps to on them is irony. The fastidious early narrator of Ulysses writes to a rigor- ous ideal and escapes for a time the arranger's irony. I pass through category nine quickly because such readers are critical constitutions previous to texts. As readings from vantage points produced by some system of ideology, they are usually expressions of judgments that end by seeing how the text measures up. This brings us to the authoritively projected reader, for none of the above is the reader addressed by the authority of the text. We tend to conflate this reader with our notion of ourselves (category ns), but this last category is not an adequate theoretical notion, though one necessary to us. When I have spoken of "we" or "us" here I have been referring to the authoritively projected reader, not our notion of ourselves. Indeed, it is no more than the text as it is, the reader we would become if it were possible. It is the reading that can never quite be constituted, the critic we would constitute ourselves as, if we could. Because the arranger voy- ages in this text, so does this reader. Because this text is constantly in the making, this reader is not a static notion. Voyaging in the text, this reader must constitute and reconstitute it, performing feats of inference when the early narrator elects not to reveal something directly, refuses to provide easy pronoun antecedents, and drops into the text puzzles like the mysterious man in the mackintosh. Some of these inferences must be that this or that is undecidable, that one ought not to push a closure of interpretation. This reader must per- form feats of memory equivalent to those of the arranger, who seems to have forgotten nothing. Involved is not merely memory of events and character, but of words, pauses, and absences, of odd narrative events. That is to say, this reader is not only voyaging to constitute the basic story but is also voyaging outward from this center across circumferences to detect the relations among them. This reader must be prepared to consti- tute the relation of authority to arranger to narration to heroes as some- times one of deliberate disrelation, mended at a higher level by a percep- tion that in this text, and potentially in any text, an area of action lies within the effort of the arranger to control, to dominate narration. Thus in Ulysses there is the deception of apparent irrelevance. What appears to be a random variable in the story of "Sirens" turns out to be part of the fugue at the circumference of arrangement. What appear to be tech- niques insufficiently subordinated to their thematic purposes, as many readers have complained, are acts of the arranger in his own story, which is one of struggle to control his narrators. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster complained of the necessity of the story. Joyce makes a story of this sort of complaint. The technique, Peake complains, is too powerful, but this is by design. Ulysses is a text in which this excess helps to  Antithetical Essays 108 Antithetical Essays 108 Antithetical Essays constitute the arranger's story, his attempt to control the text, the phenome- non of stylistic order being the determining factor, the incidents of story responding to the style. The reader must traverse circumferences, evad- ing rocks tossed about by an arranger who, somewhat like Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan, is not content with an ego as powerful as his own any- where in his text. To traverse and evade is, of course, characteristic of Ulysses himself. To traverse this text also requires inquisitiveness of a high order. The authoritively projected reader is such a person. My eleventh category, our notion of ourselves, is, as I have said, not a critical, though it is a necessary, notion. If we do not attempt to go be- yond it to inhabit the role of the voyager we shall not get very far with Ulysses, and the first rock of Finnegans Wake will surely claim us. To at- tempt to be that voyaging reader is to seek the Ithaca of critical constitu- tion of the text. We discover in this attempt that the authoritively pro- jected reader is but another word for the authority of the text and that my categories have constituted a circle. I have therefore placed them at identical circumferences on the accompanying figure. Reader-oriented criticism, unless it falls into an unacceptable empiricism and subjectivity, is but criticism as we have known it and must always know it: the search for the Ithaca of the text. Were we to achieve it, we would no longer have the same notion of ourselves, for we would look out from a realm more real than we were. III When we hear Molly Bloom on her chamber pot inadvertently, across circumferences, ask James Joyce to "let me up out of this pooh" (769), we may be startled to recall that in Finnegans Wake it is said that Shem, au- thor of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eceles,"" makes ink to write from "his own end out of his wit's waste" (185), resulting in a "quantity of obscene matter" (185). The final work of Stephen-Jim, who arranges Finnegans Wake, a middle-form of whom is called Shem, may require that my categories be examined in a different way, for Joyce never looked back except to gaze on Dublin or recycle what he had said. I am not yet pre- pared to discuss this matter in any detail except to suggest that with Ulys- ses the arranger begins with the realist assumption that something out 9. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: The Viking Press, 1939) 179. constitute the arranger's story, his attempt to control the text, the phenome- non of stylistic order being the determining factor, the incidents of story responding to the style. The reader must traverse circumferences, evad- ing rocks tossed about by an arranger who, somewhat like Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan, is not content with an ego as powerful as his own any- where in his text. To traverse and evade is, of course, characteristic of Ulysses himself. To traverse this text also requires inquisitiveness of a high order. The authoritively projected reader is such a person. My eleventh category, our notion of ourselves, is, as I have said, not a critical, though it is a necessary, notion. If we do not attempt to go be- yond it to inhabit the role of the voyager we shall not get very far with Ulysses, and the first rock of Finnegans Wake will surely claim us. To at- tempt to be that voyaging reader is to seek the Ithaca of critical constitu- tion of the text. We discover in this attempt that the authoritively pro- jected reader is but another word for the authority of the text and that my categories have constituted a circle. I have therefore placed them at identical circumferences on the accompanying figure. Reader-oriented criticism, unless it falls into an unacceptable empiricism and subjectivity, is but criticism as we have known it and must always know it: the search for the Ithaca of the text. Were we to achieve it, we would no longer have the same notion of ourselves, for we would look out from a realm more real than we were. III When we hear Molly Bloom on her chamber pot inadvertently, across circumferences, ask James Joyce to "let me up out of this pooh" (769), we may be startled to recall that in Finnegans Wake it is said that Shem, au- thor of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles,"* makes ink to write from "his own end out of his wit's waste" (185), resulting in a "quantity of obscene matter" (185). The final work of Stephen-Jim, who arranges Finnegans Wake, a middle-form of whom is called Shem, may require that my categories be examined in a different way, for Joyce never looked back except to gaze on Dublin or recycle what he had said. I am not yet pre- pared to discuss this matter in any detail except to suggest that with Ulys- ses the arranger begins with the realist assumption that something out 9. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: The Viking Press, 1939), 179. constitute the arranger's story, his attempt to control the text, the phenome- non of stylistic order being the determining factor, the incidents of story responding to the style. The reader must traverse circumferences, evad- ing rocks tossed about by an arranger who, somewhat like Byron's narra- tor in Don Juan, is not content with an ego as powerful as his own any- where in his text. To traverse and evade is, of course, characteristic of Ulysses himself. To traverse this text also requires inquisitiveness of a high order. The authoritively projected reader is such a person. My eleventh category, our notion of ourselves, is, as I have said, not a critical, though it is a necessary, notion. If we do not attempt to go be- yond it to inhabit the role of the voyager we shall not get very far with Ulysses, and the first rock of Finnegans Wake will surely claim us. To at- tempt to be that voyaging reader is to seek the Ithaca of critical constitu- tion of the text. We discover in this attempt that the authoritively pro- jected reader is but another word for the authority of the text and that my categories have constituted a circle. I have therefore placed them at identical circumferences on the accompanying figure. Reader-oriented criticism, unless it falls into an unacceptable empiricism and subjectivity, is but criticism as we have known it and must always know it: the search for the Ithaca of the text. Were we to achieve it, we would no longer have the same notion of ourselves, for we would look out from a realm more real than we were. III When we hear Molly Bloom on her chamber pot inadvertently, across circumferences, ask James Joyce to "let me up out of this pooh' (769), we may be startled to recall that in Finnegans Wake it is said that Shem, au- thor of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles,"" makes ink to write from "his own end out of his wit's waste" (185), resulting in a "quantity of obscene matter" (185). The final work of Stephen-Jim, who arranges Finnegans Wake, a middle-form of whom is called Shem, may require that my categories be examined in a different way, for Joyce never looked back except to gaze on Dublin or recycle what he had said. I am not yet pre- pared to discuss this matter in any detail except to suggest that with Ulys- ses the arranger begins with the realist assumption that something out 9. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: The Viking Press, 1939), 179.  Critical Constitution of the Literary Text iog Critical Constitution of the Literary Text 1og Critical Constitution of the Literary Text there is to be represented with words. However, in an expression of ego he gradually suppresses this realist's presumption. His task becomes, as he goes along, to outdo any known realist by establishing rigorous princi- ples of narration only to voyage beyond even this effort to a place where, in order to declare ultimate realism, his own reality as a character, he must derealize his story, his heroes, and his narrators. Under this pres- sure, they seem to become but projections of his verbal behavior. The final turn to Molly in "Penelope" arrests this behavior, and a heroine is allowed to appear to speak the story in the story once again. Finnegano Wake takes us a little beyond the most obstreperous hijinks of this arranger, and never allows story, hero, or narrator to get a foot- hold. Words point to nothing and yet encompass everything. In the there is to be represented with words. However, in an expression of ego he gradually suppresses this realist's presumption. His task becomes, as he goes along, to outdo any known realist by establishing rigorous princi- ples of narration only to voyage beyond even this effort to a place where, in order to declare ultimate realism, his own reality as a character, he must derealize his story, his heroes, and his narrators. Under this pres- sure, they seem to become but projections of his verbal behavior. The final turn to Molly in "Penelope" arrests this behavior, and a heroine is allowed to appear to speak the story in the story once again. Finnegans Wake takes us a little beyond the most obstreperous hijinks of this arranger, and never allows story, hero, or narrator to get a foot- hold. Words point to nothing and yet encompass everything. In the there is to be represented with words. However, in an expression of ego he gradually suppresses this realist's presumption. His task becomes, as he goes along, to outdo any known realist by establishing rigorous princi- ples of narration only to voyage beyond even this effort to a place where, in order to declare ultimate realism, his own reality as a character, he must derealize his story, his heroes, and his narrators. Under this pres- sure, they seem to become but projections of his verbal behavior. The final turn to Molly in "Penelope" arrests this behavior, and a heroine is allowed to appear to speak the story in the story once again. Finnegans Wake takes us a little beyond the most obstreperous hijinks of this arranger, and never allows story, hero, or narrator to get a foot- hold. Words point to nothing and yet encompass everything. In the Circumferences of the critically constituted literary text strict sense, there is no story, no hero, and only problematic narrative or snatches of it that continually wander off into word patterns recalling earlier patterns that tease both memory and the desire to constitute the text as story. The reader must keep trying new approaches. He is the only Ulysses left. Even the arranger disappears into arrangement only, which is but the cycle of eternal return. We can find no arranger as character. The antitype of Finnegans Wake is not a single text of the past Circumferences of the critically constituted literary text strict sense, there is no story, no hero, and only problematic narrative or snatches of it that continually wander off into word patterns recalling earlier patterns that tease both memory and the desire to constitute the text as story. The reader must keep trying new approaches. He is the only Ulysses left. Even the arranger disappears into arrangement only, which is but the cycle of eternal return. We can find no arranger as character. The antitype of Finnegan Wake is not a single text of the past Circumferences of the critically constituted literary text strict sense, there is no story, no hero, and only problematic narrative or snatches of it that continually wander off into word patterns recalling earlier patterns that tease both memory and the desire to constitute the text as story. The reader must keep trying new approaches. He is the only Ulysses left. Even the arranger disappears into arrangement only, which is but the cycle of eternal return. We can find no arranger as character. The antitype of Finnegans Wake is not a single text of the past  no0 Antithetical Essays but all of Western literature, of which Finnegans Wake would be a ful- fillment. As such, it is, of course, a sort of joke; for such fulfillment is preposterous. The secular world surely does not allow anyone to posit so presumptuously a literary apocalypse. But in response to its reaching toward the limit of fictive narrative and its threat to draw a circle around narrative theory we had better remember what Seamus Shields says of the Irish in The Shadow of a Gunman: "That's right, that's right-make a joke about it! That's the Irish People all over-they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke."I' POSTSCRIPr You will have noticed that my initial categories are no more than heuristic, that the Kantian term "category" is therefore presumptu- ous. I confess gladly to their figurative limitations. They cannot escape a certain degree of anthropomorphization, which is both all right in some cases and not quite right in others. This is at least consistent with my view that criticism is a secondary, heuristic, ironic, celebratory constitu- tive art, that its figuration is its strength as well as its weakness. As Dr. Johnson said of the dog that walked on its hind legs, it isn't that he does it well but that he does it at all. 1o. Sean O'Casey, "The Shadow of a Gunman," Three Plays (New York: St. Martin's Press, i62), 84. Antithetical Essays n0 Antithetical Essays but all of Western literature, of which Finnegan Wake would be a ful- fillment. As such, it is, of course, a sort of joke; for such fulfillment is preposterous. The secular world surely does not allow anyone to posit so presumptuously a literary apocalypse. But in response to its reaching toward the limit of fictive narrative and its threat to draw a circle around narrative theory we had better remember what Seamus Shields says of the Irish in The Shadow of a Gunman: "That's right, that's right-make a joke about it! That's the Irish People all over-they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke."" POsTsCIPT: You will have noticed that my initial categories are no more than heuristic, that the Kantian term "category" is therefore presumptu- ous. I confess gladly to their figurative limitations. They cannot escape a certain degree of anthropomorphization, which is both all right in some cases and not quite right in others. This is at least consistent with my view that criticism is a secondary, heuristic, ironic, celebratory constitu- tive art, that its figuration is its strength as well as its weakness. As Dr. Johnson said of the dog that walked on its hind legs, it isn't that he does it well but that he does it at all. 1o. Sean O'Casey, "The Shadow of a Gunman," Three Plays (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962), 84. but all of Western literature, of which Finnegans Wake would be a ful- fillment. As such, it is, of course, a sort of joke; for such fulfillment is preposterous. The secular world surely does not allow anyone to posit so presumptuously a literary apocalypse. But in response to its reaching toward the limit of fictive narrative and its threat to draw a circle around narrative theory we had better remember what Seamus Shields says of the Irish in The Shadow of a Gunman: "That's right, that's right-make a joke about it! That's the Irish People all over-they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke. "1 PoSTscuvr: You will have noticed that my initial categories are no more than heuristic, that the Kantian term "category" is therefore presumptu- ous. I confess gladly to their figurative limitations. They cannot escape a certain degree of anthropomorphization, which is both all right in some cases and not quite right in others. This is at least consistent with my view that criticism is a secondary, heuristic, ironic, celebratory constitu- tive art, that its figuration is its strength as well as its weakness. As Dr. Johnson said of the dog that walked on its hind legs, it isn't that he does it well but that he does it at all. 10. Sean O'Casey, "The Shadow of a Gunman," Three Plays (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962), 84.  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To A modest amount of writing has recently grown up around the ques- tion of titles of works of art. I shall examine some of this writing while studying the question of the title, particularly, though not exclusively, the title as it is connected with literary works. I shall conclude that titles are parts of works; though they are marginal, their marginality is central, and they are always synecdoches. Let me take as a preliminary exhibit for some of the problems that the idea of the title raises Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. That is the title on the title-page of the Everyman edition,' and that is the title by which it is named in the introduction to that edition. That is the title that appears on most of the editions of the novel since its first printing in a single volume in 1850. However, if we examine that edition, we read on the printed title-page another title: The Personal History of David Copperfield. We notice also that there is an- other, engraved title-page that offers us only David Copperfield. But wait, that was not the first printing, which began to appear in serial form in May 1849. There the title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experi- ence, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery. (Which He never meant to be Published on any Account.)? In the process of composition Dickens had invented at least fourteen titles for his text. Is it possible that a text may have more than one title? 1. The notion of marginality offered in various works by Jacques Derrida and his concept of frames and parerga call attention to parts of texts such as titles. In his view marginal things are not marginal, there being neither margins nor centers. 2. Charles Dickens, David Copperfeld (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1944). (First publication in the Everyman edition, 1907.) 3. It is actually more complicated than this. The frontispiece, full title-page, dedication, and preface were actually included as part of the double nal serialized part. The serial title-page or cover-page was not included in the irst edition, but some of the irst edition was made by binding together all the serialized parts including this page to use up what remaining parts the publisher had on hand. There were fce editions of the book published in Dickens' lifetime, and in each the title remained that of the trst edition. I am indebted to Richard J. Dunn for this information. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To A modest amount of writing has recently grown up around the ques- tion of titles of works of art. I shall examine some of this writing while studying the question of the title, particularly, though not exclusively, the title as it is connected with literary works. I shall conclude that titles are parts of works; though they are marginal, their marginality is central, and they are always synecdoches. Let me take as a preliminary exhibit for some of the problems that the idea of the title raises Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. That is the title on the title-page of the Everyman edition,' and that is the title by which it is named in the introduction to that edition. That is the title that appears on most of the editions of the novel since its first printing in a single volume in 1850. However, if we examine that edition, we read on the printed title-page another title: The Personal History of David Copperfield. We notice also that there is an- other, engraved title-page that offers us only David Copperfield. But wait, that was not the first printing, which began to appear in serial form in May 1849. There the title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experi- ence, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery. (Which He never meant to be Published on any Account.y In the process of composition Dickens had invented at least fourteen titles for his text. Is it possible that a text may have more than one title? 1. The notion of marginality offered in various works by Jacques Derrida and his concept of frames and parerga call attention to parts of texts such or titles. In his view marginal things are not marginal, there being neither margins nor centers. a. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1944). (First publication in the Everyman edition, 1907.) 3. It is actually more complicated than this. The frontispiece, full title-page, dedication, and preface were actually included as part of the double nal serialized part. The serial title-page or cover-page was not included in the frst edition, but some of the frst edition wa made by binding together all the serialized parts including this page to use up what remaining parts the publisher had on hand. There were ive editions of the book published in Dickens' lifetime, and in each the title remained that of the irst edition. I am indebted to Richard J. Dunn for this information. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To A modest amount of writing has recently grown up around the ques- tion of titles of works of art. I shall examine some of this writing while studying the question of the title, particularly, though not exclusively, the title as it is connected with literary works. I shall conclude that titles are parts of works; though they are marginal, their marginality is central, and they are always synecdoches.' Let me take as a preliminary exhibit for some of the problems that the idea of the title raises Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. That is the title on the title-page of the Everyman edition,' and that is the title by which it is named in the introduction to that edition. That is the title that appears on most of the editions of the novel since its first printing in a single volume in 1850. However, if we examine that edition, we read on the printed title-page another title: The Personal History of David Copperfield. We notice also that there is an- other, engraved title-page that offers us only David Copperfield. But wait, that was not the first printing, which began to appear in serial form in May 1849. There the title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experi- ence, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery. (Which He never meant to be Published on any Account..? In the process of composition Dickens had invented at least fourteen titles for his text. Is it possible that a text may have more than one title? r. The notion of marginality offered in various works by Jacques Derrida and his concept of frames and parerga call attention to parts of texts such as titles. In his view marginal things are not marginal, there being neither margins nor centers. 2. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1944). (First publication in the Everyman edition, 1907.) 3. It is actually more complicated than this. The frontispiece, full title-page, dedication, and preface were actually included as part of the double nal serialized part. The serial title-page or cover-page was not included in the irst edition, but some of the irst edition was made by binding together all the serialized parts including this page to use up what remaining parts the publisher had on hand. Theree ere five editions of the book published in Dickens' lifetime, and in each the title remained that of the trst edition. I am indebted to Richard J. Dunn for this information.  Antithetical Essays 112 Antithetical Essays 112 Antithetical Essays Certainly it might if we constitute as part of the text the stages of its com- position. If we do not, then which of these titles is the proper one? What is at stake in demanding that we make a choice? On what ground should we choose? Authorial intention? Authorial tacit agreement? First edition? Last edition known to have authorial approval? Tradition? Who can be- stow a title on a work? Are there illegitimate titles masquerading as the real thing-titles without title? What would be the ground for declaring a title legitimate? What is the relation of title to text? Does the text in- clude the title? If it does, what is the status of frontispieces? Dedications? Tables of contents (Dickens provides a very long one)? Other matter on the title-page (is this part of the title?), including the author's name, if present, which may or may not be a pseudonym? Prefaces? Footnotes? Endnotes? The 185o edition of Dickens' novel has on its printed title-page in addition to "The Personal History of David Copperfield" the following: "by Charles Dickens with Illustrations by H. K. Browne" and "London: Bradbury & Evans, 11, Bouverie Street. 1850." The engraved title-page has the same material in addition to an illustration of a scene from the text. The serial title-page of 1849 has the longer title given above, a pano- ramic illustration of people and events from the novel, and more exten- sive indication of publisher and agents. We might ask in all three cases whether we should draw the line between what is usually regarded as the title and the other material. Could it be claimed that the true title' in each case is everything on the title-page? Possibly so. Indeed, publish- ing practice sometimes seems to acknowledge this by reproducing a fac- simile of the original title-page in a new edition. This is exactly what the 1981 Clarendon Press edition of David Copperfield does.' The title-page of the serial edition and that of 185o are both present as well as a new title-page in which we see the author's name "David Copperfield," the editor's name, and the new publisher, place, and year. Clearly some texts call for this more urgently than others. Lewis Carroll's Alice books come to mind as texts that seem to require certain illustrations that might be regarded marginal in another text. The author's name here is perhaps also of peculiar importance, since it is a pseudonym. But what is to stop us from proceeding beyond the title-page to include in the title itself the dedication? There is hardly reason to pause: David Copperfield . . . affectionately inscribed to The Hon. Mr. and Mrs. 4. I take the phrase "true title" from Jerrold Levinson, "Titles," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, 1 (Fall 1985): 33. 5. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, ed. Nina Bergis, (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1981). Certainly it might if we constitute as part of the text the stages of its com- position. If we do not, then which of these titles is the proper one? What is at stake in demanding that we make a choice? On what ground should we choose? Authorial intention? Authorial tacit agreement? First edition? Last edition known to have authorial approval? Tradition? Who can be- stow a title on a work? Are there illegitimate titles masquerading as the real thing-titles without title? What would be the ground for declaring a title legitimate? What is the relation of title to text? Does the text in- elude the title? If it does, what is the status of frontispieces? Dedications? Tables of contents (Dickens provides a very long one)? Other matter on the title-page (is this part of the title?), including the author's name, if present, which may or may not be a pseudonym? Prefaces? Footnotes? Endnotes? The 185o edition of Dickens' novel has on its printed title-page in addition to "The Personal History of David Copperfield" the following: "by Charles Dickens with Illustrations by H. K. Browne" and "London: Bradbury & Evans, 11, Bouverie Street. 1850." The engraved title-page has the same material in addition to an illustration of a scene from the text. The serial title-page of 1849 has the longer title given above, a pano- ramic illustration of people and events from the novel, and more exten- sive indication of publisher and agents. We might ask in all three cases whether we should draw the line between what is usually regarded as the title and the other material. Could it be claimed that the true title' in each case is everything on the title-page? Possibly so. Indeed, publish- ing practice sometimes seems to acknowledge this by reproducing a fac- simile of the original title-page in a new edition. This is exactly what the 1981 Clarendon Press edition of David Copperfield does.' The title-page of the serial edition and that of 185o are both present as well as a new title-page in which we see the author's name "David Copperfield," the editor's name, and the new publisher, place, and year. Clearly some texts call for this more urgently than others. Lewis Carroll's Alice books come to mind as texts that seem to require certain illustrations that might be regarded marginal in another text. The author's name here is perhaps also of peculiar importance, since it is a pseudonym. But what is to stop us from proceeding beyond the title-page to include in the title itself the dedication? There is hardly reason to pause: David Copperfield . . . affectionately inscribed to The Hon. Mr. and Mrs. 4. I take the phrase "true title" from Jerrold Levinson, "Titles," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, 1 (Fall 1985): 33. 5. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, ed. Nina Bergis, (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 181). Certainly it might if we constitute as part of the text the stages of its com- position. If we do not, then which of these titles is the proper one? What is at stake in demanding that we make a choice? On what ground should we choose? Authorial intention? Authorial tacit agreement? First edition? Last edition known to have authorial approval? Tradition? Who can be- stow a title on a work? Are there illegitimate titles masquerading as the real thing-titles without title? What would be the ground for declaring a title legitimate? What is the relation of title to text? Does the text in- clude the title? If it does, what is the status of frontispieces? Dedications? Tables of contents (Dickens provides a very long one)? Other matter on the title-page (is this part of the title?), including the author's name, if present, which may or may not be a pseudonym? Prefaces? Footnotes? Endnotes? The 1850 edition of Dickens' novel has on its printed title-page in addition to "The Personal History of David Copperfield" the following: "by Charles Dickens with Illustrations by H. K. Browne" and "London: Bradbury & Evans, 11, Bouverie Street. 1850." The engraved title-page has the same material in addition to an illustration of a scene from the text. The serial title-page of 1849 has the longer title given above, a pano- ramic illustration of people and events from the novel, and more exten- sive indication of publisher and agents. We might ask in all three cases whether we should draw the line between what is usually regarded as the title and the other material. Could it be claimed that the true title' in each case is everything on the title-page? Possibly so. Indeed, publish- ing practice sometimes seems to acknowledge this by reproducing a fac- simile of the original title-page in a new edition. This is exactly what the 1981 Clarendon Press edition of David Copperfield does.' The title-page of the serial edition and that of 185o are both present as well as a new title-page in which we see the author's name "David Copperfield," the editor's name, and the new publisher, place, and year. Clearly some texts call for this more urgently than others. Lewis Carroll's Alice books come to mind as texts that seem to require certain illustrations that might be regarded marginal in another text. The author's name here is perhaps also of peculiar importance, since it is a pseudonym. But what is to stop us from proceeding beyond the title-page to include in the title itself the dedication? There is hardly reason to pause: David Copperfield . . . affectionately inscribed to The Hon. Mr. and Mrs. 4. I take the phrase "true title" from Jerrold Levinson, "Titles," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, 1 (Fall 1985): 33. 5. Charles Dickens, Dacid Copperfield, ed. Nina Bergs, (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1981).  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 113 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 113 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To ss3 Richard Watson, of Rockingham, Northamptonshire. Does this include the Watsons as readers in the way that an auditor is often included in a fictive narrative? Does the fact that the Watsons were wealthy owners of a great house where Dickens became involved in amateur theatrical productions and met Miss Mary Boyle become part of David Copperfield? What of the next page and its preface, written not to the Watsons but obliquely to "the reader whom I love" in a tone that seems more inter- ested in self-expression than specific communication? The status of dedi- cations and prefaces becomes of interest as soon as one ponders titles or any of the front matter of a text, including designs and frontispieces. What part of the book can be safely excluded once we start down this road? It appears that one may have to develop some theory that estab- lishes the status of such things. In my Joyce Cary's Trilogies and later on in an essay addressing Joyce's Ulysses I offered a series of concentric cir- eles, the outer circumference of which was what I labeled the "authority or antiauthority" of the text, containing all else, that is, to which all else ultimately answers.' I took pains to separate the historical author from this authority, claiming, as did the New Critics, that the author cannot be con- stituted except either as the text's authority itself or as an historical figure forever radically separated from the text in biographical scholarship. I continue to hold this view, yet if we are to go ahead and consider the author's name as part of the titular material and thus as part of the text as a whole (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens affectionately inscribed to . . .) and we are to admit dedications as parts of titles and texts we must decide what to do with that material in a eritical constitution. Must we, after all, draw a new circumference- a para-authoritive one-to in- elude all motivations we can collect from that material? This is a question that I hope to come around to discussing at the end of this essay by hold- ing that there is a fictive and tropological element in the placement of any authorial name on a title page. The question of dedications must await another study. The very fact that the name may be a pseudonym raises the issue of a fiction. Meanwhile I return to my subject of the title in a simpler and less in- clusive sense, and that leads me, with the help of various dictionaries, to query the word "title" itself. It comes into English from the Latin titulus, and when it does so it expands it meanings. Titulus meant inscrip- 6. Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State Uni- versity Press, 1983), 242-64; "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History 17, 3 (Spring 1986): 595-616, reprinted here as the essay preceding this one. Richard Watson, of Rockingham, Northamptonshire. Does this include the Watsons as readers in the way that an auditor is often included in a fictive narrative? Does the fact that the Watsons were wealthy owners of a great house where Dickens became involved in amateur theatrical productions and met Miss Mary Boyle become part of David Copperfield? What of the next page and its preface, written not to the Watsons but obliquely to "the reader whom I love" in a tone that seems more inter- ested in self-expression than specific communication? The status of dedi- cations and prefaces becomes of interest as soon as one ponders titles or any of the front matter of a text, including designs and frontispieces. What part of the book can be safely excluded once we start down this road? It appears that one may have to develop some theory that estab- lishes the status of such things. In my Joyce Cary's Trilogies and later on in an essay addressing Joyce's Ulysses I offered a series of concentric cir- cles, the outer circumference of which was what I labeled the "authority or antiauthority" of the text, containing all else, that is, to which all else ultimately answers.' I took pains to separate the historical author from this authority, claiming, as did the New Critics, that the author cannot be con- stituted except either as the text's authority itself or as an historical figure forever radically separated from the text in biographical scholarship. I continue to hold this view, yet if we are to go ahead and consider the author's name as part of the titular material and thus as part of the text as a whole (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens affectionately inscribed to . . .) and we are to admit dedications as parts of titles and texts we must decide what to do with that material in a critical constitution. Must we, after all, draw a new circumference- a para-authoritive one-to in- clude all motivations we can collect from that material? This is a question that I hope to come around to discussing at the end of this essay by hold- ing that there is a fictive and tropological element in the placement of any authorial name on a title page. The question of dedications must await another study. The very fact that the name may be a pseudonym raises the issue of a fiction. Meanwhile I return to my subject of the title in a simpler and less in- clusive sense, and that leads me, with the help of various dictionaries, to query the word "title" itself. It comes into English from the Latin titulus, and when it does so it expands it meanings. Titulus meant inscrip- 6. Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State Uni- versity Press, 1983), a4z-64; "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History 17, 3 (Spring 1986): 595-616, reprinted here as the essay preceding this one. Richard Watson, of Rockingham, Northamptonshire. Does this include the Watsons as readers in the way that an auditor is often included in a fictive narrative? Does the fact that the Watsons were wealthy owners of a great house where Dickens became involved in amateur theatrical productions and met Miss Mary Boyle become part of David Copperfield? What of the next page and its preface, written not to the Watsons but obliquely to "the reader whom I love" in a tone that seems more inter- ested in self-expression than specific communication? The status of dedi- cations and prefaces becomes of interest as soon as one ponders titles or any of the front matter of a text, including designs and frontispieces. What part of the book can be safely excluded once we start down this road? It appears that one may have to develop some theory that estab- lishes the status of such things. In my Joyce Cary's Trilogies and later on in an essay addressing Joyce's Ulysses I offered a series of concentric cir- cles, the outer circumference of which was what I labeled the "authority or antiauthority" of the text, containing all else, that is, to which all else ultimately answers.' I took pains to separate the historical author from this authority, claiming, as did the New Critics, that the author cannot be con- stituted except either as the text's authority itself or as an historical figure forever radically separated from the text in biographical scholarship. I continue to hold this view, yet if we are to go ahead and consider the author's name as part of the titular material and thus as part of the text as a whole (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens affectionately inscribed to . . .) and we are to admit dedications as parts of titles and texts we must decide what to do with that material in a critical constitution. Must we, after all, draw a new circumference- a para-authoritive one-to in- clude all motivations we can collect from that material? This is a question that I hope to come around to discussing at the end of this essay by hold- ing that there is a fictive and tropological element in the placement of any authorial name on a title page. The question of dedications must await another study. The very fact that the name may be a pseudonym raises the issue of a fiction. Meanwhile I return to my subject of the title in a simpler and less in- clusive sense, and that leads me, with the help of various dictionaries, to query the word "title" itself. It comes into English from the Latin titulus, and when it does so it expands it meanings. Titulus meant inscrip- 6. Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Tallahassee: Florida State Uni- versity Press, 1983), 24-64; "Critical Constitution of the Literary Text: The Example of Ulysses," New Literary History 17, 3 (Spring 1986): 595-616, reprinted here as the essay preceding this one.  Antithetical Essays 114 Antithetical Essays 114 Antithetical Essays tion, label, notice, title of honor, fame, pretext. It was not used with books, the title of a book being inscriptio or index. The name or the title of a person was nomen, the title alone appellatio. The word for a claim was ius or vindiciae. Some of these meanings became identified with each other in the English "title," though it did not come to mean a name; for as commentators on titles have pointed out, titles are not necessarily only names, though they can function as names. The English "title" bears traces of various Latin meanings of titulus in interesting ways, not least when the term is employed in connection with literary works. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the Lindisfarne Gospel employs titulus to signify the words on the board placed above the cruci- fled Jesus. The King James translation of the New Testament renders the word in John as "title." In Matthew it is "accusation," in Luke "superscrip- tion," in Mark "superscription of his accusation." Later translators have supplied "sign," "charge," or simply "inscription" or the synecdochic "sign board." There is more agreement among the Four Gospels as to what was inscribed. All four acknowledge that the inscription contained the words "the king of the Jews." Mark leaves it at that. Matthew and Luke prefix "This is," and John begins with "Jesus of Nazareth." In what sense is this an inscription, label, notice, title of honor, fame, or pretext? In what sense is it nomen, appellatio, ius, vindiciae? What senses of the English "title" does it possess? It is an inscription. It is a label. It gives notice indirectly by way of threat. In John's version it is in part a proper name. From the Gospels' point of view it is a title of honor. It is a title of honor intended as an irony by those who inscribed it. It alludes to a sort of claim. This example includes a number, but not by any means all, of the his- torical usages of the English word "title." Among the many of these are: an inscription placed over an object, giving its name or describing it; sometimes a placard hung in a theater giving the name of a piece; an in- scribed pillar, column, tombstone, or the like; the descriptive heading of each section or subdivision of a book; the formal heading of a legal doc- ument; a document, a letter, a writing (all obsolete); the name of a book, a poem, or other composition; an inscription at the beginning of a book describing or indicating its subject, contents, or nature, and usually also giving the name of the author, compiler, editor, publisher, and the place and date of publication; title-page; the designation of a picture or statue; in bookbinding, the label or panel on the back of a book; a descriptive or distinctive appellation; a name, denomination, or style; an appellation attaching to an individual or family in virtue of rank, function, office, or attainment, or the possession of or association with certain lands; an ap- tion, label, notice, title of honor, fame, pretext. It was not used with books, the title of a book being inscriptio or index. The name or the title of a person was nomen, the title alone appellatio. The word for a claim was ius or vindiciae. Some of these meanings became identified with each other in the English "title," though it did not come to mean a name; for as commentators on titles have pointed out, titles are not necessarily only names, though they can function as names. The English "title" bears traces of various Latin meanings of titulus in interesting ways, not least when the term is employed in connection with literary works. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the Lindisfarne Gospel employs titulus to signify the words on the board placed above the cruci- fhed Jesus. The King James translation of the New Testament renders the word in John as "title." In Matthew it is "accusation," in Luke "superscrip- tion," in Mark "superscription of his accusation." Later translators have supplied "sign," "charge," or simply "inscription" or the synecdochic "sign board." There is more agreement among the Four Gospels as to what was inscribed. All four acknowledge that the inscription contained the words "the king of the Jews." Mark leaves it at that. Matthew and Luke prefix "This is," and John begins with "Jesus of Nazareth." In what sense is this an inscription, label, notice, title of honor, fame, or pretext? In what sense is it nomen, appellatio, ius, vindiciae? What senses of the English "title" does it possess? It is an inscription. It is a label. It gives notice indirectly by way of threat. In John's version it is in part a proper name. From the Gospels' point of view it is a title of honor. It is a title of honor intended as an irony by those who inscribed it. It alludes to a sort of claim. This example includes a number, but not by any means all, of the his- torical usages of the English word "title." Among the many of these are: an inscription placed over an object, giving its name or describing it; sometimes a placard hung in a theater giving the name of a piece; an in- scribed pillar, column, tombstone, or the like; the descriptive heading of each section or subdivision of a book; the formal heading of a legal doc- ument; a document, a letter, a writing (all obsolete); the name of a book, a poem, or other composition; an inscription at the beginning of a book describing or indicating its subject, contents, or nature, and usually also giving the name of the author, compiler, editor, publisher, and the place and date of publication; title-page; the designation of a picture or statue; in bookbinding, the label or panel on the back of a book; a descriptive or distinctive appellation; a name, denomination, or style; an appellation attaching to an individual or family in virtue of rank, function, office, or attainment, or the possession of or association with certain lands; an ap- tion, label, notice, title of honor, fame, pretext. It was not used with books, the title of a book being inscriptio or index. The name or the title of a person was nomen, the title alone appellatio. The word for a claim was ius or vindiciae. Some of these meanings became identified with each other in the English "title," though it did not come to mean a name; for as commentators on titles have pointed out, titles are not necessarily only names, though they can function as names. The English "title" bears traces of various Latin meanings of titulus in interesting ways, not least when the term is employed in connection with literary works. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the Lindisfarne Gospel employs titulus to signify the words on the board placed above the cruci- fied Jesus. The King James translation of the New Testament renders the word in John as "title." In Matthew it is "accusation," in Luke "superscrip- tion," in Mark "superscription of his accusation." Later translators have supplied "sign," "charge," or simply "inscription" or the synecdochic "sign board." There is more agreement among the Four Gospels as to what was inscribed. All four acknowledge that the inscription contained the words "the king of the Jews." Mark leaves it at that. Matthew and Luke prefix "This is," and John begins with "Jesus of Nazareth." In what sense is this an inscription, label, notice, title of honor, fame, or pretext? In what sense is it nomen, appellatio, ius, vindiciae? What senses of the English "title" does it possess? It is an inscription. It is a label. It gives notice indirectly by way of threat. In John's version it is in part a proper name. From the Gospels' point of view it is a title of honor. It is a title of honor intended as an irony by those who inscribed it. It alludes to a sort of claim. This example includes a number, but not by any means all, of the his- torical usages of the English word "title." Among the many of these are: an inscription placed over an object, giving its name or describing it; sometimes a placard hung in a theater giving the name of a piece; an in- scribed pillar, column, tombstone, or the like; the descriptive heading of each section or subdivision of a book; the formal heading of a legal doc- ument; a document, a letter, a writing (all obsolete); the name of a book, a poem, or other composition; an inscription at the beginning of a book describing or indicating its subject, contents, or nature, and usually also giving the name of the author, compiler, editor, publisher, and the place and date of publication; title-page; the designation of a picture or statue; in bookbinding, the label or panel on the back of a book; a descriptive or distinctive appellation; a name, denomination, or style; an appellation attaching to an individual or family in virtue of rank, function, office, or attainment, or the possession of or association with certain lands; an ap-  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To ns5 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 115 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 115 pellation of honor pertaining to a person of high rank; that which justifies or substantiates a claim; an alleged or recognized right; specifically a legal right to the possession of property; the evidence of such right; a title- deed. To "entitle" has been to furnish a literary work or part of a work with a heading; to inscribe; to dedicate to someone; to prefix the name of an author to; to bestow on a person a certain title; to furnish with a title to an estate; to invest with an office; to qualify; to assign posses- sion of. In examining this wealth of meaning we note that to entitle has been both to give a book a title and to entitle someone to the book as well as declare the identity of the author, so that our inclusion of Dickens' name and his dedication to the Watsons in the title, seen as an entitlement, has some sanction in past usage. In one sense the title is the dedication, in another the name of the text, in another a declaration of ownership, in another a bequeathing. (Publication itself would seem to be still an- other bequeathing.) A title still implies rank and certain privileges. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" aspires to the rank of an ode, to share the lineage trace- able back to the ancient Greek poems so named. Poems were rarely titled then, but as John Hollander has pointed out in one of the most interesting and earliest essays on titles, poets used some other "presentational device . . . to do the title's work."' Hollander suggests that one of the functions of titles and such devices would be heuristic, titles becoming more impor- tant, for example, when certain common metrical styles died out. There have been times in the history of criticism when genres were ranked somewhat like dukes, earls, marquesses, and barons. Clearly Ulysses is- sues a declaration of its literary importance by deliberate identification with epic. Indeed, it is difficult for the most democratic of poets to escape this identification with rank, as Northrop Frye points out about Whitman's refusal to call "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" an elegy, even though it contained many of the classical elegy's conventions.' Aside from the interest, for our purposes, in the relation of the title of Ulysses to the epic tradition, it is of interest also because one of the subjects of its "Aeolus" chapter is titles and entitlement. It is well to regard the so- called headlines of "Aeolus" as titles and to see Stephen Dedalus' "A Pis- gah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums" as a playing out of 7. "'Haddock's Eyes': A Note on Theory of Titles," Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 217. 8. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pellation of honor pertaining to a person of high rank; that which justifies or substantiates a claim; an alleged or recognized right; specifically a legal right to the possession of property; the evidence of such right; a title- deed. To "entitle" has been to furnish a literary work or part of a work with a heading; to inscribe; to dedicate to someone; to prefix the name of an author to; to bestow on a person a certain title; to furnish with a title to an estate; to invest with an office; to qualify; to assign posses- sion of. In examining this wealth of meaning we note that to entitle has been both to give a book a title and to entitle someone to the book as well as declare the identity of the author, so that our inclusion of Dickens' name and his dedication to the Watsons in the title, seen as an entitlement, has some sanction in past usage. In one sense the title is the dedication, in another the name of the text, in another a declaration of ownership, in another a bequeathing. (Publication itself would seem to be still an- other bequeathing.) A title still implies rank and certain privileges. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" aspires to the rank of an ode, to share the lineage trace- able back to the ancient Greek poems so named. Poems were rarely titled then, but as John Hollander has pointed out in one of the most interesting and earliest essays on titles, poets used some other "presentational device . . . to do the title's work."' Hollander suggests that one of the functions of titles and such devices would be heuristic, titles becoming more impor- tant, for example, when certain common metrical styles died out. There have been times in the history of criticism when genres were ranked somewhat like dukes, earls, marquesses, and barons. Clearly Ulysses is- sues a declaration of its literary importance by deliberate identification with epic. Indeed, it is difficult for the most democratic of poets to escape this identification with rank, as Northrop Frye points out about Whitman's refusal to call "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" an elegy, even though it contained many of the classical elegy's conventions.' Aside from the interest, for our purposes, in the relation of the title of Ulysses to the epic tradition, it is of interest also because one of the subjects of its "Aeolus" chapter is titles and entitlement. It is well to regard the so- called headlines of "Aeolus" as titles and to see Stephen Dedalus' "A Pis- gab Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums" as a playing out of 7. "'Haddock's Eyes': A Note on Theory of Titles," Vision and Resonance: Taw Senses of Poetic Form (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 217. 8. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pellation of honor pertaining to a person of high rank; that which justifies or substantiates a claim; an alleged or recognized right; specifically a legal right to the possession of property; the evidence of such right; a title- deed. To "entitle" has been to furnish a literary work or part of a work with a heading; to inscribe; to dedicate to someone; to prefix the name of an author to; to bestow on a person a certain title; to furnish with a title to an estate; to invest with an office; to qualify; to assign posses- sion of. In examining this wealth of meaning we note that to entitle has been both to give a book a title and to entitle someone to the book as well as declare the identity of the author, so that our inclusion of Dickens' name and his dedication to the Watsons in the title, seen as an entitlement, has some sanction in past usage. In one sense the title is the dedication, in another the name of the text, in another a declaration of ownership, in another a bequeathing. (Publication itself would seem to be still an- other bequeathing.) A title still implies rank and certain privileges. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" aspires to the rank of an ode, to share the lineage trace- able back to the ancient Greek poems so named. Poems were rarely titled then, but as John Hollander has pointed out in one of the most interesting and earliest essays on titles, poets used some other "presentational device to do the title's work."' Hollander suggests that one of the functions of titles and such devices would be heuristic, titles becoming more impor- tant, for example, when certain common metrical styles died out. There have been times in the history of criticism when genres were ranked somewhat like dukes, earls, marquesses, and barons. Clearly Ulysses is- sues a declaration of its literary importance by deliberate identification with epic. Indeed, it is difficult for the most democratic of poets to escape this identification with rank, as Northrop Frye points out about Whitman's refusal to call "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" an elegy, even though it contained many of the classical elegy's conventions.' Aside from the interest, for our purposes, in the relation of the title of Ulysses to the epic tradition, it is of interest also because one of the subjects of its "Aeolus" chapter is titles and entitlement. It is well to regard the so- called headlines of "Aeolus" as titles and to see Stephen Dedalus' "A Pis- gah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums" as a playing out of 7. "'Haddock's Eyes': A Note on Theory of Titles," Vision and Resonance: 7to Senses of Poetic Form (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 217. 8. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957),  Antithetical Essays n16 Antithetical Essays 6 Antithetical Essays the theme of entitlement. There is a great variety of relation between the heads and the material that follows them; it has not, I believe, been observed that the term "title" is able to contain the variety in a way that "headline" cannot quite do. This will become clearer as we see what titles can do. Of equal interest is Stephen's act of titling. Before uttering his little story about the two women who climb the Nelson Pillar and spit the plum pits out on the city below, Stephen in interior monologue utters the word "Dubliners," which is, of course, the title of the first book in the Joyce canon. Ulysses thus seems to attribute the authorship of Dubliners sometime in the fictive future to Stephen. At this time Stephen proceeds to offer a sketch that we can imagine a trial run for the type of story that appears in Dubliners, but a story that remains ever undeveloped. This is not Stephen's first act of composition in Ulysses. In "Proteus" he has begun to compose a poem that remains untitled (it is here also that the two women on the beach apparently pro- vide him the characters for the "Parable"). Later, in "Scylla and Charyb- dis," Stephen delivers his "essay" on Hamlet at the National Library, com- posing as he goes along. A great deal of importance is placed on Stephen's ownership of this theory and the question of if and when it will be pub- lished. There are many other places in Ulysses where Stephen creates brief "texts" in internal monologue, some of them parodies. Also Ste- phen's frequent internal dialogue with himself suggests the composition of drama. But none of these compositions has a title. Indeed the essay on Hamlet is curiously disowned by Stephen, or at least the theory it con- tains is disowned. We shall return to this. Before we do, however, it is worthwhile to look at the brief discussion that follows Stephen's embryonic and appar- ently eventually aborted Dubliners story in "Aeolus." Myles Crawford, who has missed the beginning of Stephen's recitation, asks Stephen what he calls the story. Professor MacHugh supplies a Latin title: "Deus nobis haec otia fecit" ("God has made this peace for us"). Stephen immediately rejects it by declaring that he calls it "A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums." This quick rejection of MacHugh's act of titling is also an assertion of ownership or entitlement to. The professor retreats to declaration of a lesser form of ownership, understanding, by answer- ing, "I see." He then goes on to assert his place in a line of ownership by his remark to J. J. O'Malloy, "We gave him that idea," referring to his earlier recitation, heard by Stephen, of John F. Taylor's speech compar- ing Moses and the Jews to the Irish. In "Aeolus" Stephen's recitation of his own story, when compared to the recitation of previous well-known speeches of others by O'Malloy and MacHugh, suggests his right in the the theme of entitlement. There is a great variety of relation between the heads and the material that follows them; it has not, I believe, been observed that the term "title" is able to contain the variety in a way that "headline" cannot quite do. This will become clearer as we see what titles can do. Of equal interest is Stephen's act of titling. Before uttering his little story about the two women who climb the Nelson Pillar and spit the plum pits out on the city below, Stephen in interior monologue utters the word "Dubliners," which is, of course, the title of the first book in the Joyce canon. Ulysses thus seems to attribute the authorship of Dubliners sometime in the fictive future to Stephen. At this time Stephen proceeds to offer a sketch that we can imagine a trial run for the type of story that appears in Dubliners, but a story that remains ever undeveloped. This is not Stephen's first act of composition in Ulysses. In "Proteus" he has begun to compose a poem that remains untitled (it is here also that the two women on the beach apparently pro- vide him the characters for the "Parable"). Later, in "Scylla and Charyb- dis," Stephen delivers his "essay" on Hamlet at the National Library, com- posing as he goes along. A great deal of importance is placed on Stephen's ownership of this theory and the question of if and when it will be pub- lished. There are many other places in Ulysses where Stephen creates brief "texts" in internal monologue, some of them parodies. Also Ste- phen's frequent internal dialogue with himself suggests the composition of drama. But none of these compositions has a title. Indeed the essay on Hamlet is curiously disowned by Stephen, or at least the theory it con- tains is disowned. We shall return to this. Before we do, however, it is worthwhile to look at the brief discussion that follows Stephen's embryonic and appar- ently eventually aborted Dubliners story in "Aeolus." Myles Crawford, who has missed the beginning of Stephen's recitation, asks Stephen what he calls the story. Professor MacHugh supplies a Latin title: "Deus nobis haec otia fecit" ("God has made this peace for us"). Stephen immediately rejects it by declaring that he calls it "A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums." This quick rejection of MacHugh's act of titling is also an assertion of ownership or entitlement to. The professor retreats to declaration of a lesser form of ownership, understanding, by answer- ing, "I see." He then goes on to assert his place in a line of ownership by his remark to J. J. O'Malloy, "We gave him that idea," referring to his earlier recitation, heard by Stephen, of John F. Taylor's speech compar- ing Moses and the Jews to the Irish. In "Aeolus" Stephen's recitation of his own story, when compared to the recitation of previous well-known speeches of others by O'Malloy and MacHugh, suggests his right in the the theme of entitlement. There is a great variety of relation between the heads and the material that follows them; it has not, I believe, been observed that the term "title" is able to contain the variety in a way that "headline" cannot quite do. This will become clearer as we see what titles can do. Of equal interest is Stephen's act of titling. Before uttering his little story about the two women who climb the Nelson Pillar and spit the plum pits out on the city below, Stephen in interior monologue utters the word "Dubliners," which is, of course, the title of the first book in the Joyce canon. Ulysses thus seems to attribute the authorship of Dubliners sometime in the fictive future to Stephen. At this time Stephen proceeds to offer a sketch that we can imagine a trial run for the type of story that appears in Dubliners, but a story that remains ever undeveloped. This is not Stephen's first act of composition in Ulysses. In "Proteus" he has begun to compose a poem that remains untitled (it is here also that the two women on the beach apparently pro- vide him the characters for the "Parable"). Later, in "Scylla and Charyb- dis," Stephen delivers his "essay" on Hamlet at the National Library, com- posing as he goes along. A great deal of importance is placed on Stephen's ownership of this theory and the question of if and when it will be pub- lished. There are many other places in Ulysses where Stephen creates brief "texts" in internal monologue, some of them parodies. Also Ste- phen's frequent internal dialogue with himself suggests the composition of drama. But none of these compositions has a title. Indeed the essay on Hamlet is curiously disowned by Stephen, or at least the theory it con- tains is disowned. We shall return to this. Before we do, however, it is worthwhile to look at the brief discussion that follows Stephen's embryonic and appar- ently eventually aborted Dubliners story in "Aeolus." Myles Crawford, who has missed the beginning of Stephen's recitation, asks Stephen what he calls the story. Professor MacHugh supplies a Latin title: "Deus nobis haec otia fecit" ("God has made this peace for us"). Stephen immediately rejects it by declaring that he calls it "A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums." This quick rejection of MacHugh's act of titling is also an assertion of ownership or entitlement to. The professor retreats to declaration of a lesser form of ownership, understanding, by answer- ing, "I see." He then goes on to assert his place in a line of ownership by his remark to J. J. O'Malloy, "We gave him that idea," referring to his earlier recitation, heard by Stephen, of John F. Taylor's speech compar- ing Moses and the Jews to the Irish. In "Aeolus" Stephen's recitation of his own story, when compared to the recitation of previous well-known speeches of others by O'Malloy and MacHugh, suggests his right in the  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 117 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 117 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To n7' group to the title of author, and indeed the others do treat him with a certain deference. Here Stephen, the youngest of the group, insists on his right to title his own work in the face of an elder who would thoughtlessly appropriate that privilege. Stephen's act is an assertion of authority. The double title he makes up refers both to the women's view of Dublin and the story's view of the women and Dublin as well as the story's type, parable, indi- cating how it is to be read or against what tradition it is to be read. It is the relation of title to the rest of the text that enables the professor next to say, "I see," and to make his secondary appropriation or constitu- tion of it. In much the same way Ulysses, as a title, renders a whole set of relations that without it would seem either utterly far-fetched or an in- genious interpretation. Professor MacHugh's "I know," however, is ut- tered without knowledge of another title, Dubliners, which Stephen has spoken only to himself. Thus as an interpreter he is without the whole text. By contrast, Stephen's longest composition in Ulysses remains unti- tIed. It is supposed to be-at least its auditors suppose it to be-the pre- sentation of an interpretation of Hamlet. Thus it could be imagined to fall into the genre of the critical essay. However, as it proceeds, it reveals itself as a dramatic performance. Indeed, it is a long speech in a chapter the events of which become in Stephen's mind a play. Dramatized in this way, the essay ceases quite to be or only to be an essay. It remains unti- tIed by Stephen in part because it has become part of a play, and Stephen disavows belief in the theory it presents because it is no longer primarily a vehicle-an essay-for the purpose of conveying a theory. (There is similarity between Stephen's behavior here and that of Yeats with respect to his theory in A Vision.) It is a performance, and the critical criterion for judging a performance can hardly be belief. The examples from Ulysses suggest that an author can claim title to a work, is entitled to title it, and entitlement by anyone else can have the status only of an intepretation, as in the case of Professor MacHugh's act of entitling. It can be said that in the drama of "Aeolus" Stephen hastens to title his work in the face of what he rightly regards as Professor MacHugh's attempt to appropriate the text. So Stephen's act is both a claiming title to and a holding of McHugh to the position of reader and interpreter, not joint author. This suggests, as I shall hold, that a title given to a text by an author is its only true title-the only title to be in- terpreted as part of the text. Other such appellations are labels or inter- pretations only. Most early works have interpretive labels rather than titles. group to the title of author, and indeed the others do treat him with a certain deference. Here Stephen, the youngest of the group, insists on his right to title his own work in the face of an elder who would thoughtlessly appropriate that privilege. Stephen's act is an assertion of authority. The double title he makes up refers both to the women's view of Dublin and the story's view of the women and Dublin as well as the story's type, parable, indi- cating how it is to be read or against what tradition it is to be read. It is the relation of title to the rest of the text that enables the professor next to say, "I see," and to make his secondary appropriation or constitu- tion of it. In much the same way Ulysses, as a title, renders a whole set of relations that without it would seem either utterly far-fetched or an in- genious interpretation. Professor MacHugh's "I know," however, is ut- tered without knowledge of another title, Dubliners, which Stephen has spoken only to himself. Thus as an interpreter he is without the whole text. By contrast, Stephen's longest composition in Ulysses remains unti- tIed. It is supposed to be-at least its auditors suppose it to be-the pre- sentation of an interpretation of Hamlet. Thus it could be imagined to fall into the genre of the critical essay. However, as it proceeds, it reveals itself as a dramatic performance. Indeed, it is a long speech in a chapter the events of which become in Stephen's mind a play. Dramatized in this way, the essay ceases quite to be or only to be an essay. It remains unti- tlIed by Stephen in part because it has become part of a play, and Stephen disavows belief in the theory it presents because it is no longer primarily a vehicle-an essay-for the purpose of conveying a theory. (There is similarity between Stephen's behavior here and that of Yeats with respect to his theory in A Vision.) It is a performance, and the critical criterion for judging a performance can hardly be belief. The examples from Ulysses suggest that an author can claim title to a work, is entitled to title it, and entitlement by anyone else can have the status only of an intepretation, as in the case of Professor MacHugh's act of entitling. It can be said that in the drama of "Aeolus" Stephen hastens to title his work in the face of what he rightly regards as Professor MacHugh's attempt to appropriate the text. So Stephen's act is both a claiming title to and a holding of McHugh to the position of reader and interpreter, not joint author. This suggests, as I shall hold, that a title given to a text by an author is its only true title-the only title to be in- terpreted as part of the text. Other such appellations are labels or inter- pretations only. Most early works have interpretive labels rather than titles. group to the title of author, and indeed the others do treat him with a certain deference. Here Stephen, the youngest of the group, insists on his right to title his own work in the face of an elder who would thoughtlessly appropriate that privilege. Stephen's act is an assertion of authority. The double title he makes up refers both to the women's view of Dublin and the story's view of the women and Dublin as well as the story's type, parable, indi- eating how it is to be read or against what tradition it is to be read. It is the relation of title to the rest of the text that enables the professor next to say, "I see," and to make his secondary appropriation or constitu- tion of it. In much the same way Ulysses, as a title, renders a whole set of relations that without it would seem either utterly far-fetched or an in- genious interpretation. Professor MacHugh's "I know," however, is ut- tered without knowledge of another title, Dubliners, which Stephen has spoken only to himself. Thus as an interpreter he is without the whole text. By contrast, Stephen's longest composition in Ulysses remains unti- tIled. It is supposed to be-at least its auditors suppose it to be-the pre- sentation of an interpretation of Hamlet. Thus it could be imagined to fall into the genre of the critical essay. However, as it proceeds, it reveals itself as a dramatic performance. Indeed, it is a long speech in a chapter the events of which become in Stephen's mind a play. Dramatized in this way, the essay ceases quite to be or only to be an essay. It remains unti- tIed by Stephen in part because it has become part of a play, and Stephen disavows belief in the theory it presents because it is no longer primarily a vehicle-an essay-for the purpose of conveying a theory. (There is similarity between Stephen's behavior here and that of Yeats with respect to his theory in A Vision.) It is a performance, and the critical criterion for judging a performance can hardly be belief. The examples from Ulysses suggest that an author can claim title to a work, is entitled to title it, and entitlement by anyone else can have the status only of an intepretation, as in the case of Professor MacHugh's act of entitling. It can be said that in the drama of "Aeolus" Stephen hastens to title his work in the face of what he rightly regards as Professor MacHugh's attempt to appropriate the text. So Stephen's act is both a claiming title to and a holding of McHugh to the position of reader and interpreter, not joint author. This suggests, as I shall hold, that a title given to a text by an author is its only true title-the only title to be in- terpreted as part of the text. Other such appellations are labels or inter- pretations only. Most early works have interpretive labels rather than titles.  Antithetical Essays nr8 Antithetical Essays s8 Antithetical Essays Stephen's failure to title his essay and refusal to avow belief in the the- ory it has presented suggest also the impropriety of a character in a play titling it. Even if a character in a play stepped forward in Pirandello style to announce the play's title, we would still assume that the play has title to the character and not the character to the play. In "Scylla and Charyb- dis" Stephen imagines himself as acting a role; in "Aeolus" he is an author "reading" or reciting, though the distinction between the two situations is really more complicated than that. In "Aeolus" Stephen is inside a situa- tion in which, because of a certain self-consciousness, he is always acting. From this example it seems that literary entitlement involves more of the historical meanings of "title" and "entitlement" than we might have sup- posed. The author and only the author is entitled to entitle. A title like Ulysses declares entitlement to be taken seriously in some relation to epic. II John Hollander observes that titles began to seem necessary for poems at a certain point in history. That time precedes somewhat the law of copyright, which would require that a text have a name, if not a title. That time precedes also the eighteenth century, when, according to Hol- lander, painters "began to entitle their own works" (p. 215). Hollander seems to identify the beginning of the titling of poems with the develop- ment of a greater "aesthetic self-consciousness" (p. 220). He observes that, "Neoclassic nostalgia for the perfect association, in ambiguity, of meter, tone, occasion, and range of subject might also be seen as a long- ing for a great golden age in which poems needed no titles whatsoever. Being entitled, as it were, by birth to their genre and authority, they were like an aristocracy that preceded an arriviste nobility" (p. 218). Experi- ment clearly revives the importance of titles, as Ulysses indicates. Jerrold Levinson, who presents the most complete and subtlest theory of titles known to me, offers four important theses. I quote: (1) Titles of artworks are often integral parts of them, consti- tutive of what such works are. (2) Titles of artworks are plausibly essential properties of them, in many cases. (3) The title slot for a work of art is never devoid of aesthetic potential; how it is filled, or that it is not filled, is Stephen's failure to title his essay and refusal to avow belief in the the- ory it has presented suggest also the impropriety of a character in a play titling it. Even if a character in a play stepped forward in Pirandello style to announce the play's title, we would still assume that the play has title to the character and not the character to the play. In "Scylla and Charyb- dis" Stephen imagines himself as acting a role; in "Aeolus" he is an author "reading" or reciting, though the distinction between the two situations is really more complicated than that. In "Aeolus" Stephen is inside a situa- tion in which, because of a certain self-consciousness, he is always acting. From this example it seems that literary entitlement involves more of the historical meanings of "title" and "entitlement" than we might have sup- posed. The author and only the author is entitled to entitle. A title like Ulysses declares entitlement to be taken seriously in some relation to epic. II John Hollander observes that titles began to seem necessary for poems at a certain point in history. That time precedes somewhat the law of copyright, which would require that a text have a name, if not a title. That time precedes also the eighteenth century, when, according to Hol- lander, painters "began to entitle their own works" (p. 215). Hollander seems to identify the beginning of the titling of poems with the develop- ment of a greater "aesthetic self-consciousness" (p. 220). He observes that, "Neoclassic nostalgia for the perfect association, in ambiguity, of meter, tone, occasion, and range of subject might also be seen as a long- ing for a great golden age in which poems needed no titles whatsoever. Being entitled, as it were, by birth to their genre and authority, they were like an aristocracy that preceded an arriviste nobility" (p. 218). Experi- ment clearly revives the importance of titles, as Ulysses indicates. Jerrold Levinson, who presents the most complete and subtlest theory of titles known to me, offers four important theses. I quote: (1) Titles of artworks are often integral parts of them, consti- tutive of what such works are. (2) Titles of artworks are plausibly essential properties of them, in many cases. (3) The title slot for a work of art is never devoid of aesthetic potential; how it is filled, or that it is not filled, is Stephen's failure to title his essay and refusal to avow belief in the the- ory it has presented suggest also the impropriety of a character in a play titling it. Even if a character in a play stepped forward in Pirandello style to announce the play's title, we would still assume that the play has title to the character and not the character to the play. In "Scylla and Charyb- dis" Stephen imagines himself as acting a role; in "Aeolus" he is an author "reading" or reciting, though the distinction between the two situations is really more complicated than that. In "Aeolus" Stephen is inside a situa- tion in which, because of a certain self-consciousness, he is always acting. From this example it seems that literary entitlement involves more of the historical meanings of "title" and "entitlement" than we might have sup- posed. The author and only the author is entitled to entitle. A title like Ulysses declares entitlement to be taken seriously in some relation to epic. II John Hollander observes that titles began to seem necessary for poems at a certain point in history. That time precedes somewhat the law of copyright, which would require that a text have a name, if not a title. That time precedes also the eighteenth century, when, according to Hol- lander, painters "began to entitle their own works" (p. 215). Hollander seems to identify the beginning of the titling of poems with the develop- ment of a greater "aesthetic self-consciousness" (p. 220). He observes that, "Neoclassic nostalgia for the perfect association, in ambiguity, of meter, tone, occasion, and range of subject might also be seen as a long- ing for a great golden age in which poems needed no titles whatsoever. Being entitled, as it were, by birth to their genre and authority, they were like an aristocracy that preceded an arriviste nobility" (p. 218). Experi- ment clearly revives the importance of titles, as Ulysses indicates. Jerrold Levinson, who presents the most complete and subtlest theory of titles known to me, offers four important theses. I quote: (1) Titles of artworks are often integral parts of them, consti- tutive of what such works are. (2) Titles of artworks are plausibly essential properties of them, in many cases. (3) The title slot for a work of art is never devoid of aesthetic potential; how it is filled, or that it is not filled, is  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To nrg Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To nTg Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To nsg always aesthetically relevant. (A work differently titled will always be aesthetically different.) (4) There is significant disanalogy between titles of artworks and names of persons, particularly in regard to their roles in the understanding and interpretation of the objects they denote. (p. 29) I accept theses 3 and 4 unconditionally and will say more about them; 1 and 2 seem to me not to go far enough. If, as Levinson insists, the only true titles are "those given by the author" (p. 33) (and I accept this), then it seems to me that a true title must always be integral to the work.' Fur- ther, I cannot see how one can claim a distinction between essential and inessential properties of works of art. Some properties are essential to some interpretations and inessential to others, but they are all simply parts of the work, and the true title is one of these. In addition to Levinson's claims and my revision of his first two, I hold that all titles are tropes belonging to artworks in the form of synecdoches. My differences with John Fisher's slightly earlier article on titles are more substantial, though we agree on a number of things.'* His thesis is as follows: While titles are names, they are a good deal more than just names. They are not necessarily descriptions, although they can contain descriptive elements. They are names for a pur- pose, not merely for the purpose of identification and designa- tion, in spite of the important practical role which indexical names play in the designative process. The unique purpose of titling is hermeneutical; titles are names which function as guides to interpretation. (p. 228) Although Fisher is for the most part right, it is worthwhile to observe that virtually anything in a work of art functions as a guide to interpreta- tion (I would favor the phrase "object of interpretation"); Fisher banishes 9. There are, of course, cases where an author changes the title of a work after publica- tion. Levinson does not discuss such cases, but I presume he would acknowledge that an author has such a right and that the later title is the "true title," or that the change in title is ike any other textual revision and might require us to see the same work titled differently as a different work. W. B. Yeats actually did change the titles of several of his poems after they were in print for a later edition of his work. Imagine James Joyce late in life changing the title of Ulysses to Odysseus or Dedalus. Think of the complaints! Despite them, interpre- tation would have to accommodate the change. so. John Fisher, "Entitling," Critical Inquiry s1, 2 (December 1984): 286-98. always aesthetically relevant. (A work differently titled will always be aesthetically different.) (4) There is significant disanalogy between titles of artworks and names of persons, particularly in regard to their roles in the understanding and interpretation of the objects they denote. (p. 29) I accept theses 3 and 4 unconditionally and will say more about them; 1 and 2 seem to me not to go far enough. If, as Levinson insists, the only true titles are "those given by the author" (p. 33) (and I accept this), then it seems to me that a true title must always be integral to the work.' Fur- ther, I cannot see how one can claim a distinction between essential and inessential properties of works of art. Some properties are essential to some interpretations and inessential to others, but they are all simply parts of the work, and the true title is one of these. In addition to Levinson's claims and my revision of his first two, I hold that all titles are tropes belonging to artworks in the form of synecdoches. My differences with John Fisher's slightly earlier article on titles are more substantial, though we agree on a number of things Y His thesis is as follows: While titles are names, they are a good deal more than just names. They are not necessarily descriptions, although they can contain descriptive elements. They are names for a pur- pose, not merely for the purpose of identification and designa- tion, in spite of the important practical role which indexical names play in the designative process. The unique purpose of titling is hermeneutical; titles are names which function as guides to interpretation. (p. 228) Although Fisher is for the most part right, it is worthwhile to observe that virtually anything in a work of art functions as a guide to interpreta- tion (I would favor the phrase "object of interpretation"); Fisher banishes g. There are, of course, cases where an author changes the title of a work after publica- tion. Levinson does not discuss such cases, but I presume he would acknowledge that an author has such a right and that the later title is the "true title," or that the change in title is like any other textual revision and might require us to see the same work titled diferently as a different work. W. B. Yeats actually did change the titles of several of his poems after they were in print for a later edition of his work. Imagine James Joyce late in life changimg the title of Ulysses to Odysseus or Dedalus. Think of the complaints! Despite them, interpre- tation would have to accommodate the change. so. John Fisher, "Entitling," Critical Inquiry so, a (December 184): 286-8. always aesthetically relevant. (A work differently titled will always be aesthetically different.) (4) There is significant disanalogy between titles of artworks and names of persons, particularly in regard to their roles in the understanding and interpretation of the objects they denote. (p. 29) I accept theses 3 and 4 unconditionally and will say more about them; s and 2 seem to me not to go far enough. If, as Levinson insists, the only true titles are "those given by the author" (p. 33) (and I accept this), then it seems to me that a true title must always be integral to the work? Fur- ther, I cannot see how one can claim a distinction between essential and inessential properties of works of art. Some properties are essential to some interpretations and inessential to others, but they are all simply parts of the work, and the true title is one of these. In addition to Levinson's claims and my revision of his first two, I hold that all titles are tropes belonging to artworks in the form of synecdoches. My differences with John Fisher's slightly earlier article on titles are more substantial, though we agree on a number of things.'0 His thesis is as follows: While titles are names, they are a good deal more than just names. They are not necessarily descriptions, although they can contain descriptive elements. They are names for a pur- pose, not merely for the purpose of identification and designa- tion, in spite of the important practical role which indexical names play in the designative process. The unique purpose of titling is hermeneutical; titles are names which function as guides to interpretation. (p. 228) Although Fisher is for the most part right, it is worthwhile to observe that virtually anything in a work of art functions as a guide to interpreta- tion (I would favor the phrase "object of interpretation"); Fisher banishes g. There are, of course, cases where an author changes the title of a work after publica- tion. Levinson does not discuss such cases, but I presume he would acknowledge that an author has such a right and that thetrteiste "true title," or that the change in title is like any other textual revision and might require us to see the same work titled differently as a diferent work. W. B. Yeats actually did change the titles of several of his poems ater they were in print for a later edition of his work. Imagine James Joyce late in life changing the title of Ulysses to Odysseus or Dedalus. Think of the complaints! Despite them, interpre- tation would have to accommodate the change. so. John Fisher, "Entitling," Critical Inquiry 11, 2 (December 1984): s86-8.  120 Antithetical Essays 120 Antithetical Essays from the realm of titles some things that have the potentiality to be an from the realm of titles some things that have the potentiality to be an object of interpretation and tacitly admits some things that are not true object of interpretation and tacitly admits some things that are not true titles. titles. The hermeneutic purpose that Fisher mentions above is to "allow for The hermeneutic purpose that Fisher mentions above is to "allow for interpretive discourse." Such a phrase draws no distinction between titles interpretive discourse." Such a phrase draws no distinction between titles and other parts of works. For Fisher, if the label of a work does not do and other parts of works. For Fisher, if the label of a work does not do this, it is not a title but only an indexical or descriptive label. Thus desig- this, it is not a title but only an indexical or descriptive label. Thus desig- nations such as "Oil on Canvas" or "Second Symphony" are not titles, nations such as "Oil on Canvas" or "Second Symphony" are not titles, whether so named by the author or not. Fisher first takes up situations whether so named by the author or not. Fisher first takes up situations where an "inscription of the title is physically part of a work" (pp. 286-87). where an "inscription of the title is physically part of a work" (pp. 286-87). His example is Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," where His example is Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," where the title is actually inscribed on the work. Because it is so inscribed, the title is actually inscribed on the work. Because it is so inscribed, Fisher says, it could not be called, for example. "Bats, Cats, and Sleeping Fisher says, it could not be called, for example. "Bats, Cats, and Sleeping Man." By contrast, Fisher argues, Picasso's "Guernica," with no inscribed Man." By contrast, Fisher argues, Picasso's "Guernica," with no inscribed title, could have been titled "The Bombing of a Basque Village" or "Luft- title, could have been titled "The Bombing of a Basque Village" or "Luft- waffe Hell." If I have understood their intent, these arguments seem to waffe Hell." If I have understood their intent, these arguments seem to me untenable. First, there is no reason to claim that Goya's painting me untenable. First, there is no reason to claim that Goya's painting could not possibly have another title than the words inscribed on it. could not possibly have another title than the words inscribed on it. Words inscribed on a painting can have functions other than titles. All Words inscribed on a painting can have functions other than titles. All Goya need have done was to declare that it had another title. Then the Goya need have done was to declare that it had another title. Then the inscription would have had to be regarded as something other than a title, inscription would have had to be regarded as something other than a title, perhaps like statements inscribed on Blake's "Laocoon." (Fisher does ac- perhaps like statements inscribed on Blake's "Laocoon." (Fisher does ac- knowledge that not all inscriptions are titles.) Second, these remarks are knowledge that not all inscriptions are titles.) Second, these remarks are all, both Fisher's and mine, trivial in any case because Picasso could have all, both Fisher's and mine, trivial in any case because Picasso could have titled "Guernica" something else, but he didn't. Picasso could have put titled "Guernica" something else, but he didn't. Picasso could have put an effigy of the Statue of Liberty in his work, but he didn't. Joyce didn't an effigy of the Statue of Liberty in his work, but he didn't. Joyce didn't title Ulysses Odysseus. There are two problems with Fisher's analysis. title Ulysses Odysseus. There are two problems with Fisher's analysis. First, he does not consistently accept the notion that a title is part of a First, he does not consistently accept the notion that a title is part of a work. For him it points principally to a work, a reader's aid, perhaps, but work. For him it points principally to a work, a reader's aid, perhaps, but a second-class citizen. Second, he does not query sufficiently the act of a second-class citizen. Second, he does not query sufficiently the act of titling and the question of whether just anybody can create the work's titling and the question of whether just anybody can create the work's true title. true title. The first of these problems arises because of certain aesthetic notions The first of these problems arises because of certain aesthetic notions that lie behind his essay and his narrow application of them. One of these that lie behind his essay and his narrow application of them. One of these is that of a certain kind of autonomous aesthetic object. I do not wish to is that of a certain kind of autonomous aesthetic object. I do not wish to quarrel with this assumption but with his not allowing the title to be part quarrel with this assumption but with his not allowing the title to be part of the object. Another of these, and closely related to it, is that only what of the object. Another of these, and closely related to it, is that only what is produced by the physical materials of the work constitutes the whole. is produced by the physical materials of the work constitutes the whole. Titles of paintings and, in a somewhat different and ambiguous sense, of Titles of paintings and, in a somewhat different and ambiguous sense, of musical works are ideal. Titles of paintings don't have physical presence musical works are ideal. Titles of paintings don't have physical presence in the work unless inscribed. Unless we allow for the work's having this in the work unless inscribed. Unless we allow for the work's having this 120 Antithetical Essays from the realm of titles some things that have the potentiality to be an object of interpretation and tacitly admits some things that are not true titles. The hermeneutic purpose that Fisher mentions above is to "allow for interpretive discourse." Such a phrase draws no distinction between titles and other parts of works. For Fisher, if the label of a work does not do this, it is not a title but only an indexical or descriptive label. Thus desig- nations such as "Oil on Canvas" or "Second Symphony" are not titles, whether so named by the author or not. Fisher first takes up situations where an "inscription of the title is physically part of a work" (pp. 286-87). His example is Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," where the title is actually inscribed on the work. Because it is so inscribed, Fisher says, it could not be called, for example. "Bats, Cats, and Sleeping Man." By contrast, Fisher argues, Picasso's "Guernica," with no inscribed title, could have been titled "The Bombing of a Basque Village" or "Luft- waffe Hell." If I have understood their intent, these arguments seem to me untenable. First, there is no reason to claim that Goya's painting could not possibly have another title than the words inscribed on it. Words inscribed on a painting can have functions other than titles. All Goya need have done was to declare that it had another title. Then the inscription would have had to be regarded as something other than a title, perhaps like statements inscribed on Blake's "Laocoon." (Fisher does ac- knowledge that not all inscriptions are titles.) Second, these remarks are all, both Fisher's and mine, trivial in any case because Picasso could have titled "Guernica" something else, but he didn't. Picasso could have put an effigy of the Statue of Liberty in his work, but he didn't. Joyce didn't title Ulysses Odysseus. There are two problems with Fisher's analysis. First, he does not consistently accept the notion that a title is part of a work. For him it points principally to a work, a reader's aid, perhaps, but a second-class citizen. Second, he does not query sufficiently the act of titling and the question of whether just anybody can create the work's true title. The first of these problems arises because of certain aesthetic notions that lie behind his essay and his narrow application of them. One of these is that of a certain kind of autonomous aesthetic object. I do not wish to quarrel with this assumption but with his not allowing the title to be part of the object. Another of these, and closely related to it, is that only what is produced by the physical materials of the work constitutes the whole. Titles of paintings and, in a somewhat different and ambiguous sense, of musical works are ideal. Titles of paintings don't have physical presence in the work unless inscribed. Unless we allow for the work's having this  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 121 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 121 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To ideal verbal element, we are tempted, as is Fisher (or at least part of Fisher) to treat the title as in some way radically apart, and to some extent arbitrary, as he seems to do with "Guernica," thinking up other possible titles for it that would meet his criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not very different from thinking up a new ending for a novel and declaring it just as good an ending, or perhaps better, because it clears up an interpretive problem that the original ending didn't. This takes us back to aesthetic assumptions, but with a short delay to consider some related matters. Fisher is right in a way to declare that we need not consider reasons such as merchandizing purposes conceptually helpful in understanding a title. But such information might be indirectly helpful in interpretation; almost anything connected in any way to a work may be of some use in interpreting it, if only at a very low heuristic level and depending on just what is constituted as part of the work. Take, for example, the title of a play by Denis Johnston where such information is significant, but for it to be significant one has to assume that the title is not just a guide to interpretation but a part of the play and that the rest of the play may be equally a guide to interpreting the title. Johnston's title The Old Lady Says No appears to have been adopted by the author as a new title for his play when the manuscript came back rejected from the Abbey Theatre with this notation on the title-page: 'The old lady says no." Apparently this was a message from some go-between that Lady Gregory had been against the play. I cannot go into the significance of this title here and must be content with stating that this title in its relation to the text gives the play a special dimension having to do with questions of what is and is not proper at a certain time in a certain place and who makes decisions of propriety and so forth. These seem to me perfectly legitimate questions that the title of this play calls forth, drawing them into the structure of the work itself. The usual argument against what I have just said is that external pur- poses are irrelevant to the critical constitution of a work of art. My point is that once the title is accepted as in no sense external then all that the title implies must be considered. There are obviously external purposes for titles of a class that Fisher is not concerned with: titles that include designatory numbers that have in part, perhaps, a classificatory intent. Such designations Fisher banishes from the realm of titles, because he thinks that they do not meet the criterion of guidance to interpretation and because they can be applied to more than one work. But the situation is more complicated than that. Genre titles with numbers and/or letters in them can have more than a classificatory significance. In music such ideal verbal element, we are tempted, as is Fisher (or at least part of Fisher) to treat the title as in some way radically apart, and to some extent arbitrary, as he seems to do with "Guernica," thinking up other possible titles for it that would meet his criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not very different from thinking up a new ending for a novel and declaring it just as good an ending, or perhaps better, because it clears up an interpretive problem that the original ending didn't. This takes us back to aesthetic assumptions, but with a short delay to consider some related matters. Fisher is right in asway to declare that we need not consider reasons such as merchandizing purposes conceptually helpful in understanding a title. But such information might be indirectly helpful in interpretation; almost anything connected in any way to a work may be of some use in interpreting it, if only at a very low heuristic level and depending on just what is constituted as part of the work. Take, for example, the title of a play by Denis Johnston where such information is significant, but for it to be significant one has to assume that the title is not just a guide to interpretation but a part of the play and that the rest of the play may be equally a guide to interpreting the title. Johnston's title The Old Lady Says No appears to have been adopted by the author as a new title for his play when the manuscript came back rejected from the Abbey Theatre with this notation on the title-page: "The old lady says no." Apparently this was a message from some go-between that Lady Gregory had been against the play. I cannot go into the significance of this title here and must be content with stating that this title in its relation to the text gives the play a special dimension having to do with questions of what is and is not proper at a certain time in a certain place and who makes decisions of propriety and so forth. These seem to me perfectly legitimate questions that the title of this play calls forth, drawing them into the structure of the work itself. The usual argument against what I have just said is that external pur- poses are irrelevant to the critical constitution of a work of art. My point is that once the title is accepted as in no sense external then all that the title implies must be considered. There are obviously external purposes for titles of a class that Fisher is not concerned with: titles that include designatory numbers that have in part, perhaps, a classificatory intent. Such designations Fisher banishes from the realm of titles, because he thinks that they do not meet the criterion of guidance to interpretation and because they can be applied to more than one work. But the situation is more complicated than that. Genre titles with numbers and/or letters in them can have more than a classificatory significance. In music such ideal verbal element, we are tempted, as is Fisher (or at least part of Fisher) to treat the title as in some way radically apart, and to some extent arbitrary, as he seems to do with "Guernica," thinking up other possible titles for it that would meet his criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not very different from thinking up a new ending for a novel and declaring it just as good an ending, or perhaps better, because it clears up an interpretive problem that the original ending didn't. This takes us back to aesthetic assumptions, but with a short delay to consider some related matters. Fisher is right in a way to declare that we need not consider reasons such as merchandizing purposes conceptually helpful in understanding a title. But such information might be indirectly helpful in interpretation; almost anything connected in any way to a work may be of some use in interpreting it, if only at a very low heuristic level and depending on just what is constituted as part of the work. Take, for example, the title of a play by Denis Johnston where such information is significant, but for it to be significant one has to assume that the title is not just a guide to interpretation but a part of the play and that the rest of the play may be equally a guide to interpreting the title. Johnston's title The Old Lady Says No appears to have been adopted by the author as a new title for his play when the manuscript came back rejected from the Abbey Theatre with this notation on the title-page: "The old lady says no." Apparently this was a message from some go-between that Lady Gregory had been against the play. I cannot go into the significance of this title here and must be content with stating that this title in its relation to the text gives the play a special dimension having to do with questions of what is and is not proper at a certain time in a certain place and who makes decisions of propriety and so forth. These seem to me perfectly legitimate questions that the title of this play calls forth, drawing them into the structure of the work itself. The usual argument against what I have just said is that external pur- poses are irrelevant to the critical constitution of a work of art. My point is that once the title is accepted as in no sense external then all that the title implies must be considered. There are obviously external purposes for titles of a class that Fisher is not concerned with: titles that include designatory numbers that have in part, perhaps, a classificatory intent. Such designations Fisher banishes from the realm of titles, because he thinks that they do not meet the criterion of guidance to interpretation and because they can be applied to more than one work. But the situation is more complicated than that. Genre titles with numbers and/or letters in them can have more than a classificatory significance. In music such  Antithetical Essays 122 Antithetical Essays 12 A Antithetical Essays titles indicate a genre, key, etc. One of the ways a genre title may work is to force the listener to consider as a symphony something he or she has not considered a symphony. Nor is the matter of key all that simple. Nor can such titles be discounted by reasoning that "Symphony in B Minor" can belong to more than one work. There are numerous titles of other kinds that belong to more than one work, and there would be more without copyright laws. The important thing is not the difference of a title from all other titles but its specific relation to the rest of the work. Fisher goes on to declare that "frivolous titles, puns, or jokes are not worth the pause to consider" as titles. "The Old Lady Says No" is in a sense a frivolous title; Finnegans Wake is probably all three. Perhaps Fisher refers here to titles of these sorts supplied by people other than the author. I would then agree, but elsewhere he does not make the au- thor's intention a requirement, and so the statement seems to me com- pletely wrong. One of the categories of titles that Fisher describes is the "differentiat- ing designator." Such a title, he says, cannot be a general name or class term. He claims, therefore, that neither "Oil on Canvas" nor "Second Symphony" can be a title. (One notes that here another principal sense of "title" creeps into the discourse: being entitled to be a title.) I have seen paintings titled "Oil on Canvas," and claim that this title does in fact meet Fisher's criterion. It can generate interpretive discourse. Its sin seems to be that it signifies the material of the work rather than the image or other "content." But it makes both a positive and a negative gesture in emphasizing those materials and not the content. As such it is not far removed from titles that emphasize the work's technique or abstract form or genre as against its representation. The emphasis on material in mod- ern art is well known; Fisher's refusal to accept such a title seems to be in conflict with his own modern, objectivist aesthetic elsewhere in his paper. Or one could put it this way: On the one hand, he does not allow the material dimension of the painting to count; on the other, he seems to reject titles as parts of paintings unless they are physically inscribed. "Second Symphony" presents a further complication. To declare a work to be a symphony means something different at different times in the his- tory of this genre. This kind of title may have the effect, as I. A. Richards said of poetic rhythm, of calling in question a habitual response. Further- more, to argue that "Second Symphony" is not a title is to go against the common view in romantic thought that such a title implies the author's name and a specific relation to other works in the oeuvre, taken as the titles indicate a genre, key, etc. One of the ways a genre title may work is to force the listener to consider as a symphony something he or she has not considered a symphony. Nor is the matter of key all that simple. Nor can such titles be discounted by reasoning that "Symphony in B Minor" can belong to more than one work. There are numerous titles of other kinds that belong to more than one work, and there would be more without copyright laws. The important thing is not the difference of a title from all other titles but its specific relation to the rest of the work. Fisher goes on to declare that "frivolous titles, puns, or jokes are not worth the pause to consider" as titles. "The Old Lady Says No" is in a sense a frivolous title; Finnegans Wake is probably all three. Perhaps Fisher refers here to titles of these sorts supplied by people other than the author. I would then agree, but elsewhere he does not make the au- thor's intention a requirement, and so the statement seems to me com- pletely wrong. One of the categories of titles that Fisher describes is the "differentiat- ing designator." Such a title, he says, cannot be a general name or class term. He claims, therefore, that neither "Oil on Canvas" nor "Second Symphony" can be a title. (One notes that here another principal sense of "title" creeps into the discourse: being entitled to be a title.) I have seen paintings titled "Oil on Canvas," and claim that this title does in fact meet Fisher's criterion. It can generate interpretive discourse. Its sin seems to be that it signifies the material of the work rather than the image or other "content." But it makes both a positive and a negative gesture in emphasizing those materials and not the content. As such it is not far removed from titles that emphasize the work's technique or abstract form or genre as against its representation. The emphasis on material in mod- ern art is well known; Fisher's refusal to accept such a title seems to be in conflict with his own modern, objectivist aesthetic elsewhere in his paper. Or one could put it this way: On the one hand, he does not allow the material dimension of the painting to count; on the other, he seems to reject titles as parts of paintings unless they are physically inscribed. "Second Symphony" presents a further complication. To declare a work to be a symphony means something different at different times in the his- tory of this genre. This kind of title may have the effect, as I. A. Richards said of poetic rhythm, of calling in question a habitual response. Further- more, to argue that "Second Symphony" is not a title is to go against the common view in romantic thought that such a title implies the author's name and a specific relation to other works in the oeuvre, taken as the titles indicate a genre, key, etc. One of the ways a genre title may work is to force the listener to consider as a symphony something he or she has not considered a symphony. Nor is the matter of key all that simple. Nor can such titles be discounted by reasoning that "Symphony in B Minor" can belong to more than one work. There are numerous titles of other kinds that belong to more than one work, and there would be more without copyright laws. The important thing is not the difference of a title from all other titles but its specific relation to the rest of the work. Fisher goes on to declare that "frivolous titles, puns, or jokes are not worth the pause to consider" as titles. "The Old Lady Says No" is in a sense a frivolous title; Finnegans Wake is probably all three. Perhaps Fisher refers here to titles of these sorts supplied by people other than the author. I would then agree, but elsewhere he does not make the au- thor's intention a requirement, and so the statement seems to me com- pletely wrong. One of the categories of titles that Fisher describes is the "differentiat- ing designator." Such a title, he says, cannot be a general name or class term. He claims, therefore, that neither "Oil on Canvas" nor "Second Symphony" can be a title. (One notes that here another principal sense of "title" creeps into the discourse: being entitled to be a title.) I have seen paintings titled "Oil on Canvas," and claim that this title does in fact meet Fisher's criterion. It can generate interpretive discourse. Its sin seems to be that it signifies the material of the work rather than the image or other "content." But it makes both a positive and a negative gesture in emphasizing those materials and not the content. As such it is not far removed from titles that emphasize the work's technique or abstract form or genre as against its representation. The emphasis on material in mod- ern art is well known; Fisher's refusal to accept such a title seems to be in conflict with his own modern, objectivist aesthetic elsewhere in his paper. Or one could put it this way: On the one hand, he does not allow the material dimension of the painting to count; on the other, he seems to reject titles as parts of paintings unless they are physically inscribed. "Second Symphony" presents a further complication. To declare a work to be a symphony means something different at different times in the his- tory of this genre. This kind of title may have the effect, as . A. Richards said of poetic rhythm, of calling in question a habitual response. Further- more, to argue that "Second Symphony" is not a title is to go against the common view in romantic thought that such a title implies the author's name and a specific relation to other works in the oeuvre, taken as the  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 123 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 123 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To aesthetic object, expanded beyond a single work. I realize that there is no end to the possible expansion I allow here, which may or may not be the reason why Fisher closes off expansion with the symphony itself; poststructuralist deconstruction would not stop here but proceed to deconstruct the idea of a composer and an oeuvre by way of a critique of subject and intention, going on endlessly. At this point it seems clear that the only way to produce a meaningful limitation on what can be ad- mitted as a title is to return to Levinson's notion of the "true title" and identify titles with authorial intent. I agree that there is a problem with intention as a criterion for meaning, but I distinguish between meaning intended and intention to mean, which in this case involves intention to title. So, although I believe that the relation of title to the rest of the text is subject to interpretation that cannot ground itself ultimately on the au- thor's alleged intended meaning, I do believe that with respect to what the title of the work is we should attend to the author's intention that it have a certain title, if we can recover it, which is often impossible, and sometimes a difficult decision between competing evidence about author- ial acts. Luckily this is a less difficult problem with modern works than with ancient ones. With some trepidation, then, I shall say that a title is such partly by virtue of its having been made a title by the author. Here the question becomes interesting in a new way. The issue is now the authenticity of the title of the work. Without raising this issue, Fisher discusses titles that have changed, as if any title given to a work that somehow remains attached to it for some period of time is entitled to the rank of title-if it meets his other criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not exclu- sive enough. The illustration he gives is Velasquez's "Las Meninas" ("La- dies in Waiting"), which up to 1666 was titled "Her Royal Highness the Empress with her Ladies and a Dwarf' and from that date to 1843 was called "Family of King Philip IV." All of these refer, incidentally, to images in the work, offering different parts standing for the whole, or synecdoche. But each cites a different part. It does not seem to make any difference to Fisher who made the title-author, critic, collec- tor, curator, connoisseur, or writer of an exhibition catalogue. All of these titles are guides to interpretation, and that is apparently all that they need be. But it does make a difference what the source of a title is. Titles are very strongly a part of the internal relations of a work. If by historical textual scholarship we discover that there is strong ground for supposing that a certain passage in Hamlet was interpolated into the text by a printer on his own initiative, we would certainly exercise considerable caution aesthetic object, expanded beyond a single work. I realize that there is no end to the possible expansion I allow here, which may or may not be the reason why Fisher closes off expansion with the symphony itself; poststructuralist deconstruction would not stop here but proceed to deconstruct the idea of a composer and an oeuvre by way of a critique of subject and intention, going on endlessly. At this point it seems clear that the only way to produce a meaningful limitation on what can be ad- mitted as a title is to return to Levinson's notion of the "true title" and identify titles with authorial intent. I agree that there is a problem with intention as a criterion for meaning, but I distinguish between meaning intended and intention to mean, which in this case involves intention to title. So, although I believe that the relation of title to the rest of the text is subject to interpretation that cannot ground itself ultimately on the au- thor's alleged intended meaning, I do believe that with respect to what the title of the work is we should attend to the author's intention that it have a certain title, if we can recover it, which is often impossible, and sometimes a difficult decision between competing evidence about author- ial acts. Luckily this is a less difficult problem with modern works than with ancient ones. With some trepidation, then, I shall say that a title is such partly by virtue of its having been made a title by the author. Here the question becomes interesting in a new way. The issue is now the authenticity of the title of the work. Without raising this issue, Fisher discusses titles that have changed, as if any title given to a work that somehow remains attached to it for some period of time is entitled to the rank of title-if it meets his other criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not exclu- sive enough. The illustration he gives is Veldsquez's "Las Meninas" ("La- dies in Waiting"), which up to 1666 was titled "Her Royal Highness the Empress with her Ladies and a Dwarf" and from that date to 1843 was called "Family of King Philip IV." All of these refer, incidentally, to images in the work, offering different parts standing for the whole, or synecdoche. But each cites a different part. It does not seem to make any difference to Fisher who made the title-author, critic, collec- tor, curator, connoisseur, or writer of an exhibition catalogue. All of these titles are guides to interpretation, and that is apparently all that they need be. But it does make a difference what the source of a title is. Titles are very strongly a part of the internal relations of a work. If by historical textual scholarship we discover that there is strong ground for supposing that a certain passage in Hamlet was interpolated into the text by a printer on his own initiative, we would certainly exercise considerable caution aesthetic object, expanded beyond a single work. I realize that there is no end to the possible expansion I allow here, which may or may not be the reason why Fisher closes off expansion with the symphony itself; poststructuralist deconstruction would not stop here but proceed to deconstruct the idea of a composer and an oeuvre by way of a critique of subject and intention, going on endlessly. At this point it seems clear that the only way to produce a meaningful limitation on what can be ad- mitted as a title is to return to Levinson's notion of the "true title" and identify titles with authorial intent. I agree that there is a problem with intention as a criterion for meaning, but I distinguish between meaning intended and intention to mean, which in this case involves intention to title. So, although I believe that the relation of title to the rest of the text is subject to interpretation that cannot ground itself ultimately on the au- thor's alleged intended meaning, I do believe that with respect to what the title of the work is we should attend to the author's intention that it have a certain title, if we can recover it, which is often impossible, and sometimes a difficult decision between competing evidence about author- ial acts. Luckily this is a less difficult problem with modern works than with ancient ones. With some trepidation, then, I shall say that a title is such partly by virtue of its having been made a title by the author. Here the question becomes interesting in a new way. The issue is now the authenticity of the title of the work. Without raising this issue, Fisher discusses titles that have changed, as if any title given to a work that somehow remains attached to it for some period of time is entitled to the rank of title-if it meets his other criterion of guidance to interpretation. This is not exclu- sive enough. The illustration he gives is Veldsquez's "Las Meninas" ("La- dies in Waiting"), which up to 1666 was titled "Her Royal Highness the Empress with her Ladies and a Dwarf' and from that date to 1843 was called "Family of King Philip IV." All of these refer, incidentally, to images in the work, offering different parts standing for the whole, or synecdoche. But each cites a different part. It does not seem to make any difference to Fisher who made the title-author, critic, collec- tor, curator, connoisseur, or writer of an exhibition catalogue. All of these titles are guides to interpretation, and that is apparently all that they need be. But it does make a difference what the source of a title is. Titles are very strongly a part of the internal relations of a work. If by historical textual scholarship we discover that there is strong ground for supposing that a certain passage in Hamlet was interpolated into the text by a printer on his own initiative, we would certainly exercise considerable caution  Antithetical Essays 124 Antithetical Essays 124 Antithetical Essays in interpretation. If we knew that Shakespeare had put it there we would retain it, unless perhaps he had later taken it out or agreed tacitly to its being taken out. We might question whether he should have done any of these things, but that would be a different matter raising entirely differ- ent questions. By what Levinson calls the "true title" and I call just the "title" I mean the one we think the author chose, agreed to, was talked into accepting, tacitly accepted, or hit upon, even in the manner that Denis Johnston retitled his play. This is inconvenient, I know, because in so many cases we just don't know and because some works about which we don't know seem to have more than one title. (But often other parts of their texts have other equally difficult textual problems.) As for titles given to works by people other than the author, like "Las Meninas'-I have to say that they are not really titles at all, but labels, designators, and often interpre- tations, not merely guides to interpretation. I should say that in their rela- tion to their texts or paintings or statues or musical works they are like proper names. Proper names can be changed, as in the case of "Las Meninas." It must be said that titles are just as subject to interpretation as the rest of the work, and when we look at some modern titles we are frequently struck by how frequently the rest of the work is a guide to the interpretation of the title. At this point, it is best to abandon the meta- phor of the guide. III Now I want to examine the problem of the particular issues presented by the verbal title in relation to the plastic object and claim that such works are really composite in the sense in which W. J. T. Mitchell uses the term." Mitchell quotes Mark Twain on this matter: A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome, people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the celebrated "Beatrice Cenci the Day Be- fore Her Execution." It shows what a label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it unmoved, and say n1. W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). in interpretation. If we knew that Shakespeare had put it there we would retain it, unless perhaps he had later taken it out or agreed tacitly to its being taken out. We might question whether he should have done any of these things, but that would be a different matter raising entirely differ- ent questions. By what Levinson calls the "true title" and I call just the "title" I mean the one we think the author chose, agreed to, was talked into accepting, tacitly accepted, or hit upon, even in the manner that Denis Johnston retitled his play. This is inconvenient, I know, because in so many cases we just don't know and because some works about which we don't know seem to have more than one title. (But often other parts of their texts have other equally difficult textual problems.) As for titles given to works by people other than the author, like "Las Meninas"-I have to say that they are not really titles at all, but labels, designators, and often interpre- tations, not merely guides to interpretation. I should say that in their rela- tion to their texts or paintings or statues or musical works they are like proper names. Proper names can be changed, as in the case of "Las Meninas." It must be said that titles are just as subject to interpretation as the rest of the work, and when we look at some modern titles we are frequently struck by how frequently the rest of the work is a guide to the interpretation of the title. At this point, it is best to abandon the meta- phor of the guide. III Now I want to examine the problem of the particular issues presented by the verbal title in relation to the plastic object and claim that such works are really composite in the sense in which W. J. T. Mitchell uses the term." Mitchell quotes Mark Twain on this matter: A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome, people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the celebrated "Beatrice Cenci the Day Be- fore Her Execution." It shows what a label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it unmoved, and say n. W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: tiage, Text, Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). in interpretation. If we knew that Shakespeare had put it there we would retain it, unless perhaps he had later taken it out or agreed tacitly to its being taken out. We might question whether he should have done any of these things, but that would be a different matter raising entirely differ- ent questions. By what Levinson calls the "true title" and I call just the "title" I mean the one we think the author chose, agreed to, was talked into accepting, tacitly accepted, or hit upon, even in the manner that Denis Johnston retitled his play. This is inconvenient, I know, because in so many cases we just don't know and because some works about which we don't know seem to have more than one title. (But often other parts of their texts have other equally difficult textual problems.) As for titles given to works by people other than the author, like "Las Meninas"-I have to say that they are not really titles at all, but labels, designators, and often interpre- tations, not merely guides to interpretation. I should say that in their rela- tion to their texts or paintings or statues or musical works they are like proper names. Proper names can be changed, as in the case of "Las Meninas." It must be said that titles are just as subject to interpretation as the rest of the work, and when we look at some modern titles we are frequently struck by how frequently the rest of the work is a guide to the interpretation of the title. At this point, it is best to abandon the meta- phor of the guide. III Now I want to examine the problem of the particular issues presented by the verbal title in relation to the plastic object and claim that such works are really composite in the sense in which W. J. T. Mitchell uses the term." Mitchell quotes Mark Twain on this matter: A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome, people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the celebrated "Beatrice Cenci the Day Be- fore Her Execution." It shows what a label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it unmoved, and say n. W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 125 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 125 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To "Young Girl with Hay Fever; Young Girl with Her Head in a Bag."Q Mitchell's subject is the relation of image to text, and he raises the question of what the "label would be worth, for information or anything else, without 'this picture of Guido Reni, or the entire tradition of repre- senting in pictorial, dramatic, or literary images the story of the Cenci. The painting is a confluence of pictorial and verbal traditions.. . ." (p. 42). Mitchell goes on to observe that "the history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguis- tic signs" (p. 43). In a discussion of the theories of Ernst Gombrich Mitch- ell mentions titles: "When claims are made that some kinds of images (al- legories, history paintings) can tell stories or articulate complex ideas, the answer is usually that the image 'in itself' does not express these things, except by parasitical dependence on verbal supplements-titles, com- mentaries, etc." (p. 79). Mitchell's book opposes this view, at least in- sofar as supplements are regarded as of a second order. I believe that Mitchell would agree with me that any painting with a title has to be regarded as a "composite" work; he claims that much more art is com- posite than is generally recognized, and if this is so he is certainly right. But neither he nor the theorists whose work he examines on the ques- tion of the relation of image to words-Nelson Goodman, Ernst Gombrich, Gotthold Lessing, and Edmund Burke-discusses titles as such. Twain's observation raises the whole question of the relation of title to text-or, in this case, title to painting. It is not too much to say that Twain's own language here reveals an odd contradiction. On the one hand, the term "label" implies that the title is not really part of the work. On the other, Twain implies that knowledge of the picture somehow requires the label. It is uncertain whether Twain's "label" is com- pletely apart from and pointing to the painting or in some other rela- tion. In either case the relation is problematic, and it does not seem that the statement easily allows the title to be a part of a work that contains both. There are, of course, many works that require our treating of the rela- tion between words and designs apart from concern with titles. Blake's longer works are convenient examples. Words are part of their designs, yet one could just as well say that the designs are part of the words or an extension of the words, as they so often are in The Book of Kells, where 12. Mitchell quotes Mark Twain from Life on the Mississippi, chapter 44, on p. 40. "Young Girl with Hay Fever; Young Girl with Her Head in a Bag."' Mitchell's subject is the relation of image to text, and he raises the question of what the "label would be worth, for information or anything else, without this picture of Guido Reni, or the entire tradition of repre- senting in pictorial, dramatic, or literary images the story of the Cenci. The painting is a confluence of pictorial and verbal traditions. . ." (p. 42). Mitchell goes on to observe that "the history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguis- tic signs" (p. 43). In a discussion of the theories of Ernst Gombrich Mitch- ell mentions titles: "When claims are made that some kinds of images (al- legories, history paintings) can tell stories or articulate complex ideas, the answer is usually that the image 'in itself' does not express these things, except by parasitical dependence on verbal supplements-titles, com- mentaries, etc." (p. 79). Mitchell's book opposes this view, at least in- sofar as supplements are regarded as of a second order. I believe that Mitchell would agree with me that any painting with a title has to be regarded as a "composite" work; he claims that much more art is com- posite than is generally recognized, and if this is so he is certainly right. But neither he nor the theorists whose work he examines on the ques- tion of the relation of image to words-Nelson Goodman, Ernst Gombrich, Gotthold Lessing, and Edmund Burke-discusses titles as such. Twain's observation raises the whole question of the relation of title to text-or, in this case, title to painting. It is not too much to say that Twain's own language here reveals an odd contradiction. On the one hand, the term "label" implies that the title is not really part of the work. On the other, Twain implies that knowledge of the picture somehow requires the label. It is uncertain whether Twain's "label" is com- pletely apart from and pointing to the painting or in some other rela- tion. In either case the relation is problematic, and it does not seem that the statement easily allows the title to be a part of a work that contains both. There are, of course, many works that require our treating of the rela- tion between words and designs apart from concern with titles. Blake's longer works are convenient examples. Words are part of their designs, yet one could just as well say that the designs are part of the words or an extension of the words, as they so often are in The Book of Kells, where 12. Mitchell quotes Mark Twain from Life on the Mississippi, chapter 44, on p. 40. "Young Girl with Hay Fever; Young Girl with Her Head in a Bag. "1 Mitchell's subject is the relation of image to text, and he raises the question of what the "label would be worth, for information or anything else, without 'this picture of Guido Reni, or the entire tradition of repre- senting in pictorial, dramatic, or literary images the story of the Cenci. The painting is a confluence of pictorial and verbal traditions.. . ." (p. 42). Mitchell goes on to observe that "the history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguis- tic signs" (p. 43). In a discussion of the theories of Ernst Gombrich Mitch- ell mentions titles: "When claims are made that some kinds of images (al- legories, history paintings) can tell stories or articulate complex ideas, the answer is usually that the image 'in itself' does not express these things, except by parasitical dependence on verbal supplements-titles, com- mentaries, etc." (p. 79). Mitchell's book opposes this view, at least in- sofar as supplements are regarded as of a second order. I believe that Mitchell would agree with me that any painting with a title has to be regarded as a "composite" work; he claims that much more art is com- posite than is generally recognized, and if this is so he is certainly right. But neither he nor the theorists whose work he examines on the ques- tion of the relation of image to words-Nelson Goodman, Ernst Gombrich, Gotthold Lessing, and Edmund Burke-discusses titles as such. Twain's observation raises the whole question of the relation of title to text-or, in this case, title to painting. It is not too much to say that Twain's own language here reveals an odd contradiction. On the one hand, the term "label" implies that the title is not really part of the work. On the other, Twain implies that knowledge of the picture somehow requires the label. It is uncertain whether Twain's "label" is com- pletely apart from and pointing to the painting or in some other rela- tion. In either case the relation is problematic, and it does not seem that the statement easily allows the title to be a part of a work that contains both. There are, of course, many works that require our treating of the rela- tion between words and designs apart from concern with titles. Blake's longer works are convenient examples. Words are part of their designs, yet one could just as well say that the designs are part of the words or an extension of the words, as they so often are in The Book ofKells, where 12. Mitchell quotes Mark Twain from Life on the Mississippi, chapter 44, on p. 40.  Antithetical Essays 126 Antithetical Essays 126 Antithetical Essays the visual forms of words as written merge with designs that represent animals or plants. The separation of these things seems to have become a preoccupation of some modern art (and criticism) and goes along with the fashion that resisted allegory and sought so-called purely visual forms in the hope that such forms could have autonomy from language and de- velop their own intuitive laws, which would avoid the acts of interpreta- tion that result in allegorization. How difficult this has turned out to be is well illustrated by the title "Untitled," which not only collectors and connoisseurs have given to works but artists as well." What does the title "Untitled" imply when an artist gives it to a painting? It seems to say "This has no title." But that does not exhaust the relation, particularly if we are able to presume that the work includes this verbal refusal as title. It is a statement to the viewer not to look at the object in the way that the title "Beatrice Cenci the Day Before Her Execution" invites. It seems to presume a viewer, and it seems to presume to teach by negation (and a very considerable negation) how it should be viewed. But can the viewer avoid the language of the title and its relation to the object, and if so is the apparent effort actually cancelled by the title itself? Certainly the title throws attention on the negative relation of title to object and opens up a difference in the work itself or in the viewing of it. This is a difference, however, that does not estrange the curiously nontitling title from the object but oppositely calls attention to the very relation that it denies. Designed to evade the domination of language over plastic forms, it tac- itly accepts that the viewer is already linguistically situated, that the work has a linguistic relation, and that the so-called object is in a linguistic rela- tion. It resists the idea that a title always refers only to something in a paint- ing (Beatrice Cenci doing something) rather than the object as a whole. But, of course, the "painting" is now no longer the whole, because "Unti- tled" belongs to it compositively in the way that primitive mentality seems to have imagined a proper name as actually a part of the person named. The exception is that in this case the belonging is a paradoxical one of difference or opposition. This is an extreme case at nearly one end of a spectrum of relations in painting. A little beyond, at the extreme, would be a painting that does not even have the title "Untitled." Such works abound (almost all paintings before the nineteenth century, Hol- lander reminds us-p. 221) in addition to works whose titles may have been lost (are these works fragments?); but connoisseurs and curators are seldom happy with this lack of verbal relation, and not merely because 13. Hollander (p. 23) has noted the "covert titling function" of "Untitled." the visual forms of words as written merge with designs that represent animals or plants. The separation of these things seems to have become a preoccupation of some modern art (and criticism) and goes along with the fashion that resisted allegory and sought so-called purely visual forms in the hope that such forms could have autonomy from language and de- velop their own intuitive laws, which would avoid the acts of interpreta- tion that result in allegorization. How difficult this has turned out to be is well illustrated by the title "Untitled," which not only collectors and connoisseurs have given to works but artists as well." What does the title "Untitled" imply when an artist gives it to a painting? It seems to say "This has no title." But that does not exhaust the relation, particularly if we are able to presume that the work includes this verbal refusal as title. It is a statement to the viewer not to look at the object in the way that the title "Beatrice Cenci the Day Before Her Execution" invites. It seems to presume a viewer, and it seems to presume to teach by negation (and a very considerable negation) how it should be viewed. But can the viewer avoid the language of the title and its relation to the object, and if so is the apparent effort actually cancelled by the title itself? Certainly the title throws attention on the negative relation of title to object and opens up a difference in the work itself or in the viewing of it. This is a difference, however, that does not estrange the curiously nontitling title from the object but oppositely calls attention to the very relation that it denies. Designed to evade the domination of language over plastic forms, it tac- itly accepts that the viewer is already linguistically situated, that the work has a linguistic relation, and that the so-called object is in a linguistic rela- tion. It resists the idea that a title always refers only to something in a paint- ing (Beatrice Cenci doing something) rather than the object as a whole. But, of course, the "painting" is now no longer the whole, because 'Unti- tled" belongs to it compositively in the way that primitive mentality seems to have imagined a proper name as actually a part of the person named. The exception is that in this case the belonging is a paradoxical one of difference or opposition. This is an extreme case at nearly one end of a spectrum of relations in painting. A little beyond, at the extreme, would be a painting that does not even have the title "Untitled.' Such works abound (almost all paintings before the nineteenth century, Hol- lander reminds us-p. 221) in addition to works whose titles may have been lost (are these works fragments?); but connoisseurs and curators are seldom happy with this lack of verbal relation, and not merely because 13. Hollander (p. 23) has noted the "covert titling function" of "Untitled." the visual forms of words as written merge with designs that represent animals or plants. The separation of these things seems to have become a preoccupation of some modern art (and criticism) and goes along with the fashion that resisted allegory and sought so-called purely visual forms in the hope that such forms could have autonomy from language and de- velop their own intuitive laws, which would avoid the acts of interpreta- tion that result in allegorization. How difficult this has turned out to be is well illustrated by the title "Untitled," which not only collectors and connoisseurs have given to works but artists as well." What does the title "Untitled" imply when an artist gives it to a painting? It seems to say "This has no title." But that does not exhaust the relation, particularly if we are able to presume that the work includes this verbal refusal as title. It is a statement to the viewer not to look at the object in the way that the title "Beatrice Cenci the Day Before Her Execution" invites. It seems to presume a viewer, and it seems to presume to teach by negation (and a very considerable negation) how it should be viewed. But can the viewer avoid the language of the title and its relation to the object, and if so is the apparent effort actually cancelled by the title itself? Certainly the title throws attention on the negative relation of title to object and opens up a difference in the work itself or in the viewing of it. This is a difference, however, that does not estrange the curiously nontitling title from the object but oppositely calls attention to the very relation that it denies. Designed to evade the domination of language over plastic forms, it tac- itly accepts that the viewer is already linguistically situated, that the work has a linguistic relation, and that the so-called object is in a linguistic rela- tion. It resists the idea that a title always refers only to something in a paint- ing (Beatrice Cenci doing something) rather than the object as a whole. But, of course, the "painting" is now no longer the whole, because "Unti- tled" belongs to it compositively in the way that primitive mentality seems to have imagined a proper name as actually a part of the person named. The exception is that in this case the belonging is a paradoxical one of difference or opposition. This is an extreme case at nearly one end of a spectrum of relations in painting. A little beyond, at the extreme, would be a painting that does not even have the title "Untitled." Such works abound (almost all paintings before the nineteenth century, Hol- lander reminds us-p. 221) in addition to works whose titles may have been lost (are these works fragments?); but connoisseurs and curators are seldom happy with this lack of verbal relation, and not merely because 13. Hollander (p. 23) has noted the "covert titling function" of Untitled.'  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 127 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 127 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To such works are difficult to inventory, let alone catalog. It appears that as much as some artists resist titles, we desire at least the difference of "Unti- tled." What do we find at the other extreme? Perhaps the label of the portrait, the descriptive title of the historical painting, or the illustration of a verbal text. Here it turns out that even labels can be very proble- matic. Does Reynolds' portrait of a Byron represent the poet's grandfa- ther or his brother William the fifth lord? We do not know for certain. The painter who insists on "Untitled" for his own painting is likely to re- mark that it ought to make utterly no difference for Reynolds', but it is not easy to look at this painting without a sense that something is missing from it as a work. That missing element is its name, or more accurately the name of the figure in it. The painting's portrait genre calls out for it. Proper names, simply as proper names, present problems when they are titles, partly because names can change. In the catalog of the 1986 Reynolds exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, appears this state- ment: "For the title of portraits we have employed the names by which the sitters were known when they were painted, although in a few cases this conflicts with familiar usage." The exhibitors seem here to have stuck to the principle that a portrait hasn't really a title but only the name of its represented object. Proper names present other problems that I shall come to. In the sense just employed, portrait titles seem to be reverse metonyms-the thing contained constituting a title that refers to the whole work, including the background with, in the case of the Byron painting, its blasted tree, be it ever so faint and seemingly unimportant. This is particularly true of Reynolds' work, where the background has often clearly been of little concern to Reynolds, even to the extent that he left its execution to apprentices. By comparison to these, some por- traits, including some of Reynolds', have a figural quality in that the back- ground or surrounding reflects back on the figures portrayed-either quite formally, that is, usually by metonym, as when a naval captain is given a background of sea and ships or as in David Hockney's portrait "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," where the total scene expresses the fig- ures depicted and they seem in the whole as part of it. Yet the title refers only to them. The title points up a synecdochic relationship in which there is an interrelation of parts as well as part to whole. The title refers to part, the apparent objects of portrayal, and yet equally to the whole as if all other things in the work named the figures ostensibly portrayed and belonged to them. Strictly speaking all such titles, even the one I called metonymic, are synecdochic, though they may contain metonymic relations. such works are difficult to inventory, let alone catalog. It appears that as much as some artists resist titles, we desire at least the difference of "Unti- tled." What do we find at the other extreme? Perhaps the label of the portrait, the descriptive title of the historical painting, or the illustration of a verbal text. Here it turns out that even labels can be very proble- matic. Does Reynolds' portrait of a Byron represent the poet's grandfa- ther or his brother William the fifth lord? We do not know for certain. The painter who insists on "Untitled" for his own painting is likely to re- mark that it ought to make utterly no difference for Reynolds', but it is not easy to look at this painting without a sense that something is missing from it as a work. That missing element is its name, or more accurately the name of the figure in it. The painting's portrait genre calls out for it. Proper names, simply as proper names, present problems when they are titles, partly because names can change. In the catalog of the 1986 Reynolds exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, appears this state- ment: "For the title of portraits we have employed the names by which the sitters were known when they were painted, although in a few cases this conflicts with familiar usage." The exhibitors seem here to have stuck to the principle that a portrait hasn't really a title but only the name of its represented object. Proper names present other problems that I shall come to. In the sense just employed, portrait titles seem to be reverse metonyms-the thing contained constituting a title that refers to the whole work, including the background with, in the case of the Byron painting, its blasted tree, be it ever so faint and seemingly unimportant. This is particularly true of Reynolds' work, where the background has often clearly been of little concern to Reynolds, even to the extent that he left its execution to apprentices. By comparison to these, some por- traits, including some of Reynolds', have a figural quality in that the back- ground or surrounding reflects back on the figures portrayed-either quite formally, that is, usually by metonym, as when a naval captain is given a background of sea and ships or as in David Hockney's portrait "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," where the total scene expresses the fig- ures depicted and they seem in the whole as part of it. Yet the title refers only to them. The title points up a synecdochic relationship in which there is an interrelation of parts as well as part to whole. The title refers to part, the apparent objects of portrayal, and yet equally to the whole as if all other things in the work named the figures ostensibly portrayed and belonged to them. Strictly speaking all such titles, even the one I called metonymic, are synecdochic, though they may contain metonymic relations. such works are difficult to inventory, let alone catalog. It appears that as much as some artists resist titles, we desire at least the difference of"Unti- tIed." What do we find at the other extreme? Perhaps the label of the portrait, the descriptive title of the historical painting, or the illustration of a verbal text. Here it turns out that even labels can be very proble- matic. Does Reynolds' portrait of a Byron represent the poet's grandfa- ther or his brother William the fifth lord? We do not know for certain. The painter who insists on "Untitled" for his own painting is likely to re- mark that it ought to make utterly no difference for Reynolds', but it is not easy to look at this painting without a sense that something is missing from it as a work. That missing element is its name, or more accurately the name of the figure in it. The painting's portrait genre calls out for it. Proper names, simply as proper names, present problems when they are titles, partly because names can change. In the catalog of the 1986 Reynolds exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, appears this state- ment: "For the title of portraits we have employed the names by which the sitters were known when they were painted, although in a few cases this conflicts with familiar usage." The exhibitors seem here to have stuck to the principle that a portrait hasn't really a title but only the name of its represented object. Proper names present other problems that I shall come to. In the sense just employed, portrait titles seem to be reverse metonyms-the thing contained constituting a title that refers to the whole work, including the background with, in the case of the Byron painting, its blasted tree, be it ever so faint and seemingly unimportant. This is particularly true of Reynolds' work, where the background has often clearly been of little concern to Reynolds, even to the extent that he left its execution to apprentices. By comparison to these, some por- traits, including some of Reynolds', have a figural quality in that the back- ground or surrounding reflects back on the figures portrayed-either quite formally, that is, usually by metonym, as when a naval captain is given a background of sea and ships or as in David Hockney's portrait "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," where the total scene expresses the fig- ures depicted and they seem in the whole as part of it. Yet the title refers only to them. The title points up a synecdochic relationship in which there is an interrelation of parts as well as part to whole. The title refers to part, the apparent objects of portrayal, and yet equally to the whole as if all other things in the work named the figures ostensibly portrayed and belonged to them. Strictly speaking all such titles, even the one I called metonymic, are synecdochic, though they may contain metonymic relations.  Antithetical Essays 128 Antithetical Essays 128 Antithetical Essays IV But ought one to call titles names, as I did with Reynolds' Byron? Levinson (pp. 37-38) thinks not, and I agree with him. Titles do not name only the person but the whole work, including, therefore, themselves as part; but they cannot be considered the proper name of the work. There has been much recent philosophical writing on names and proper names. One fundamental issue that is argued about proper names is whether they are descriptive or not. A classic example of the problem, as Saul Kripke points out, has to do with "God."" Does the word describe God as a unique divine being, or is the word a nondescriptive proper name? Kripke disa- grees with Russell and Frege, who agreed amid disagreement that a proper name is a "definite description abbreviated or disguised" (p. 255), that is, a proper name is synonymous with the description that replaces it. This tradition is carried on by John Searle. Kripke disagrees with Searle's notion that the "referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. Whatever in some sense satis- fies enough or most of the family is the referent of the name" (p. 258). His own view is that a proper name is a "rigid designator": "Obviously if the only descriptive senses of names we can think of are of the form 'the man called such and such,' . . . [which some philosophers are re- duced to claiming] then whatever the relation of calling is is really what determines the reference and not any description like 'the man called "Socrates" '." (p. 284). I mention this because I agree with Kripke, who in the end agrees with John Stuart Mill, that proper names have denota- tion, not connotation. But I add: except in literary works, where names of characters and other thing have allegorical significance and symbolic suggestivity. It is interesting to see that Kripke offers as virtually his first example of a definite description a phrase he takes from a literary title "the man who corrupted Hadleyburg," (p. 254), without ever indicating that it is such. He also does not discuss fictive names, though he does approach "Santa Claus," (possibly classifiable as a fictive name), only to skirt around it (p. 300), pleading an attack of laziness. Titles, if we aban- don the notion of the proper name and the label, are synecdoches, and though as titles they may have the form of proper names, it is not as proper names that they are titles. They are not, depending on one's ter- 14. Saul Kripke, "Naming and Necessity," Semantics of Natural Language, ed. Donald Davidson and Gilbert Hartman, (Dordrecht-Holland/Boston-U.S.A.: D. Reidel, 1972), 255. IV But ought one to call titles names, as I did with Reynolds' Byron? Levinson (pp. 37-38) thinks not, and I agree with him. Titles do not name only the person but the whole work, including, therefore, themselves as part; but they cannot be considered the proper name of the work. There has been much recent philosophical writing on names and proper names. One fundamental issue that is argued about proper names is whether they are descriptive or not. A classic example of the problem, as Saul Kripke points out, has to do with "God."" Does the word describe God as a unique divine being, or is the word a nondescriptive proper name? Kripke disa- grees with Russell and Frege, who agreed amid disagreement that a proper name is a "definite description abbreviated or disguised" (p. 255), that is, a proper name is synonymous with the description that replaces it. This tradition is carried on by John Searle. Kripke disagrees with Searle's notion that the "referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. Whatever in some sense satis- fies enough or most of the family is the referent of the name" (p. 258). His own view is that a proper name is a "rigid designator": "Obviously if the only descriptive senses of names we can think of are of the form 'the man called such and such,' . . . [which some philosophers are re- duced to claiming] then whatever the relation of calling is is really what determines the reference and not any description like 'the man called "Socrates" '. (p. 284). I mention this because I agree with Kripke, who in the end agrees with John Stuart Mill, that proper names have denota- tion, not connotation. But I add: except in literary works, where names of characters and other thing have allegorical significance and symbolic suggestivity. It is interesting to see that Kripke offers as virtually his first example of a definite description a phrase he takes from a literary title "the man who corrupted Hadleyburg," (p. 254), without ever indicating that it is such. He also does not discuss fictive names, though he does approach "Santa Claus," (possibly classifiable as a fictive name), only to skirt around it (p. 300), pleading an attack of laziness. Titles, if we aban- don the notion of the proper name and the label, are synecdoches, and though as titles they may have the form of proper names, it is not as proper names that they are titles. They are not, depending on one's ter- 14. Saul Kripke, "Naming and Necessity," Semantics of Natural Language, ed. Donald Davidson and Gilbert Hartman, (Dordrecht-Holland/Boston-U.S.A.: D. Reidel, 1972), 255. IV But ought one to call titles names, as I did with Reynolds' Byron? Levinson (pp. 37-38) thinks not, and I agree with him. Titles do not name only the person but the whole work, including, therefore, themselves as part; but they cannot be considered the proper name of the work. There has been much recent philosophical writing on names and proper names. One fundamental issue that is argued about proper names is whether they are descriptive or not. A classic example of the problem, as Saul Kripke points out, has to do with "God."" Does the word describe God as a unique divine being, or is the word a nondescriptive proper name? Kripke disa- grees with Russell and Frege, who agreed amid disagreement that a proper name is a "definite description abbreviated or disguised" (p. 255), that is, a proper name is synonymous with the description that replaces it. This tradition is carried on by John Searle. Kripke disagrees with Searle's notion that the "referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. Whatever in some sense satis- fies enough or most of the family is the referent of the name" (p. 258). His own view is that a proper name is a "rigid designator": "Obviously if the only descriptive senses of names we can think of are of the form 'the man called such and such,' . . . [which some philosophers are re- duced to claiming] then whatever the relation of calling is is really what determines the reference and not any description like 'the man called "Socrates" '." (p. 284). I mention this because I agree with Kripke, who in the end agrees with John Stuart Mill, that proper names have denota- tion, not connotation. But I add: except in literary works, where names of characters and other thing have allegorical significance and symbolic suggestivity. It is interesting to see that Kripke offers as virtually his first example of a definite description a phrase he takes from a literary title "the man who corrupted Hadleyburg," (p. 254), without ever indicating that it is such. He also does not discuss fictive names, though he does approach "Santa Claus," (possibly classifiable as a fictive name), only to skirt around it (p. 300), pleading an attack of laziness. Titles, if we aban- don the notion of the proper name and the label, are synecdoches, and though as titles they may have the form of proper names, it is not as proper names that they are titles. They are not, depending on one's ter- 14. Saul Kripke, "Naming and Necessity," Semantics of Natural Language, ed. Donald Davidson and Gilbert Hartman, (Dordrecht-Holland/Boston-U.S.A.: D. Reidel, 1972), 255.  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To tng Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To rag Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To minology, purely designatory or purely denotative or Kripke's "rigid des- ignators." Nor are they so-called class names, except in the case of num- bered works in a stated genre, "Symphony Number Five," or in an oeuvre, "Opus zo," where there is both denotation and signification, though of- ten a false denotation. Beethoven's infamous "Battle Symphony" isn't numbered among the nine and so his ninth symphony both is and is not ninth. The reason that titles as names are so odd is that they are very rarely only labels, as Twain describes the titles of historical paint- ings, but are part of the things they designate. They designate from inside and normally do something more than designate in this curious fashion. A title cannot be considered a proper name or even merely the name of an image. Constable's "Hay Wain" is the title of a picture (actually sev- eral pictures, there being some lesser versions) that has more than a hay wain represented in it. Thus titles cannot be said strictly to refer only to images, though in this case, and particularly in the case of portraits, they seem to do only that. Here, as always, the title refers to the whole picture. It does so here by implying a synecdochic relation between part and whole. Images often have names; they even refer to objects that have proper names and are sometimes said even to stand for names, as in the case of Freud's manifest dream images that have supposedly displaced, condensed, etc., something expressible in words (perhaps words), the words being represented by the image. This does not, however, make the image the title of words it denotes. But "The Hay Wain" is a different title from, say, Reynolds' "Commodore Augustus Keppel." "Hay wain" is a general term, and though the picture presents a particular, its title does not. There is no reason to identify the hay wain here with any specific hay wain in nature. The portrait or an historical painting is different. We might chart the relations with respect to "Commodore Augustus Keppel" as follows: T---WORK--- T TITLE PAINTING PRINCIPAL OBJECT Commodore Auuu epl a. img of Ks pel s-ynecdoche repesns rfers, designate, denotes0 rsmbles -- ,refer. b. secondary mametonymy; Titles which seem, like those of portraits, to be merely labels are thus more than labels. James Barry's "King Lear Weeping Over the Body of minology, purely designatory or purely denotative or Kripke's "rigid des- ignators." Nor are they so-called class names, except in the case of num- bered works in a stated genre, "Symphony Number Five," or in an oeuvre, "Opus so," where there is both denotation and signification, though of- ten a false denotation. Beethoven's infamous "Battle Symphony" isn't numbered among the nine and so his ninth symphony both is and is not ninth. The reason that titles as names are so odd is that they are very rarely only labels, as Twain describes the titles of historical paint- ings, but are part of the things they designate. They designate from inside and normally do something more than designate in this curious fashion. A title cannot be considered a proper name or even merely the name of an image. Constable's "Hay Wain" is the title of a picture (actually sev- eral pictures, there being some lesser versions) that has more than a hay wain represented in it. Thus titles cannot be said strictly to refer only to images, though in this case, and particularly in the case of portraits, they seem to do only that. Here, as always, the title refers to the whole picture. It does so heere by implying a synecdochic relation between part and whole. Images often have names; they even refer to objects that have proper names and are sometimes said even to stand for names, as in the case of Freud's manifest dream images that have supposedly displaced, condensed, etc., something expressible in words (perhaps words), the words being represented by the image. This does not, however, make the image the title of words it denotes. But "The Hay Wain" is a different title from, say, Reynolds' "Commodore Augustus Keppel." "Hay wain" is a general term, and though the picture presents a particular, its title does not. There is no reason to identify the hay wain here with any specific hay wain in nature. The portrait or an historical painting is different. We might chart the relations with respect to "Commodore Augustus Keppel" as follows: i --WORK---- TITLE PAINTING PRINCIPAL OBJECT "Commodore A gustus Keppel . o e of K pel mr tn l . aKep r syncdch represents rfrdesignates. denotes rsmbles<- - .refers: b. secndary mgmetonymy y Titles which seem, like those of portraits, to be merely labels are thus more than labels. James Barry's "King Lear Weeping Over the Body of minology, purely designatory or purely denotative or Kripke's "rigid des- ignators." Nor are they so-called class names, except in the case of num- bered works in a stated genre, "Symphony Number Five," or in an oeuvre, "Opus so," where there is both denotation and signification, though of- ten a false denotation. Beethoven's infamous "Battle Symphony" isn't numbered among the nine and so his ninth symphony both is and is not ninth. The reason that titles as names are so odd is that they are very rarely only labels, as Twain describes the titles of historical paint- ings, but are part of the things they designate. They designate from inside and normally do something more than designate in this curious fashion. A title cannot be considered a proper name or even merely the name of an image. Constable's "Hay Wain" is the title of a picture (actually sev- eral pictures, there being some lesser versions) that has more than a hay wain represented in it. Thus titles cannot be said strictly to refer only to images, though in this case, and particularly in the case of portraits, they seem to do only that. Here, as always, the title refers to the whole picture. It does so here by implying a synecdochic relation between part and whole. Images often have names; they even refer to objects that have proper names and are sometimes said even to stand for names, as in the case of Freud's manifest dream images that have supposedly displaced, condensed, etc., something expressible in words (perhaps words), the words being represented by the image. This does not, however, make the image the title of words it denotes. But "The Hay Wain" is a different title from, say, Reynolds' "Commodore Augustus Keppel." "Hay wain" is a general term, and though the picture presents a particular, its title does not. There is no reason to identify the hay wain here with any specific hay wain in nature. The portrait or an historical painting is different. We might chart the relations with respect to "Commodore Augustus Keppel" as follows: il--- WORK----I TITLE PAINTING PRINCIPAL OBJECT T W i Au ,ss, Kppel" a.op ig ef K pei refers. deigates. denotes esoembles b. condary mgmetonymy: Titles which seem, like those of portraits, to be merely labels are thus more than labels. James Barry's "King Lear Weeping Over the Body of  Antithetical Essays 130 Antithetical Essays 130 Antithetical Essays Cordelia" connects the picture to the final scene of Shakespeare's play. It is certainly a label in Twain's sense. One might or might not recognize what it depicts without the title. But the title is part of the work and com- pels us to look at the work as this scene. It also tells us what is back- ground, what is foreground, and invites interpretation of, for example, the Stonehenge-like structure on the hill in relation to the figures in the painting and in relation to the play as a whole. The title tells us not only what is being depicted, but also that what we have before us is itself an interpretation and that we should treat it as such. A painting can interpret a verbal object such as a passage from a play or novel, but titles seem always to have a verbal element. Between the two extremes I have mentioned-no title and the synec- dochic title of a portrait-there is a considerable variety of relations. Some titles do not label the painting by naming its so-called subject but rather treat it as a performance by the artist. Jackson Pollock's "No. 14" tells us that there has been a sequence of certain kinds of acts by him of which this is the fourteenth. The title does not name a genre, as in the examples I have mentioned from music, but instead offers no clue as to its type. This suggests that the act of painting is what may be most important here and that the painting's significance lies in its place in a sequence of undescribed or unexplained acts, which are thereby gathered into relation with it. Similarly John Heyland's "12-20-62" points up the relation of date to object? Abstractions like Jack Smith's "Sea Movement" have titles that seem to tell us to search the abstraction from the title's point of view. The rela- tion is not one of title to representation of something, but rather title to what possible forms of movement can be inferred in the object from thinking on the relation. Other titles like Victor Passmore's "Linear Motif in Black and White" discourage the viewer's search for representation or even the viewer's beginning with an idea of representation in the usual sense. The title's relation to the object operates, therefore, partly by ne- gation. Ben Nicholson's "Vertical Sounds" sets up a synaesthetic relation in the title and between title and nonaural object. Henry FuseS's "The Night Mare," title of a painting with a great mare's head hanging above a sleeping woman, is a pun on two etymologies of "mare" that is carried over into the representation, suggesting a strong connection between the visual representation and language. (Fuseli painted more than one "Night Mare.") A final example, this time from sculpture, reveals the possibility 15. For the sake of convenience, several of the examples I cite I have taken from William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964). Cordelia" connects the picture to the final scene of Shakespeare's play. It is certainly a label in Twain's sense. One might or might not recognize what it depicts without the title. But the title is part of the work and com- pels us to look at the work as this scene. It also tells us what is back- ground, what is foreground, and invites interpretation of, for example, the Stonehenge-like structure on the hill in relation to the figures in the painting and in relation to the play as a whole. The title tells us not only what is being depicted, but also that what we have before us is itself an interpretation and that we should treat it as such. A painting can interpret a verbal object such as a passage from a play or novel, but titles seem always to have a verbal element. Between the two extremes I have mentioned-no title and the svnec- dochic title of a portrait-there is a considerable variety of relations. Some titles do not label the painting by naming its so-called subject but rather treat it as a performance by the artist. Jackson Pollock's "No. 14" tells us that there has been a sequence of certain kinds of acts by him of which this is the fourteenth. The title does not name a genre, as in the examples I have mentioned from music, but instead offers no clue as to its type. This suggests that the act of painting is what may be most important here and that the painting's significance lies in its place in a sequence of undescribed or unexplained acts, which are thereby gathered into relation with it. Similarly John Heyland's "12-20-62" points up the relation of date to object." Abstractions like Jack Smith's "Sea Movement" have titles that seem to tell us to search the abstraction from the title's point of view. The rela- tion is not one of title to representation of something, but rather title to what possible forms of movement can be inferred in the object from thinking on the relation. Other titles like Victor Passmore's "Linear Motif in Black and White" discourage the viewer's search for representation or even the viewer's beginning with an idea of representation in the usual sense. The title's relation to the object operates, therefore, partly by ne- gation. Ben Nicholson's "Vertical Sounds" sets up a synaesthetic relation in the title and between title and nonaural object. Henry Fuseli's "The Night Mare," title of a painting with a great mare's head hanging above a sleeping woman, is a pun on two etymologies of "mare" that is carried over into the representation, suggesting a strong connection between the visual representation and language. (Fuseli painted more than one "Night Mare.") A final example, this time from sculpture, reveals the possibility 15. For the sake of convenience, several of the examples I cite I have taken from William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964). Cordelia" connects the picture to the final scene of Shakespeare's play. It is certainly a label in Twain's sense. One might or might not recognize what it depicts without the title. But the title is part of the work and com- pels us to look at the work as this scene. It also tells us what is back- ground, what is foreground, and invites interpretation of, for example, the Stonehenge-like structure on the hill in relation to the figures in the painting and in relation to the play as a whole. The title tells us not only what is being depicted, but also that what we have before us is itself an interpretation and that we should treat it as such. A painting can interpret a verbal object such as a passage from a play or novel, but titles seem always to have a verbal element. Between the two extremes I have mentioned-no title and the synec- dochic title of a portrait-there is a considerable variety of relations. Some titles do not label the painting by naming its so-called subject but rather treat it as a performance by the artist. Jackson Pollock's "No. 14" tells us that there has been a sequence of certain kinds of acts by him of which this is the fourteenth. The title does not name a genre, as in the examples I have mentioned from music, but instead offers no clue as to its type. This suggests that the act of painting is what may be most important here and that the painting's significance lies in its place in a sequence of undescribed or unexplained acts, which are thereby gathered into relation with it. Similarly John Heyland's "12-20-62" points up the relation of date to object.0 Abstractions like Jack Smith's "Sea Movement" have titles that seem to tell us to search the abstraction from the title's point of view. The rela- tion is not one of title to representation of something, but rather title to what possible forms of movement can be inferred in the object from thinking on the relation. Other titles like Victor Passmore's "Linear Motif in Black and White" discourage the viewer's search for representation or even the viewer's beginning with an idea of representation in the usual sense. The title's relation to the object operates, therefore, partly by ne- gation. Ben Nicholson's "Vertical Sounds" sets up a synaesthetic relation in the title and between title and nonaural object. Henry Fuseli's "The Night Mare," title of a painting with a great mare's head hanging above a sleeping woman, is a pun on two etymologies of "mare" that is carried over into the representation, suggesting a strong connection between the visual representation and language. (Fuseli painted more than one "Night Mare.") A final example, this time from sculpture, reveals the possibility 15. For the sake of convenience, several of the examples I cite I have taken from William Gaunt, A Concise History of English Painting (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964). Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 131 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 131 of a statue's uttering its title: "Have Pity!" by Ernst Barlach. The state- ment seems both a title and an utterance, and further a title that takes the shape of an admonition from the artist. The point is twofold: that the title is part of the work by virtue of hav- ing a relation to the object and that this relation can be of many kinds and is often multiple, not merely one of label, and very rarely, if at all, of pointing to. Indeed, titles thought of as labels are better regarded as synecdoches once one has acknowledged that they are parts of composite works-by virtue of paintings having verbal titles. Before I turn to literary titles it might be well to ask whether-in a situation the reverse of what we have been considering-I was earlier cor- rect in assuming that there has never been a nonverbal title of a literary work or of anything else for that matter, the word-object relation of a title being irreversible. There are certainly nonverbal labels like coats of arms and crowns that imply title in a related sense. There are, of course, title pages, like that of Blake's Milton, which combine words and design in such a way as to discourage our notion that design is no more that deco- ration or illustration. This the way of medieval illuminated manuscripts as well as cartoons. But the title-object relation is one of words prior to and anticipatory of the object (sometimes exclusively verbal). The title may be composite, as with Blake, but it has always a verbal component. This is not necessarily true of labels, which are not necessarily verbal at all. This raises the fundamental question that has vexed discussion of com- posite art from its beginnings: whether or not the nonverbal aspect of a work is inevitably secondary to the words. As linguistic creatures, so- called, can we as viewers of paintings ever do other than read them, turn- ing them into words and attributing to them a verbal source? Or is there a language (or perhaps an antilanguage) of painting that stands in relation to the words of the title? That we need the title, as Twain observes, does not, I think (I hope), imply that it is somehow more important than the painting or that it can ever be adequately treated as only an explanation or description of the painting. The title may label, describe (in contrast to the proper name), and even partially explain, but each of these is less central than the title's performance in relation to the rest of the work, to the whole of the work, and possibly to other works and things. In composite works, where words appear in more than the title-Blake's works-again it is the relation we need to read. The tendency to valorize language in all things, which has reached its apotheosis in our own time with all things popularly reduced to a structuralist linguistic model, makes us translate the relation I have mentioned above into a purely lin- guistic one." This allegorizes the painting with respect to its title with the 16. On this complicated matter see ames A. W. Heffeman. "Resemblance. Sionitea- of a statue's uttering its title: "Have Pity!" by Ernst Barlach. The state- ment seems both a title and an utterance, and further a title that takes the shape of an admonition from the artist. The point is twofold: that the title is part of the work by virtue of hav- ing a relation to the object and that this relation can be of many kinds and is often multiple, not merely one of label, and very rarely, if at all, of pointing to. Indeed, titles thought of as labels are better regarded as synecdoches once one has acknowledged that they are parts of composite works-by virtue of paintings having verbal titles. Before I turn to literary titles it might be well to ask whether-in a situation the reverse of what we have been considering- was earlier cor- rect in assuming that there has never been a nonverbal title of a literary work or of anything else for that matter, the word-object relation of a title being irreversible. There are certainly nonverbal labels like coats of arms and crowns that imply title in a related sense. There are, of course, title pages, like that of Blake's Milton, which combine words and design in such a way as to discourage our notion that design is no more that deco- ration or illustration. This the way of medieval illuminated manuscripts as well as cartoons. But the title-object relation is one of words prior to and anticipatory of the object (sometimes exclusively verbal). The title may be composite, as with Blake, but it has always a verbal component. This is not necessarily true of labels, which are not necessarily verbal at all. This raises the fundamental question that has vexed discussion of com- posite art from its beginnings: whether or not the nonverbal aspect of a work is inevitably secondary to the words. As linguistic creatures, so- called, can we as viewers of paintings ever do other than read them, turn- ing them into words and attributing to them a verbal source? Or is there a language (or perhaps an antilanguage) of painting that stands in relation to the words of the title? That we need the title, as Twain observes, does not, I think (I hope), imply that it is somehow more important than the painting or that it can ever be adequately treated as only an explanation or description of the painting. The title may label, describe (in contrast to the proper name), and even partially explain, but each of these is less central than the title's performance in relation to the rest of the work, to the whole of the work, and possibly to other works and things. In composite works, where words appear in more than the title-Blake's works-again it is the relation we need to read. The tendency to valorize language in all things, which has reached its apotheosis in our own time with all things popularly reduced to a structuralist linguistic model, makes us translate the relation I have mentioned above into a purely lin- guistic one." This allegorizes the painting with respect to its title with the 16. On this complicated matter see lames A. W. Hefernan, "Resemblance, Sinifica- Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 131 of a statue's uttering its title: "Have Pity!" by Ernst Barlach. The state- ment seems both a title and an utterance, and further a title that takes the shape of an admonition from the artist. The point is twofold: that the title is part of the work by virtue of hav- ing a relation to the object and that this relation can be of many kinds and is often multiple, not merely one of label, and very rarely, if at all, of pointing to. Indeed, titles thought of as labels are better regarded as synecdoches once one has acknowledged that they are parts of composite works-by virtue of paintings having verbal titles. Before I turn to literary titles it might be well to ask whether-in a situation the reverse of what we have been considering-I was earlier cor- rect in assuming that there has never been a nonverbal title of a literary work or of anything else for that matter, the word-object relation of a title being irreversible. There are certainly nonverbal labels like coats of arms and crowns that imply title in a related sense. There are, of course, title pages, like that of Blake's Milton, which combine words and design in such a way as to discourage our notion that design is no more that deco- ration or illustration. This the way of medieval illuminated manuscripts as well as cartoons. But the title-object relation is one of words prior to and anticipatory of the object (sometimes exclusively verbal). The title may be composite, as with Blake, but it has always a verbal component. This is not necessarily true of labels, which are not necessarily verbal at all. This raises the fundamental question that has vexed discussion of com- posite art from its beginnings: whether or not the nonverbal aspect of a work is inevitably secondary to the words. As linguistic creatures, so- called, can we as viewers of paintings ever do other than read them, turn- ing them into words and attributing to them a verbal source? Or is there a language (or perhaps an antilanguage) of painting that stands in relation to the words of the title? That we need the title, as Twain observes, does not, I think (I hope), imply that it is somehow more important than the painting or that it can ever be adequately treated as only an explanation or description of the painting. The title may label, describe (in contrast to the proper name), and even partially explain, but each of these is less central than the title's performance in relation to the rest of the work, to the whole of the work, and possibly to other works and things. In composite works, where words appear in more than the title-Blake's works-again it is the relation we need to read. The tendency to valorize language in all things, which has reached its apotheosis in our own time with all things popularly reduced to a structuralist linguistic model, makes us translate the relation I have mentioned above into a purely lin- guistic one. This allegorizes the painting with respect to its title with the 16. On this complicated matter see lames A. W. Heifeman, "Resemblance, Significa-  Antithetical Essays 132 Antithetical Essays 132 Antithetical Essays possible implicit charge of the parasitism of painting and images. I have to admit that I find Blake's words more interesting than his designs, but I also recognize that I am annoyed when art historians express the same preference by dismissing his designs. At the same time, literary critics, who have been defenders of Blake as a designer, submit his designs to literary readings. I have also to admit that I have myself employed the language of tropes to describe the relation I have spoken of- synecdoche-so that I have submitted the whole relation to a linguistic paradigm; perhaps this is inevitable, but at least I have tried to imply a relation of equality, or as Blake would have said, a contrary and not a ne- gation. V In critical interpretations specific titles or a writer's habit with titles are not often discussed or queried. This is not so surprising, perhaps, with respect to literary works titled before, say, the middle of the nineteenth century. Such titles are often simple synecdoches like most titles of por- traits. But the proliferation of odd and intriguing titles since then and their problematic relation to their texts suggest that it is time for greater atten- tion to them. There is another reason. Modern literature is witness to the development of a text that frequently seems obscure or powerfully ambiguous in meaning or in ethical significance. It is with respect to such texts that the relation of title to the rest of the text should be probed. The trilogies of Joyce Cary are examples of the interpretive problems I have mentioned. No one has discussed in any detail the relation of title to the rest of the text in Cary's trilogies. I confess that in my recent book on the trilogies I took them rather for granted-in spite of the fact that my argument implied that there was very little in Cary that could be taken for granted. The reason that the titles in Cary's trilogies loom so large is that the novels are all narrated by characters in the trilogies, and there is no other narrator or authoritive voice." This leaves the titles as tion, and Metaphor in the Visual Arts,"Journal ofAesthetics and Art Criticism 44, 2 (Winter 1985): 167-8o: "If we hope to understand the peculiar kind of 'textuality' which pictures embody, we must stop thinking of resemblance and signification as mutually exclusive terms" (178). 17. Joyce Cary's Trilogies, 246-49. Here I employ the term "authority" and the term "authoritive" to refer to what one might call the voice of the text as a whole in contrast possible implicit charge of the parasitism of painting and images. I have to admit that I find Blake's words more interesting than his designs, but I also recognize that I am annoyed when art historians express the same preference by dismissing his designs. At the same time, literary critics, who have been defenders of Blake as a designer, submit his designs to literary readings. I have also to admit that I have myself employed the language of tropes to describe the relation I have spoken of- synecdoche-so that I have submitted the whole relation to a linguistic paradigm; perhaps this is inevitable, but at least I have tried to imply a relation of equality, or as Blake would have said, a contrary and not a ne- gation. V In critical interpretations specific titles or a writer's habit with titles are not often discussed or queried. This is not so surprising, perhaps, with respect to literary works titled before, say, the middle of the nineteenth century. Such titles are often simple synecdoches like most titles of por- traits. But the proliferation of odd and intriguing titles since then and their problematic relation to their texts suggest that it is time for greater atten- tion to them. There is another reason. Modem literature is witness to the development of a text that frequently seems obscure or powerfully ambiguous in meaning or in ethical significance. It is with respect to such texts that the relation of title to the rest of the text should be probed. The trilogies of Joyce Cary are examples of the interpretive problems I have mentioned. No one has discussed in any detail the relation of title to the rest of the text in Cary's trilogies. I confess that in my recent book on the trilogies I took them rather for granted-in spite of the fact that my argument implied that there was very little in Cary that could be taken for granted. The reason that the titles in Cary's trilogies loom so large is that the novels are all narrated by characters in the trilogies, and there is no other narrator or authoritive voice." This leaves the titles as tion, and Metaphor in the Visual Arts,"Journal ofAesthetics and Art Citicism 44, 2 (Winter 1985): 167-8: "If we hope to understand the peculiar kind of 'textuality' which pictures embody, we must stop thinking of resemblance and signification as mutually exclusive terms" (178). 17. Joyce Cary's Trilogies, 246-49. Here I employ the term "authority" and the term "authoritive" to refer to what one might call the voice of the text as a whole in contrast possible implicit charge of the parasitism of painting and images. I have to admit that I find Blake's words more interesting than his designs, but I also recognize that I am annoyed when art historians express the same preference by dismissing his designs. At the same time, literary critics, who have been defenders of Blake as a designer, submit his designs to literary readings. I have also to admit that I have myself employed the language of tropes to describe the relation I have spoken of- synecdoche-so that I have submitted the whole relation to a linguistic paradigm; perhaps this is inevitable, but at least I have tried to imply a relation of equality, or as Blake would have said, a contrary and not a ne- gation. V In critical interpretations specific titles or a writer's habit with titles are not often discussed or queried. This is not so surprising, perhaps, with respect to literary works titled before, say, the middle of the nineteenth century. Such titles are often simple synecdoches like most titles of por- traits. But the proliferation of odd and intriguing titles since then and their problematic relation to their texts suggest that it is time for greater atten- tion to them. There is another reason. Modern literature is witness to the development of a text that frequently seems obscure or powerfully ambiguous in meaning or in ethical significance. It is with respect to such texts that the relation of title to the rest of the text should be probed. The trilogies of Joyce Cary are examples of the interpretive problems I have mentioned. No one has discussed in any detail the relation of title to the rest of the text in Cary's trilogies. I confess that in my recent book on the trilogies I took them rather for granted-in spite of the fact that my argument implied that there was very little in Cary that could be taken for granted. The reason that the titles in Cary's trilogies loom so large is that the novels are all narrated by characters in the trilogies, and there is no other narrator or authoritive voice." This leaves the titles as ton, and Metaphor in the Visual Arts,"Journal ofAesthetics and Art Criticism 44, a (Winter 1985): 167-8o: "If we hope to understand the peculiar hod of 'textuality' which pictures embody, we must stop thinking of resemblance and signification as mutually exclusive terms" (178). 17. Joyce Cary's Trilogies, 246-49. Here I employ the term "authority" and the term "authoritive" to refer to what one might call the voice of the text as a whole in contrast  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 133 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 133 the only places where the authoritive voice may possibly speak directly. Before looking at Cary's titles, however, I should like to examine some- thing of the range of literary titles. It is possible to cover some of that range by examining four of James Joyce's quite different titles and then looking at the title of Blake's last long poem. The question of Ulysses is an especially interesting one. Some have said that if the book had not been so titled no one would ever have appre- hended the analogy to the Odyssey, on which so much interpretation de- pends, or rather anyone who had worked it out would have been regarded as having created an excessively ingenious interpretation. The statement is usually made in a way implying that there is something wrong with this, as if a title should be an obvious label that presents no interpretive problem. It is as if the title were not really part of the work and Joyce were somehow cheating the reader. Obviously, for the very reason that the analogy is not otherwise obvious, the title Ulysses is necessary to and part of the text. It implies a relation and demands a reading of the text with attention to that relation. In doing this it may raise as many ques- tions as it answers, but this is only bad if one demands texts which call for simple univocal readings. (Have such literary texts ever existed?) The title Ulysses is a synecdoche, but a synecdoche by analogy. Just what the relation of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus in another work is and why that relation is mediated by the Latin name "Ulysses" becomes a matter for speculation. The synecdoche implies the importance of the Ulysses fig- ure, and the relation encourages the search for a pattern of parallels to the Odyssey. The interesting question to ask is not what Ulysses is without its title. Its title is as much a part of it as Bloom. A more interesting ques- tion is what we would have found out by now had not Joyce, apparently concerned that even with the presence of the title we wouldn't get the point (as the Citizen failed to get Bloom's), decided he had better lay the groundwork for exegesis through his conversations with Stuart Gilbert and others. But this is still an idle question for our purposes. The relations are either constitutable or they are not. As I see it, the relation of title to text presents three possibilities in this case: (1) heroic parallel, (a) ironic parallel, and (3) a relation that is a secularization of typological reading. This must be mediated in some way by the presence of the Latin name. My sense is that all three play some role in our reading. We must begin with the heroic and epic parallel. Given the parallel it is impossible to avoid it. This is tempered by the ironic relation, which we are likely to to the voice of a narrator or the activity of an "arranger" on the one hand and the alleged views of the historical author on the other. the only places where the authoritive voice may possibly speak directly. Before looking at Cary's titles, however, I should like to examine some- thing of the range of literary titles. It is possible to cover some of that range by examining four of James Joyce's quite different titles and then looking at the title of Blake's last long poem. The question of Ulysses is an especially interesting one. Some have said that if the book had not been so titled no one would ever have appre- hended the analogy to the Odyssey, on which so much interpretation de- pends, or rather anyone who had worked it out would have been regarded as having created an excessively ingenious interpretation. The statement is usually made in a way implying that there is something wrong with this, as if a title should be an obvious label that presents no interpretive problem. It is as if the title were not really part of the work and Joyce were somehow cheating the reader. Obviously, for the very reason that the analogy is not otherwise obvious, the title Ulysses is necessary to and part of the text. It implies a relation and demands a reading of the text with attention to that relation. In doing this it may raise as many ques- tions as it answers, but this is only bad if one demands texts which call for simple univocal readings. (Have such literary texts ever existed?) The title Ulysses is a synecdoche, but a synecdoche by analogy. Just what the relation of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus in another work is and why that relation is mediated by the Latin name "Ulysses" becomes a matter for speculation. The synecdoche implies the importance of the Ulysses fig- ure, and the relation encourages the search for a pattern of parallels to the Odyssey. The interesting question to ask is not what Ulysses is without its title. Its title is as much a part of it as Bloom. A more interesting ques- tion is what we would have found out by now had not Joyce, apparently concerned that even with the presence of the title we wouldn't get the point (as the Citizen failed to get Bloom's), decided he had better lay the groundwork for exegesis through his conversations with Stuart Gilbert and others. But this is still an idle question for our purposes. The relations are either constitutable or they are not. As I see it, the relation of title to text presents three possibilities in this case: (1) heroic parallel, (2) ironic parallel, and (3) a relation that is a secularization of typological reading. This must be mediated in some way by the presence of the Latin name. My sense is that all three play some role in our reading. We must begin with the heroic and epic parallel. Given the parallel it is impossible to avoid it. This is tempered by the ironic relation, which we are likely to to the voice of a narrator or the activity of an "arranger" on the one hand and the alleged views of the historical author on the other. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 133 the only places where the authoritive voice may possibly speak directly. Before looking at Cary's titles, however, I should like to examine some- thing of the range of literary titles. It is possible to cover some of that range by examining four of James Joyce's quite different titles and then looking at the title of Blake's last long poem. The question of Ulysses is an especially interesting one. Some have said that if the book had not been so titled no one would ever have appre- hended the analogy to the Odyssey, on which so much interpretation de- pends, or rather anyone who had worked it out would have been regarded as having created an excessively ingenious interpretation. The statement is usually made in a way implying that there is something wrong with this, as if a title should be an obvious label that presents no interpretive problem. It is as if the title were not really part of the work and Joyce were somehow cheating the reader. Obviously, for the very reason that the analogy is not otherwise obvious, the title Ulysses is necessary to and part of the text. It implies a relation and demands a reading of the text with attention to that relation. In doing this it may raise as many ques- tions as it answers, but this is only bad if one demands texts which call for simple univocal readings. (Have such literary texts ever existed?) The title Ulysses is a synecdoche, but a synecdoche by analogy. Just what the relation of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus in another work is and why that relation is mediated by the Latin name "Ulysses" becomes a matter for speculation. The synecdoche implies the importance of the Ulysses fig- ure, and the relation encourages the search for a pattern of parallels to the Odyssey. The interesting question to ask is not what Ulysses is without its title. Its title is as much a part of it as Bloom. A more interesting ques- tion is what we would have found out by now had not Joyce, apparently concerned that even with the presence of the title we wouldn't get the point (as the Citizen failed to get Bloom's), decided he had better lay the groundwork for exegesis through his conversations with Stuart Gilbert and others. But this is still an idle question for our purposes. The relations are either constitutable or they are not. As I see it, the relation of title to text presents three possibilities in this case: (1) heroic parallel, (a) ironic parallel, and (3) a relation that is a secularization of typological reading. This must be mediated in some way by the presence of the Latin name. My sense is that all three play some role in our reading. We must begin with the heroic and epic parallel. Given the parallel it is impossible to avoid it. This is tempered by the ironic relation, which we are likely to to the voice of a narrator or the activity of an "arranger" on the one hand and the alleged views of the historical author on the other.  Antithetical Essays 134 Antithetical Essays 134 Antithetical Essays invite for a series of reasons involving the status of the Homeric writings in literary tradition. We discover numerous ironic parallels, such as Bloom's failing to score against the citizen with his point (in contrast to Odysseus with the Cyclops). But then, we notice, Bloom succeeds by causing a blind rage. But then, again, we notice that this does not help to effect his escape so much as his need to do so. Irony does not finally sufficiently explain this relation. It seems that perhaps the text is bringing down the Odyssey rather than bringing down itself and that Ulysses claims to be a fulfillment in the real world of something in some way in- complete from an earlier world-incomplete because not quite human. Bloom, Molly, and the others are certainly human. Bloom is a late-comer if he is the fulfillment of Odysseus, and this may account for the Latin title, which we could then regard as a sort of mediation between Odys- seus and Bloom. Ulysses is later than Odysseus and not Greek. Bloom is later than both and neither Greek nor Roman. Nor is Bloom quite categorizable in this way, being three-quarters Jewish and one-quarter Irish. Simply because Ulysses is belated, there is no reason to presume that it is governed principally by irony. The New Testament is not ironic by virtue of its relation to the Old. Indeed, in Christian readings it is the opposite, being fulfillment. Ulysses may be taken as the typological fulfill- ment of the secular, that is to say, literary Old Testament, the Odyssey. As a fulfillment, Bloom is real in a real world, Odysseus real but in a less real world. Bloom in this typological relation is a fulfillment of the unre- alized idea of the real in Homer's work. In a secular fulfillment irony might well give way to or be subsumed beneath comic exuberance; it ap- pears that the text's treatment of its subject by no means without its seri- ousness, might be described as exuberant rather than ironic. Joyce's Finnegans Wake provides a different kind of title, except that it too is synecdochic. The ballad known as "Finnegan's Wake" appears fragmentarily in the text, but the whole of the text represents a wake in a sense. (It is interesting that Joyce did not reveal the title of Finnegans Wake until he had completed the book, parts of it having been published as Work in Progress. Instead he challenged friends to guess it. The situa- tion is almost the opposite of the Ulysses one, where the problem is to guess the text, so to speak, from the title.) The title is an ambiguous pun and can be taken as a description of events in the text: a wake for Finnegan or Finnegans waking up or an arousal for all Finnegans, etc. This plurality mirrors the plurality of the text of which it is a part. The fact that the apostrophe is missing in "Finnegans" calls attention to the need consciously to read the apostrophe out of a title that appears to re- quire it. This means that it is also required that the trace of it remain. invite for a series of reasons involving the status of the Homeric writings in literary tradition. We discover numerous ironic parallels, such as Bloom's failing to score against the citizen with his point (in contrast to Odysseus with the Cyclops). But then, we notice, Bloom succeeds by causing a blind rage. But then, again, we notice that this does not help to effect his escape so much as his need to do so. Irony does not finally sufficiently explain this relation. It seems that perhaps the text is bringing down the Odyssey rather than bringing down itself and that Ulysses claims to be a fulfillment in the real world of something in some way in- complete from an earlier world-incomplete because not quite human. Bloom, Molly, and the others are certainly human. Bloom is a late-comer if he is the fulfillment of Odysseus, and this may account for the Latin title, which we could then regard as a sort of mediation between Odys- seus and Bloom. Ulysses is later than Odysseus and not Greek. Bloom is later than both and neither Greek nor Roman. Nor is Bloom quite categorizable in this way, being three-quarters Jewish and one-quarter Irish. Simply because Ulysses is belated, there is no reason to presume that it is governed principally by irony. The New Testament is not ironic by virtue of its relation to the Old. Indeed, in Christian readings it is the opposite, being fulfillment. Ulysses may be taken as the typological fulfill- ment of the secular, that is to say, literary Old Testament, the Odyssey. As a fulfillment, Bloom is real in a real world, Odysseus real but in a less real world. Bloom in this typological relation is a fulfillment of the unre- alized idea of the real in Homer's work. In a secular fulfillment irony might well give way to or be subsumed beneath comic exuberance; it ap- pears that the texts treatment of its subject by no means without its seri- ousness, might be described as exuberant rather than ironic. Joyce's Finnegans Wake provides a different kind of title, except that it too is synecdochic. The ballad known as "Finnegan's Wake" appears fragmentarily in the text, but the whole of the text represents a wake in a sense. (It is interesting that Joyce did not reveal the title of Finnegans Wake until he had completed the book, parts of it having been published as Work in Progress. Instead he challenged friends to guess it. The situa- tion is almost the opposite of the Ulysses one, where the problem is to guess the text, so to speak, from the title.) The title is an ambiguous pun and can be taken as a description of events in the text: a wake for Finnegan or Finnegans waking up or an arousal for all Finnegans, etc. This plurality mirrors the plurality of the text of which it is a part. The fact that the apostrophe is missing in "Finnegans" calls attention to the need consciously to read the apostrophe out of a title that appears to re- quire it. This means that it is also required that the trace of it remain. invite for a series of reasons involving the status of the Homeric writings in literary tradition. We discover numerous ironic parallels, such as Bloom's failing to score against the citizen with his point (in contrast to Odysseus with the Cyclops). But then, we notice, Bloom succeeds by causing a blind rage. But then, again, we notice that this does not help to effect his escape so much as his need to do so. Irony does not finally sufficiently explain this relation. It seems that perhaps the text is bringing down the Odyssey rather than bringing down itself and that Ulysses claims to be a fulfillment in the real world of something in some way in- complete from an earlier world-incomplete because not quite human. Bloom, Molly, and the others are certainly human. Bloom is a late-comer if he is the fulfillment of Odysseus, and this may account for the Latin title, which we could then regard as a sort of mediation between Odys- seus and Bloom. Ulysses is later than Odysseus and not Greek. Bloom is later than both and neither Greek nor Roman. Nor is Bloom quite categorizable in this way, being three-quarters Jewish and one-quarter Irish. Simply because Ulysses is belated, there is no reason to presume that it is governed principally by irony. The New Testament is not ironic by virtue of its relation to the Old. Indeed, in Christian readings it is the opposite, being fulfillment. Ulysses may be taken as the typological fulfill- ment of the secular, that is to say, literary Old Testament, the Odyssey. As a fulfillment, Bloom is real in a real world, Odysseus real but in a less real world. Bloom in this typological relation is a fulfillment of the unre- alized idea of the real in Homer's work. In a secular fulfillment irony might well give way to or be subsumed beneath comic exuberance; it ap- pears that the text's treatment of its subject by no means without its seri- ousness, might be described as exuberant rather than ironic. Joyce's Finnegans Wake provides a different kind of title, except that it too is synecdochic. The ballad known as "Finnegan's Wake" appears fragmentarily in the text, but the whole of the text represents a wake in a sense. (It is interesting that Joyce did not reveal the title of Finnegans Wake until he had completed the book, parts of it having been published as Work in Progress. Instead he challenged friends to guess it. The situa- tion is almost the opposite of the Ulysses one, where the problem is to guess the text, so to speak, from the title.) The title is an ambiguous pun and can be taken as a description of events in the text: a wake for Finnegan or Finnegans waking up or an arousal for all Finnegans, etc. This plurality mirrors the plurality of the text of which it is a part. The fact that the apostrophe is missing in "Finnegans" calls attention to the need consciously to read the apostrophe out of a title that appears to re- quire it. This means that it is also required that the trace of it remain.  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 135 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 135 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 135 Likewise the missing comma after "Finnegans" is a lingering trace. For- mally as well as thematically the title is in a synecdochic relation to the whole of the text of which it is a part and which it contains. By comparison to these later titles, Joyce's Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man seem relatively simple, but each neverthe- less establishes a certain relation it would be foolish to disregard. The for- mer, like the title of Richardson, indicates something like a portrait, an analogy to painting that seems to insist against Aristotle that character comes before plot. But Dubliners is a more general term than a proper name like Pamela or Clarissa, and this suggests that it is not a conven- tional portrait but a larger canvas with more than one figure. Indeed, the universal condition, as we read, is foregrounded, as the title, in its rela- tion to the rest of the text, seems to imply. All of the characters are clearly Dubliners, so much the worse for their individuality. One of the chapters of Dubliners is "The Dead," synecdoche of a synecdoche. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in spite of what appears straightforward, has an ambiguity that affects the whole of the text. Again the analogy is to painting. Were a painter to entitle a work in such a way, or were it to be so titled later on by someone else, we would know that a convention was being followed of titling self-portraits. There is a similar convention in literature, the parallel term being "autobiography." "Auto- biography," however, has a strongly temporal quality and usually implies a life seen temporally from near the beginning to some more recent point in time. "Portrait" does not. Instead it implies a moment, a stasis. The title of Joyce's book emphasizes this, even as that moment is drawn out over a period of youth. Further, a painter, according to the convention on which the title calls, would be young when he painted himself as young. There may be some exceptions to this-self-portraits from mem- ory or photographs, but I cannot think of any. In Joyce's book the "sitter" would be a memory, if we were to regard Stephen Dedalus as Joyce, but, of course, Stephen Dedalus is so named partly because he is not Joyce, though there is a possible twist on this that I shall discuss later. The title invites us to pursue the significance of these differences and the differ- ence from painting as well as the analogy to it. Blake's title Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion raises the question of what we might expect given the name of a city as the principal part of the title. Titles don't come at the ends or middles of texts, so the relation that we have been considering is always one involving expecta- tion, and expectation is so often in literature established in order to be violated in some way. Because Jerusalem is a city, one might expect possi- bly a map or aerial view or Baedecker to follow such a title, even though Likewise the missing comma after "Finnegans" is a lingering trace. For- mally as well as thematically the title is in a synecdochic relation to the whole of the text of which it is a part and which it contains. By comparison to these later titles, Joyce's Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man seem relatively simple, but each neverthe- less establishes a certain relation it would be foolish to disregard. The for- mer, like the title of Richardson, indicates something like a portrait, an analogy to painting that seems to insist against Aristotle that character comes before plot. But Dubliners is a more general term than a proper name like Pamela or Clarissa, and this suggests that it is not a conven- tional portrait but a larger canvas with more than one figure. Indeed, the universal condition, as we read, is foregrounded, as the title, in its rela- tion to the rest of the text, seems to imply. All of the characters are clearly Dubliners, so much the worse for their individuality. One of the chapters of Dubliners is "The Dead," synecdoche of a synecdoche. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in spite of what appears straightforward, has an ambiguity that affects the whole of the text. Again the analogy is to painting. Were a painter to entitle a work in such a way, or were it to be so titled later on by someone else, we would know that a convention was being followed of titling self-portraits. There is a similar convention in literature, the parallel term being "autobiography." "Auto- biography," however, has a strongly temporal quality and usually implies a life seen temporally from near the beginning to some more recent point in time. "Portrait" does not. Instead it implies a moment, a stasis. The title of Joyce's book emphasizes this, even as that moment is drawn out over a period of youth. Further, a painter, according to the convention on which the title calls, would be young when he painted himself as young. There may be some exceptions to this-self-portraits from mem- ory or photographs, but I cannot think of any. In Joyce's book the "sitter" would be a memory, if we were to regard Stephen Dedalus as Joyce, but, of course, Stephen Dedalus is so named partly because he is not Joyce, though there is a possible twist on this that I shall discuss later. The title invites us to pursue the significance of these differences and the differ- ence from painting as well as the analogy to it. Blake's title Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion raises the question of what we might expect given the name of a city as the principal part of the title. Titles don't come at the ends or middles of texts, so the relation that we have been considering is always one involving expecta- tion, and expectation is so often in literature established in order to be violated in some way. Because Jerusalem is a city, one might expect possi- bly a map or aerial view or Baedecker to follow such a title, even though Likewise the missing comma after "Finnegans" is a lingering trace. For- mally as well as thematically the title is in a synecdochic relation to the whole of the text of which it is a part and which it contains. By comparison to these later titles, Joyce's Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man seem relatively simple, but each neverthe- less establishes a certain relation it would be foolish to disregard. The for- mer, like the title of Richardson, indicates something like a portrait, an analogy to painting that seems to insist against Aristotle that character comes before plot. But Dubliners is a more general term than a proper name like Pamela or Clarissa, and this suggests that it is not a conven- tional portrait but a larger canvas with more than one figure. Indeed, the universal condition, as we read, is foregrounded, as the title, in its rela- tion to the rest of the text, seems to imply. All of the characters are clearly Dubliners, so much the worse for their individuality. One of the chapters of Dubliners is "The Dead," synecdoche of a synecdoche. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in spite of what appears straightforward, has an ambiguity that affects the whole of the text. Again the analogy is to painting. Were a painter to entitle a work in such a way, or were it to be so titled later on by someone else, we would know that a convention was being followed of titling self-portraits. There is a similar convention in literature, the parallel term being "autobiography." "Auto- biography," however, has a strongly temporal quality and usually implies a life seen temporally from near the beginning to some more recent point in time. "Portrait" does not. Instead it implies a moment, a stasis. The title of Joyce's book emphasizes this, even as that moment is drawn out over a period of youth. Further, a painter, according to the convention on which the title calls, would be young when he painted himself as young. There may be some exceptions to this-self-portraits from mem- ory or photographs, but I cannot think of any. In Joyce's book the "sitter" would be a memory, if we were to regard Stephen Dedalus as Joyce, but, of course, Stephen Dedalus is so named partly because he is not Joyce, though there is a possible twist on this that I shall discuss later. The title invites us to pursue the significance of these differences and the differ- ence from painting as well as the analogy to it. Blake's title Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion raises the question of what we might expect given the name of a city as the principal part of the title. Titles don't come at the ends or middles of texts, so the relation that we have been considering is always one involving expecta- tion, and expectation is so often in literature established in order to be violated in some way. Because Jerusalem is a city, one might expect possi- bly a map or aerial view or Baedecker to follow such a title, even though  Antithetical Essays 136 Antithetical Essays 136 Antithetical Essays this expectation is at least partially violated by the oddness of the rest of the title in connection with it. Further violations occur as we proceed into the text. We are given what appears to be a description of the spatial layout of the city, but the description violates our sense of spatial relations because certain spatial directional terms are idiosyncratically employed to create strange contradictions. Furthermore, the description that we thought we were going to read would be static like a picture, but the ver- bal part of the work (it is a composite work of course, and even the title is composite) constantly plays games with such suggestions of stasis. There is a sense in which the poem is a dramatization of a temporal build- ing of Jerusalem, which is seen, partly because always growing, as unmappable. The title, then, suggests a contrary to the rest of the text, but it is also a synecdoche, for the poem does offer a temporal Jerusalem. In addition to all of this, Jerusalem is also a woman, both young and old. The title might also be thought of as indicating an action if we take "ema- nation" to signify the act of emanating. The variety of titles we have observed in Joyce and Blake is but a small selection of what exists. Observation, however, has suggested that "syn- eedoche" is a better word than "label" to describe the relation of title to the rest of the work, that it is the relation that requires interpretation, and that this relation can be fruitfully ambiguous and deliberately chal- lenging. Titles are never merely proper names, but, like proper names as conceived of in some primitive societies, belong as a part to what they synecdochically designate or refer to. This relation, like the private name inadvertently disclosed to an enemy, can be perilous for its owner when it comes into the hands of an inattentive or careless reader. Joyce Cary's trilogies present a variety of titular relations, each of im- portance to the text, and each raising questions that have been at the heart of Cary criticism. The titles are: First Trilogy: Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth; Second Trilogy: Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More. As I have already indicated, each of these novels is narrated by a character in them. Each title is closely connected to the narrating character, and each is possibly an authoritive assertion. However, all "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake said of worth- while works, rather than simply explaining or acting as labels. Herself Surprised turns out in its relation to the text to be a challenge to the reader, even harboring a question or puzzle. It refers to the narrator and central character, indeed the pivotal character, of the First Trilogy, Sara Monday. As purely descriptive, like, say, a descriptive title of a painting, it implies a portrait of someone in the situation of being surprised, per- haps caught in the act. Generally we read "herself in a sentence as a this expectation is at least partially violated by the oddness of the rest of the title in connection with it. Further violations occur as we proceed into the text. We are given what appears to be a description of the spatial layout of the city, but the description violates our sense of spatial relations because certain spatial directional terms are idiosyncratically employed to create strange contradictions. Furthermore, the description that we thought we were going to read would be static like a picture, but the ver- bal part of the work (it is a composite work of course, and even the title is composite) constantly plays games with such suggestions of stasis. There is a sense in which the poem is a dramatization of a temporal build- ing of Jerusalem, which is seen, partly because always growing, as unmappable. The title, then, suggests a contrary to the rest of the text, but it is also a synecdoche, for the poem does offer a temporal Jerusalem. In addition to all of this, Jerusalem is also a woman, both young and old. The title might also be thought of as indicating an action if we take "ema- nation" to signify the act of emanating. The variety of titles we have observed in Joyce and Blake is but a small selection of what exists. Observation, however, has suggested that "syn- ecdoche" is a better word than "label" to describe the relation of title to the rest of the work, that it is the relation that requires interpretation, and that this relation can be fruitfully ambiguous and deliberately chal- lenging. Titles are never merely proper names, but, like proper names as conceived of in some primitive societies, belong as a part to what they synecdochically designate or refer to. This relation, like the private name inadvertently disclosed to an enemy, can be perilous for its owner when it comes into the hands of an inattentive or careless reader. Joyce Cary's trilogies present a variety of titular relations, each of im- portance to the text, and each raising questions that have been at the heart of Cary criticism. The titles are: First Trilogy: Herself Surprsed, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth; Second Trilogy: Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More. As I have already indicated, each of these novels is narrated by a character in them. Each title is closely connected to the narrating character, and each is possibly an authoritive assertion. However, all "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake said of worth- while works, rather than simply explaining or acting as labels. Herself Surprised turns out in its relation to the text to be a challenge to the reader, even harboring a question or puzzle. It refers to the narrator and central character, indeed the pivotal character, of the First Trilogy, Sara Monday. As purely descriptive, like, say, a descriptive title of a painting, it implies a portrait of someone in the situation of being surprised, per- haps caught in the act. Generally we read "herself' in a sentence as a this expectation is at least partially violated by the oddness of the rest of the title in connection with it. Further violations occur as we proceed into the text. We are given what appears to be a description of the spatial layout of the city, but the description violates our sense of spatial relations because certain spatial directional terms are idiosyncratically employed to create strange contradictions. Furthermore, the description that we thought we were going to read would be static like a picture, but the ver- bal part of the work (it is a composite work of course, and even the title is composite) constantly plays games with such suggestions of stasis. There is a sense in which the poem is a dramatization of a temporal build- ing of Jerusalem, which is seen, partly because always growing, as unmappable. The title, then, suggests a contrary to the rest of the text, but it is also a synecdoche, for the poem does offer a temporal Jerusalem. In addition to all of this, Jerusalem is also a woman, both young and old. The title might also be thought of as indicating an action if we take "ema- nation" to signify the act of emanating. The variety of titles we have observed in Joyce and Blake is but a small selection of what exists. Observation, however, has suggested that "syn- ecdoche" is a better word than "label" to describe the relation of title to the rest of the work, that it is the relation that requires interpretation, and that this relation can be fruitfully ambiguous and deliberately chal- lenging. Titles are never merely proper names, but, like proper names as conceived of in some primitive societies, belong as a part to what they synecdochically designate or refer to. This relation, like the private name inadvertently disclosed to an enemy, can be perilous for its owner when it comes into the hands of an inattentive or careless reader. Joyce Cary's trilogies present a variety of titular relations, each of im- portance to the text, and each raising questions that have been at the heart of Cary criticism. The titles are: First Trilogy: Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth; Second Trilogy: Prisoner ofGrace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More. As I have already indicated, each of these novels is narrated by a character in them. Each title is closely connected to the narrating character, and each is possibly an authoritive assertion. However, all "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake said of worth- while works, rather than simply explaining or acting as labels. Herself Surprised turns out in its relation to the text to be a challenge to the reader, even harboring a question or puzzle. It refers to the narrator and central character, indeed the pivotal character, of the First Trilogy, Sara Monday. As purely descriptive, like, say, a descriptive title of a painting, it implies a portrait of someone in the situation of being surprised, per- haps caught in the act. Generally we read "herself' in a sentence as a  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 137 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 137 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 137 reflexive object; we can read this title as something like "painted in the act of having surprised herself." But in some usage-the Irish, for example-"herself' is not employed only reflexively but also as a subject or a nonreflexive object. This makes the statement "She, herself, sur- prised." It provides the opposite of the earlier reading. In one she is the actor; in the other the acted-upon. Indeed, in this last reading there is the possibility of action if one reads it as she acting, but without the acted- upon named. The title challenges us, by its juxtaposition to the rest of the text, to try to understand in what senses Sara Monday surprises or is surprised, and who is involved in these situations of surprise. A single answer to such questions is less important than our having situated our- selves to ask. In the text Sara constantly tells of registering surprise at what she does, but there is another sense in which she, as narrator, is never really surprised at her actions. There is even, perhaps, a sense in which she is never surprised at being surprised. There is no doubt that she surprises others-particularly if misunderstanding is a form of sur- prise. To query surprise is eventually to locate Sara vis-b-vis the two other narrators of the First Trilogy. The second title To Be a Pilgrim is a quotation from one of Bunyan's hymns: What would true valor see, Let him come hither. All here will constant be Come wind, come weather. There's no discouragement Shall make him once repent His first avowed intent To be a pilgrim. The hymn looks with favor on pilgrimage in the largest spiritual sense. The titular phrase, with its infinitive construction, when separated from its context in the hymn, seems the first part of a question that would read "To be or not to be a pilgrim." Aye, in this novel that is the question, a question of ethical decision and becoming. With respect to the life of Tom Wilcher, as we see Wilcher apply it, it centers our attention on whether or not Wilcher becomes a pilgrim and if so in what sense. He does not, he says, think that he has become one; it is we, however, who are invited to decide. This involves determining what "pilgrim" possibly means, including whether success involves reaching a destination or keeping a certain ideal destination in mind, and so forth. We note that reflexive object; we can read this title as something like "painted in the act of having surprised herself" But in some usage-the Irish, for example-"herself' is not employed only reflexively but also as a subject or a nonreflexive object. This makes the statement "She, herself, sur- prised." It provides the opposite of the earlier reading. In one she is the actor; in the other the acted-upon. Indeed, in this last reading there is the possibility of action if one reads it as she acting, but without the acted- upon named. The title challenges us, by its juxtaposition to the rest of the text, to try to understand in what senses Sara Monday surprises or is surprised, and who is involved in these situations of surprise. A single answer to such questions is less important than our having situated our- selves to ask. In the text Sara constantly tells of registering surprise at what she does, but there is another sense in which she, as narrator, is never really surprised at her actions. There is even, perhaps, a sense in which she is never surprised at being surprised. There is no doubt that she surprises others-particularly if misunderstanding is a form of sur- prise. To query surprise is eventually to locate Sara vis-A-vis the two other narrators of the First Trilogy. The second title To Be a Pilgrim is a quotation from one of Bunyan's hymns: What would true valor see, Let him come hither. All here will constant be Come wind, come weather. There's no discouragement Shall make him once repent His first avowed intent To be a pilgrim. The hymn looks with favor on pilgrimage in the largest spiritual sense. The titular phrase, with its infinitive construction, when separated from its context in the hymn, seems the first part of a question that would read "To be or not to be a pilgrim." Aye, in this novel that is the question, a question of ethical decision and becoming. With respect to the life of Tom Wilcher, as we see Wilcher apply it, it centers our attention on whether or not Wilcher becomes a pilgrim and if so in what sense. He does not, he says, think that he has become one; it is we, however, who are invited to decide. This involves determining what "pilgrim" possibly means, including whether success involves reaching a destination or keeping a certain ideal destination in mind, and so forth. We note that reflexive object; we can read this title as something like "painted in the act of having surprised herself" But in some usage-the Irish, for example-"herself' is not employed only reflexively but also as a subject or a nonreflexive object. This makes the statement "She, herself, sur- prised." It provides the opposite of the earlier reading. In one she is the actor; in the other the acted-upon. Indeed, in this last reading there is the possibility of action if one reads it as she acting, but without the acted- upon named. The title challenges us, by its juxtaposition to the rest of the text, to try to understand in what senses Sara Monday surprises or is surprised, and who is involved in these situations of surprise. A single answer to such questions is less important than our having situated our- selves to ask. In the text Sara constantly tells of registering surprise at what she does, but there is another sense in which she, as narrator, is never really surprised at her actions. There is even, perhaps, a sense in which she is never surprised at being surprised. There is no doubt that she surprises others-particularly if misunderstanding is a form of sur- prise. To query surprise is eventually to locate Sara vis-A-vis the two other narrators of the First Trilogy. The second title To Be a Pilgrim is a quotation from one of Bunyan's hymns: What would true valor see, Let him come hither. All here will constant be Come wind, come weather. There's no discouragement Shall make him once repent His first avowed intent To be a pilgrim. The hymn looks with favor on pilgrimage in the largest spiritual sense. The titular phrase, with its infinitive construction, when separated from its context in the hymn, seems the first part of a question that would read "To be or not to be a pilgrim." Aye, in this novel that is the question, a question of ethical decision and becoming. With respect to the life of Tom Wilcher, as we see Wilcher apply it, it centers our attention on whether or not Wilcher becomes a pilgrim and if so in what sense. He does not, he says, think that he has become one; it is we, however, who are invited to decide. This involves determining what "pilgrim" possibly means, including whether success involves reaching a destination or keeping a certain ideal destination in mind, and so forth. We note that  Antithetical Essays 138 Antithetical Essays 138 Antithetical Essays the title implies a considerably larger amount of spiritual purposiveness in Wilcher than in Sara Monday. In trilogies, titles are in relation to other titles as well as to the texts to which they belong. In the First Trilogy we detect with respect to the relation of titles a definite development. Herself Surprised implies a low degree of conscious purpose. To Be a Pilgrim suggests search for identity and perhaps impending transition. The Horse's Mouth, being a figure for the source of truth (of some kind), implies in its straightforwardness a source of some kind somewhere. Yet this title, more than the other two, challenges the reader not to be misled; though Gulley Jimson seems the most authoritative of the three narrators, the title remains in a curious relation to what Jimson does and experiences. It forces us to consider mat- ters that we might not otherwise dwell on-and many critics of Cary have not dwelt on-if we ask ourselves constantly through the text "Is this from the horse's mouth, and if not why not?" If this question is asked, the book becomes much darker than some critics have imagined it, and we must conclude that Cary has truly "roused the faculties to act." This, in turn, becomes some of the ethical intent of the trilogy-an intent too often overlooked because displaced from where ethical content is usually sought. The three titles of the Second Trilogy-Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More-have a curious and subtle relation that is connected with the relation each has to its own text. The second and third are quotations; the first, to my knowledge, is not; and it is the first that most directly expresses, or as we may say, labels a theme of the trilogy, which is bondage. This plays subtly through the other two novels. Except the Lord from Psalm 127 leads us back into that psalm to find the awful irony of Chester Nimmo's familial life: Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it; Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord. But also it plays with the notion of dependence and even perhaps of spiri- tual determinism that could turn what is intended as liberation into bond- age, as it seems to do in Nimmo's case. Out of its context in the psalm, where it means "unless the Lord," the phrase introduces an ambiguity, which is a common device of those who make titles out of quotations from other works. To except the Lord could be to leave the Lord out, and that raises a legitimate question about Nimmo, who, incidentally, becomes a temporal lord late in life. It is one that Nimmo himself is aware of at the title implies a considerably larger amount of spiritual purposiveness in Wilcher than in Sara Monday. In trilogies, titles are in relation to other titles as well as to the texts to which they belong. In the First Trilogy we detect with respect to the relation of titles a definite development. Herself Surprised implies a low degree of conscious purpose. To Be a Pilgrim suggests search for identity and perhaps impending transition. The Horse's Mouth, being a figure for the source of truth (of some kind), implies in its straightforwardness a source of some kind somewhere. Yet this title, more than the other two, challenges the reader not to be misled; though Gulley Jimson seems the most authoritative of the three narrators, the title remains in a curious relation to what Jimson does and experiences. It forces us to consider mat- ters that we might not otherwise dwell on-and many critics of Cary have not dwelt on-if we ask ourselves constantly through the text "Is this from the horse's mouth, and if not why not?" If this question is asked, the book becomes much darker than some critics have imagined it, and we must conclude that Cary has truly "roused the faculties to act." This, in turn, becomes some of the ethical intent of the trilogy-an intent too often overlooked because displaced from where ethical content is usually sought. The three titles of the Second Trilogy-Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More-have a curious and subtle relation that is connected with the relation each has to its own text. The second and third are quotations; the first, to my knowledge, is not; and it is the first that most directly expresses, or as we may say, labels a theme of the trilogy, which is bondage. This plays subtly through the other two novels. Except the Lord from Psalm 127 leads us back into that psalm to find the awful irony of Chester Nimmo's familial life: Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it; Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord. But also it plays with the notion of dependence and even perhaps of spiri- tual determinism that could turn what is intended as liberation into bond- age, as it seems to do in Nimmo's case. Out of its context in the psalm, where it means "unless the Lord," the phrase introduces an ambiguity, which is a common device of those who make titles out of quotations from other works. To except the Lord could be to leave the Lord out, and that raises a legitimate question about Nimmo, who, incidentally, becomes a temporal lord late in life. It is one that Nimmo himself is aware of at the title implies a considerably larger amount of spiritual purposiveness in Wilcher than in Sara Monday. In trilogies, titles are in relation to other titles as well as to the texts to which they belong. In the First Trilogy we detect with respect to the relation of titles a definite development. Herself Surprised implies a low degree of conscious purpose. To Be a Pilgrim suggests search for identity and perhaps impending transition. The Horse's Mouth, being a figure for the source of truth (of some kind), implies in its straightforwardness a source of some kind somewhere. Yet this title, more than the other two, challenges the reader not to be misled; though Gulley Jimson seems the most authoritative of the three narrators, the title remains in a curious relation to what Jimson does and experiences. It forces us to consider mat- ters that we might not otherwise dwell on-and many critics of Cary have not dwelt on-if we ask ourselves constantly through the text "Is this from the horse's mouth, and if not why not?" If this question is asked, the book becomes much darker than some critics have imagined it, and we must conclude that Cary has truly "roused the faculties to act." This, in turn, becomes some of the ethical intent of the trilogy-an intent too often overlooked because displaced from where ethical content is usually sought. The three titles of the Second Trilogy-Prisoner of Grace, Except the Lord, and Not Honour More-have a curious and subtle relation that is connected with the relation each has to its own text. The second and third are quotations; the first, to my knowledge, is not; and it is the first that most directly expresses, or as we may say, labels a theme of the trilogy, which is bondage. This plays subtly through the other two novels. Except the Lord from Psalm 127 leads us back into that psalm to find the awful irony of Chester Nimmo's familial life: Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it; Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord. But also it plays with the notion of dependence and even perhaps of spiri- tual determinism that could turn what is intended as liberation into bond- age, as it seems to do in Nimmo's case. Out of its context in the psalm, where it means "unless the Lord," the phrase introduces an ambiguity, which is a common device of those who make titles out of quotations from other works. To except the Lord could be to leave the Lord out, and that raises a legitimate question about Nimmo, who, incidentally, becomes a temporal lord late in life. It is one that Nimmo himself is aware of at  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 139 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 139 times. In any event the whole question of freedom is raised by the rela- tion of the title to the text as a whole. The same is true of Not Honour More, taken from the famous poem by Richard Lovelace. This terrible story, the last statement of Jim Latter before his trial for murder and the grim conclusion of a trilogy much concerned with questions about free- dom, has a relation to its title that the title has foreshadowed by its possi- ble ambiguity. Lovelace's lines go, I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov'd I not Honour more. The truncation provides, like that of Except the Lord, something of a puz- zle by virtue of being a fragment. The phrase out of Lovelace's context suggests, but does not demand, possible completions: "Not honour any more"; "No more honour"; "No more honour, please"; "No possibility of more honour than that." These are traces when we examine the rela- tion of the phrase (recalling the poem as Latter invites us to) to the text and consider that Latter's tragedy may involve, in addition to honoring honor more than love, too much honor or a corrupted sense ofit or the in- ability to understand when to make a public display of it-and when not to. Latter might also be regarded as a prisoner of honor, as Nina Lat- ter, in the first novel of the Second Trilogy, is apparently a prisoner of grace. As in the First Trilogy, the first title Prisoner of Grace seems a little simpler than the two later ones. That does not make it very simple, but it does not begin in our minds as part of a quotation only to be cut free (but not entirely free) from it. It is quite obviously a paradox to be worked out in the text, grace being usually identified with a sort of freedom. But "grace" seems to have more than one meaning when it is seen in relation to the text as a whole. It refers to Nina's beauty, but it also refers to Nimmo's view of her. For him, she has also grace in the religious sense of being favored by God, and this causes Nimmo to worship her, but his worship binds her to him and imprisons both of them. The concept of grace also has some association with fate and predestination, and one senses in Nina a certain odd passivity about her life, which she seems to employ as an excuse. Finally in one of the appearances of the word in the New Testament (Jude, 4) "grace" is described as having been turned into "lasciviousness" by "certain men crept in unawares." If the title alludes to this it supports to some extent Latter's view of Nimmo. The challenge of the title is to apprehend the relation of its paradox and ambiguity to the events of Nina's life as she has presented them. times. In any event the whole question of freedom is raised by the rela- tion of the title to the text as a whole. The same is true of Not Honour More, taken from the famous poem by Richard Lovelace. This terrible story, the last statement of Jim Latter before his trial for murder and the grim conclusion of a trilogy much concerned with questions about free- dom, has a relation to its title that the title has foreshadowed by its possi- ble ambiguity. Lovelace's lines go, I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov'd I not Honour more. The truncation provides, like that of Except the Lord, something of a puz- zle by virtue of being a fragment. The phrase out of Lovelace's context suggests, but does not demand, possible completions: "Not honour any more"; "No more honour"; "No more honour, please"; "No possibility of more honour than that." These are traces when we examine the rela- tion of the phrase (recalling the poem as Latter invites us to) to the text and consider that Latter's tragedy may involve, in addition to honoring honor more than love, too much honor or a corrupted sense of it or the in- ability to understand when to make a public display of it-and when not to. Latter might also be regarded as a prisoner of honor, as Nina Lat- ter, in the first novel of the Second Trilogy, is apparently a prisoner of grace. As in the First Trilogy, the first title Prisoner of Grace seems a little simpler than the two later ones. That does not make it very simple, but it does not begin in our minds as part of a quotation only to be cut free (but not entirely free) from it. It is quite obviously a paradox to be worked out in the text, grace being usually identified with a sort of freedom. But "grace" seems to have more than one meaning when it is seen in relation to the text as a whole. It refers to Nina's beauty, but it also refers to Nimmo's view of her. For him, she has also grace in the religious sense of being favored by God, and this causes Nimmo to worship her, but his worship binds her to him and imprisons both of them. The concept of grace also has some association with fate and predestination, and one senses in Nina a certain odd passivity about her life, which she seems to employ as an excuse. Finally in one of the appearances of the word in the New Testament (Jude, 4) "grace" is described as having been turned into "lasciviousness" by "certain men crept in unawares." If the title alludes to this it supports to some extent Latter's view of Nimmo. The challenge of the title is to apprehend the relation of its paradox and ambiguity to the events of Nina's life as she has presented them. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To r39 times. In any event the whole question of freedom is raised by the rela- tion of the title to the text as a whole. The same is true of Not Honour More, taken from the famous poem by Richard Lovelace. This terrible story, the last statement of Jim Latter before his trial for murder and the grim conclusion of a trilogy much concerned with questions about free- dom, has a relation to its title that the title has foreshadowed by its possi- ble ambiguity. Lovelace's lines go, I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov'd I not Honour more. The truncation provides, like that of Except the Lord, something of a puz- zle by virtue of being a fragment. The phrase out of Lovelace's context suggests, but does not demand, possible completions: "Not honour any more"; "No more honour"; "No more honour, please"; "No possibility of more honour than that." These are traces when we examine the rela- tion of the phrase (recalling the poem as Latter invites us to) to the text and consider that Latter's tragedy may involve, in addition to honoring honor more than love, too much honor or a corrupted sense of it or the in- ability to understand when to make a public display of it-and when not to. Latter might also be regarded as a prisoner of honor, as Nina Lat- ter, in the first novel of the Second Trilogy, is apparently a prisoner of grace. As in the First Trilogy, the first title Prisoner of Grace seems a little simpler than the two later ones. That does not make it very simple, but it does not begin in our minds as part of a quotation only to be cut free (but not entirely free) from it. It is quite obviously a paradox to be worked out in the text, grace being usually identified with a sort of freedom. But "grace" seems to have more than one meaning when it is seen in relation to the text as a whole. It refers to Nina's beauty, but it also refers to Nimmo's view of her. For him, she has also grace in the religious sense of being favored by God, and this causes Nimmo to worship her, but his worship binds her to him and imprisons both of them. The concept of grace also has some association with fate and predestination, and one senses in Nina a certain odd passivity about her life, which she seems to employ as an excuse. Finally in one of the appearances of the word in the New Testament (Jude, 4) "grace" is described as having been turned into "lasciviousness" by "certain men crept in unawares." If the title alludes to this it supports to some extent Latter's view of Nimmo. The challenge of the title is to apprehend the relation of its paradox and ambiguity to the events of Nina's life as she has presented them.  Antithetical Essays 140 Antithetical Essays 140 Antithetical Essays There is also greater simplicity here (though not much) in that the title is clearly a description of Nina more in the form of a label than any of the others. This may be because Nina appears to be, of all the narrating characters, the most fated, or at least she thinks that she is, thus the least in action and susceptible to static description. This reading is generated, of course, by reading the relation to the other titles. In any case, as Cary's trilogies develop, the titles and their relation to the text become more complex. What is the nature of these apparently authoritive assertions? Obvi- ously they are not direct. They embody paradox and ambiguity. They do not allow us to solve, let us say, the ethical stance of Cary's novels in the sense that they offer interpretations of the characters that enable us to make simple judgments resolving possible opposing views. Rather, they challenge us to consider a range of possibilities. This range is limited by the titles, in a sense, but it remains a field for decision by us. This, in itself, displaces the ethical situation from the frequently expected one of the didactic to our decision, and when this happens we have to pay far greater attention, not only to the text before us but also to our habitual responses. We may be inclined quite properly to say to even the most satisfactory reading we have found, "Yes, but. . . ." VI It is a matter of some interest whether literary titles, because they may have significance as perhaps the only direct utterances of the text's au- thority, possess a special status that titles of other works of art do not. Insofar as they are somehow beyond the narration, or surrounding it, or containing it, they seem to. It is their relation to the rest of the text that must be read. With respect to paintings the relation must also be read, but titles of paintings have no more and no less authoritive power than the rest of the work, for paintings do not impose a narrator between the authoritive title and the events or scene depicted. The Latin titulus in the Lindisfarne Gospel refers, as I have said, to the inscription on the cross above Jesus' head. So, very early in the his- tory of the idea of title, it is associated with an ironic relation to the object denoted. This is a form of association many authors have carried forward, especially where quotations from previous works have been employed. In the title given ironically to Jesus is also the lesson that in life a title is always uttered from a certain point of view. In life when titles are as- There is also greater simplicity heere (though not much) in that the title is clearly a description of Nina more in the form of a label than any of the others. This may be because Nina appears to be, of all the narrating characters, the most fated, or at least she thinks that she is, thus the least in action and susceptible to static description. This reading is generated, of course, by reading the relation to the other titles. In any case, as Cary's trilogies develop, the titles and their relation to the text become more complex. What is the nature of these apparently authoritive assertions? Obvi- ously they are not direct. They embody paradox and ambiguity. They do not allow us to solve, let us say, the ethical stance of Cary's novels in the sense that they offer interpretations of the characters that enable us to make simple judgments resolving possible opposing views. Rather, they challenge us to consider a range of possibilities. This range is limited by the titles, in a sense, but it remains a field for decision by us. This, in itself, displaces the ethical situation from the frequently expected one of the didactic to our decision, and when this happens we have to pay far greater attention, not only to the text before us but also to our habitual responses. We may be inclined quite properly to say to even the most satisfactory reading we have found, "Yes, but. ..." VI It is a matter of some interest whether literary titles, because they may have significance as perhaps the only direct utterances of the text's au- thority, possess a special status that titles of other works of art do not. Insofar as they are somehow beyond the narration, or surrounding it, or containing it, they seem to. It is their relation to the rest of the text that must be read. With respect to paintings the relation must also be read, but titles of paintings have no more and no less authoritive power than the rest of the work, for paintings do not impose a narrator between the authoritive title and the events or scene depicted. The Latin titulus in the Lindisfarne Gospel refers, as I have said, to the inscription on the cross above Jesus' head. So, very early in the his- tory of the idea of title, it is associated with an ironic relation to the object denoted. This is a form of association many authors have carried forward, especially where quotations from previous works have been employed. In the title given ironically to Jesus is also the lesson that in life a title is always uttered from a certain point of view. In life when titles are as- There is also greater simplicity here (though not much) in that the title is clearly a description of Nina more in the form of a label than any of the others. This may be because Nina appears to be, of all the narrating characters, the most fated, or at least she thinks that she is, thus the least in action and susceptible to static description. This reading is generated, of course, by reading the relation to the other titles. In any case, as Cary's trilogies develop, the titles and their relation to the text become more complex. What is the nature of these apparently authoritive assertions? Obvi- ously they are not direct. They embody paradox and ambiguity. They do not allow us to solve, let us say, the ethical stance of Cary's novels in the sense that they offer interpretations of the characters that enable us to make simple judgments resolving possible opposing views. Rather, they challenge us to consider a range of possibilities. This range is limited by the titles, in a sense, but it remains a field for decision by us. This, in itself, displaces the ethical situation from the frequently expected one of the didactic to our decision, and when this happens we have to pay far greater attention, not only to the text before us but also to our habitual responses. We may be inclined quite properly to say to even the most satisfactory reading we have found, "Yes, but. . . ." VI It is a matter of some interest whether literary titles, because they may have significance as perhaps the only direct utterances of the text's au- thority, possess a special status that titles of other works of art do not. Insofar as they are somehow beyond the narration, or surrounding it, or containing it, they seem to. It is their relation to the rest of the text that must be read. With respect to paintings the relation must also be read, but titles of paintings have no more and no less authoritive power than the rest of the work, for paintings do not impose a narrator between the authoritive title and the events or scene depicted. The Latin titulus in the Lindisfarne Gospel refers, as I have said, to the inscription on the cross above Jesus' head. So, very early in the his- tory of the idea of title, it is associated with an ironic relation to the object denoted. This is a form of association many authors have carried forward, especially where quotations from previous works have been employed. In the title given ironically to Jesus is also the lesson that in life a title is always uttered from a certain point of view. In life when titles are as-  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 141 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 141 Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To signed to people they are but one title in many that a person may have. They are, we might say, perspectival labels and always reflect a relation between their giver and recipient. The situation with titles of works of art is different. They are not perspectival. There is but one title to a work-with some obvious exceptions that need not detain us very long here: for example, works whose titles are in dispute, works whose titles have been changed for a different market, or works whose titles do not translate easily and are changed in translation to retain something like the original sense, and works with two titles which are, of course, really one title after all. The reason that titles are not perspectival is that they are free of the historical author's perspective and are part of a relation between the text's authority and its parts. Nor are titles of texts titles in the sense of deeds of ownership. The relation of title to text may be ambiguous or undecidable, but it is also, once finally decided on by an author, unchanging. No one can come along now and change the title of Ulysses to Aeneas. That would be only an inter- pretation. I have observed that titles don't come at ends or middles of texts, but even here there must be a qualification made, for in Finnegans Wake that convention is partially disrupted. In Finnegans Wake, the first sentence is a continuation of the last. Is it possible to insert the title in that sen- tence at the point at which the Viconian cycle comes around full circle and begins again? "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake riverrun, past Eve and Adam's. . . ." It would then signal the cyclic rea- wakening. What about including, as it reads on the title-page, "James Joyce": "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake James Joyce riverrun, past Eve and Adam's . . ," where the Finnegans wake James Joyce? (Has the author performed his own wake?) This would not be the first time that the author's name, or at least a diminutive of it, has appeared in one of Joyce's books. There is that odd moment in Ulysses when Molly Bloom inadvertently addresses the author: "O Jamesy, let me up out of this" (633:1125-29), along with a remark she makes that seems to criticize the text she is in: "I don't like books with a Molly in them" (622:657-58)"t Molly's inadvertent call to Jamesy makes Jamesy into a character in the text, just as the inclusion of the name of James Joyce in the title, seen as part of the text, does. This means that this character is encompassed by the text's authority, perhaps as its arranger, another Ulysses in it. The 18. The lines cited refer to James Joyce, Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler (New York: Vintage Books, 1986). signed to people they are but one title in many that a person may have. They are, we might say, perspectival labels and always reflect a relation between their giver and recipient. The situation with titles of works of art is different. They are not perspectival. There is but one title to a work-with some obvious exceptions that need not detain us very long here: for example, works whose titles are in dispute, works whose titles have been changed for a different market, or works whose titles do not translate easily and are changed in translation to retain something like the original sense, and works with two titles which are, of course, really one title after all. The reason that titles are not perspectival is that they are free of the historical author's perspective and are part of a relation between the text's authority and its parts. Nor are titles of texts titles in the sense of deeds of ownership. The relation of title to text may be ambiguous or undecidable, but it is also, once finally decided on by an author, unchanging. No one can come along now and change the title of Ulysses to Aeneas. That would be only an inter- pretation. I have observed that titles don't come at ends or middles of texts, but even here there must be a qualification made, for in Finnegans Wake that convention is partially disrupted. In Finnegans Wake, the first sentence is a continuation of the last. Is it possible to insert the title in that sen- tence at the point at which the Viconian cycle comes around full circle and begins again? "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake riverrun, past Eve and Adam's. . . ." It would then signal the cyclic rea- wakening. What about including, as it reads on the title-page, "James Joyce": "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake James Joyce riverrun, past Eve and Adam's . ," where the Finnegans wake James Joyce? (Has the author performed his own wake?) This would not be the first time that the author's name, or at least a diminutive of it, has appeared in one of Joyce's books. There is that odd moment in Ulysses when Molly Bloom inadvertently addresses the author: "0 Jamesy, let me up out of this" (633:1125-29), along with a remark she makes that seems to criticize the text she is in: "I don't like books with a Molly in them" (622:657-58) Molly's inadvertent call to Jamesy makes Jamesy into a character in the text, just as the inclusion of the name of James Joyce in the title, seen as part of the text, does. This means that this character is encompassed by the text's authority, perhaps as its arranger, another Ulysses in it. The 18. The lines cited refer to James Joyce, Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler (New York: Vintage Books, 1986). signed to people they are but one title in many that a person may have. They are, we might say, perspectival labels and always reflect a relation between their giver and recipient. The situation with titles of works of art is different. They are not perspectival. There is but one title to a work-with some obvious exceptions that need not detain us very long here: for example, works whose titles are in dispute, works whose titles have been changed for a different market, or works whose titles do not translate easily and are changed in translation to retain something like the original sense, and works with two titles which are, of course, really one title after all. The reason that titles are not perspectival is that they are free of the historical author's perspective and are part of a relation between the text's authority and its parts. Nor are titles of texts titles in the sense of deeds of ownership. The relation of title to text may be ambiguous or undecidable, but it is also, once finally decided on by an author, unchanging. No one can come along now and change the title of Ulysses to Aeneas. That would be only an inter- pretation. I have observed that titles don't come at ends or middles of texts, but even here there must be a qualification made, for in Finnegans Wake that convention is partially disrupted. In Finnegans Wake, the first sentence is a continuation of the last. Is it possible to insert the title in that sen- tence at the point at which the Viconian cycle comes around full circle and begins again? "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake riverrun, past Eve and Adam's. . . ." It would then signal the cyclic rea- wakening. What about including, as it reads on the title-page, "James Joyce": "A way a lone a last a loved a long the Finnegans Wake James Joyce riverrun, past Eve and Adam's . . .," where the Finnegans wake James Joyce? (Has the author performed his own wake?) This would not be the first time that the author's name, or at least a diminutive of it, has appeared in one of Joyce's books. There is that odd moment in Ulysses when Molly Bloom inadvertently addresses the author: "O Jamesy, let me up out of this" (633:1125-29), along with a remark she makes that seems to criticize the text she is in: "I don't like books with a Molly in them" (622:657-58)"" Molly's inadvertent call to Jamesy makes Jamesy into a character in the text, just as the inclusion of the name of James Joyce in the title, seen as part of the text, does. This means that this character is encompassed by the text's authority, perhaps as its arranger, another Ulysses in it. The 18. The lines cited refer to James Joyce, Ulysses, ed. Hans Walter Gabler (New York: Vintage Books, 1986).  142 Antithetical Essays title-page of Ulysses can be read as an appositive: "James Joyce Ulysses," Joyce now being his work and the supreme performer in it. But it is implied in Ulysses that it is Stephen Dedalus who is going to be the real author of Dubliners and by implication of Joyce's later works as well. Have we had it backwards? Is James Joyce the pseudonym of Ste- phen Dedalus? Is this James Joyce a projection of Dedalus' imagination as Jamesy and, beneath consciousness, as the disreputable Shem (Jim), author of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles" (179:26-27)? If this is so, then fiction has turned inside out and nature outside in, and the title in its larger synecdochic sense including the name of the fictive author is part of the text, but also the whole of it, certainly all of the author we can find. A new circle, it appears, may have to be drawn to include such a fictive author, an author apart from or involved in the text, depending on how we constitute the author and the text: apartfrom if we content ourselves with constituting a past historical James Joyce, who will occupy his biogra- phies. I do not see this new circle as containing authority, but rather I draw it as follows, whirling off from authority always to return to it but not to affect it directly: Antithetical Essays 142 Antithetical Essays title-page of Ulysses can be read as an appositive: "James Joyce Ulysses," Joyce now being his work and the supreme performer in it. But it is implied in Ulysses that it is Stephen Dedalus who is going to be the real author of Dubliners and by implication of Joyce's later works as well. Have we had it backwards? Is James Joyce the pseudonym of Ste- phen Dedalus? Is this James Joyce a projection of Dedalus' imagination as Jamesy and, beneath consciousness, as the disreputable Shem (Jim), author of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles" (179:26-27)? If this is so, then fiction has turned inside out and nature outside in, and the title in its larger synecdochic sense including the name of the fictive author is part of the text, but also the whole of it, certainly all of the author we can find. A new circle, it appears, may have to be drawn to include such a fictive author, an author apart from or involved in the text, depending on how we constitute the author and the text: apartfrom if we content ourselves with constituting a past historical James Joyce, who will occupy his biogra- phies. I do not see this new circle as containing authority, but rather I draw it as follows, whirling off from authority always to return to it but not to affect it directly: title-page of Ulysses can be read as an appositive: "James Joyce Ulysses," Joyce now being his work and the supreme performer in it. But it is implied in Ulysses that it is Stephen Dedalus who is going to be the real author of Dubliners and by implication of Joyce's later works as well. Have we had it backwards? Is James Joyce the pseudonym of Ste- phen Dedalus? Is this James Joyce a projection of Dedalus' imagination as Jamesy and, beneath consciousness, as the disreputable Shem (Jim), author of the "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles" (179:26-27)? If this is so, then fiction has turned inside out and nature outside in, and the title in its larger synecdochic sense including the name of the fictive author is part of the text, but also the whole of it, certainly all of the author we can find. A new circle, it appears, may have to be drawn to include such a fictive author, an author apart from or involved in the text, depending on how we constitute the author and the text: apart from if we content ourselves with constituting a past historical James Joyce, who will occupy his biogra- phies. I do not see this new circle as containing authority, but rather I draw it as follows, whirling off from authority always to return to it but not to affect it directly: Involved in the text, we are inclined to identify the author with the text's authority. But even with the author's name on the title-page, taken as part of the text, and thus part of the fiction, we must hunt for this character only in the text. In Ulysses, we perhaps discover Jamesy in the "arranger" figure, Joyce having anticipated and indeed planned our search. On the title-page of Joyce's last book we read "Finnegans Wake James Joyce." which we can interpret as a metaphorical relation or a sentence with a subject, verb, and predicate object. Of course, the trace of "by" remains. If it were there, we could declare a metonymical relation be- tween the two entities, claiming that one standing by the other is also a standing for it: Joyce as his book, or rather the book as Joyce. It may well be that a title stands at a juncture, which some might call a chasm, Involved in the text, we are inclined to identify the author with the text's authority. But even with the author's name on the title-page, taken as part of the text, and thus part of the fiction, we must hunt for this character only in the text. In Ulysses, we perhaps discover Jamesy in the 'arranger" figure, Joyce having anticipated and indeed planned our search. On the title-page of Joyce's last book we read 'Finnegans Wake James Joyce." which we can interpret as a metaphorical relation or a sentence with a subject, verb, and predicate object. Of course, the trace of "by" remains. If it were there, we could declare a metonymical relation be- tween the two entities, claiming that one standing by the other is also a standing for it: Joyce as his book, or rather the book as Joyce. It may well be that a title stands at a juncture, which some might call a chasm, Involved in the text, we are inclined to identify the author with the text's authority. But even with the author's name on the title-page, taken as part of the text, and thus part of the fiction, we must hunt for this character only in the text. In Ulysses, we perhaps discover Jamesy in the "arranger' figure, Joyce having anticipated and indeed planned our search. On the title-page of Joyce's last book we read "Finnegans Wake James Joyce." which we can interpret as a metaphorical relation or a sentence with a subject, verb, and predicate object. Of course, the trace of "by" remains. If it were there, we could declare a metonymical relation be- tween the two entities, claiming that one standing by the other is also a standing for it: Joyce as his book, or rather the book as Joyce. It may well be that a title stands at a juncture, which some might call a chasm,  Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 143 between the two modes of criticism most familiar to us. On one side lies biographical and historical criticism; on the other those forms that insist on the greater reality of the author as a text. It is always important to recognize that the biographer would not have taken the trouble did the author not have title to his text and the text entitle him. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement T 143 between the two modes of criticism most familiar to us. On one side lies biographical and historical criticism; on the other those forms that insist on the greater reality of the author as a text. It is always important to recognize that the biographer would not have taken the trouble did the author not have title to his text and the text entitle him. Titles, Titling, and Entitlement To 143 between the two modes of criticism most familiar to us. On one side lies biographical and historical criticism; on the other those forms that insist on the greater reality of the author as a text. It is always important to recognize that the biographer would not have taken the trouble did the author not have title to his text and the text entitle him.  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today In the tenth chapter of Finnegano Wake, Shem, under the name of Dolph, instructs Shaun, under the name of Kevin, in the construction of a geo- metric figure that will represent the sexual delta of their mother, ALP. Shem claims for this instruction that Shaun will "see figuratleavely the whome of [his] eternal geomater."' He begins with a straight line, each end of which he makes the center of a circle (". . . circumscript a cy- clone. Allow ter! Hoop! As round as the calf of an egg!" [294]). The line is the radius of both circles. Two triangles are obtained by making the line the base of each and the apex the upper and lower meeting points of the two circumferences: Shem identifies this figure with Solomon's seal: He then declares that if ALP's apron be lifted her nether parts will be displayed. He observes triumphantly to Shaun, "So post that to your pape and smarket.. . . I've read your tunc's dimissage" (298). This remark re- fers to the earlier treatment of ALP's letter by the four old annalists and, by extension, Shaun in chapter 5. Shem's remark is, I think, a dismissal of that reading as inadequate because it is fixed and univocal. I shall re- turn to this. There are indications that the two circles or "gyribouts" (298) represent Shem and Shaun and that as searchers they merely reproduce them- selves, that everything comes round again. It is further stated that ALP's "redtangles are all abscissan for limitsing this tendency of our Frivulteeny 1. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: Penguin, 1976), 296. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the text. 144 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today In the tenth chapter of Finnegans Wake, Shem, under the name of Dolph, instructs Shaun, under the name of Kevin, in the construction of a geo- metric figure that will represent the sexual delta of their mother, ALP. Shem claims for this instruction that Shaun will "see figuratleavely the whome of [his] eternal geomater."' He begins with a straight line, each end of which he makes the center of a circle (". .. circumscript a cy- clone. Allow ter! Hoop! As round as the calf of an egg!" [294]). The line is the radius of both circles. Two triangles are obtained by making the line the base of each and the apex the upper and lower meeting points of the two circumferences: Shem identifies this figure with Solomon's seal: He then declares that if ALP's apron be lifted her nether parts will be displayed. He observes triumphantly to Shaun, "So post that to your pape and smarket.. . . I've read your tun's dimissage" (298). This remark re- fers to the earlier treatment of ALP's letter by the four old annalists and, by extension, Shaun in chapter 5. Shem's remark is, I think, a dismissal of that reading as inadequate because it is fixed and univocal. I shall re- turn to this. There are indications that the two circles or "gyribouts" (298) represent Shem and Shaun and that as searchers they merely reproduce them- selves, that everything comes round again. It is further stated that ALP's "redtangles are all abscissan for limitsing this tendency of our Frivulteeny 1. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: Penguin, 1976), ag6. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the text. 144 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today In the tenth chapter of Finnegan Wake, Shem, under the name of Dolph, instructs Shaun, under the name of Kevin, in the construction of a geo- metric figure that will represent the sexual delta of their mother, ALP. Shem claims for this instruction that Shaun will "see figuratleavely the whome of [his] eternal geomater."' He begins with a straight line, each end of which he makes the center of a circle (". . . circumscript a cy- clone. Allow ter! Hoop! As round as the calf of an egg!" (294]). The line is the radius of both circles. Two triangles are obtained by making the line the base of each and the apex the upper and lower meeting points of the two circumferences: Shem identifies this figure with Solomon's seal: He then declares that if ALP's apron be lifted her nether parts will be displayed. He observes triumphantly to Shaun, "So post that to your pape and smarket.. . . I've read your tune's dimissage" (298). This remark re- fers to the earlier treatment of ALP's letter by the four old annalists and, by extension, Shaun in chapter 5. Shem's remark is, I think, a dismissal of that reading as inadequate because it is fixed and univocal. I shall re- turn to this. There are indications that the two circles or "gyribouts" (298) represent Shem and Shaun and that as searchers they merely reproduce them- selves, that everything comes round again. It is further stated that ALP's "redtangles are all abscissan for limitsing this tendency of our Frivulteeny . James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: Penguin, 1976), 296. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the text. 144  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 145 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 145 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 145 Sexuagesima to expense herselfs as sphere as possible, paradismic peri- mutter, in all directions on the bend of the unbridalled, the infinisissi- malls of her facets becoming manier and manier as the calicolum of her umdescribables (one has thoughts of that eternal Rome) shrinks from schurtiness to scherts" (298-99). That is, among other things, the treat- ment of ALP as a triangle is a way of preventing her from being expended "as sphere as possible." The geometrical constitution of ALP by Shem prevents her possible disappearance in the direction either of the infinite, symbolized by the sphere, or of the infinitessimal. It also, of course, con- stricts her. The effort seems to be to hold on in interpretation to ALP's particularity, even as her universality is insisted on. By now one has perhaps noticed that this section of the text (approxi- mately 293-303) is full of words recalling Yeats's A Vision: in addition to "gyribouts" and "sphere," there are references to a great egg, Byzantium, dreaming back, shiftings, creative mind, body of fate, and mask, to say nothing of triangles, spirals, circles, and the "same" and "other," which Yeats found in the Timaeus of Plato. There are references to spectre, ema- nation, and vortex, which Yeats takes in part from Blake. The connection of Yeats's gyres to the seal of Solomon has been noticed by at least one critic.' Even Yeats himself is present in the word Doubbllinnbbayyates (303)- A passage that is clearly a parody of A Vision (3oo) is followed by Shaun's description of Shem "ownconsciously grafficking with his sinister cyclopes after trigamies and spirals' wobbles . . ." (300). In Yeats's book much is made of the effort to constitute the phenomenal world geometri- cally in the form of a set of interlocking gyres, spirals, or whorls, often reduced to triangles in the diagrams Yeats provides. In the revised 1937 edition, it is declared at a critical point that the ultimate unknowable real- ity may be symbolized (though quite inadequately) as a sphere.' Shem seems to be playing a knowing Yeats, author of A Vision; Shaun, who doesn't get it quite right, seems to be the character Yeats, who is cast by the author Yeats as recipient and sometimes the misinterpreter of in- struction. If the triangle has to be constituted to keep ALP from disap- pearing into the beyond that the sphere symbolizes, it is merely a heuris- tic model. Shem claims no more for it. So are the gyres of A Vision according to Yeats's instructors. Involved here is an understanding of lim- its that is an ironic understanding. The irony took some time getting through to the character Yeats: "No, we have come to give you metaphors 2. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 229. 3. W. B. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 73, 193. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the text, Sexuagesima to expense herselfs as sphere as possible, paradismie peri- mutter, in all directions on the bend of the unbridalled, the infinisissi- malls of her facets becoming manier and manier as the calicolum of her umdescribables (one has thoughts of that eternal Rome) shrinks from schurtiness to scherts" (298-99). That is, among other things, the treat- ment of ALP as a triangle is a way of preventing her from being expended as sphere as possible." The geometrical constitution of ALP by Shem prevents her possible disappearance in the direction either of the infinite, symbolized by the sphere, or of the infinitessimal. It also, of course, con- stricts her. The effort seems to be to hold on in interpretation to ALP's particularity, even as her universality is insisted on. By now one has perhaps noticed that this section of the text (approxi- mately 293-303) is full of words recalling Yeats's A Vision: in addition to "gyribouts" and "sphere," there are references to a great egg, Byzantium, dreaming back, shiftings, creative mind, body of fate, and mask, to say nothing of triangles, spirals, circles, and the "same" and "other," which Yeats found in the Timaeus of Plato. There are references to spectre, ema- nation, and vortex, which Yeats takes in part from Blake. The connection of Yeats's gyres to the seal of Solomon has been noticed by at least one critic. Even Yeats himself is present in the word Doubbllinnbbayyates (303). A passage that is clearly a parody of A Vision (3oo) is followed by Shaun's description of Shem "ownconsciously grafirking with his sinister cyclopes after trigamies and spirals' wobbles . . ." (300). In Yeats's book much is made of the effort to constitute the phenomenal world geometri- cally in the form of a set of interlocking gyres, spirals, or whorls, often reduced to triangles in the diagrams Yeats provides. In the revised 1937 edition, it is declared at a critical point that the ultimate unknowable real- ity may be symbolized (though quite inadequately) as a sphere.3 Shem seems to be playing a knowing Yeats, author of A Vision; Shaun, who doesn't get it quite right, seems to be the character Yeats, who is cast by the author Yeats as recipient and sometimes the misinterpreter of in- struction. If the triangle has to be constituted to keep ALP from disap- pearing into the beyond that the sphere symbolizes, it is merely a heuris- tic model. Shei claims no more for it. So are the gyres of A Vision according to Yeats's instructors. Involved here is an understanding of lim- its that is an ironic understanding. The irony took some time getting through to the character Yeats: "No, we have come to give you metaphors a. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (New York: Macmillan, ig48), s29. 3. W. B. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 73, 193. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the test. Sexuagesima to expense herselfs as sphere as possible, paradismic peri- mutter, in all directions on the bend of the unbridalled, the infinisissi- malls of her facets becoming manier and manier as the calicolum of her umdescribables (one has thoughts of that eternal Rome) shrinks from schurtiness to scherts" (298-99). That is, among other things, the treat- ment of ALP as a triangle is a way of preventing her from being expended "as sphere as possible." The geometrical constitution of ALP by Shem prevents her possible disappearance in the direction either of the infinite, symbolized by the sphere, or of the infinitessimal. It also, of course, con- stricts her. The effort seems to be to hold on in interpretation to ALP's particularity, even as her universality is insisted on. By now one has perhaps noticed that this section of the text (approxi- mately 293-303) is full of words recalling Yeats's A Vision: in addition to "gyribouts" and "sphere," there are references to a great egg, Byzantium, dreaming back, shiftings, creative mind, body of fate, and mask, to say nothing of triangles, spirals, circles, and the "same" and "other," which Yeats found in the Timaeus of Plato. There are references to spectre, ema- nation, and vortex, which Yeats takes in part from Blake. The connection of Yeats's gyres to the seal of Solomon has been noticed by at least one critic. Even Yeats himself is present in the word Doubbllinnbbayyates (303)- A passage that is clearly a parody of A Vision (300) is followed by Shaun's description of Shem "ownconsciously grafficking with his sinister cyclopes after trigamies and spirals' wobbles . . ." (300). In Yeats's book much is made of the effort to constitute the phenomenal world geometri- cally in the form of a set of interlocking gyres, spirals, or whorls, often reduced to triangles in the diagrams Yeats provides. In the revised 1937 edition, it is declared at a critical point that the ultimate unknowable real- ity may be symbolized (though quite inadequately) as a sphere.' Shem seems to be playing a knowing Yeats, author of A Vision; Shaun, who doesn't get it quite right, seems to be the character Yeats, who is cast by the author Yeats as recipient and sometimes the misinterpreter of in- struction. If the triangle has to be constituted to keep ALP from disap- pearing into the beyond that the sphere symbolizes, it is merely a heuris- tic model. Shem claims no more for it. So are the gyres of A Vision according to Yeats's instructors. Involved here is an understanding of lim- its that is an ironic understanding. The irony took some time getting through to the character Yeats: "No, we have come to give you metaphors 2. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (New York: Macmillan, 1948), zg. 3. W. B. Yeats, A Vision (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 73, 193. Subsequent quotations are from this edition, cited parenthetically by page number in the text.  Antithetical Essays r46 Antithetical Essays 146 Antithetical Essays for poetry," said his instructors after he had offered to devote his life to exposition of their system (8). Even then, it took him some time to adjust himself to the ways of their thought. The irony never quite gets through to Shaun. He is scandalized by Shem's revelation, and he would prefer to repress what he has learned. Shem's mode of interpretation, in contrast to that of Shaun and the Four, is ironic. He knows that what the sphere symbolizes cannot be reached in interpretation, just as he knows that there are no perfect spheres in nature and that we are limited to "redtangles" and "muddy old triangular deltas." There is in such a situation always, alas, another read- ing: "Scholium, there are trist sigheds to everysing . . ." (299). As Mar- garet Solomon has observed, Shem proceeds to leave behind two- dimensional geometry, preferring three and implicitly, four or more dimensions.' The text of ALP is more than a simple one or two or three. It is interesting to note that Campbell and Robinson can make a plausible reading of this section of Finnegans Wake without ever mentioning the Yeats connection.' Yeats observes in A Vision that experience of the system is like being in a room full of mirrors, implying that there is an infinite regress of readings. One of Yeats's instructors had disliked the geometri- cal symbolism even though he had employed it, as he said, for Yeats's "assistance" (13). At times the instructors are irritated with Yeats, and he is reproved for vague or confused questions. After Shem's instruction, poor Shaun is still in the dark, and Shem bursts out, "you're holy mooxed and gaping up the wrong paler as if you was seeheeing the gheist that stays forenenst, you blessed simpletop domefooll" (299). Further explanation is of some help, but Shaun still profoundly misreads the lesson's intent, because his perspective is so pro- foundly different. Shaun is prurient, and prurience survives best under sexual repression or what Blake called "mystery." So Shaun lashes out at Shem, predicting his damnation, hating what Shem has taught him. Shaun remains identified with his and the Four's earlier elaborate attempt to interpret ALP's letter, the "tune's dimissage" of chapter 5, where ALP's sexnality is symbolized by the TUNC page of the Book of Kells or a repressive dream-garbling of the word cunt, If Shaun is adolescent, smirking, and accusatory about sex, the Four are senile and garrulous historians, gossips, and judges. Their position 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969). 5. Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to "Finnegans Wake" (New York: Viking Press, 1961), 184-go. for poetry," said his instructors after he had offered to devote his life to exposition of their system (8). Even then, it took him some time to adjust himself to the ways of their thought. The irony never quite gets through to Shaun. He is scandalized by Shem's revelation, and he would prefer to repress what he has learned. Shem's mode of interpretation, in contrast to that of Shaun and the Four, is ironic. He knows that what the sphere symbolizes cannot be reached in interpretation, just as he knows that there are no perfect spheres in nature and that we are limited to "redtangles" and "muddy old triangular deltas." There is in such a situation always, alas, another read- ing: "Scholium, there are trist sigheds to everysing . . ." (29). As Mar- garet Solomon has observed, Shem proceeds to leave behind two- dimensional geometry, preferring three and implicitly, four or more dimensions.' The text of ALP is more than a simple one or two or three. It is interesting to note that Campbell and Robinson can make a plausible reading of this section of Finnegans Wake without ever mentioning the Yeats connection.' Yeats observes in A Vision that experience of the system is like being in a room full of mirrors, implying that there is an infinite regress of readings. One of Yeats's instructors had disliked the geometri- cal symbolism even though he had employed it, as he said, for Yeats's "assistance" (13). At times the instructors are irritated with Yeats, and he is reproved for vague or confused questions. After Shem's instruction, poor Shaun is still in the dark, and Shem bursts out, "you're holy mooxed and gaping up the wrong palce as if you was seeheeing the gheist that stays forenenst, you blessed simpletop domefool!" (299). Further explanation is of some help, but Shaun still profoundly misreads the lesson's intent, because his perspective is so pro- foundly different. Shaun is prurient, and prurience survives best under sexual repression or what Blake called "mystery." So Shaun lashes out at Shem, predicting his damnation, hating what Shem has taught him. Shaun remains identified with his and the Four's earlier elaborate attempt to interpret ALP's letter, the "tune's dimissage" of chapter 5, where ALP's sexnality is symbolized by the TUNC page of the Book of Kells or a repressive dream-garbling of the word cunt. If Shaun is adolescent, smirking, and accusatory about sex, the Four are senile and garrulous historians, gossips, and judges. Their position 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, s969). 5. Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to "Finnegans Wake" (New York: Viking Press, ig6), 184-go. for poetry," said his instructors after he had offered to devote his life to exposition of their system (8). Even then, it took him some time to adjust himself to the ways of their thought. The irony never quite gets through to Shaun. He is scandalized by Shem's revelation, and he would prefer to repress what he has learned. Shem's mode of interpretation, in contrast to that of Shaun and the Four, is ironic. He knows that what the sphere symbolizes cannot be reached in interpretation, just as he knows that there are no perfect spheres in nature and that we are limited to "redtangles" and "muddy old triangular deltas." There is in such a situation always, alas, another read- ing: "Scholium, there are trist sigheds to everysing . . (299). As Mar- garet Solomon has observed, Shem proceeds to leave behind two- dimensional geometry, preferring three and implicitly, four or more dimensions.' The text of ALP is more than a simple one or two or three. It is interesting to note that Campbell and Robinson can make a plausible reading of this section of Finnegans Wake without ever mentioning the Yeats connection.' Yeats observes in A Vision that experience of the system is like being in a room full of mirrors, implying that there is an infinite regress of readings. One of Yeats's instructors had disliked the geometri- cal symbolism even though he had employed it, as he said, for Yeats's "assistance" (13). At times the instructors are irritated with Yeats, and he is reproved for vague or confused questions. After Shem's instruction, poor Shaun is still in the dark, and Shem bursts out, "you're holy mooxed and gaping up the wrong palce as if you was seeheeing the gheist that stays forenenst, you blessed simpletop domefool!" (299). Further explanation is of some help, but Shaun still profoundly misreads the lesson's intent, because his perspective is so pro- foundly different. Shaun is prurient, and prurience survives best under sexual repression or what Blake called "mystery." So Shaun lashes out at Shem, predicting his damnation, hating what Shem has taught him. Shaun remains identified with his and the Four's earlier elaborate attempt to interpret ALP's letter, the "tune's dimissage" of chapter 5, where ALP's sexuality is symbolized by the TUNC page of the Book of Kells or a repressive dream-garbling of the word cunt. If Shaun is adolescent, smirking, and accusatory about sex, the Four are senile and garrulous historians, gossips, and judges. Their position 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, r969). 5. Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to "Finnegans Wake" (New York: Viking Press, 1961), 184-y0.  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 147 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 147 is perhaps best set forth in a speech by one of their number, Matthew Gregory: He is cured by faith who is sick of fate. The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who discovered the raiding there originally. That's the point of eschatology our book of kills reaches for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye sieze what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects. Or I will let me take it upon myself to suggest to twist penman's tale posterwise. (482-83) If they can't code it, they will "decord" it and "twist" it. Some narrator in the book, perhaps the ultimate dreamer or the ubig- uitous ass that pulls the cart of the Four, has been well aware of polysemy in the text she (if it is the ass) inhabits. ALP's letter and the delta are synecdoches of the text. As early as page 2o one reads: "So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined. . . ." And on page 51: "in this scherzarade of one's thousand one nightinesses that sword of certainty which would indentifide the body never falls." The Four are much more anxious about this state of affairs than the early narrator, whom perhaps we should name merely "narra- tion"; the Four declare in frustration, "The unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude" (57). Yet their drive to understand, that is, achieve a certain certitude, on their principle of an authoritative reading, is never blunted. In Chapter 5, where we see them in action, the principal object of parody is not Yeats's book but Edward Sullivan's discussion of the Book of Kells." The reading made by the Four is exceedingly confused and rambling, but it can be partially characterized by (1) its search for an authoritative allegorical meaning: "Father Michael about this red time of the white terror equals the old regime and Margaret is the social revolution while cakes mean the party funds and dear thank you signifies national gratitude" (1s6); (2) its claim that the literal sense will not yield a sufficient interpretation: "Yet to concentrate solely on the literal sense or even the psychological content of any document to the 6. The Book of Kells, described by Sir Edoard Sullivan, 4th ed. (London: 'The Studio," 1933). is perhaps best set forth in a speech by one of their number, Matthew Gregory: He is cured by faith who is sick of fate. The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who discovered the raiding there originally. That's the point of eschatology our book of kills reaches for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye sieze what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects. Or I will let me take it upon myself to suggest to twist penman's tale posterwise. (482-83) If they can't code it, they will "decord" it and "twist" it. Some narrator in the book, perhaps the ultimate dreamer or the ubiq- uitous ass that pulls the cart of the Four, has been well aware of polysemy in the text she (if it is the ass) inhabits. ALP's letter and the delta are synecdoches of the text. As early as page zo one reads: "So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined. . . ." And on page 51: "in this scherzarade of one's thousand one nightinesses that sword of certainty which would indentifide the body never falls." The Four are much more anxious about this state of affairs than the early narrator, whom perhaps we should name merely "narra- tion"; the Four declare in frustration, "The unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude" (57). Yet their drive to understand, that is, achieve a certain certitude, on their principle of an authoritative reading, is never blunted. In Chapter 5, where we see them in action, the principal object of parody is not Yeats's book but Edward Sullivan's discussion of the Book of Kells.6 The reading made by the Four is exceedingly confused and rambling, but it can be partially characterized by (1) its search for an authoritative allegorical meaning: "Father Michael about this red time of the white terror equals the old regime and Margaret is the social revolution while cakes mean the party funds and dear thank you signifies national gratitude" (su6); (a) its claim that the literal sense will not yield a sufficient interpretation: "Yet to concentrate solely on the literal sense or even the psychological content of any document to the 6. The Book of Kells, described by Sir Edward Sullivan, 4th ed. (London: "The Studio," 1933)- Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 147 is perhaps best set forth in a speech by one of their number, Matthew Gregory: He is cured by faith who is sick of fate. The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who discovered the raiding there originally. That's the point of eschatology our book of kills reaches for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye sieze what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects. Or I will let me take it upon myself to suggest to twist penman's tale posterwise. (482-83) If they can't code it, they will "decord" it and "twist" it. Some narrator in the book, perhaps the ultimate dreamer or the ubiq- uitous ass that pulls the cart of the Four, has been well aware of polysemy in the text she (if it is the ass) inhabits. ALP's letter and the delta are synecdoches of the text. As early as page zo one reads: "So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined. . . ."And on page 51: "in this scherzarade of one's thousand one nightinesses that sword of certainty which would indentifide the body never falls." The Four are much more anxious about this state of affairs than the early narrator, whom perhaps we should name merely "narra- tion"; the Four declare in frustration, "The unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude" (57). Yet their drive to understand, that is, achieve a certain certitude, on their principle of an authoritative reading, is never blunted. In Chapter 5, where we see them in action, the principal object of parody is not Yeats's book but Edward Sullivan's discussion of the Book of Kells." The reading made by the Four is exceedingly confused and rambling, but it can be partially characterized by (1) its search for an authoritative allegorical meaning: "Father Michael about this red time of the white terror equals the old regime and Margaret is the social revolution while cakes mean the party funds and dear thank you signifies national gratitude" (so(); (2) its claim that the literal sense will not yield a sufficient interpretation: "Yet to concentrate solely on the literal sense or even the psychological content of any document to the 6. The Book of Kells, described by Sir Edward Sullivan, 4th ed. (London: "The Studio," 1933)-  Antithetical Essays 148 Antithetical Essays 148 Antithetical Essays sore neglect of the enveloping facts themselves circumstantiating it is just as hurtful to sound sense . . ." (109); (3) its tendency to skirt around the text in garrulous discussions of its written characters, its sound, and its possible scribe; finally, (4) its expressions of moral judgment in a mood of irritation: "and the fatal droopadwindle slope of the blamed scrawl, a sure sign of imperfectible moral blindness, the toomuchness, the fartoo- manyness of all those fourlegged ems: and why spell dear god with a big thick dhee (why, O why, O why?)" (122-23). In all of this behavior, espe- cially in their rejection of literalness, the Four seem to be helpless or mis- guided. Finnegans Wake is literal with a vengeance, in the literary sense of the term. It constantly discourages univocal reading or allegorical inter- pretation and tends relentlessly to frustrate (while at the same time se- ductively inviting) the use of interpretive paradigms. The principle is sim- ilar to the one apparently employed by Yeats's instructors: "A frustrator doubtless played upon my weakness when he described a geometrical model of the soul's state after death which could be turned upon a lathe" (13). In any case, the behavior of the Four, always deflecting themselves from the text, is the behavior for which the American New Critics excori- ated their historicist predecessors. The Four (and Shaun) are judges, more moralistic than aesthetic. Like Blake's Urizen, with whom they are identified, they would establish the law of the text if they could find a place to stand. This is not to say that the Four are always wrong or that Finnegans Wake tells us interpretation is futile, even though the great number of titles offered for ALP's "mamafesta" suggests something like this. What the Four tell us is usually more irrelevant than downright wrong. Even so, they occasionally say something provocative, if the reader is prepared to take it somewhat iron- ically. For example: "but one who deeper thinks will always bear in the baccbuccus of his mind that this downright there you are and there it is is only all in his eye" (o18). In the light of all of this, one certainly thinks today of the work of Jacques Derrida and his principle of dissemination as well as of that move- ment in contemporary critical theory that has emphasized the role of the reader. With respect, first, to the Derridean notion, one is perhaps spe- cifically reminded of the play implied in the activity of the muse of the book, ALP, whose gifts are many, to all, and not always appropriate from the point of view of any notion of decorum. Derrida's play is one of infi- nite difference, in which meaning is endlessly deferred. For him interpre- tation, as history has frequently conceived of it-and as the Four conceive of it-is absurd, an act that is necessary but that cannot be defended phil- osophically. The version of deconstruction practiced by the late Paul de sore neglect of the enveloping facts themselves circumstantiating it is just as hurtful to sound sense . . ." (1o9); (3) its tendency to skirt around the text in garrulous discussions of its written characters, its sound, and its possible scribe; finally, (4) its expressions of moral judgment in a mood of irritation: "and the fatal droopadwindle slope of the blamed scrawl, a sure sign of imperfectible moral blindness, the toomuchness, the fartoo- manyness of all those fourlegged ems: and why spell dear god with a big thick dhee (why, O why, O why?)" (122-23). In all of this behavior, espe- cially in their rejection of literalness, the Four seem to be helpless or mis- guided. Finnegans Wake is literal with a vengeance, in the literary sense of the term. It constantly discourages univocal reading or allegorical inter- pretation and tends relentlessly to frustrate (while at the same time se- ductively inviting) the use of interpretive paradigms. The principle is sim- ilar to the one apparently employed by Yeats's instructors: "A frustrator doubtless played upon my weakness when he described a geometrical model of the soul's state after death which could be turned upon a lathe" (13). In any case, the behavior of the Four, always deflecting themselves from the text, is the behavior for which the American New Critics excori- ated their historicist predecessors. The Four (and Shaun) are judges, more moralistic than aesthetic. Like Blake's Urizen, with whom they are identified, they would establish the law of the text if they could find a place to stand. This is not to say that the Four are always wrong or that Finnegan Wake tells us interpretation is futile, even though the great number of titles offered for ALP's "mamafesta" suggests something like this. What the Four tell us is usually more irrelevant than downright wrong. Even so, they occasionally say something provocative, if the reader is prepared to take it somewhat iron- ically. For example: "but one who deeper thinks will always bear in the baccbuccus of his mind that this downright there you are and there it is is only all in his eye" (118). In the light of all of this, one certainly thinks today of the work of Jacques Derrida and his principle of dissemination as well as of that move- ment in contemporary critical theory that has emphasized the role of the reader. With respect, first, to the Derridean notion, one is perhaps spe- cifically reminded of the play implied in the activity of the muse of the book, ALP, whose gifts are many, to all, and not always appropriate from the point of view of any notion of decorum. Derrida's play is one of infi- nite difference, in which meaning is endlessly deferred. For him interpre- tation, as history has frequently conceived of it-and as the Four conceive of it-is absurd, an act that is necessary but that cannot be defended phil- osophically. The version of deconstruction practiced by the late Paul de sore neglect of the enveloping facts themselves circumstantiating it is just as hurtful to sound sense .. ." (toy); (3) its tendency to skirt around the text in garrulous discussions of its written characters, its sound, and its possible scribe; finally, (4) its expressions of moral judgment in a mood of irritation: "and the fatal droopadwindle slope of the blamed scrawl, a sure sign of imperfectible moral blindness, the toomuchness, the fartoo- manyness of all those fourlegged ems: and why spell dear god with a big thick dhee (why, O why, O why?)" (122-23). In all of this behavior, espe- cially in their rejection of literalness, the Four seem to be helpless or mis- guided. Finnegans Wake is literal with a vengeance, in the literary sense of the term. It constantly discourages univocal reading or allegorical inter- pretation and tends relentlessly to frustrate (while at the same time se- ductively inviting) the use of interpretive paradigms. The principle is sim- ilar to the one apparently employed by Yeats's instructors: "A frustrator doubtless played upon my weakness when he described a geometrical model of the soul's state after death which could be turned upon a lathe" (13). In any case, the behavior of the Four, always deflecting themselves from the text, is the behavior for which the American New Critics excori- ated their historicist predecessors. The Four (and Shaun) are judges, more moralistic than aesthetic. Like Blake's Urizen, with whom they are identified, they would establish the law of the text if they could find a place to stand. This is not to say that the Four are always wrong or that Finnegans Wake tells us interpretation is futile, even though the great number of titles offered for ALP's "mamafesta" suggests something like this. What the Four tell us is usually more irrelevant than downright wrong. Even so, they occasionally say something provocative, if the reader is prepared to take it somewhat iron- ically. For example: "but one who deeper thinks will always bear in the bacebuccus of his mind that this downright there you are and there it is is only all in his eye" (118). In the light of all of this, one certainly thinks today of the work of Jacques Derrida and his principle of dissemination as well as of that move- ment in contemporary critical theory that has emphasized the role of the reader. With respect, first, to the Derridean notion, one is perhaps spe- cifically reminded of the play implied in the activity of the muse of the book, ALP, whose gifts are many, to all, and not always appropriate from the point of view of any notion of decorum. Derrida's play is one of infi- nite difference, in which meaning is endlessly deferred. For him interpre- tation, as history has frequently conceived of it-and as the Four conceive of it-is absurd, an act that is necessary but that cannot be defended phil- osophically. The version of deconstruction practiced by the late Paul de  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 149 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 149 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 149 Man draws from a similar sense of language its seductive unreliability with respect to meaning. Both of these views could be regarded as responses to characteristics of language apparently forefronted in Finnegans Wake. Derrida's writing is well aware of Joyce, and his essay "Two Words for Joyce" is included in a recent collection called Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French.' He there mentions that Finnegans Wake plays in several of his works-"The Pharmacy of Plato," "Scribble," and La Carte postale. He remarks that he has not really begun to read Joyce and has therefore never dared to write on him. This essay, a play with two words from Finnegans Wake (258, line 12), considers among other things the problem of "translation" generated in Finnegans Wake as a result of a polysemy involving more than one language in that text. Certainly one can imagine Derrida's theorizing in general (if that is what one calls it) as a response to Joyce's book or perhaps as carried on while the text of Joyce looks over his shoulder. Geoffrey Hartman has linked Finnegans Wake and Derrida's Glas: "Not since Finnegans Wake has there been such a deliberate and curious work: less original (but what does "original" mean to Derrida?) and mosaic than the Wake, even flushed and overreaching, but as intrigu- ingly wearyingly allusive."' One is tempted to speculate here, though to do so would not be popular in some fashionable quarters today, that criti- cal theory and practice always arise in response to preceding or nearly contemporary works of literature-presuming one held the notion that there is such a thing as literature, that is, something separate from theo- retical writing. There is little point in straining to make an absolute argu- ment out of such a speculation, but I think it is obvious enough that criti- cal theory has usually responded to the puzzlement created by a just previous literature. As fully as any writers of the century, Yeats and Joyce, arguably the greatest, pose for readers many of the problems that recent criticism has been trying to address.' Contemporary theory, following recent philosophy and writers like Joyce, is linguistically rather than epistemologically or ontologically ori- ented; this seems on the surface at least, right as a response to Finnegans 7. Derek Attridge and Daniel Ferrer, eds., Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 145-58. 8. Geofrey Hartman, Saving the Text: Literature, Derrida, Philosophy (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 2. g. Recent criticism has been influenced mainly by French theorists responding princi- pally to Continental writers, but, of course, Joyce has for some time charmed a variety of French critics. Man draws from a similar sense of language its seductive unreliability with respect to meaning. Both of these views could be regarded as responses to characteristics of language apparently forefronted in Finnegans Wake. Derrida's writing is well aware of Joyce, and his essay "Two Words for Joyce" is included in a recent collection called Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French.' He there mentions that Finnegans Wake plays in several of his works-"The Pharmacy of Plato," "Scribble," and La Carte postale. He remarks that he has not really begun to read Joyce and has therefore never dared to write on him. This essay, a play with two words from Finnegans Wake (258, line 12), considers among other things the problem of "translation" generated in Finnegans Wake as a result of a polysemy involving more than one language in that text. Certainly one can imagine Derrida's theorizing in general (if that is what one calls it) as a response to Joyce's book or perhaps as carried on while the text of Joyce looks over his shoulder. Geoffrey Hartman has linked Finnegans Wake and Derrida's Glas: "Not since Finnegans Wake has there been such a deliberate and curious work: less original (but what does "original" mean to Derrida?) and mosaic than the Wake, even flushed and overreaching, but as intrigu- ingly wearyingly allusive." One is tempted to speculate here, though to do so would not be popular in some fashionable quarters today, that criti- cal theory and practice always arise in response to preceding or nearly contemporary works of literature-presuming one held the notion that there is such a thing as literature, that is, something separate from theo- retical writing. There is little point in straining to make an absolute argu- ment out of such a speculation, but I think it is obvious enough that criti- cal theory has usually responded to the puzzlement created by a just previous literature. As fully as any writers of the century, Yeats and Joyce, arguably the greatest, pose for readers many of the problems that recent criticism has been trying to address.' Contemporary theory, following recent philosophy and writers like Joyce, is linguistically rather than epistemologically or ontologically ori- ented; this seems on the surface at least, right as a response to Finnegans 7. Derek Attridge and Daniel Ferrer, eds., Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 145-58. 8. Geoffrey Hartman, Saving the Text: Literature, Derrida, Philosophy (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 2. g. Recent criticism has been influenced mainly by French theorists responding princi- pally to Continental writers, but, of sorse, Joyce has for some time charmed a variety of French critics. Man draws from a similar sense of language its seductive unreliability with respect to meaning. Both of these views could be regarded as responses to characteristics of language apparently forefronted in Finnegans Wake. Derrida's writing is well aware of Joyce, and his essay "Two Words for Joyce" is included in a recent collection called Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French.' He there mentions that Finnegans Wake plays in several of his works-"The Pharmacy of Plato," "Scribble," and La Carte postale. He remarks that he has not really begun to read Joyce and has therefore never dared to write on him. This essay, a play with two words from Finnegans Wake (258, line 12), considers among other things the problem of "translation" generated in Finnegans Wake as a result of a polysemy involving more than one language in that text. Certainly one can imagine Derrida's theorizing in general (if that is what one calls it) as a response to Joyce's book or perhaps as carried on while the text of Joyce looks over his shoulder. Geoffrey Hartman has linked Finnegans Wake and Derrida's Glas: "Not since Finnegans Wake has there been such a deliberate and curious work: less original (but what does "original" mean to Derrida?) and mosaic than the Wake, even flushed and overreaching, but as intrigu- ingly wearyingly allusive."' One is tempted to speculate here, though to do so would not be popular in some fashionable quarters today, that criti- cal theory and practice always arise in response to preceding or nearly contemporary works of literature-presuming one held the notion that there is such a thing as literature, that is, something separate from theo- retical writing. There is little point in straining to make an absolute argu- ment out of such a speculation, but I think it is obvious enough that criti- cal theory has usually responded to the puzzlement created by a just previous literature. As fully as any writers of the century, Yeats and Joyce, arguably the greatest, pose for readers many of the problems that recent criticism has been trying to address.* Contemporary theory, following recent philosophy and writers like Joyce, is linguistically rather than epistemologically or ontologically ori- ented; this seems on the surface at least, right as a response to Finnegans 7. Derek Attridge and Daniel Ferrer, eds., Post-Structuralist Joyce: Essays from the French (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, i85), 145-58- 8. Geofrey Hartman, Saving the Text: Literature, Derrida, Philosophy (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), a. 9. Recent criticism has been influenced mainly by French theorists responding princi- pally to Continental writers, but, of course, Joyce has for some time charmed a variety of French critics.  Antithetical Essays 150 Antithetical Essays 150 Antithetical Essays Wake. Certainly Joyce's book is a surface. But I think a theory that can cope in a reasonably successful way with Finnegans Wake must move be- yond the concept of the endless play of difference or de Man's notion of unreliability. The first is not likely to say anything about the text because, though it attends to it, it does not value enough what I regard as the nec- essary moment of critical constitution of the text, even though one must heed its warning that such constitutions are always dangerous and ulti- mately in some way misleading. Derrida's own work has become less and less analytical and interpretive, more and more allusive and juxtaposi- tional. It no longer talks about a text, because that would be, according to Derrida, to fix it. It is true, of course, that at least in his earlier work Derrida accepts the need to pass through interpretation and thus tarry with the doubleness of metaphor, and that is what deconstruction is all about; but Glas certainly suggests impatience with that process. He seems to have come to the point of foregoing the moment in its momentariness, when to offer a reading is valuable, though certainly not eternal or neces- sarily capable of being a predecessor to a "better" reading to follow. This leads us away from the possibility of conversations about a text, and it draws us, for that reason, away from each other and ultimately away from literature as an ethical force in society. The de Manian way-and de Man does not deal with Joyce-for all its interest and the brilliance of its inventor, is inadequate because, with its tendency toward a negative theology, it is not likely to grasp the comic temper of Finnegans Wake and its immense inventiveness. Fin- negans Wake is not unreliable at all except to a theory of language that refuses to accept figuration as a potentiality rather than as a constant swerve away from a meaning that can never be achieved in the first place. With respect, second, to the presently popular emphasis in criticism on the role of the reader, Joyce's text seems certainly designed to "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake, an important predecessor, claimed art should and Stanislaus Joyce claimed his brother thought. Stanislaus tells a story about Joyce's reference to "the Nolan" in the first sentence of an early essay, "The Day of the Rabblement": Jim had kept the reference to "the Nolan" advisedly, overrid- ing objections from me, his doubting Thomas. He intended that the readers of his article should have at first a false im- pression that he was quoting some little-known Irish writer- the definite article before some family name being a courtesy title in Ireland-so that when they discovered their error, the name Giordano Bruno might perhaps awaken some interest in Wake. Certainly Joyce's book is a surface. But I think a theory that can cope in a reasonably successful way with Finnegans Wake must move be- yond the concept of the endless play of difference or de Man's notion of unreliability. The first is not likely to say anything about the text because, though it attends to it, it does not value enough what I regard as the nec- essary moment of critical constitution of the text, even though one must heed its warning that such constitutions are always dangerous and ulti- mately in some way misleading. Derrida's own work has become less and less analytical and interpretive, more and more allusive and juxtaposi- tional. It no longer talks about a text, because that would be, according to Derrida, to fix it. It is true, of course, that at least in his earlier work Derrida accepts the need to pass through interpretation and thus tarry with the doubleness of metaphor, and that is what deconstruction is all about; but Glas certainly suggests impatience with that process. He seems to have come to the point of foregoing the moment in its momentariness, when to offer a reading is valuable, though certainly not eternal or neces- sarily capable of being a predecessor to a "better" reading to follow. This leads us away from the possibility of conversations about a text, and it draws us, for that reason, away from each other and ultimately away from literature as an ethical force in society. The de Manian way-and de Man does not deal with Joyce-for all its interest and the brilliance of its inventor, is inadequate because, with its tendency toward a negative theology, it is not likely to grasp the comic temper of Finnegans Wake and its immense inventiveness. Fin- negans Wake is not unreliable at all except to a theory of language that refuses to accept figuration as a potentiality rather than as a constant swerve away from a meaning that can never be achieved in the first place. With respect, second, to the presently popular emphasis in criticism on the role of the reader, Joyce's text seems certainly designed to "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake, an important predecessor, claimed art should and Stanislaus Joyce claimed his brother thought. Stanislaus tells a story about Joyce's reference to "the Nolan" in the first sentence of an early essay, "The Day of the Rabblement": Jim had kept the reference to "the Nolan" advisedly, overrid- ing objections from me, his doubting Thomas. He intended that the readers of his article should have at first a false im- pression that he was quoting some little-known Irish writer- the definite article before some family name being a courtesy title in Ireland-so that when they discovered their error, the name Giordano Bruno might perhaps awaken some interest in Wake. Certainly Joyce's book is a surface. But I think a theory that can cope in a reasonably successful way with Finnegans Wake must move be- yond the concept of the endless play of difference or de Man's notion of unreliability. The first is not likely to say anything about the text because, though it attends to it, it does not value enough what I regard as the nec- essary moment of critical constitution of the text, even though one must heed its warning that such constitutions are always dangerous and ulti- mately in some way misleading. Derrida's own work has become less and less analytical and interpretive, more and more allusive and juxtaposi- tional. It no longer talks about a text, because that would be, according to Derrida, to fix it. It is true, of course, that at least in his earlier work Derrida accepts the need to pass through interpretation and thus tarry with the doubleness of metaphor, and that is what deconstruction is all about; but Glas certainly suggests impatience with that process. He seems to have come to the point of foregoing the moment in its momentariness, when to offer a reading is valuable, though certainly not eternal or neces- sarily capable of being a predecessor to a "better" reading to follow. This leads us away from the possibility of conversations about a text, and it draws us, for that reason, away from each other and ultimately away from literature as an ethical force in society. The de Manian way-and de Man does not deal with Joyce-for all its interest and the brilliance of its inventor, is inadequate because, with its tendency toward a negative theology, it is not likely to grasp the comic temper of Finnegans Wake and its immense inventiveness. Fin- negans Wake is not unreliable at all except to a theory of language that refuses to accept figuration as a potentiality rather than as a constant swerve away from a meaning that can never be achieved in the first place. With respect, second, to the presently popular emphasis in criticism on the role of the reader, Joyce's text seems certainly designed to "rouse the faculties to act," as Blake, an important predecessor, claimed art should and Stanislaus Joyce claimed his brother thought. Stanislaus tells a story about Joyce's reference to "the Nolan" in the first sentence of an early essay, "The Day of the Rabblement": Jim had kept the reference to "the Nolan" advisedly, overrid- ing objections from me, his doubting Thomas. He intended that the readers of his article should have at first a false im- pression that he was quoting some little-known Irish writer- the definite article before some family name being a courtesy title in Ireland-so that when they discovered their error, the name Giordano Bruno might perhaps awaken some interest in  Yeats, Joyce, and Crticism Today 151 Yeats, Joyce, and Crticism Today 151 Yeats, Joyce, and Crticism Today 151 his life and work. Laymen, he repeated, should be encouraged to think."' False leads of this type are common in Joyce's work from Dubliners on, as recent work of my colleague David Robinson, building on work by Hugh Kenner and others, has amply demonstrated." Yet it is necessary to observe that the reader is a fiction projected by a text." Either as critics or as individual readers we attempt to become that reader, ideally insom- niac perhaps, by constituting the text in a certain way for a moment, stay- ing the text even as a new constitution inevitably awaits. There is no guar- antee of improvement in time, though there ought to be greater sophistication about what is and is not possible. If there is the undecid- able, there is also the understandable. As the tradition of phenomenologi- cal hermeneutics has shown, every interpretation bears the mark of its temporal site or prejudice. But this means only that we must understand the text against the fact of the temporal. Here I return to Yeats, who casts himself as the reader of the text of his instructors in A Vision and discovers himself in just such a regress, or rather ongress of reading-endless antinomiality that can only be mo- mentarily but significantly arrested by some statement such as: Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and know all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (302) As Yeats relaxes in this passage at the end of his book, we continue our work of reading sentences such as these, Our reading must remain tan- gled in the paradoxes these sentences tenaciously insist on, including the fact that Yeats knows that in one sense he has not said all that can be said-if he waits. He is expressing exhaustion and, in part, pleasure at having completed his book. But he has not quite completed it, for there is a paragraph of important questioning yet to come and a poem as epilogue. Yeats, it seems to me, is a believer in fictions. This is the way I read Richard Ellmann's phrase so. Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper (London, Faber and Faber, 1958), 146. s. David Robinson, "Joyce's Nonce Symbols" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1985). 1s. See my Joyce Cary's Tilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Florida State University Press, 1983), 246-64. his life and work. Laymen, he repeated, should be encouraged to think." False leads of this type are common in Joyce's work from Dubliners on, as recent work of my colleague David Robinson, building on work by Hugh Kenner and others, has amply demonstrated." Yet it is necessary to observe that the reader is a fiction projected by a text." Either as critics or as individual readers we attempt to become that reader, ideally insom- niac perhaps, by constituting the text in a certain way for a moment, stay- ing the text even as a new constitution inevitably awaits. There is no guar- antee of improvement in time, though there ought to be greater sophistication about what is and is not possible. If there is the undecid- able, there is also the understandable. As the tradition of phenomenologi- cal hermeneutics has shown, every interpretation bears the mark of its temporal site or prejudice. But this means only that we must understand the text against the fact of the temporal. Here I return to Yeats, who casts himself as the reader of the text of his instructors in A Vision and discovers himself in just such a regress, or rather ongress of reading-endless antinomiality that can only be mo- mentarily but significantly arrested by some statement such as: Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and know all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (302) As Yeats relaxes in this passage at the end of his book, we continue our work of reading sentences such as these, Our reading must remain tan- gled in the paradoxes these sentences tenaciously insist on, including the fact that Yeats knows that in one sense he has not said all that can be said-if he waits. He is expressing exhaustion and, in part, pleasure at having completed his book. But he has not quite completed it, for there is a paragraph of important questioning yet to come and a poem as epilogue. Yeats, it seems to me, is a believer in fictions. This is the way I read Richard Ellmann's phrase so. Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper (London, Faber and Faber, 1958), 146. n. David Robinson, "Joyce's Nonce Symbols" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1985). 12. See my Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Florida State University Press, 1983), 246-64. his life and work. Laymen, he repeated, should be encouraged to think." False leads of this type are common in Joyce's work from Dubliners on, as recent work of my colleague David Robinson, building on work by Hugh Kenner and others, has amply demonstrated." Yet it is necessary to observe that the reader is a fiction projected by a text." Either as critics or as individual readers we attempt to become that reader, ideally insom- niac perhaps, by constituting the text in a certain way for a moment, stay- ing the text even as a new constitution inevitably awaits. There is no guar- antee of improvement in time, though there ought to be greater sophistication about what is and is not possible. If there is the undecid- able, there is also the understandable. As the tradition of phenomenologi- cal hermeneutics has shown, every interpretation bears the mark of its temporal site or prejudice. But this means only that we must understand the text against the fact of the temporal. Here I return to Yeats, who casts himself as the reader of the text of his instructors in A Vision and discovers himself in just such a regress, or rather ongress of reading-endless antinomiality that can only be mo- mentarily but significantly arrested by some statement such as: Then I understand. I have already said all that can be said. The particulars are the work of the thirteenth sphere or cycle which is in every man and called by every man his freedom. Doubtless, for it can do all things and know all things, it knows what it will do with its own freedom but it has kept the secret. (302) As Yeats relaxes in this passage at the end of his book, we continue our work of reading sentences such as these, Our reading must remain tan- gled in the paradoxes these sentences tenaciously insist on, including the fact that Yeats knows that in one sense he has not said all that can be said-if he waits. He is expressing exhaustion and, in part, pleasure at having completed his book. But he has not quite completed it, for there is a paragraph of important questioning yet to come and a poem as epilogue. Yeats, it seems to me, is a believer in fictions. This is the way I read Richard Ellmann's phrase 10. Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper (London, Faber and Faber, 1958), 146. so. David Robinson, "Joyce's Nonce Symbols" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1985). 12. See my Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real (Florida State University Press, 1983), '46-64.  15a Antithetical Essays describing his method as that of "affirmative capability."" I connect it with Blake's remark, "Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth." From A Vision can be inferred a theory of fictions more sophisticated than Vaihinger's, which reduces literary fictions to "figments."" The theory puts emphasis on making books in language, not books of law or of explana- tion-closed, univocal, and requiring a priesthood of interpreters-but books antithetical to these, books of a different kind of truth, a truth al- ways in the making or rather susceptible to being made and remade. We would perhaps have to call such books deconstructive antibooks if we re- mained in the language of deconstruction. But this would not be quite the right terminology, for Yeats insists everywhere on creation, even dec- oration, and the formulation of personal experience, the making of one's identity in words. Such a book would be antithetical to books of received doctrine and would attempt the construction of a "profane perfection," not a sacred one." It is perhaps in reading Yeats's poems that we are roused to act most completely, by which I mean to constitute critically the antithetical book of Yeats's poems. In asserting this, I suggest that Yeats invites us to move part way, but not all the way, toward recent deconstruction. He does not call for the abolition of the book because he believes a book can contain an order of Heraclitean chaos. He does not call for a new kind of book, because he believes we have always had such antithetical Heraclitean books. He reminds us of this, and we are invited to query ourselves as readers in the best modern way. Yeats has constructed a book of poems with a mixed plot, that is, a mixture of narrative and mimesis. It has fre- quently been observed that one has to consider Yeats's poems in the light of each other, particularly in the light of those close by in the text." As yet, criticism has not fully addressed what, to borrow a term from Wolfgang Iser, I call blanks in the text-the silent spaces between the poems." We must constitute the text by inferring a content for these 13. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 216ff. 14. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 187-0os, 312-23. 15. The phrase is from Yeats's poem "Under Ben Bulben." 16. The most important essay here is Hugh Kenner's "The Sacred Book of the Arts," in Yeats: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Unterecker (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 10-2. 17. See Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press, 1978). My Book of Yeats's Poems (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, so) studies Yeats's poems as a book, though an "antithetical" one, with a narrative/mimetic plot. See also my essay "Constituting Yeats's Poems as a Book," in Yeats: 152 Antithetical Essays 15a Antithetical Essays describing his method as that of "affirmative capability."" I connect it with describing his method as that of "afirmative capability."'a I connect it with Blake's remark, "Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth." Blake's remark, "Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth." From A Vision can be inferred a theory of fictions more sophisticated than From A Vision can be inferred a theory of fictions more sophisticated than Vaihinger's, which reduces literary fictions to "figments."" The theory puts Vaihinger's, which reduces literary fictions to "figments."" The theory puts emphasis on making books in language, not books of law or of explana- emphasis on making books in language, not books of law or of explana- tion-closed, univocal, and requiring a priesthood of interpreters-but tion-closed, univocal, and requiring a priesthood of interpreters-but books antithetical to these, books of a different kind of truth, a truth al- books antithetical to these, books of a different kind of truth, a truth al- ways in the making or rather susceptible to being made and remade. We ways in the making or rather susceptible to being made and remade. We would perhaps have to call such books deconstructive antibooks if we re- would perhaps have to call such books deconstructive antibooks if we re- mained in the language of deconstruction. But this would not be quite mained in the language of deconstruction. But this would not be quite the right terminology, for Yeats insists everywhere on creation, even dec- the right terminology, for Yeats insists everywhere on creation, even dec- oration, and the formulation of personal experience, the making of one's oration, and the formulation of personal experience, the making of one's identity in words. Such a book would be antithetical to books of received identity in words. Such a book would be antithetical to books of received doctrine and would attempt the construction of a "profane perfection," doctrine and would attempt the construction of a "profane perfection," not a sacred one." not a sacred one." It is perhaps in reading Yeats's poems that we are roused to act most It is perhaps in reading Yeats's poems that we are roused to act most completely, by which I mean to constitute critically the antithetical book completely, by which I mean to constitute critically the antithetical book of Yeats's poems. In asserting this, I suggest that Yeats invites us to move of Yeats's poems. In asserting this, I suggest that Yeats invites us to move part way, but not all the way, toward recent deconstruction. He does not part way, but not all the way, toward recent deconstruction. He does not call for the abolition of the book because he believes a book can contain call for the abolition of the book because he believes a book can contain an order of Heraclitean chaos. He does not call for a new kind of book, an order of Heraclitean chaos. He does not call for a new kind of book, because he believes we have always had such antithetical Heraclitean because he believes we have always had such antithetical Heraclitean books. He reminds us of this, and we are invited to query ourselves as books. He reminds us of this, and we are invited to query ourselves as readers in the best modern way. Yeats has constructed a book of poems readers in the best moder way. Yeats has constructed a book of poems with a mixed plot, that is, a mixture of narrative and mimesis. It has fre- with a mixed plot, that is, a mixture of narrative and mimesis. It has fre- quently been observed that one has to consider Yeats's poems in the light quently been observed that one has to consider Yeats's poems in the light of each other, particularly in the light of those close by in the text." As of each other, particularly in the light of those close by in the text." As yet, criticism has not fully addressed what, to borrow a term from yet, criticism has not fully addressed what, to borrow a term from Wolfgang Iser, I call blanks in the text-the silent spaces between the Wolfgang Iser, I call blanks in the text-the silent spaces between the poems." We must constitute the text by inferring a content for these poems." We must constitute the text by inferring a content for these 13. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 13. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), a16ff. z16f. 14. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University 14. See my Philosophy of the Literany Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), 187-a00, 312-3. Press, 1983), 187-am, 3ss-z3. s5. The phrase is from Yeats's poem "Under Ben Bulben." 15. The phrase is from Yeats's poem "Under Ben Bulben." 16. The most important essay here is Hugh Kenner's "The Sacred Book of the Arts, 16. The most important essay here is Hugh Kenner's "The Sacred Book of the Arts," in Yeats: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Unterecker (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: in Yeats: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Unterecker (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), to-zz. Prentice-Hall, 1963), 1o-2. 17. See Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Uni- 17. See Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press, 1978). My Book of Yeats's Poems (Tallahassee: Florida State University versity Press, 1978). My Book of Yeats's Poems (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1989) studies Yeats's poems as a book, though an "antithetical" one, with a Press, 1989) studies Yeats's poems as a book, though an "antithetical" one, with a narrative/mimetic plot. See also my essay "Constituting Yeats's Poems as a Book," in Yeats: narrative/mimetic plot. See also my essay "Constituting Yeats's Poems as a Book," in Yeats:  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 153 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 153 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 153 spaces. We find ourselves critically constituting a book rather than deconstructing one, the antithetical book being in many ways a decon- struction open to view. A Vision, with its treatment of a character named Yeats as a confused searcher for truth often looking in the wrong places or not quite getting things right, offers through its ironies about this mat- ter the potentiality of constituting a way to search through the irony, to live with a new form of fictive belief or (un)belief, and to face the terror of history.'" The book we constitute does not find its authority or center or presence behind itself or in the poet's life, even though Yeats was a quite personal poet. His work remains the construction of a fiction, a po- tentiality from which critical acts constitute the book. Many of the prob- lems addressed by a host of theorists of narrative, of fictions, and of the reader are presented to us by Yeats's book. In spite of the great respect in which his work has been held, Yeats is a figure who has been for some time rather a puzzle to each fashionable critical speculation. The bio- graphical critics did not really get outside Yeats's life, and the New Critics could not get into it or conceive successfully of Yeats's poems as more than discrete units. Present theory should at least have the benefit of greater wariness. But what to do with a book whose play of language seems to disarm even the deconstructionist? Finnegans Wake seems to insist on a certain decentering, and already we have had work showing this." Certainly the play of language is everywhere open to view. Certainly the text deflects us from trying to establish a single (or even multiple) fictive plot refer- ence. Certainly repeated perusal of Finnegans Wake makes us doubt the usefulness of familiar modes of reading and traditional patterns. Let us take, for example, the venerable distinction between narrative and mime- sis that goes all the way back to Plato. Recently Gerard Genette has de- elared all mimesis to be narrative, but it would be just as easy to declare all narrative to be mimesis. Joyce confounds anyone taking a position on this by having it both ways in the form of what, for want of a better word, I call a struggle between the two. One shades into another for no appar- ent reason in Finnegans Wake. Dialogues and mock dramas come and go. Narration seems to have mimetic speakers, yet there is, as I have sug- An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies, vol. 4, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor, ML UMI Research Press, 1986). 18. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 287-324. 19. For example, Margot Norris, The Decentered Universe of "Finnegans Wake" (Balti- more and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). as. Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1g8o), 162. spaces. We find ourselves critically constituting a book rather than deconstructing one, the antithetical book being in many ways a decon- struction open to view. A Vision, with its treatment of a character named Yeats as a confused searcher for truth often looking in the wrong places or not quite getting things right, offers through its ironies about this mat- ter the potentiality of constituting a way to search through the irony, to live with a new form of fictive belief or (un)belief, and to face the terror of history." The book we constitute does not find its authority or center or presence behind itself or in the poet's life, even though Yeats was a quite personal poet. His work remains the construction of a fiction, a po- tentiality from which critical acts constitute the book. Many of the prob- lems addressed by a host of theorists of narrative, of fictions, and of the reader are presented to us by Yeats's book. In spite of the great respect in which his work has been held, Yeats is a figure who has been for some time rather a puzzle to each fashionable critical speculation. The bio- graphical critics did not really get outside Yeats's life, and the New Critics could not get into it or conceive successfully of Yeats's poems as more than discrete units. Present theory should at least have the benefit of greater wariness. But what to do with a book whose play of language seems to disarm even the deconstructionist? Finnegans Wake seems to insist on a certain decentering, and already we have had work showing this." Certainly the play of language is everywhere open to view. Certainly the text deflects us from trying to establish a single (or even multiple) fictive plot refer- ence. Certainly repeated perusal of Finnegans Wake makes us doubt the usefulness of familiar modes of reading and traditional patterns. Let us take, for example, the venerable distinction between narrative and mime- sis that goes all the way back to Plato. Recently Gerard Genette has de- clared all mimesis to be narrative, but it would be just as easy to declare all narrative to be mimesis." Joyce confounds anyone taking a position on this by having it both ways in the form of what, for want of a better word, I call a struggle between the two. One shades into another for no appar- ent reason in Finnegans Wake. Dialogues and mock dramas come and go. Narration seems to have mimetic speakers, yet there is, as I have sug- An Annual of Crtical and Textual Studies, vol. 4, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1986). 18. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 287-324. ig. For example, Margot Norris, The Decentered Universe of "Finnegans Wake" (Balti- more and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). 20, Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), 162. spaces. We find ourselves critically constituting a book rather than deconstructing one, the antithetical book being in many ways a decon- struction open to view. A Vision, with its treatment of a character named Yeats as a confused searcher for truth often looking in the wrong places or not quite getting things right, offers through its ironies about this mat- ter the potentiality of constituting a way to search through the irony, to live with a new form of fictive belief or (un)belief, and to face the terror of history." The book we constitute does not find its authority or center or presence behind itself or in the poet's life, even though Yeats was a quite personal poet. His work remains the construction of a fiction, a po- tentiality from which critical acts constitute the book. Many of the prob- lems addressed by a host of theorists of narrative, of fictions, and of the reader are presented to us by Yeats's book. In spite of the great respect in which his work has been held, Yeats is a figure who has been for some time rather a puzzle to each fashionable critical speculation. The bio- graphical critics did not really get outside Yeats's life, and the New Critics could not get into it or conceive successfully of Yeats's poems as more than discrete units. Present theory should at least have the benefit of greater wariness. But what to do with a book whose play of language seems to disarm even the deconstructionist? Finnegans Wake seems to insist on a certain decentering, and already we have had work showing this." Certainly the play of language is everywhere open to view. Certainly the text deflects us from trying to establish a single (or even multiple) fictive plot refer- ence. Certainly repeated perusal of Finnegans Wake makes us doubt the usefulness of familiar modes of reading and traditional patterns. Let us take, for example, the venerable distinction between narrative and mime- sis that goes all the way back to Plato. Recently Gerard Genette has de- clared all mimesis to be narrative, but it would be just as easy to declare all narrative to be mimesis. Joyce confounds anyone taking a position on this by having it both ways in the form of what, for want of a better word, I call a struggle between the two. One shades into another for no appar- ent reason in Finnegans Wake. Dialogues and mock dramas come and go. Narration seems to have mimetic speakers, yet there is, as I have sug- An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies, vol. 4, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor, MIL UMI Research Press, 1986). 18. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 287-324. 19. For example, Margot Norris, The Decentered Universe of "Finnegan Wake" (Balti- more and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). as. Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 198o), 162s.  Antithetical Essays 154 Antithetical Essays 154 Antithetical Essays gested, also a voice that seems to be merely "narration," not a character- ized narrator, not a characterized voice, as in mimesis. Joyce's practice is what Blake would have called a "reprobate" and a "contrary" to the ne- gation narrative/mimesis. The same dilemma confronts us when we try to make a decision be- tween two models for Finnegans Wake-the model of writing and the model of speech. Certainly the book is writing, and it seems, on the one hand, to be a radical insistence on writing as all there is of language, forc- ing of us to accept as fact icriture in the Derridean sense. No one can read it aloud-not even James Joyce-without substantial loss of potential significance in virtually any sentence, any phrase, or sometimes even any word. Joycean words are subject to multiple pronunciation; phrases read in different tones yield radically different interpretations. On the other hand, the text invites reading aloud as a mimesis of speech, mumbling and garbled as that speech so frequently seems to be. The accents of the speakers, the presence of dialogue, the oratory, the interruptions of one voice by another-all these things require us to remember speech. Is the text phonocentric or not? The answer seems to be that it is both, as if speech and writing had become the same thing, with neither privileged. Rather than being based on a principle of dissemination or of the absolute play of difference-so inviting as an answer to the problem of Joyce's text-the book employs an antithetical logic similar to but more thor- oughgoing than that of A Vision, which tends to dramatize the clash be- tween antithetical and "primary" logic. This antithetical logic is the logic of tropes as conceived of by Vico and Blake, both of whom Joyce knew well. This logic includes the principle of both/and, as in the Freudian dream, and employs fundamentally the trope of synecdoche as a principle of serious thought in the antithetical mode. We discover that everyone in the text can be imagined as its author, that each part seems to imply the whole, and so on. The other fundamental principle is one which, as I have suggested, deflects our imposition of conventional critical para- digms. To show this I shall employ in a limited way an analogy to the work of one of the major predecessors of postmodern critical theory, Claude Levi-Strauss. In his essay "The Structural Study of Myth, "Levi- Strauss argues that a myth is a chain of variants. For each variant Lvi- Strauss offers the image of a chart or card: We shall then have several two-dimensional charts, each deal- ing with a variant, to be organized in a three-dimensional order, so that three different readings become possible: left to right, top to bottom, front to back (or vice versa). All these charts cannot be expected to be identical; but experience gested, also a voice that seems to be merely "narration," not a character- ized narrator, not a characterized voice, as in mimesis. Joyce's practice is what Blake would have called a "reprobate" and a "contrary" to the ne- gation narrative/mimesis. The same dilemma confronts us when we try to make a decision be- tween two models for Finnegans Wake-the model of writing and the model of speech. Certainly the book is writing, and it seems, on the one hand, to be a radical insistence on writing as all there is of language, fore- ing of us to accept as fact dcriture in the Derridean sense. No one can read it aloud-not even James Joyce-without substantial loss of potential significance in virtually any sentence, any phrase, or sometimes even any word. Joycean words are subject to multiple pronunciation; phrases read in different tones yield radically different interpretations. On the other hand, the text invites reading aloud as a mimesis of speech, mumbling and garbled as that speech so frequently seems to be. The accents of the speakers, the presence of dialogue, the oratory, the interruptions of one voice by another-all these things require us to remember speech. Is the text phonocentric or not? The answer seems to be that it is both, as if speech and writing had become the same thing, with neither privileged. Rather than being based on a principle of dissemination or of the absolute play of difference-so inviting as an answer to the problem of Joyce's text-the book employs an antithetical logic similar to but more thor- oughgoing than that of A Vision, which tends to dramatize the clash be- tween antithetical and "primary" logic. This antithetical logic is the logic of tropes as conceived of by Vico and Blake, both of whom Joyce knew well. This logic includes the principle of both/and, as in the Freudian dream, and employs fundamentally the trope of synecdoche as a principle of serious thought in the antithetical mode. We discover that everyone in the text can be imagined as its author, that each part seems to imply the whole, and so on. The other fundamental principle is one which, as I have suggested, deflects our imposition of conventional critical para- digms. To show this I shall employ in a limited way an analogy to the work of one of the major predecessors of postmodern critical theory, Claude Levi-Strauss. In his essay "The Structural Study of Myth, "Levi- Strauss argues that a myth is a chain of variants. For each variant Levi- Strauss offers the image of a chart or card: We shall then have several two-dimensional charts, each deal- ing with a variant, to be organized in a three-dimensional order, so that three different readings become possible: left to right, top to bottom, front to back (or vice versa). All these charts cannot be expected to be identical; but experience gested, also a voice that seems to be merely "narration," not a character- ized narrator, not a characterized voice, as in mimesis. Joyce's practice is what Blake would have called a "reprobate" and a "contrary" to the ne- gation narrative/mimesis. The same dilemma confronts us when we try to make a decision be- tween two models for Finnegans Wake-the model of writing and the model of speech. Certainly the book is writing, and it seems, on the one hand, to be a radical insistence on writing as all there is of language, fore- ing of us to accept as fact ecriture in the Derridean sense. No one can read it aloud-not even James Joyce-without substantial loss of potential significance in virtually any sentence, any phrase, or sometimes even any word. Joycean words are subject to multiple pronunciation; phrases read in different tones yield radically different interpretations. On the other hand, the text invites reading aloud as a mimesis of speech, mumbling and garbled as that speech so frequently seems to be. The accents of the speakers, the presence of dialogue, the oratory, the interruptions of one voice by another-all these things require us to remember speech. Is the text phonocentric or not? The answer seems to be that it is both, as if speech and writing had become the same thing, with neither privileged. Rather than being based on a principle of dissemination or of the absolute play of difference-so inviting as an answer to the problem of Joyce's text-the book employs an antithetical logic similar to but more thor- oughgoing than that of A Vision, which tends to dramatize the clash be- tween antithetical and "primary" logic. This antithetical logic is the logic of tropes as conceived of by Vico and Blake, both of whom Joyce knew well. This logic includes the principle of both/and, as in the Freudian dream, and employs fundamentally the trope of synecdoche as a principle of serious thought in the antithetical mode. We discover that everyone in the text can be imagined as its author, that each part seems to imply the whole, and so on. The other fundamental principle is one which, as I have suggested, deflects our imposition of conventional critical para- digms. To show this I shall employ in a limited way an analogy to the work of one of the major predecessors of postmodern critical theory, Claude Levi-Strauss. In his essay "The Structural Study of Myth, "Levi- Strauss argues that a myth is a chain of variants. For each variant Levi- Strauss offers the image of a chart or card: We shall then have several two-dimensional charts, each deal- ing with a variant, to be organized in a three-dimensional order, so that three different readings become possible: left to right, top to bottom, front to back (or vice versa). All these charts cannot be expected to be identical; but experience  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 155 Yeats, Joyce, and Crticism Today 155 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 155 shows that any differences to be observed may be correlated with other differences, so that a logical treatment of the whole will allow simplifications, the final outcome being the struc- tural law of the myth."' shows that any differences to be observed may be correlated with other differences, so that a logical treatment of the whole will allow simplifications, the final outcome being the struce- tural law of the myth.' shows that any differences to be observed may be correlated with other differences, so that a logical treatment of the whole will allow simplifications, the final outcome being the struc- tural law of the myth.c Joyce's notion is more complicated and sophisticated than this, which would have been for him too mechanical and reductive, implying unin- tentionally the idea of a sort of ur myth; for Levi-Strauss's use of the term "variant" implies the existence of the ur myth, even as he denies it. What Joyce does with a pattern such as this is suggest to us a way that Finnegan Wake might be "ordered," though he never allows us to privi- lege one possible way of ordering over another. There is, of course, the paradigm of the dream, including both/and logic, and displacement, tem- poral simultaneity and disorganization, and dream speech (or talking in one's sleep). There is the paradigm of Viconian ricorso, of which so much has been made. There is also the paradigm of linear development, though this seems to be displaced from plot to the activity of arranging the text. The paradigm that is similar in some ways to Levi-Strauss's is the palimp- sest or stack of cards. Indeed the other paradigms I have mentioned seem to be contained by this one. A reader cannot help noticing the very large number of repetitions (always with a difference) in Finnegans Wake. As long as we are using the linear or cyclical paradigms "repetition" is the right word. In the palimpsest paradigm it is inadequate. Imagine for a moment any chapter of Finnegans Wake as the card on the top of a pile of seventeen Finnegans Wake chapters, each a card. Imagine also that each card has a certain transparency. At every point of reading, the other chapters shine through to the surface card, but in bits and pieces and often in shaded and distorted form. This is not the only such set of cards. Imagine Finnegans Wake itself as a card on top of a stack of cards each of which is another work of James Joyce. Elements of these works shine through occasionally to the surface. 21. Claude Lvi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 213-14. Joyce's notion is more complicated and sophisticated than this, which would have been for him too mechanical and reductive, implying unin- tentionally the idea of a sort of ur myth; for Levi-Strauss's use of the term "variant" implies the existence of the ur myth, even as he denies it. What Joyce does with a pattern such as this is suggest to us a way that Finnegans Wake might be "ordered," though he never allows us to privi- lege one possible way of ordering over another. There is, of course, the paradigm of the dream, including both/and logic, and displacement, tem- poral simultaneity and disorganization, and dream speech (or talking in one's sleep). There is the paradigm of Viconian ricorso, of which so much has been made. There is also the paradigm of linear development, though this seems to be displaced from plot to the activity of arranging the text. The paradigm that is similar in some ways to Levi-Strauss's is the palimp- sest or stack of cards. Indeed the other paradigms I have mentioned seem to be contained by this one. A reader cannot help noticing the very large number of repetitions (always with a difference) in Finnegans Wake. As long as we are using the linear or cyclical paradigms "repetition" is the right word. In the palimpsest paradigm it is inadequate. Imagine for a moment any chapter of Finnegans Wake as the card on the top of a pile of seventeen Finnegans Wake chapters, each a card. Imagine also that each card has a certain transparency. At every point of reading, the other chapters shine through to the surface card, but in bits and pieces and often in shaded and distorted form. This is not the only such set of cards. Imagine Finnegan Wake itself as a card on top of a stack of cards each of which is another work of James Joyce. Elements of these works shine through occasionally to the surface. 21. Claude Livi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 213-14. Joyce's notion is more complicated and sophisticated than this, which would have been for him too mechanical and reductive, implying unin- tentionally the idea of a sort of ur myth; for Levi-Strauss's use of the term "variant" implies the existence of the ur myth, even as he denies it. What Joyce does with a pattern such as this is suggest to us a way that Finnegans Wake might be "ordered," though he never allows us to privi- lege one possible way of ordering over another. There is, of course, the paradigm of the dream, including both/and logic, and displacement, tem- poral simultaneity and disorganization, and dream speech (or talking in one's sleep). There is the paradigm of Viconian ricorso, of which so much has been made. There is also the paradigm of linear development, though this seems to be displaced from plot to the activity of arranging the text. The paradigm that is similar in some ways to Levi-Strauss's is the palimp- sest or stack of cards. Indeed the other paradigms I have mentioned seem to be contained by this one. A reader cannot help noticing the very large number of repetitions (always with a difference) in Finnegans Wake. As long as we are using the linear or cyclical paradigms "repetition" is the right word. In the palimpsest paradigm it is inadequate. Imagine for a moment any chapter of Finnegans Wake as the card on the top of a pile of seventeen Finnegans Wake chapters, each a card. Imagine also that each card has a certain transparency. At every point of reading, the other chapters shine through to the surface card, but in bits and pieces and often in shaded and distorted form. This is not the only such set of cards. Imagine Finnegan Wake itself as a card on top of a stack of cards each of which is another work of James Joyce. Elements of these works shine through occasionally to the surface. 21. Claude Lcvi-Strauss, Stuctural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, i67), 213-14.  156 Antithetical Essays A third stack contains cards bearing the texts of Vico, Bruno, Swift, Car- roll, Yeats, Mother Goose, and a good many others. There is also a stack of narrators, commentators, or voices; from submerged cards in this deck issue interruptions, parenthetical comments, and the like. Inside what passes as the linear plot there is still another stack. This one includes things apparently going on as the "story" proceeds: players in a game of darts, a chess game, a radio broadcast (a weather forecast, a report of a football game, race results), a trial, an inquisition, a play of children, a sightseeing tour, and so on. The Four and Shaun would seek the ur myth (they don't have Yeats's instructors to dissuade them from this endeavor) in the form of a defini- tive understanding of ALP's letter, which is a synecdoche of the Wake itself. They don't know, of course, that they are part of what they seek to understand, and Joyce goes to some considerable trouble to prevent us or discourage us from discovering the letter as a text separate from, and understandable apart from, the text as a whole. Nor does he let us find out what "really" happened in Phoenix Park, if that is what it is called and if anything at all happened. For that matter, nowhere in the text is there actually mention of the names of the principal so-called characters, whom we infer are Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle. We have only the initials HCE and ALP to hang on to. Other- wise, there are only what appear to be variants of the so-called names that we have constituted by inference. We have as much right to think the family name is Porter as to think it is Earwicker. Truth disappears as we abandon the surface of the text. Anthony Burgess has been enter- taining and helpful but ultimately wrong to write about Finnegans Wake as if the first thing of importance were its conventional structure of plot and charactera' There is another paradigm, popular in some forms of contemporary ex- egesis, that the text actually seems to be inviting us to employ. It is a secularized version of typological interpretation. Joyce seems to have re- garded Ulysses not as an ironic modern version of the Odyssey but its anti- typical fulfillment. Finnegans Wake he seems to have regarded as the anti- typical fulfillment of Western literature. Both would be secular new testaments to the preceding old testaments. (M. M. Bakhtin sees the novel as the inevitable replacement of the epic and defines it broadly in a way that would certainly make Joyce's work the successor to, perhaps the antitype of, the epic.)" zz. Anthony Burgess, Here Comes Everybody (retitled ReJoyce) (London: Faber and Faber, 1968). 23. M. M. Bakhtin, "Epic and Novel," in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Antithetical Essays 156 Antithetical Essays A third stack contains cards bearing the texts of Vico, Bruno, Swift, Car- roll, Yeats, Mother Goose, and a good many others. There is also a stack of narrators, commentators, or voices; from submerged cards in this deck issue interruptions, parenthetical comments, and the like. Inside what passes as the linear plot there is still another stack. This one includes things apparently going on as the "story" proceeds: players in a game of darts, a chess game, a radio broadcast (a weather forecast, a report of a football game, race results), a trial, an inquisition, a play of children, a sightseeing tour, and so on. The Four and Shaun would seek the ur myth (they don't have Yeats's instructors to dissuade them from this endeavor) in the form of a defini- tive understanding of ALP's letter, which is a synecdoche of the Wake itself They don't know, of course, that they are part of what they seek to understand, and Joyce goes to some considerable trouble to prevent us or discourage us from discovering the letter as a text separate from, and understandable apart from, the text as a whole. Nor does he let us find out what "really" happened in Phoenix Park, if that is what it is called and if anything at all happened. For that matter, nowhere in the text is there actually mention of the names of the principal so-called characters, whom we infer are Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle. We have only the initials HCE and ALP to hang on to. Other- wise, there are only what appear to be variants of the so-called names that we have constituted by inference. We have as much right to think the family name is Porter as to think it is Earwicker. Truth disappears as we abandon the surface of the text. Anthony Burgess has been enter- taining and helpful but ultimately wrong to write about Finnegans Wake as if the first thing of importance were its conventional structure of plot and character.' There is another paradigm, popular in some forms of contemporary ex- egesis, that the text actually seems to be inviting us to employ. It is a secularized version of typological interpretation. Joyce seems to have re- garded Ulysses not as an ironic modern version of the Odyssey but its anti- typical fulfillment. Finnegans Wake he seems to have regarded as the anti- typical fulfillment of Western literature. Both would be secular new testaments to the preceding old testaments. (M. M. Bakhtin sees the novel as the inevitable replacement of the epic and defines it broadly in a way that would certainly make Joyce's work the successor to, perhaps the antitype of, the epic.)" 2. Anthony Burgess, Here Comes Everybody (retitled ReJoyce) (London: Faber and Faber, 1968). 23. M. M. Bakhtin, "Epic and Novel," in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. A third stack contains cards bearing the texts of Vico, Bruno, Swift, Car- roll, Yeats, Mother Goose, and a good many others. There is also a stack of narrators, commentators, or voices; from submerged cards in this deck issue interruptions, parenthetical comments, and the like. Inside what passes as the linear plot there is still another stack. This one includes things apparently going on as the "story" proceeds: players in a game of darts, a chess game, a radio broadcast (a weather forecast, a report of a football game, race results), a trial, an inquisition, a play of children, a sightseeing tour, and so on. The Four and Shaun would seek the ur myth (they don't have Yeats's instructors to dissuade them from this endeavor) in the form of a defini- tive understanding of ALP's letter, which is a synecdoche of the Wake itself. They don't know, of course, that they are part of what they seek to understand, and Joyce goes to some considerable trouble to prevent us or discourage us from discovering the letter as a text separate from, and understandable apart from, the text as a whole. Nor does he let us find out what "really" happened in Phoenix Park, if that is what it is called and if anything at all happened. For that matter, nowhere in the text is there actually mention of the names of the principal so-called characters, whom we infer are Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle. We have only the initials HCE and ALP to hang on to. Other- wise, there are only what appear to be variants of the so-called names that we have constituted by inference. We have as much right to think the family name is Porter as to think it is Earwicker. Truth disappears as we abandon the surface of the text. Anthony Burgess has been enter- taining and helpful but ultimately wrong to write about Finnegans Wake as if the first thing of importance were its conventional structure of plot and character.0 There is another paradigm, popular in some forms of contemporary ex- egesis, that the text actually seems to be inviting us to employ. It is a secularized version of typological interpretation. Joyce seems to have re- garded Ulysses not as an ironic modeen version of the Odyssey but its anti- typical fulfillment. Finnegans Wake he seems to have regarded as the anti- typical fulfillment of Western literature. Both would be secular new testaments to the preceding old testaments. (M. M. Bakhtin sees the novel as the inevitable replacement of the epic and defines it broadly in a way that would certainly make Joyce's work the successor to, perhaps the antitype of, the epic.)" 22. Anthony Burgess, Here Comes Everybody (retitled ReJoyce) (London: Faber and Faber, 1968). 23. M. M. Bakhtin, "Epic and Novel," in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed.  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 157 Yet, although Finnegans Wake is not describable as about something, in the usual sense of that word, it has ethical implications. Modernist and postmodernist criticism (a distinction that history is unlikely to sustain) have been anxious to avoid the accusation of moralism, for moralism has tended to be identified at least since the development of aesthetics in the eighteenth century as the search for didactic allegory based on a naively mimetic principle. Yet at heart modernist criticism wanted to recast the ground of morality from a single law or system based on what Vico called the "abstract universal" to one that accepts "poetic logic" as its base. The shift in recent centuries from an interest in science-inspired epistemology to language philosophy, in spite of the ensuing split between logical posi- tivists and the rest, has been instrumental in making us consider yet again that literary fictions are not in their ends descriptive or explanatory of some pre-existing external being or existence. Nor do they constitute ex- istence as if it were separate from the constitution itself, as it is fictively declared to be in science. Rather, their "as ifs" are directed toward consti- tution of an ethic. In this sense, Finnegans Wake is about something after all, but that is too loose a way of expressing the matter. It is on the way to aboutness, which is inferred by the constitutive critical act, which can only be part of a continuing conversation. Such conversations, though constitutive, do not pretend ever finally to close the book, or at least they invite a new opening. This in itself begins to constitute an ethic of inter- pretation, one of the principles of which would be that we are always a part of what we seek to understand and by synecdoche are constituted as our understanding. Finnegans Wake is an antithetical book with ethical potentiality. It is a "dream" because it insists that it not be taken to be about an externality (apart from an internality) subject to processes of verification. It is an anti- thetical book that celebrates common life in a secular way. There is noth- ing in life too mean, trivial, ridiculous, sentimental, or obscene not to be worth allusion in Finnegans Wake. Nor is there anything too great. Its concerns are universal and yet so particular that the question of origins-the question posed by the Four-is irrelevant. That is why it is not quite right-though it is a temptation-simply to say that Finnegans Wake turns on the question of original sin. The "sin" is so ubiq- uitous and the text's play on it is so vast that to query it in terms of histori- cal causality seems pointless. The word sin in these senses in unlocatable. If it is "original" it is so in the antithetical sense of being everywhere and nowhere. Sin is a word perhaps best treatable as attached to a set that Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 157 Yet, although Finnegans Wake is not describable as about something, in the usual sense of that word, it has ethical implications. Modernist and postmodernist criticism (a distinction that history is unlikely to sustain) have been anxious to avoid the accusation of moralism, for moralism has tended to be identified at least since the development of aesthetics in the eighteenth century as the search for didactic allegory based on a naively mimetic principle. Yet at heart modernist criticism wanted to recast the ground of morality from a single law or system based on what Vico called the "abstract universal" to one that accepts "poetic logic" as its base. The shift in recent centuries from an interest in science-inspired epistemology to language philosophy, in spite of the ensuing split between logical posi- tivists and the rest, has been instrumental in making us consider yet again that literary fictions are not in their ends descriptive or explanatory of some pre-existing external being or existence. Nor do they constitute ex- istence as if it were separate from the constitution itself, as it is fictively declared to be in science. Rather, their "as ifs" are directed toward consti- tution of an ethic. In this sense, Finnegans Wake is about something after all, but that is too loose a way of expressing the matter. It is on the way to aboutness, which is inferred by the constitutive critical act, which can only be part of a continuing conversation. Such conversations, though constitutive, do not pretend ever finally to close the book, or at least they invite a new opening. This in itself begins to constitute an ethic of inter- pretation, one of the principles of which would be that we are always a part of what we seek to understand and by synecdoche are constituted as our understanding. Finnegan Wake is an antithetical book with ethical potentiality. It is a "dream" because it insists that it not be taken to be about an externality (apart from an internality) subject to processes of verification. It is an anti- thetical book that celebrates common life in a secular way. There is noth- ing in life too mean, trivial, ridiculous, sentimental, or obscene not to be worth allusion in Finnegans Wake. Nor is there anything too great. Its concerns are universal and yet so particular that the question of origins-the question posed by the Four-is irrelevant. That is why it is not quite right-though it is a temptation-simply to say that Finnegan Wake turns on the question of original sin. The "sin" is so ubiq- uitous and the text's play on it is so vast that to query it in terms of histori- cal causality seems pointless. The word sin in these senses in unlocatable. If it is "original" it is so in the antithetical sense of being everywhere and nowhere. Sin is a word perhaps best treatable as attached to a set that Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 157 Yet, although Finnegans Wake is not describable as about something, in the usual sense of that word, it has ethical implications. Modernist and postmodernist criticism (a distinction that history is unlikely to sustain) have been anxious to avoid the accusation of moralism, for moralism has tended to be identified at least since the development of aesthetics in the eighteenth century as the search for didactic allegory based on a naively mimetic principle. Yet at heart modernist criticism wanted to recast the ground of morality from a single law or system based on what Vico called the "abstract universal" to one that accepts "poetic logic" as its base. The shift in recent centuries from an interest in science-inspired epistemology to language philosophy, in spite of the ensuing split between logical posi- tivists and the rest, has been instrumental in making us consider yet again that literary fictions are not in their ends descriptive or explanatory of some pre-existing external being or existence. Nor do they constitute ex- istence as if it were separate from the constitution itself, as it is fictively declared to be in science. Rather, their "as ifs" are directed toward consti- tution of an ethic. In this sense, Finnegans Wake is about something after all, but that is too loose a way of expressing the matter. It is on the way to aboutness, which is inferred by the constitutive critical act, which can only be part of a continuing conversation. Such conversations, though constitutive, do not pretend ever finally to close the book, or at least they invite a new opening. This in itself begins to constitute an ethic of inter- pretation, one of the principles of which would be that we are always a part of what we seek to understand and by synecdoche are constituted as our understanding. Finnegans Wake is an antithetical book with ethical potentiality. It is a "dream" because it insists that it not be taken to be about an externality (apart from an internality) subject to processes of verification. It is an anti- thetical book that celebrates common life in a secular way. There is noth- ing in life too mean, trivial, ridiculous, sentimental, or obscene not to be worth allusion in Finnegans Wake. Nor is there anything too great. Its concerns are universal and yet so particular that the question of origins-the question posed by the Four-is irrelevant. That is why it is not quite right-though it is a temptation-simply to say that Finnegans Wake turns on the question of original sin. The "sin" is so ubiq- uitous and the text's play on it is so vast that to query it in terms of histori- cal causality seems pointless. The word sin in these senses in unlocatable. If it is "original" it is so in the antithetical sense of being everywhere and nowhere. Sin is a word perhaps best treatable as attached to a set that Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 3-4. sMichael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 3-40. Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 3-40.  Antithetical Essays 158 Antithetical Essays 158 Antithetical Essays has no common feature, like a Wittgensteinian word family; but the family includes everything. Everything conceivably related by trope to a physi- cal, political, or mental act is implicated, including the rise and the fall of HCE's penis, Parnell's fall from power or his descent from Katherine O'Shea's bedroom, or Humpty Dumpty's fall from the wall. Ubiquitous is the primal act of procreation and the continuation of the species, ex- pressed in the so-called Earwicker (or Porter) family romance. Thus sin is identified with secular resurrection or the simple cycle of nature. In Finnegans Wake the sin is cut off from any theological or historical concept, though traces, of course, exist. In Finnegans Wake there is no incursion of divinity, no resurrection to a higher life, no transcendence of the human condition as we experience it. The sin that is ubiquitous in the Wake both is and is not sinful. Redemption is secular, of limited duration and efficacy, of only human ordinance, and cyclical. There is no recourse beyond human dispensation. The cycle involves the love and sexual relations of men and women, eventuating in the family with all of its conflicts. The cycle is endless, presided over by an endlessly reborn tempting and redeeming female figure, not a goddess but nevertheless the muse of the text. Like the seductress-redemptress of Blake's poem "The Mental Traveller," which lies prominently behind both A Vision and Finnegans Wake, the female cyclically tempts the male to fall and brings about his renewal in sex. She turns the wheel of his encouragement, his rise, his sin and fall, and his new encouragement and rising. She is also the secular priestess who presides over the eucharist-wake where the body of her man is fed to the community in the form of endless gossip about his sin. This sin is also the sin of the gossipers, who both expiate the sin and acknowledge it as their own in the same act. A scapegoat em- bodying communal guilt, HCE is also the community itself. The family of Finnegans Wake is in turn synecdoche for the social world. Its existence is assured by the cycle of rise and fall, sin and re- demption, which, as oppositions, end up as identical. Finnegans Wake is a book celebrating, that is, reminding us of, what is fundamental, simple, and profound in human life. It looks on the cyclicity of rise and fall, meet- ing and parting, as the perpetuation of life. It displaces ritual to the secu- lar, where, as Blake observed, "Joy and woe are woven fine," and where neither can be expected without the other. Finnegans Wake judges this as the reality that must be acknowledged, and all action must be predicated on it with no recourse to divine interventions or to the assumption that even a totally communal human act can change these fundamental condi- tions. The secular morality of common life in Joyce and the implication we draw from the search of the character Yeats through the mirror world of has no common feature, like a Wittgensteinian word family; but the family includes everything. Everything conceivably related by trope to a physi- cal, political, or mental act is implicated, including the rise and the fall of HCE's penis, Parnell's fall from power or his descent from Katherine O'Shea's bedroom, or Humpty Dumpty's fall from the wall. Ubiquitous is the primal act of procreation and the continuation of the species, ex- pressed in the so-called Earwicker (or Porter) family romance. Thus sin is identified with secular resurrection or the simple cycle of nature. In Finnegans Wake the sin is cut off from any theological or historical concept, though traces, of course, exist. In Finnegans Wake there is no incursion of divinity, no resurrection to a higher life, no transcendence of the human condition as we experience it. The sin that is ubiquitous in the Wake both is and is not sinful. Redemption is secular, of limited duration and efficacy, of only human ordinance, and cyclical. There is no recourse beyond human dispensation. The cycle involves the love and sexual relations of men and women, eventuating in the family with all of its conflicts. The cycle is endless, presided over by an endlessly reborn tempting and redeeming female figure, not a goddess but nevertheless the muse of the text. Like the seductress-redemptress of Blake's poem "The Mental Traveller," which lies prominently behind both A Vision and Finnegans Wake, the female cyclically tempts the male to fall and brings about his renewal in sex. She turns the wheel of his encouragement, his rise, his sin and fall, and his new encouragement and rising. She is also the secular priestess who presides over the eucharist-wake where the body of her man is fed to the community in the form of endless gossip about his sin. This sin is also the sin of the gossipers, who both expiate the sin and acknowledge it as their own in the same act. A scapegoat em- bodying communal guilt, HCE is also the community itself. The family of Finnegano Wake is in turn synecdoche for the social world. Its existence is assured by the cycle of rise and fall, sin and re- demption, which, as oppositions, end up as identical. Finnegans Wake is a book celebrating, that is, reminding us of, what is fundamental, simple, and profound in human life. It looks on the cyclicity of rise and fall, meet- ing and parting, as the perpetuation of life. It displaces ritual to the secu- lar, where, as Blake observed, "Joy and woe are woven fine," and where neither can be expected without the other. Finnegans Wake judges this as the reality that must be acknowledged, and all action must be predicated on it with no recourse to divine interventions or to the assumption that even a totally communal human act can change these fundamental condi- tions. The secular morality of common life in Joyce and the implication we draw from the search of the character Yeats through the mirror world of has no common feature, like a Wittgensteinian word family; but the family includes everything. Everything conceivably related by trope to a physi- cal, political, or mental act is implicated, including the rise and the fall of HCE's penis, Parnell's fall from power or his descent from Katherine O'Shea's bedroom, or Humpty Dumpty's fall from the wall. Ubiquitous is the primal act of procreation and the continuation of the species, ex- pressed in the so-called Earwicker (or Porter) family romance. Thus sin is identified with secular resurrection or the simple cycle of nature. In Finnegans Wake the sin is cut off from any theological or historical concept, though traces, of course, exist. In Finnegans Wake there is no incursion of divinity, no resurrection to a higher life, no transcendence of the human condition as we experience it. The sin that is ubiquitous in the Wake both is and is not sinful. Redemption is secular, of limited duration and efficacy, of only human ordinance, and cyclical. There is no recourse beyond human dispensation. The cycle involves the love and sexual relations of men and women, eventuating in the family with all of its conflicts. The cycle is endless, presided over by an endlessly reborn tempting and redeeming female figure, not a goddess but nevertheless the muse of the text. Like the seductress-redemptress of Blake's poem "The Mental Traveller," which lies prominently behind both A Vision and Finnegans Wake, the female cyclically tempts the male to fall and brings about his renewal in sex. She turns the wheel of his encouragement, his rise, his sin and fall, and his new encouragement and rising. She is also the secular priestess who presides over the eucharist-wake where the body of her man is fed to the community in the form of endless gossip about his sin. This sin is also the sin of the gossipers, who both expiate the sin and acknowledge it as their own in the same act. A scapegoat em- bodying communal guilt, HCE is also the community itself. The family of Finnegans Wake is in turn synecdoche for the social world. Its existence is assured by the cycle of rise and fall, sin and re- demption, which, as oppositions, end up as identical. Finnegans Wake is a book celebrating, that is, reminding us of, what is fundamental, simple, and profound in human life. It looks on the cyclicity of rise and fall, meet- ing and parting, as the perpetuation of life. It displaces ritual to the secu- lar, where, as Blake observed, "Joy and woe are woven fine," and where neither can be expected without the other. Finnegans Wake judges this as the reality that must be acknowledged, and all action must be predicated on it with no recourse to divine interventions or to the assumption that even a totally communal human act can change these fundamental condi- tions. The secular morality of common life in Joyce and the implication we draw from the search of the character Yeats through the mirror world of  Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 159 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 159 Yeats, Joyce, and Criticism Today 159 A Vision with its supposedly (at the outset) originating instructors, who seem to be seeking something from Yeats, are not examples of the nega- tion of religious spirituality. Rather, they are Blakean contraries to it. For the most part, the great poets have known, in their writings at least, that the friendship of their poetry to religion was properly one of contrariety- the role of reprobate that Blake boldly assigned to Jesus himself. Poetry is secular, earthy, and physical. For Yeats, life had to be met with the "affirmative capability" of fictive (un)belief. For Joyce it was a matter of accepting both pleasure and woe, rise and fall. Everything contains both. Both writers offer an ethical challenge to formulate a secular criticism that constitutes the text, but a constitution acknowledging that it must always move on, and that we are always involved, a criticism suggested by Shem and by Yeats's instructors, who, he remarks, helped him to "hold in a sin- gle thought reality and justice" (25). This criticism is not suggested by the four old men, whose ass, like the ass of Balaam, knows better then they. A Vision with its supposedly (at the outset) originating instructors, who seem to be seeking something from Yeats, are not examples of the nega- tion of religious spirituality. Rather, they are Blakean contraries to it. For the most part, the great poets have known, in their writings at least, that the friendship of their poetry to religion was properly one of contrariety- the role of reprobate that Blake boldly assigned to Jesus himself. Poetry is secular, earthy, and physical. For Yeats, life had to be met with the "affirmative capability" of fictive (un)belief. For Joyce it was a matter of accepting both pleasure and woe, rise and fall. Everything contains both. Both writers offer an ethical challenge to formulate a secular criticism that constitutes the text, but a constitution acknowledging that it must always move on, and that we are always involved, a criticism suggested by Shem and by Yeats's instructors, who, he remarks, helped him to "hold in a sin- gle thought reality and justice" (25). This criticism is not suggested by the four old men, whose ass, like the ass of Balaam, knows better then they. A Vision with its supposedly (at the outset) originating instructors, who seem to be seeking something from Yeats, are not examples of the nega- tion of religious spirituality. Rather, they are Blakean contraries to it. For the most part, the great poets have known, in their writings at least, that the friendship of their poetry to religion was properly one of contrariety- the role of reprobate that Blake boldly assigned to Jesus himself. Poetry is secular, earthy, and physical. For Yeats, life had to be met with the "affirmative capability" of fictive (un)belief. For Joyce it was a matter of accepting both pleasure and woe, rise and fall. Everything contains both. Both writers offer an ethical challenge to formulate a secular criticism that constitutes the text, but a constitution acknowledging that it must always move on, and that we are always involved, a criticism suggested by Shem and by Yeats's instructors, who, he remarks, helped him to "hold in a sin- gle thought reality and justice" (25). This criticism is not suggested by the four old men, whose ass, like the ass of Balaam, knows better then they.  "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake Even the most carefully wrought statements about Finnegana Wake have a way of being as wrong as they are right. Hart has remarked of the differ- ence between a "sense of the book in tranquil recollection and my imme- diate impression whenever I have it open before me. Trying to maintain an uneasy grip on the whole, I inadvertently simplify it when remember- ing it."' There is always the presence of Blake's "daughters of memory" in the act of literary interpretation, and what Hart complains of is true to some extent of all acts of interpretation. We can gain some solace from the momentary, if illusory, pleasure of memory's distance even as this pleasure causes us to return to the uneasiness of critical reading it- self. The stark fact of the interpreter's situation is made clearer by any at- tempt to say something intelligent about Finnegans Wake. It becomes alpsulumply (595:19) clear when we attempt to discuss a part of it-ALP or anything so specific as a maternal figure in the text. No matter what question we ask, there seems to be a prior question that must be ad- dressed. There is required a prior decision about, among other things, who dreams, though the "who" itself may have erroneously limited the question, bringing into view a still previous one: does it make sense to speak of a dreamer at all? We need to ask who is speaking at any given time unless this question is also too narrow because it does not allow for the possibility that there is no speaker but a speaking, or even no speaker but only a writing. We require an answer to the question of whether there is a maternal figure in the text or whether there are figures at all, for that matter, or what we mean by "figure": character or trope, or both. On the way to my assigned task, which I take to be consideration of ALP in her maternal aspect, I shall try to get at some of these questions indirectly by addressing several subjects that I regard as related in Finnegans Wake: history, the muses, tropes or figures, and the letter or the literal. For Vico, the primordial poets were historians and vice versa. Fin- negans Wake is poetic, universal, Viconian history or, to be more pre- cise, concrete universal history composed of imaginative rather than ab- stract universals in the manner of Vico's earliest historians. The muse of 1. Clive Hart, "Afterword: Reading Finnegans Wake, "A Starchamber Quiry," ed. E. L. Epstein (New York and London: Methuen, sg82), 156. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake Even the most carefully wrought statements about Finnegans Wake have a way of being as wrong as they are right. Hart has remarked of the differ- ence between a "sense of the book in tranquil recollection and my imme- diate impression whenever I have it open before me. Trying to maintain an uneasy grip on the whole, I inadvertently simplify it when remember- ing it."' There is always the presence of Blake's "daughters of memory" in the act of literary interpretation, and what Hart complains of is true to some extent of all acts of interpretation. We can gain some solace from the momentary, if illusory, pleasure of memory's distance even as this pleasure causes us to return to the uneasiness of critical reading it- self. The stark fact of the interpreter's situation is made clearer by any at- tempt to say something intelligent about Finnegans Wake. It becomes alpsulumply (595:19) clear when we attempt to discuss a part of it-ALP or anything so specific as a maternal figure in the text. No matter what question we ask, there seems to be a prior question that must be ad- dressed. There is required a prior decision about, among other things, who dreams, though the "who" itself may have erroneously limited the question, bringing into view a still previous one: does it make sense to speak of a dreamer at all? We need to ask who is speaking at any given time unless this question is also too narrow because it does not allow for the possibility that there is no speaker but a speaking, or even no speaker but only a writing. We require an answer to the question of whether there is a maternal figure in the text or whether there are figures at all, for that matter, or what we mean by "figure": character or trope, or both. On the way to my assigned task, which I take to be consideration of ALP in her maternal aspect, I shall try to get at some of these questions indirectly by addressing several subjects that I regard as related in Finnegans Wake: history, the muses, tropes or figures, and the letter or the literal. For Vico, the primordial poets were historians and vice versa. Fin- negans Wake is poetic, universal, Viconian history or, to be more pre- cise, concrete universal history composed of imaginative rather than ab- stract universals in the manner of Vico's earliest historians. The muse of 1. Clive Hart, "Afterword: Reading Finnegan Wake, "A Starchamber Quiry," ed. E. L. Epstein (New York and London: Methuen, 1982), 156. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake Even the most carefully wrought statements about Finnegans Wake have a way of being as wrong as they are right. Hart has remarked of the differ- ence between a "sense of the book in tranquil recollection and my imme- diate impression whenever I have it open before me. Trying to maintain an uneasy grip on the whole, I inadvertently simplify it when remember- ing it."' There is always the presence of Blake's "daughters of memory" in the act of literary interpretation, and what Hart complains of is true to some extent of all acts of interpretation. We can gain some solace from the momentary, if illusory, pleasure of memory's distance even as this pleasure causes us to return to the uneasiness of critical reading it- self. The stark fact of the interpreter's situation is made clearer by any at- tempt to say something intelligent about Finnegans Wake. It becomes alpsulumply (595:19) clear when we attempt to discuss a part of it-ALP or anything so specific as a maternal figure in the text. No matter what question we ask, there seems to be a prior question that must be ad- dressed. There is required a prior decision about, among other things, who dreams, though the "who" itself may have erroneously limited the question, bringing into view a still previous one: does it make sense to speak of a dreamer at all? We need to ask who is speaking at any given time unless this question is also too narrow because it does not allow for the possibility that there is no speaker but a speaking, or even no speaker but only a writing. We require an answer to the question of whether there is a maternal figure in the text or whether there are figures at all, for that matter, or what we mean by "figure": character or trope, or both. On the way to my assigned task, which I take to be consideration of ALP in her maternal aspect, I shall try to get at some of these questions indirectly by addressing several subjects that I regard as related in Finnegans Wake: history, the muses, tropes or figures, and the letter or the literal. For Vico, the primordial poets were historians and vice versa. Fin- negans Wake is poetic, universal, Viconian history or, to be more pre- cise, concrete universal history composed of imaginative rather than ab- stract universals in the manner of Vico's earliest historians. The muse of 1. Clive Hart, "Afterword: Reading Finnegan Wake, "A Starchamber Quiry," ed. E. L. Epstein (New York and London: Methuen, 1982), 156.  "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 161 history, Clio, is traditionally depicted as sitting with either an open roll of paper before her or an open chest of books. The muse of poetry, Calli- ope, usually appears with a tablet and stylus, and sometimes with a roll of paper. Both may be said to be involved with the writing of letters. Muses are traditionally virgin goddesses, but occasionally they are moth- ers, Clio having been mother to Orpheus. The muses were sometimes regarded as prophets, being connected with Delphi; at Troezene sacri- fices were made to them conjointly with Hypnos, god of sleep. Clio- Calliope is an appropriate figure to be a muse of Viconian history. Vico himself calls Clio the muse of "heroic history." The muse is mentioned in Finnegans Wake as "hickstray's maws" (64.6) and "John a Dream's mews" (61:4); Finnegan Wake is itself in some sense a book of"Clio's clip- pings" (254:7), a litter of her letters, perhaps. Yet this muse is not merely the external inspiration of Joyce's poetic history. This muse possesses the book and turns it as a "cyclewheeling history" (186:2). This muse both gives birth to the book and is the book. The muse of Finnegans Wake is ALP. As such, she is not the usually virgin muse but instead the mother muse who gave birth to Orpheus, predecessor of Homer as the vessel of poetry. This brings me to the Viconian tropes, in each of which we find ALP and, for that matter, all else in Finnegans Wake. In his book Metahistosy, Hayden White finds historians operating by one or another of Vico's four principal tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. He ob- serves, for example, that Wilhelm von Humboldt saw history as a form to be observed in a set of events, so that each event both contributes to the whole and reveals the structure of the whole in microcosm.' Von Humboldt's theory is synecdochic. It has frequently been observed that Finnegans Wake is synecdochic. Atherton has said, "Each word tends to reflect in its own structure the structure of Finnegans Wake."' Solomon has said, "But larger things may also stand for small parts," and she speaks of Joyce's technique of "constantly turning synecdoche, inverted over and over."' Finnegans Wake, in a synecdochic act, observes of itself: "Past does duty for the holos" (1:01), "a part of the whole as a port for a whale" (135:28), and "the park is gracer than the hole" (512:28), statements each of which requires considerable interpretation. Synecdoche is implied in the term "allforabit" (19:2). The Viconian principle of the concrete univer- a. Metahistory (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 180. 3. James S. Atherton, The Books at the Wake (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974), 53. 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963), 8g. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP is Finnegans Wake 161 history, Clio, is traditionally depicted as sitting with either an open roll of paper before her or an open chest of books. The muse of poetry, Calli- ope, usually appears with a tablet and stylus, and sometimes with a roll of paper. Both may be said to be involved with the writing of letters. Muses are traditionally virgin goddesses, but occasionally they are moth- ers, Clio having been mother to Orpheus. The muses were sometimes regarded as prophets, being connected with Delphi; at Troezene sacri- fices were made to them conjointly with Hypnos, god of sleep. Clio- Calliope is an appropriate figure to be a muse of Viconian history. Vico himself calls Clio the muse of "heroic history." The muse is mentioned in Finnegans Wake as "hickstray's maws" (64.6) and "John a Dream's mews" (61:4); Finnegan Wake is itself in some sense a book of"Clio's clip- pings" (254:7), a litter of her letters, perhaps. Yet this muse is not merely the external inspiration of Joyce's poetic history. This muse possesses the book and turns it as a "cyclewheeling history" (186:2). This muse both gives birth to the book and is the book. The muse of Finnegans Wake is ALP. As such, she is not the usually virgin muse but instead the mother muse who gave birth to Orpheus, predecessor of Homer as the vessel of poetry. This brings me to the Viconian tropes, in each of which we find ALP and, for that matter, all else in Finnegan Wake. In his book Metahistory, Hayden White finds historians operating by one or another of Vico's four principal tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. He ob- serves, for example, that Wilhelm von Humboldt saw history as a form to be observed in a set of events, so that each event both contributes to the whole and reveals the structure of the whole in microcosm.' Von Humboldt's theory is synecdochic. It has frequently been observed that Finnegans Wake is synecdochic. Atherton has said, "Each word tends to reflect in its own structure the structure of Finnegans Wake."' Solomon has said, "But larger things may also stand for small parts," and she speaks of Joyce's technique of "constantly turning synecdoche, inverted over and over."' Finnegans Wake, in a synecdochic act, observes of itself: "Past does duty for the holos" (so:t), "a part of the whole as a port for a whale" (135:28), and "the park is gracer than the hole" (512:28), statements each of which requires considerable interpretation. Synecdoche is implied in the term "allforabit" (1p:2). The Viconian principle of the concrete univer- a. Metahistory (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 180. 3. James S. Atherton, The Books at the Wake (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974), 53. 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963), 89. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 161 history, Clio, is traditionally depicted as sitting with either an open roll of paper before her or an open chest of books. The muse of poetry, Calli- ope, usually appears with a tablet and stylus, and sometimes with a roll of paper. Both may be said to be involved with the writing of letters. Muses are traditionally virgin goddesses, but occasionally they are moth- ers, Clio having been mother to Orpheus. The muses were sometimes regarded as prophets, being connected with Delphi; at Troezene sacri- fices were made to them conjointly with Hypnos, god of sleep. Clio- Calliope is an appropriate figure to be a muse of Viconian history. Vico himself calls Clio the muse of "heroic history." The muse is mentioned in Finnegans Wake as "hickstray's maws" (64.6) and "John a Dream's mews" (61:4); Finnegan Wake is itself in some sense a book of"Clio's clip- pings" (254:7), a litter of her letters, perhaps. Yet this muse is not merely the external inspiration of Joyce's poetic history. This muse possesses the book and turns it as a "cyclewheeling history" (186:2). This muse both gives birth to the book and is the book. The muse of Finnegans Wake is ALP. As such, she is not the usually virgin muse but instead the mother muse who gave birth to Orpheus, predecessor of Homer as the vessel of poetry. This brings me to the Viconian tropes, in each of which we find ALP and, for that matter, all else in Finnegans Wake. In his book Metahistory, Hayden White finds historians operating by one or another of Vico's four principal tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. He ob- serves, for example, that Wilhelm von Humboldt saw history as a form to be observed in a set of events, so that each event both contributes to the whole and reveals the structure of the whole in microcosm.' Van Humboldt's theory is synecdochic. It has frequently been observed that Finnegan Wake is synecdochic. Atherton has said, "Each word tends to reflect in its own structure the structure of Finnegan Wake. " Solomon has said, "But larger things may also stand for small parts," and she speaks of Joyce's technique of "constantly turning synecdoche, inverted over and over."' Finnegan Wake, in a synecdochic act, observes of itself: "Past does duty for the holos" (1:1), "a part of the whole as a port for a whale" (135:28), and "the park is gracer than the hole" (512:28), statements each of which requires considerable interpretation. Synecdoche is implied in the term "allforabit" (19:2). The Viconian principle of the concrete univer- z. Metahistory (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 1so. 3. James S. Atherton, The Books at the Wake (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974), 53. 4. Margaret Solomon, Eternal Geomater (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, ig63), 89.  Antithetical Essays 16z Antithetical Essays 162 Antithetical Essays sal is, of course, synecdochic, and thus synecdoche is the privileged trope of Viconian poetic history, as it is of Finnegan Wake. But before examining how it works with ALP, let us examine the way ALP inhabits the other tropes or they inhabit her. First, metaphor. ALP embodies, or let us say enletters a chain of identities, by which I mean things both same and different. She is both a young woman and a matron, a virgin and a mother, like Clio. She is all other females. Issy's narcissism is but ALP's recognition of her own procreative powers. ALP literally enletters a chain of names with her initials, or the initials that are hers, all having identity with each other. Finally, the various supposedly writ- ten letters in the text (there is disagreement about how many) are identi- cal, though with their own shady identities. Second, metonymy. By the metonymy of cause standing for effect, ALP is her letter(s), which is/are both singular and plural. A part of her, standing by synecdoche for all of her, is so treated by the interpreter in chapter 5, where the letter is her sexual delta, through the mediation of the Tune page of the Book of Kells. The Tune page becomes a vehicle of movement into interpretive discourse of a mythic text. As such it has an element of contrariety to the text, the word TUNC being the contrary, or nearly the contrary (since interpretation is never completely anti- mythical), of what is mythically the CUNT of ALP, synecdoche of her truth, which is her productive capacity.t ALP, the cause of the text, its muse, the dictator of the letter(s), is the text itself, the letter which she is by metonymy being the text by synecdoche. This is all clearly a litter of tropes as well as a letter, for these tropes must be taken literally or we shall remain forever on the littoral or shore- line of Finnegans Wake. I take literal not in the Aquinian or Dantean sense but in Frye's sense that the literal is not the historical level of the text but the radically internal, which insists on tropological identities. The situation of the literal is the both/and of the dream. But this is not a wish-fulfillment dream, at least in any simple sense. In Metahistory, following Frye, White observes that the mythos of synec- doche is the "dream of comedy," where differences are dissolved in the "realization of a perfect harmony." Joyce goes beyond this formulation and the tendency of comedy to take one of two forms that White finds in nineteenth-century historians. The two forms are represented, on the one hand, by Michelet's tendency to see in the comic process the reassertion 5. On this conception of mythical, antimythical, and contrariety see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 105-14, 329-47, sal is, of course, synecdochic, and thus synecdoche is the privileged trope of Viconian poetic history, as it is of Finnegan Wake. But before examining how it works with ALP, let us examine the way ALP inhabits the other tropes or they inhabit her. First, metaphor. ALP embodies, or let us say enletters a chain of identities, by which I mean things both same and different. She is both a young woman and a matron, a virgin and a mother, like Clio. She is all other females. Issy's narcissism is but ALP's recognition of her own procreative powers. ALP literally enletters a chain of names with her initials, or the initials that are hers, all having identity with each other. Finally, the various supposedly writ- ten letters in the text (there is disagreement about how many) are identi- cal, though with their own shady identities. Second, metonymy. By the metonymy of cause standing for effect, ALP is her letter(s), which is/are both singular and plural. A part of her, standing by synecdoche for all of her, is so treated by the interpreter in chapter 5, where the letter is her sexual delta, through the mediation of the Tune page of the Book of Kells. The Tune page becomes a vehicle of movement into interpretive discourse of a mythic text. As such it has an element of contrariety to the text, the word TUNC being the contrary, or nearly the contrary (since interpretation is never completely anti- mythical), of what is mythically the CUNT of ALP, synecdoche of her truth, which is her productive capacity.' ALP, the cause of the text, its muse, the dictator of the letter(s), is the text itself, the letter which she is by metonymy being the text by synecdoche. This is all clearly a litter of tropes as well as a letter, for these tropes must be taken literally or we shall remain forever on the littoral or shore- line of Finnegans Wake. I take literal not in the Aquinian or Dantean sense but in Frye's sense that the literal is not the historical level of the text but the radically internal, which insists on tropological identities. The situation of the literal is the both/and of the dream. But this is not a wish-fulfillment dream, at least in any simple sense. In Metahistory, following Frye, White observes that the mythos of synec- doche is the "dream of comedy," where differences are dissolved in the "realization of a perfect harmony." Joyce goes beyond this formulation and the tendency of comedy to take one of two forms that White finds in nineteenth-century historians. The two forms are represented, on the one hand, by Michelet's tendency to see in the comic process the reassertion 5. On this conception of mythical, antimythical, and contrariety see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 105-14, 329-47. sal is, of course, synecdochic, and thus synecdoche is the privileged trope of Viconian poetic history, as it is of Finnegans Wake. But before examining how it works with ALP, let us examine the way ALP inhabits the other tropes or they inhabit her. First, metaphor. ALP embodies, or let us say enletters a chain of identities, by which I mean things both same and different. She is both a young woman and a matron, a virgin and a mother, like Clio. She is all other females. Issy's narcissism is but ALP's recognition of her own procreative powers. ALP literally enletters a chain of names with her initials, or the initials that are hers, all having identity with each other. Finally, the various supposedly writ- ten letters in the text (there is disagreement about how many) are identi- cal, though with their own shady identities. Second, metonymy. By the metonymy of cause standing for effect, ALP is her letter(s), which is/are both singular and plural. A part of her, standing by synecdoche for all of her, is so treated by the interpreter in chapter 5, where the letter is her sexual delta, through the mediation of the Tune page of the Book of Kells. The Tune page becomes a vehicle of movement into interpretive discourse of a mythic text. As such it has an element of contrariety to the text, the word TUNC being the contrary, or nearly the contrary (since interpretation is never completely anti- mythical), of what is mythically the CUNT of ALP, synecdoche of her truth, which is her productive capacity.t ALP, the cause of the text, its muse, the dictator of the letter(s), is the text itself, the letter which she is by metonymy being the text by synecdoche. This is all clearly a litter of tropes as well as a letter, for these tropes must be taken literally or we shall remain forever on the littoral or shore- line of Finnegans Wake. I take literal not in the Aquinian or Dantean sense but in Frye's sense that the literal is not the historical level of the text but the radically internal, which insists on tropological identities. The situation of the literal is the both/and of the dream. But this is not a wish-fulfillment dream, at least in any simple sense. In Metahistory, following Frye, White observes that the mythos of synec- doche is the "dream of comedy," where differences are dissolved in the "realization of a perfect harmony." Joyce goes beyond this formulation and the tendency of comedy to take one of two forms that White finds in nineteenth-century historians. The two forms are represented, on the one hand, by Michelet's tendency to see in the comic process the reassertion 5. On this conception of mythical, antimythical, and contrariety see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983), esp. 105-14, 329-47.  "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 163 of the rights of the protagonist in society and, on the other, by Ranke's emphasis on the reassertion of the rights of collectivity over the individ- ual. In the play of Finnegan Wake with identity, we have both of these resolutions or neither, or the cyclical embodiment of them. Joyce's formulation is a contrary to the either/or of anti-myth. This point is particularly applicable to ALP. In her ingenious book Eternal Geomater, Solomon observes Joyce not content with a two- dimensional geometry to present ALP.' Indeed, he proceeds to three di- mensions, ventures four, and implies that an infinitude is appropriate to a true geometrical representation of ALP's sexuality. This implies in turn that if an interpreter could ever get it right he would have found a way to express infinity in a concrete universal. In this matter, incidentally, Joyce deliberately attempts to write the containing anti-type that goes be- yond Yeats's two-dimensional and sometimes three-dimensional diagrams in A Vision, parodying Yeatsian language. He also reverses Yeats on the matter of the muse or productive power, making ALP the dictator and creator in contrast to Mrs. Yeats, who is merely the vehicle of the dictat- ing instructors. The resolution of comedy, of which White speaks, is often regarded as Freudian wish-fulfillment, the whole dream an expression of desire. Desire has long been treated in western culture as the result of a lack, of a deficiency, of guilt, of Fall, or of a wrenching apart, as in Aristopha- nes' myth of sexual separation in the Symposium.' Under the Platonic no- tion, literature must be an irrational substitute gratification or acquisition expressing desire, falsely filling a vacancy. The muse, ironically perceived at least, as she usually is today, would be a figure for that lack if only because she is supposed to fill the vacancy. Norris and others see ALP as a fantasy projection of a male dreaming; the dream is an expression of the desire and guilt of a dying old man, ALP's servility (by comparison to Molly Bloom's lack of it) explained by the dreamer's being male.' Per- t. Metahistory, igo. 7. Eternal Geomater, esp. 3-29. 8. The notion of desire as prior to loss and thus radically productive is the basis of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hux- ley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1977). I find this notion present in Joyce's treatment of ALP, though without the Freudian-Marxist implications of Deleuze and Guattari. 9. Margot Norris, "Anna Livia Plurabelle: The Dream Woman," Women in Joyce, ed. S. Henke and E. Unkeless (Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1982), esp. igg,. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 163 of the rights of the protagonist in society and, on the other, by Ranke's emphasis on the reassertion of the rights of collectivity over the individ- ual." In the play of Finnegans Wake with identity, we have both of these resolutions or neither, or the cyclical embodiment of them. Joyce's formulation is a contrary to the either/or of anti-myth. This point is particularly applicable to ALP. In her ingenious book Eternal Geomater, Solomon observes Joyce not content with a two- dimensional geometry to present ALP.' Indeed, he proceeds to three di- mensions, ventures four, and implies that an infinitude is appropriate to a true geometrical representation of ALP's sexuality. This implies in turn that if an interpreter could ever get it right he would have found a way to express infinity in a concrete universal. In this matter, incidentally, Joyce deliberately attempts to write the containing anti-type that goes be- yond Yeats's two-dimensional and sometimes three-dimensional diagrams in A Vision, parodying Yeatsian language. He also reverses Yeats on the matter of the muse or productive power, making ALP the dictator and creator in contrast to Mrs. Yeats, who is merely the vehicle of the dictat- ing instructors. The resolution of comedy, of which White speaks, is often regarded as Freudian wish-fulfillment, the whole dream an expression of desire. Desire has long been treated in western culture as the result of a lack, of a deficiency, of guilt, of Fall, or of a wrenching apart, as in Aristopha- nes' myth of sexual separation in the Symposiums Under the Platonic no- tion, literature must be an irrational substitute gratification or acquisition expressing desire, falsely filling a vacancy. The muse, ironically perceived at least, as she usually is today, would be a figure for that lack if only because she is supposed to fill the vacancy. Norris and others see ALP as a fantasy projection of a male dreaming; the dream is an expression of the desire and guilt of a dying old man, ALP's servility (by comparison to Molly Bloom's lack of it) explained by the dreamer's being male.* Per- 6. Metahistory, 19o. 7. Eternal Geomater, esp. 113-29. 8. The notion of desire as prior to loss and thus radically productive is the basis of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hux- ley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1977). I find this notion present in Joyce's treatment of ALP, though without the Freudian-Marxist implications of Deleuze and Guattari. 9. Margot Norris, "Anna Livia Plurabelle: The Dream Woman," Women in Joyce, ed. S. Henke and E. Unkeless (Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1982), esp. 199. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 163 of the rights of the protagonist in society and, on the other, by Ranke's emphasis on the reassertion of the rights of collectivity over the individ- ual. In the play of Finnegans Wake with identity, we have both of these resolutions or neither, or the cyclical embodiment of them. Joyce's formulation is a contrary to the either/or of anti-myth. This point is particularly applicable to ALP. In her ingenious book Eternal Geomater, Solomon observes Joyce not content with a two- dimensional geometry to present ALP.' Indeed, he proceeds to three di- mensions, ventures four, and implies that an infinitude is appropriate to a true geometrical representation of ALP's sexuality. This implies in turn that if an interpreter could ever get it right he would have found a way to express infinity in a concrete universal. In this matter, incidentally, Joyce deliberately attempts to write the containing anti-type that goes be- yond Yeats's two-dimensional and sometimes three-dimensional diagrams in A Vision, parodying Yeatsian language. He also reverses Yeats on the matter of the muse or productive power, making ALP the dictator and creator in contrast to Mrs. Yeats, who is merely the vehicle of the dictat- ing instructors. The resolution of comedy, of which White speaks, is often regarded as Freudian wish-fulfillment, the whole dream an expression of desire. Desire has long been treated in western culture as the result of a lack, of a deficiency, of guilt, of Fall, or of a wrenching apart, as in Aristopha- nes' myth of sexual separation in the Symposiums Under the Platonic no- tion, literature must be an irrational substitute gratification or acquisition expressing desire, falsely filling a vacancy. The muse, ironically perceived at least, as she usually is today, would be a figure for that lack if only because she is supposed to fill the vacancy. Norris and others see ALP as a fantasy projection of a male dreaming; the dream is an expression of the desire and guilt of a dying old man, ALP's servility (by comparison to Molly Bloom's lack of it) explained by the dreamer's being male.' Per- 6. Metahistory, 19o. 7. Eternal Geomater, esp. 113-29. 8. The notion of desire as prior to loss and thus radically productive is the basis of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hux- ley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1977). I find this notion present in Joyce's treatment of ALP, though without the Freudian-Marxist implications of Deleuze and Guattari. 9. Margot Norris, "Anna Livia Plurabelle: The Dream Woman," Women in Joyce, ed. S. Henke and E. Unkeless (Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1982), esp. 199.  Antithetical Essays 164 Antithetical Essays 164 Antithetical Essays haps the simple fact that Joyce was male requires us to accept this at some level, though it draws a circle around the imagination that I am unpre- pared to accept. If we limit ourselves to the authority of the text, it is an interpretation at least questionable. It returns us to the Platonic (and Freudian) notion of desire as the creature of lack, absence, and Fall. But the dream of Finnegans Wake seems to me a constitutive dream of history, which produces the universal that Aristotle denied to history and be- stowed on poetry. It is a Viconian poetic history or historical poem, which produces the imaginative universal out of an assumption that desire pre- cedes lack or fall as much as it follows from it. The source of productivity is not lack but the productive letter, the word, the book. Finnegans Wake is presided over by a female figure who is a productive maternal principle representing creative time in contrast to one of its im- portant intellectual forebears, William Blake's The Four Zoas. There the principle of time as productive was the male figure Los, and space was the female Enitharmon, separated from man in the Fall, who spends all but the apocalyptic part of the poem in the spirit of negation, which for Blake is associated with a deadening cyclicity. In Finnegans Wake, the power of productivity is clearly invested in ALP, and her power is cycli- cal, from which there is no escape, but upon which we are told not to brood negatively. This is nothing new in Joyce, for as Ellmann has pointed out, even in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man there is the implication through figures of gestation that the artistic creator is really a goddess.? There is a Fall, of course, in Finnegans Wake, but it is subsumed under the cycle and finally dissociated from origins and thus from original sin. Although the male principle suffers guilt, which implies in Christian tra- dition original sin, in the eyes of the presiding muse of the book, ALP, the sin is only cyclical and as a result can be seen equally as the prelude to a new rising in the act of sexual intercourse, the supposed sin in the so-called first place. On the same principle, ALP's letter, which in one of the book's figurative manifestations (to say nothing of mamafestation) is a defense of HCE, also serves him up as gossip and seems to corrobo- rate the hazy evidence of his sin and guilt. Thus the wheel of history is turned, time produced yet again from the middenheap. ALP is the mother of Shem, Shaun, and Issy; she is also the mother of the letter. By metaphor she is all female figures. By metonymy she is the letter(s) she writes. By a synecdoche that contains this metonymy so. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959) 306. haps the simple fact that Joyce was male requires us to accept this at some level, though it draws a circle around the imagination that I am unpre- pared to accept. If we limit ourselves to the authority of the text, it is an interpretation at least questionable. It returns us to the Platonic (and Freudian) notion of desire as the creature of lack, absence, and Fall. But the dream of Finnegan Wake seems to me a constitutive dream of history, which produces the universal that Aristotle denied to history and be- stowed on poetry. It is a Viconian poetic history or historical poem, which produces the imaginative universal out of an assumption that desire pre- cedes lack or fall as much as it follows from it. The source of productivity is not lack but the productive letter, the word, the book. Finnegan Wake is presided over by a female figure who is a productive maternal principle representing creative time in contrast to one of its im- portant intellectual forebears, William Blake's The Four Zoas. There the principle of time as productive was the male figure Los, and space was the female Enitharmon, separated from man in the Fall, who spends all but the apocalyptic part of the poem in the spirit of negation, which for Blake is associated with a deadening cyclicity. In Finnegans Wake, the power of productivity is clearly invested in ALP, and her power is cycli- cal, from which there is no escape, but upon which we are told not to brood negatively. This is nothing new in Joyce, for as Ellmann has pointed out, even in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man there is the implication through figures of gestation that the artistic creator is really a goddess.'0 There is a Fall, of course, in Finnegans Wake, but it is subsumed under the cycle and finally dissociated from origins and thus from original sin. Although the male principle suffers guilt, which implies in Christian tra- dition original sin, in the eyes of the presiding muse of the book, ALP, the sin is only cyclical and as a result can be seen equally as the prelude to a new rising in the act of sexual intercourse, the supposed sin in the so-called first place. On the same principle, ALP's letter, which in one of the book's figurative manifestations (to say nothing of masmafestation) is a defense of HCE, also serves him up as gossip and seems to corrobo- rate the hazy evidence of his sin and guilt. Thus the wheel of history is turned, time produced yet again from the middenheap. ALP is the mother of Shem, Shaun, and Issy; she is also the mother of the letter. By metaphor she is all female figures. By metonymy she is the letter(s) she writes. By a synecdoche that contains this metonymy so. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959) 3o6. haps the simple fact that Joyce was male requires us to accept this at some level, though it draws a circle around the imagination that I am unpre- pared to accept. If we limit ourselves to the authority of the text, it is an interpretation at least questionable. It returns us to the Platonic (and Freudian) notion of desire as the creature of lack, absence, and Fall. But the dream of Finnegans Wake seems to me a constitutive dream of history, which produces the universal that Aristotle denied to history and be- stowed on poetry. It is a Viconian poetic history or historical poem, which produces the imaginative universal out of an assumption that desire pre- cedes lack or fall as much as it follows from it. The source of productivity is not lack but the productive letter, the word, the book. Finnegans Wake is presided over by a female figure who is a productive maternal principle representing creative time in contrast to one of its im- portant intellectual forebears, William Blake's The Four Zoas. There the principle of time as productive was the male figure Los, and space was the female Enitharmon, separated from man in the Fall, who spends all but the apocalyptic part of the poem in the spirit of negation, which for Blake is associated with a deadening cyclicity. In Finnegans Wake, the power of productivity is clearly invested in ALP, and her power is cycli- cal, from which there is no escape, but upon which we are told not to brood negatively. This is nothing new in Joyce, for as Ellmann has pointed out, even in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man there is the implication through figures of gestation that the artistic creator is really a goddess.? There is a Fall, of course, in Finnegans Wake, but it is subsumed under the cycle and finally dissociated from origins and thus from original sin. Although the male principle suffers guilt, which implies in Christian tra- dition original sin, in the eyes of the presiding muse of the book, ALP, the sin is only cyclical and as a result can be seen equally as the prelude to a new rising in the act of sexual intercourse, the supposed sin in the so-called first place. On the same principle, ALP's letter, which in one of the book's figurative manifestations (to say nothing of mamafestation) is a defense of HCE, also serves him up as gossip and seems to corrobo- rate the hazy evidence of his sin and guilt. Thus the wheel of history is turned, time produced yet again from the middenheap. ALP is the mother of Shem, Shaun, and Issy; she is also the mother of the letter. By metaphor she is all female figures. By metonymy she is the letter(s) she writes. By a synecdoche that contains this metonymy so. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 3o6.  "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 165 she is Finnegans Wake. Finally, by irony, which encloses the functioning of these tropes, she is, as Frye some years ago observed, a cyclical concep- tion." She is the mover-movement of time and the text, never completed and always of the earth. The history of Finnegan Wake is a female production operating cycli- cally through sex, giving birth, and death. These three aspects of produc- tion are more fundamental for Joyce in their cyclicity than the production of art as Blake saw it in the anti-cyclical activity of the male figure Los. We do, however, need the constitutive dream of art, after all, to remind us of this, which is to say that we need the reminder of meaning. The literal of art constitutes the world as a potential of meaning in the word or letter. Everyone dreams Finnegans Wake, and in that sense there is less a dreamer than simply the universal dream of art, the muse of which is ALP, who sits beside the wheel of history, forcing it by cajolery to turn about yet again, and in a synecdoche of herself, joining in the cycle to produce her litter, to dictate yet again her letter, spreading her gifts as she does. The "ancient legacy of the past," the muse of historical poetry or poetic history, the goddess of the text as against the aloof god described in the Portrait, mother, midwife, middenheap, and hen, temptress and redemptress, ALP turns both the wheel of history and the text. She finds them neither good nor bad and does not rest. 1. Northrop Frye, "Quest and Cycle in Finnegans Wake," Fables of Identity (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), 256-64. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 165 she is Finnegans Wake. Finally, by irony, which encloses the functioning of these tropes, she is, as Frye some years ago observed, a cyclical concep- tion." She is the mover-movement of time and the text, never completed and always of the earth. The history of Finnegan Wake is a female production operating cycli- cally through sex, giving birth, and death. These three aspects of produc- tion are more fundamental for Joyce in their cyclicity than the production of art as Blake saw it in the anti-cyclical activity of the male figure Los. We do, however, need the constitutive dream of art, after all, to remind us of this, which is to say that we need the reminder of meaning. The literal of art constitutes the world as a potential of meaning in the word or letter. Everyone dreams Finnegans Wake, and in that sense there is less a dreamer than simply the universal dream of art, the muse of which is ALP, who sits beside the wheel of history, forcing it by cajolery to turn about yet again, and in a synecdoche of herself, joining in the cycle to produce her litter, to dictate yet again her letter, spreading her gifts as she does. The "ancient legacy of the past," the muse of historical poetry or poetic history, the goddess of the text as against the aloof god described in the Portrait, mother, midwife, middenheap, and hen, temptress and redemptress, ALP turns both the wheel of history and the text. She finds them neither good nor bad and does not rest. a. Northrop Frye, "Quest and Cycle in Finnegan Wake," Fables of Identity (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), 256-64. "Alpsulumply Wroght!": ALP in Finnegans Wake 165 she is Finnegans Wake. Finally, by irony, which encloses the functioning of these tropes, she is, as Frye some years ago observed, a cyclical concep- tion." She is the mover-movement of time and the text, never completed and always of the earth. The history of Finnegans Wake is a female production operating cycli- cally through sex, giving birth, and death. These three aspects of produc- tion are more fundamental for Joyce in their cyclicity than the production of art as Blake saw it in the anti-cyclical activity of the male figure Los. We do, however, need the constitutive dream of art, after all, to remind us of this, which is to say that we need the reminder of meaning. The literal of art constitutes the world as a potential of meaning in the word or letter. Everyone dreams Finnegans Wake, and in that sense there is less a dreamer than simply the universal dream of art, the muse of which is ALP, who sits beside the wheel of history, forcing it by cajolery to turn about yet again, and in a synecdoche of herself, joining in the cycle to produce her litter, to dictate yet again her letter, spreading her gifts as she does. The "ancient legacy of the past," the muse of historical poetry or poetic history, the goddess of the text as against the aloof god described in the Portrait, mother, midwife, middenheap, and hen, temptress and redemptress, ALP turns both the wheel of history and the text. She finds them neither good nor bad and does not rest. sn. Northrop Frye, "Quest and Cycle in Finnegan Wake," Fables of Identity (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), 256-64.  Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria INTRODUCTION W. B. Yeats' poem "Politics" has as its epigraph Thomas Mann's remark, "In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms"' Yeats chose the epigraph in 1938, just before World War II, for a poem proclaiming that sexuality holds his interest more than politics. This still may be true for poets, but by the looks of things, not for many contempo- rary critics, who, if they do not choose one over the other, subsume one under the other. For them everything is political (no more so than when it is sexual), which is to hold that everything is reduced to questions of power. So it is, in their eyes, with canons. The first canonization of note for western culture seems to have been that of the Hebrew Scriptures; and although there is much dispute about the whole matter of how that occurred, it is interesting to observe that in a 1971 book entitled The Shaping of Jewish History: A Radical New Interpretation Ellis Rivkin presents the development of that canon in po- litical terms, arguing that production of the Hebrew Scriptures "was not primarily the work of scribes, scholars, or editors who sought out ne- glected traditions about wilderness experience, but of a class struggling to gain power."' In a very interesting article on this subject, Gerald L. Bruns observes that the lesson of this is that the concept of canon is not literary but a "category of power" ("CP," p. 478). Rivkin himself decides, as Bruns remarks, to treat "the promulgation of canonical texts of the Scriptures, not according to literary criteria but according to power crite- ria" ("CP," p. 475). Presumably it is this program that warrants Rivkin's subtitle A Radical New Interpretation. But what would the literary crite- ria that are opposed to power criteria here be? Are there any longer be- lievers in the more than trivial existence of such criteria? Does the des- 1. WB. Yeats, "olitics," The Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York, 1983), 348 . Ellis Bivkin, The Shaping ofJewish History: A RadicalNewInterpretation (NewYork, 1971), 3o. The passage is quoted by Gerald L. Bruns in "Canon and Power in the Hebrew Scriptures," Critical Inquiry so (March 1984): 475-76; hereater abbreviated "CP" Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria INTRODUCTION W. B. Yeats' poem "Politics" has as its epigraph Thomas Mann's remark, "In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms"' Yeats chose the epigraph in 1938, just before World War II, for a poem proclaiming that sexuality holds his interest more than politics. This still may be true for poets, but by the looks of things, not for many contempo- rary critics, who, if they do not choose one over the other, subsume one under the other. For them everything is political (no more so than when it is sexual), which is to hold that everything is reduced to questions of power. So it is, in their eyes, with canons. The first canonization of note for western culture seems to have been that of the Hebrew Scriptures; and although there is much dispute about the whole matter of how that occurred, it is interesting to observe that in a 1971 book entitled The Shaping of Jewish History: A Radical New Interpretation Ellis Rivkin presents the development of that canon in po- litical terms, arguing that production of the Hebrew Scriptures "was not primarily the work of scribes, scholars, or editors who sought out ne- glected traditions about wilderness experience, but of a class struggling to gain power."' In a very interesting article on this subject, Gerald L. Bruns observes that the lesson of this is that the concept of canon is not literary but a "category of power" ("CP," p. 478). Rivkin himself decides, as Bruns remarks, to treat "the promulgation of canonical texts of the Scriptures, not according to literary criteria but according to power crite- ria" ("CP," p. 475). Presumably it is this program that warrants Rivkin's subtitle A Radical New Interpretation. But what would the literary crite- ria that are opposed to power criteria here be? Are there any longer be- lievers in the more than trivial existence of such criteria? Does the des- 1. W. B. Yeats, "Politics," The Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York, 1983), 348. a. Ellis Rivkin, The Shaping ofJewish History: A Radical New Interpretation (NewYork, 1971), 3o. The passage is quoted by Gerald L. Bruns in "Canon and Ptwer in the Hebrew Scriptures," Critical Inquiry so (March 1984): 475-76; hereaeftr abbreviated "CP." Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria INTRODUCTION W. B. Yeats' poem "Politics" has as its epigraph Thomas Mann's remark, "In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms"' Yeats chose the epigraph in 1938, just before World War II, for a poem proclaiming that sexuality holds his interest more than politics. This still may be true for poets, but by the looks of things, not for many contempo- rary critics, who, if they do not choose one over the other, subsume one under the other. For them everything is political (no more so than when it is sexual), which is to hold that everything is reduced to questions of power. So it is, in their eyes, with canons. The first canonization of note for western culture seems to have been that of the Hebrew Scriptures; and although there is much dispute about the whole matter of how that occurred, it is interesting to observe that in a 1971 book entitled The Shaping of Jewish History: A Radical New Interpretation Ellis Rivkin presents the development of that canon in po- litical terms, arguing that production of the Hebrew Scriptures "was not primarily the work of scribes, scholars, or editors who sought out ne- glected traditions about wilderness experience, but of a class struggling to gain power."' In a very interesting article on this subject, Gerald L. Bruns observes that the lesson of this is that the concept of canon is not literary but a "category of power" ("CP," p. 478). Rivkin himself decides, as Bruns remarks, to treat "the promulgation of canonical texts of the Scriptures, not according to literary criteria but according to power crite- ria" ("CP," p. 475). Presumably it is this program that warrants Rivkin's subtitle A Radical New Interpretation. But what would the literary crite- ria that are opposed to power criteria here be? Are there any longer be- lievers in the more than trivial existence of such criteria? Does the des- 1. W. B. Yeats, "Politics," The Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York, 1983), 348. z. Ellis ivldn, The ShapingofJewishHistonj: A RadicalNew Interpretation (New York, 1971), 3o. The passage is quoted by Gerald L. Bruns in "Canon and Power in the Hebrew Scriptures," Critical Inquiry so (March 1984) 475-76; herealier abbreviated "CP." 16 166 166  Canons: Literary Criteria/Paoer Criteria 167 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 167 Canons: Literary CriterialPowuer Criteria tiny of literature now present its meaning in political terms? If there are no longer thought to be such things as literary criteria, is there, can there be, literature? We have heard answers in the negative to the last ques- tion; and the notion of canon has recently been addressed almost always in terms of politirs and power, most notably, of course, but certainly not exclusively, by feminist and minority critics. The destiny of women's writ- ing has certainly presented its meaning in political terms. One hardly need cite examples of the many assertions that seem to imply the absence or relative unimportance of the literary criteria that Bruns alludes to but passes beyond attempting to define. I shall, never- theless, offer some examples of such assertions, by recourse simply to one source, the September 1983 issue of Critical Inquiry devoted to the ques- tion of canons. In his article there about native American writing, Arnold Krupat writes typically in this recent way: "The canon, like all cultural pro- duction, is never an innocent selection of the best that has been thought and said; rather, it is the institutionalization of those particular verbal arti- facts that appear best to convey and sustain the dominant social order." Krupat causes Matthew Arnold's famous phrase to substitute for "literary criteria" in the opposition to power criteria. It remains undefined; one senses that for Krupat it has little meaning, even less than it might have had for Rivkin, who tends to identify it with the editing and establishment of texts and more rarefied theological concerns. These things would be easily subsumed by Krupat, one supposes, under political activities. A more sophisticated version of this same view, in that it is accompa- nied by a series of astute observations about actual publishing, distribut- ing, and reviewing practices, is Richard Ohmann's remark in his essay on recent American writing: "To answer that the best novels survive is to beg the question. Excellence is a constantly changing socially chosen value," and, getting right down to it, "aesthetic value arises from class conflict."' Value is here identified with means to ends, and the term aes- thetic" is rendered superfluous. Ohmann's Marxism has as an ally- though with differences: Barbara Herrnstein Smith's pragmatism in the lead essay of the issue. I quote at length because it is representative and dismisses in a clean sweep all notions of purely literary criteria, or rather aesthetic criteria, precise or vague as they may appear. 3. Arnold Krupat, "Native American Literature and the Canon," Critical Inquiry as (September 1983): 146. Krupat's remark perhaps partially explains William Blake's exclusion for a while, but it doesn't fully explain his eventual inclusion in the canon. 4. Richard Ohmann, "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. Fiction, 1960-1975," Critical In- quiry 10 (September 1983): 204, 2ig. tiny of literature now present its meaning in political terms? If there are no longer thought to be such things as literary criteria, is there, can there be, literature? We have heard answers in the negative to the last ques- tion; and the notion of canon has recently been addressed almost always in terms of politics and power, most notably, of course, but certainly not exclusively, by feminist and minority critics. The destiny of women's writ- ing has certainly presented its meaning in political terms. One hardly need cite examples of the many assertions that seem to imply the absence or relative unimportance of the literary criteria that Bruns alludes to but passes beyond attempting to define. I shall, never- theless, offer some examples of such assertions, by recourse simply to one source, the September 1983 issue of Critical Inquiry devoted to the ques- tion of canons. In his article there about native American writing, Arnold Krupat writes typically in this recent way: "The canon, like all cultural pro- duction, is never an innocent selection of the best that has been thought and said; rather, it is the institutionalization of those particular verbal arti- facts that appear best to convey and sustain the dominant social order."' Krupat causes Matthew Arnold's famous phrase to substitute for "literary criteria" in the opposition to power criteria. It remains undefined; one senses that for Krupat it has little meaning, even less than it might have had for Rivkin, who tends to identify it with the editing and establishment of texts and more rarefied theological concerns. These things would be easily subsumed by Krupat, one supposes, under political activities. A more sophisticated version of this same view, in that it is accompa- nied by a series of astute observations about actual publishing, distribut- ing, and reviewing practices, is Richard Ohmann's remark in his essay on recent American writing: "To answer that the best novels survive is to beg the question. Excellence is a constantly changing socially chosen value," and, getting right down to it, "aesthetic value arises from class conflict."' Value is here identified with means to ends, and the term "aes- thetic" is rendered superfluous. Ohmann's Marxism has as an ally- though with differences: Barbara Herrnstein Smith's pragmatism in the lead essay of the issue. I quote at length because it is representative and dismisses in a clean sweep all notions of purely literary criteria, or rather aesthetic criteria, precise or vague as they may appear. 3. Arnold Krupat, "Native American Literature and the Canon," Critical Inquiry 10 (September 1983): 146. Krupat's remark perhaps partially explains William Blake's exclusion for a while, but it doesn't fully explain his eventual inclusion in the canon. 4. Richard Ohmann, "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. Fiction, 1960-1975," Critical In- quiry as (September 1983): 204, 219. tiny of literature now present its meaning in political terms? If there are no longer thought to be such things as literary criteria, is there, can there be, literature? We have heard answers in the negative to the last ques- tion; and the notion of canon has recently been addressed almost always in terms of politics and power, most notably, of course, but certainly not exclusively, by feminist and minority critics. The destiny of women's writ- ing has certainly presented its meaning in political terms. One hardly need cite examples of the many assertions that seem to imply the absence or relative unimportance of the literary criteria that Bruns alludes to but passes beyond attempting to define. I shall, never- theless, offer some examples of such assertions, by recourse simply to one source, the September 1983 issue of Critical Inquiry devoted to the ques- tion of canons. In his article there about native American writing, Arnold Krupat writes typically in this recent way: "The canon, like all cultural pro- duction, is never an innocent selection of the best that has been thought and said; rather, it is the institutionalization of those particular verbal arti- facts that appear best to convey and sustain the dominant social order."' Krupat causes Matthew Arnold's famous phrase to substitute for "literary criteria" in the opposition to power criteria. It remains undefined; one senses that for Krupat it has little meaning, even less than it might have had for Rivkin, who tends to identify it with the editing and establishment of texts and more rarefied theological concerns. These things would be easily subsumed by Krupat, one supposes, under political activities. A more sophisticated version of this same view, in that it is accompa- nied by a series of astute observations about actual publishing, distribut- ing, and reviewing practices, is Richard Ohmann's remark in his essay on recent American writing: "To answer that the best novels survive is to beg the question. Excellence is a constantly changing socially chosen value," and, getting right down to it, "aesthetic value arises from class conflict." Value is here identified with means to ends, and the term "aes- thetic" is rendered superfluous. Ohmann's Marxism has as an ally- though with differences: Barbara Herrnstein Smith's pragmatism in the lead essay of the issue. I quote at length because it is representative and dismisses in a clean sweep all notions of purely literary criteria, or rather aesthetic criteria, precise or vague as they may appear. 3. Arnold Krupat, "Native American Literature and the Canon," Critical Inquiry 10 (September 1983h: 146. Krupat's remark perhaps partially explains William Blake's exclusion for a while, but it doesn't fully explain his eventual inclusion in the canon. 4. Richard Ohmann, "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. Fiction, 1960-1975," Critical In- quiry 10 (September 1983): 204, 219.  168 Antithetical Essays 168 Antithetical Essays 168 Antithetical Essays What must be emphasized . . . is that the value-the "good- ness" or "badness"-of an evaluation, like that of anything else (including any other type of utterance) is itself contingent, and thus a matter not of its abstract "truth-value" but of how well it performs various desired/able functions for the various peo- ple who may at any time be concretely involved with it. In the case of an aesthetic evaluation, these people will always include the evaluator, who will have his or her own particular interest in the various effects of the judgments s/he produces, and may also include anyone from the artist to a potential pub- lisher or patron, various current or future audiences of the work, and perhaps someone who just likes to know what's going on and what other people think is going on. Each of them will have his or her own interest in the evaluation, and it will be better or worse for each of them in relation to a dif- ferent set of desired/able functions. What all this suggests is that the obsessive debates over the cognitive substance, logi- cal status, and "truth-value" of aesthetic judgments are not only unresolvable in the terms given but, strictly speaking, pointless.' I add to this an earlier sentence: The recurrent impulse or effort to define aesthetic value by contradistinction to all forms of utility or as the negation of all other nameable sources of interest or forms of value- hedonic, practical, sentimental, ornamental, historical, ideo- logical, and so forth-is, in effect, to define it out of existence; for when all such particular utilities, interests, and sources of value have been subtracted, nothing remains. ["CV," p. 14] Smith's view is that, rather than the value of a work being other than de- rived from such things as these, it is the product of an interrelated conge- ries of such things in relation to readers' needs, desires, and so on in con- crete situations. This is obviously designed to be a hardheaded relativism that once and for all rids us of what Smith regards as humanistic fantasies of transcen- dence, universality, endurance, and the like. It also rejects any idealiza- tion, while at the same time it acknowledges shrewdly that its own con- ception of value requires a "Heraclitean discourse" that would avoid the 5. Barbara Hermstein Smith, "Contingencies of Value," Critical Inquiry in (September 1983): 22; hereafter abbreviated "CV." What must be emphasized . . . is that the value-the "good- ness" or "badness"-of an evaluation, like that of anything else (including any other type of utterance) is itself contingent, and thus a matter not of its abstract "truth-value" but of how well it performs various desired/able functions for the various peo- ple who may at any time be concretely involved with it. In the case of an aesthetic evaluation, these people will always include the evaluator, who will have his or her own particular interest in the various effects of the judgments s/he produces, and may also include anyone from the artist to a potential pub- lisher or patron, various current or future audiences of the work, and perhaps someone who just likes to know what's going on and what other people think is going on. Each of them will have his or her own interest in the evaluation, and it will be better or worse for each of them in relation to a dif- ferent set of desired/able functions. What all this suggests is that the obsessive debates over the cognitive substance, logi- cal status, and "truth-value" of aesthetic judgments are not only unresolvable in the terms given but, strictly speaking, pointless. I add to this an earlier sentence: The recurrent impulse or effort to define aesthetic value by contradistinction to all forms of utility or as the negation of all other nameable sources of interest or forms of value- hedonic, practical, sentimental, ornamental, historical, ideo- logical, and so forth-is, in effect, to define it out of existence; for when all such particular utilities, interests, and sources of value have been subtracted, nothing remains. ["CV," p. 14] Smith's view is that, rather than the value of a work being other than de- rived from such things as these, it is the product of an interrelated conge- ries of such things in relation to readers' needs, desires, and so on in con- crete situations. This is obviously designed to be a hardheaded relativism that once and for all rids us of what Smith regards as humanistic fantasies of transcen- dence, universality, endurance, and the like. It also rejects any idealiza- tion, while at the same time it acknowledges shrewdly that its own con- ception of value requires a "Heraclitean discourse" that would avoid the 5. Barbara Hermstein Smith, "Contingencies of Value," Critical Inquiry in (September 1983): n2; hereafer abbreviated "CV." What must be emphasized. . . is that the value-the "good- ness" or "badness"-of an evaluation, like that of anything else (including any other type of utterance) is itself contingent, and thus a matter not of its abstract "truth-value" but of how well it performs various desired/able functions for the various peo- ple who may at any time be concretely involved with it. In the case of an aesthetic evaluation, these people will always include the evaluator, who will have his or her own particular interest in the various effects of the judgments s/he produces, and may also include anyone from the artist to a potential pub- lisher or patron, various current or future audiences of the work, and perhaps someone who just likes to know what's going on and what other people think is going on. Each of them will have his or her own interest in the evaluation, and it will be better or worse for each of them in relation to a dif- ferent set of desired/able functions. What all this suggests is that the obsessive debates over the cognitive substance, logi- cal status, and "truth-value" of aesthetic judgments are not only unresolvable in the terms given but, strictly speaking, pointless I add to this an earlier sentence: The recurrent impulse or effort to define aesthetic value by contradistinction to all forms of utility or as the negation of all other nameable sources of interest or forms of value- hedonic, practical, sentimental, ornamental, historical, ideo- logical, and so forth-is, in effect, to define it out of existence; for when all such particular utilities, interests, and sources of value have been subtracted, nothing remains. ["CV," p. 14} Smith's view is that, rather than the value of a work being other than de- rived from such things as these, it is the product of an interrelated conge- ries of such things in relation to readers' needs, desires, and so on in con- crete situations. This is obviously designed to be a hardheaded relativism that once and for all rids us of what Smith regards as humanistic fantasies of transcen- dence, universality, endurance, and the like. It also rejects any idealiza- tion, while at the same time it acknowledges shrewdly that its own con- ception of value requires a "Heraclitean discourse" that would avoid the 5. Barbara Hermstein Smith, "Contingencies of Value," Critical Inquiry 1n (September 1983): 22; hereafter abbreviated "CV."  Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 169 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 16g Canons: Literary CriteriaPower Criteria 16g illusion of "discrete acts, agents, and entities, fixed attributes, unidirec- tional forces, and simple causal and temporal relationships" ("CV," p. 12). More Heraclitean than Heraclitus, one might add. This discourse, Smith knows, is not available, and so she feels she must build something ac- knowledging it. It is not surprising that her thorough relativism should bring her to this idealizing point. It is a relativism, it turns out, that has a ground in the notion of a single unconscious human drive toward "bio- logical fitness," which is in turn grounded "in all likelihood," she says, in "evolutionary mechanisms" ("CV," p. 14). The analogies with which she works are drawn from the theory of biological evolution and from econom- ics. Smith's argument for this position, which is a familiar one with its own history-one characteristic of the opposite recurrent impulse, one could say-is as strong as I have seen recently; and it is certainly in line with contemporary antihumanistic and anti-idealistic emphases on power relations. However, I think it does not read deeply enough into the his- tory of the tradition of aesthetics that it dismisses, seeing only its surface and not exploring its motives. THESES 1. The Kantian aesthetic of internal purposiveness and disinterest, dis- missed by Smith as empty, is fundamentally directed toward right action, thus ultimately referable to ethical values. 2. Literary criteria, to adopt Bruns' term (but to try to give it a reason- ably clear sense), ought to amount to a certain sort of ethical value that I shall call, adopting the term from Yeats, "antithetical," but they often do not because they are trivialized in description. 3. Therefore, I shall cause antithetical criteria to stand contrary to the opposition between literary and power criteria. That is, they oppose a situation in which power criteria negate literary criteria, the latter being reduced to the merely formal and, therefore, so it is said, useless. They oppose equally a situation, much rarer, in which literary criteria negate power criteria, and opt for a pure aestheticism. 4. Literary canons are, without doubt, to a great extent, probably mainly, the product of invocation of power criteria. Certainly they are, for example, in Russia. But this is not to say that they are entirely so, need be, or ought to be. If they are not to be quite as much the product of power criteria as they usually are, criticism must vigorously seek to make them antithetical. This is not to say that they can ever be free of power criteria, only that it is a worthy aim. But this requires not purely illusion of "discrete acts, agents, and entities, fixed attributes, unidirec- tional forces, and simple causal and temporal relationships" ("CV," p. so). More Heraclitean than Heraclitus, one might add. This discourse, Smith knows, is not available, and so she feels she must build something ac- knowledging it. It is not surprising that her thorough relativism should bring her to this idealizing point. It is a relativism, it turns out, that has a ground in the notion of a single unconscious human drive toward "bio- logical fitness," which is in turn grounded "in all likelihood," she says, in "evolutionary mechanisms" ("CV," p. 14). The analogies with which she works are drawn from the theory of biological evolution and from econom- ics. Smith's argument for this position, which is a familiar one with its own history-one characteristic of the opposite recurrent impulse, one could say-is as strong as I have seen recently; and it is certainly in line with contemporary antihumanistic and anti-idealistic emphases on power relations. However, I think it does not read deeply enough into the his- tory of the tradition of aesthetics that it dismisses, seeing only its surface and not exploring its motives. THESES s. The Kantian aesthetic of internal purposiveness and disinterest, dis- missed by Smith as empty, is fundamentally directed toward right action, thus ultimately referable to ethical values. 2. Literary criteria, to adopt Bruns' term (but to try to give it a reason- ably clear sense), ought to amount to a certain sort of ethical value that I shall call, adopting the term from Yeats, "antithetical," but they often do not because they are trivialized in description. 3. Therefore, I shall cause antithetical criteria to stand contrary to the opposition between literary and power criteria. That is, they oppose a situation in which power criteria negate literary criteria, the latter being reduced to the merely formal and, therefore, so it is said, useless. They oppose equally a situation, much rarer, in which literary criteria negate power criteria, and opt for a pure aestheticism. 4. Literary canons are, without doubt, to a great extent, probably mainly, the product of invocation of power criteria. Certainly they are, for example, in Russia. But this is not to say that they are entirely so, need be, or ought to be. If they are not to be quite as much the product of power criteria as they usually are, criticism must vigorously seek to make them antithetical. This is not to say that they can ever be free of power criteria, only that it is a worthy aim. But this requires not purely illusion of "discrete acts, agents, and entities, fixed attributes, unidirec- tional forces, and simple causal and temporal relationships" ("CV," p. s2). More Heraclitean than Heraclitus, one might add. This discourse, Smith knows, is not available, and so she feels she must build something ac- knowledging it. It is not surprising that her thorough relativism should bring her to this idealizing point. It is a relativism, it turns out, that has a ground in the notion of a single unconscious human drive toward "bio- logical fitness," which is in turn grounded "in all likelihood," she says, in "evolutionary mechanisms" ("CV," p. 14). The analogies with which she works are drawn from the theory of biological evolution and from econom- ics. Smith's argument for this position, which is a familiar one with its own history-one characteristic of the opposite recurrent impulse, one could say-is as strong as I have seen recently; and it is certainly in line with contemporary antihumanistic and anti-idealistic emphases on power relations. However, I think it does not read deeply enough into the his- tory of the tradition of aesthetics that it dismisses, seeing only its surface and not exploring its motives. THESES 1. The Kantian aesthetic of internal purposiveness and disinterest, dis- missed by Smith as empty, is fundamentally directed toward right action, thus ultimately referable to ethical values. a. Literary criteria, to adopt Bruns' term (but to try to give it a reason- ably clear sense), ought to amount to a certain sort of ethical value that I shall call, adopting the term from Yeats, "antithetical," but they often do not because they are trivialized in description. 3. Therefore, I shall cause antithetical criteria to stand contrary to the opposition between literary and power criteria. That is, they oppose a situation in which power criteria negate literary criteria, the latter being reduced to the merely formal and, therefore, so it is said, useless. They oppose equally a situation, much rarer, in which literary criteria negate power criteria, and opt for a pure aestheticism. 4. Literary canons are, without doubt, to a great extent, probably mainly, the product of invocation of power criteria. Certainly they are, for example, in Russia. But this is not to say that they are entirely so, need be, or ought to be. If they are not to be quite as much the product of power criteria as they usually are, criticism must vigorously seek to make them antithetical. This is not to say that they can ever be free of power criteria, only that it is a worthy aim. But this requires not purely  Antithetical Essays 170 Antithetical Essays 170 Antithetical Essays formalist literary criteria to form the alternative. Such criteria cannot be- come, if they could, universal law without succumbing to their own ver- sion of power. Thus the truly contrary criteria-contrary to the opposition that has been a recurrent cyclical obsession-I have called "antithetical." 5. The aim of criticism ought to be constantly to renew the role of the antithetical with respect to canon formation by standing in a position con- trary to the power struggle that provides only mutual cyclical negation. This position cannot be fixed but must be responsive to power relations. 6. The critics I have quoted from Critical Inquiry wholly embrace power criteria and drain literary criteria of meaning, usually by a superfi- cial negating reading of the neo-Kantian line. The reading fails to take into account ethical motives. 7. This total embrace of power is dangerous, as dangerous as the total embrace of literary criteria would be, if literary criteria were what these writers tacitly claim them to be-illusion. Contemporary theories fre- quently embrace power criteria, either tacitly or explicitly. 8. Such embraces, sometimes in the name of heroic resistance to tyr- anny or the ruling power, have recently been strongly connected with attempts to demolish the notion of the self in virtually all of the meanings attributed to it since Renaissance times. These senses are usually reduced to an image of the laissez-faire individual, identified in turn with the epis- temological subjects of post-Lockian empiricism and Cartesian rational- ism. This subject is no longer to be identified with freedom but instead is dissolved into the relations of power. Inasmuch as the currently ma- ligned individual had at least in its origins something to be said for it in terms of such concepts as freedom, intellectual and political, and feeling, the utter negation of it ought perhaps to be viewed with some trepidation. The negation individual/society (power) needs its antithesis in something like the social or cultural individual. REMARKS FOLLOWING FROM THE THESES The strong analogy between Kant's ethical position and his aesthetic may perhaps be seen by observing what Schiller did with them in his Letters on Aesthetic Education. Schiller's concept of the play-drive posits an ethi- cally desirable condition of mind that goes beyond those two forces that he perceives driving human beings, the sensuous-drive and the formal- drive. The play-drive he identifies with Kantian disinterest or the so- called subjective universality of aesthetic judgment, which is an analogy to the categorical imperative of Kant's ethics. Various writers have since formalist literary criteria to form the alternative. Such criteria cannot be- come, if they could, universal law without succumbing to their own ver- sion of power. Thus the truly contrary criteria-contrary to the opposition that has been a recurrent cyclical obsession-I have called "antithetical." 5. The aim of criticism ought to be constantly to renew the role of the antithetical with respect to canon formation by standing in a position con- trary to the power struggle that provides only mutual cyclical negation. This position cannot be fixed but must be responsive to power relations. 6. The critics I have quoted from Critical Inquiry wholly embrace power criteria and drain literary criteria of meaning, usually by a superfi- cial negating reading of the neo-Kantian line. The reading fails to take into account ethical motives. 7. This total embrace of power is dangerous, as dangerous as the total embrace of literary criteria would be, if literary criteria were what these writers tacitly claim them to be-illusion. Contemporary theories fre- quently embrace power criteria, either tacitly or explicitly. 8. Such embraces, sometimes in the name of heroic resistance to tyr- anny or the ruling power, have recently been strongly connected with attempts to demolish the notion of the self in virtually all of the meanings attributed to it since Renaissance times. These senses are usually reduced to an image of the laissez-faire individual, identified in turn with the epis- temological subjects of post-Lockian empiricism and Cartesian rational- ism. This subject is no longer to be identified with freedom but instead is dissolved into the relations of power. Inasmuch as the currently ma- ligned individual had at least in its origins something to be said for it in terms of such concepts as freedom, intellectual and political, and feeling, the utter negation of it ought perhaps to be viewed with some trepidation. The negation individual/society (power) needs its antithesis in something like the social or cultural individual. REMARKS FOLLOWING FROM THE THESES The strong analogy between Kant's ethical position and his aesthetic may perhaps be seen by observing what Schiller did with them in his Letters on Aesthetic Education. Schiller's concept of the play-drive posits an ethi- cally desirable condition of mind that goes beyond those two forces that he perceives driving human beings, the sensuous-drive and the formal- drive. The play-drive he identifies with Kantian disinterest or the so- called subjective universality of aesthetic judgment, which is an analogy to the categorical imperative of Kant's ethics. Various writers have since formalist literary criteria to form the alternative. Such criteria cannot be- come, if they could, universal law without succumbing to their own ver- sion of power. Thus the truly contrary criteria-contrary to the opposition that has been a recurrent cyclical obsession-I have called "antithetical." 5. The aim of criticism ought to be constantly to renew the role of the antithetical with respect to canon formation by standing in a position con- trary to the power struggle that provides only mutual cyclical negation. This position cannot be fixed but must be responsive to power relations. 6. The critics I have quoted from Critical Inquiry wholly embrace power criteria and drain literary criteria of meaning, usually by a superfi- cial negating reading of the neo-Kantian line. The reading fails to take into account ethical motives. 7. This total embrace of power is dangerous, as dangerous as the total embrace of literary criteria would be, if literary criteria were what these writers tacitly claim them to be-illusion. Contemporary theories fre- quently embrace power criteria, either tacitly or explicitly. 8. Such embraces, sometimes in the name of heroic resistanceo tyr- anny or the ruling power, have recently been strongly connected with attempts to demolish the notion of the self in virtually all of the meanings attributed to it since Renaissance times. These senses are usually reduced to an image of the laissez-faire individual, identified in turn with the epis- temological subjects of post-Lockian empiricism and Cartesian rational- ism. This subject is no longer to be identified with freedom but instead is dissolved into the relations of power. Inasmuch as the currently ma- ligned individual had at least in its origins something to be said for it in terms of such concepts as freedom, intellectual and political, and feeling, the utter negation of it ought perhaps to be viewed with some trepidation. The negation individual/society (power) needs its antithesis in something like the social or cultural individual. REMARKS FOLLOWING FROM THE THESES The strong analogy between Kant's ethical position and his aesthetic may perhaps be seen by observing what Schiller did with them in his Letters on Aesthetic Education. Schiller's concept of the play-drive posits an ethi- cally desirable condition of mind that goes beyond those two forces that he perceives driving human beings, the sensuous-drive and the formal- drive. The play-drive he identifies with Kantian disinterest or the so- called subjective universality of aesthetic judgment, which is an analogy to the categorical imperative of Kant's ethics. Various writers have since  Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 171 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 171 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria offered their analagous concepts as a principle either of artistic creation (Keats' "negative capability" has a connection) or of viewing (Edward Bullough's "psychical distance"). In virtually all of these cases, such activ- ity is offered as opposed to judgments based on some concept of utility, as utility was identified in utilitarianism or positivism. The problem with this seeking for an antithetical stance is that it is easier to declare what it excludes than what it includes. As a result, we have Smith's argument that, strictly speaking, once everything it excludes is uttered, then there is nothing for it to include. There are two answers to this complaint. First, that is the very point of antitheticality. It is in opposition precisely for the reason that it recognizes what Smith herself recognizes, that a purely Heraclitean discourse is impossible. Therefore every discourse striving for power must be opposed by a discourse strug- gling against its own tendency to invoke power criteria. Second, such a struggle is ethical, but deeper than ethical concepts as they are usually imagined by utilitarians, positivists, instrumentalists, and pragmatists. Theorists in the neo-Kantian line usually at some point surreptitiously claim some sort of content for the aesthetic act or apprehension, and this claim usually has an ethical implication. This notion of ethics is usually deeply antithetical to received notions of good and evil, and particularly those moralities that are centered on utilitarianism, positivism, Plato- nism, or religious miraculism. There has been a name or expression for this striving toward antithetical thinking in almost every theorist of note in the history of criticism, even where the theorist, like Plato, is pro- foundly distrustful of it. Thus we have his "divine madness," Aristotle's "imitation" (in its anti-Platonic aspects), Longinus' "sublime," Boethius' morally dangerous poetry, the sine qua non, Coleridge's "beautiful," Keats' "camelion poet," Blake's "vision," Arnold's "disinterestedness," Wilde's "art for art's sake," and so on. This is to admit freely that many of these examples don't quite escape the accusation that they are terms of literary or aesthetic criteria, and they fall short of antitheticality. But they seek it, and imply a way of looking, making, or acting and thus an ethic. Wilde, who is usually thought to represent the extreme (and dead) end of aestheticism, would be better viewed as arguing antithetically, with much oppositional irony, for the fundamental power of art to influ- ence what he regarded as the deepest level of human action: how we see things.* 6. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee, FL, 1983), 150-53, for da- cussion of this point with respect to Wilde. See also 18-39 for a discussion of the efforts of Baudelaire and Mallarmd to express an antithetical position. offered their analagous concepts as a principle either of artistic creation (Keats' "negative capability" has a connection) or of viewing (Edward Bullough's "psychical distance"). In virtually all of these cases, such activ- ity is offered as opposed to judgments based on some concept of utility, as utility was identified in utilitarianism or positivism. The problem with this seeking for an antithetical stance is that it is easier to declare what it excludes than what it includes. As a result, we have Smith's argument that, strictly speaking, once everything it excludes is uttered, then there is nothing for it to include. There are two answers to this complaint. First, that is the very point of antitheticality. It is in opposition precisely for the reason that it recognizes what Smith herself recognizes, that a purely Heraclitean discourse is impossible. Therefore every discourse striving for power must be opposed by a discourse strug- gling against its own tendency to invoke power criteria. Second, such a struggle is ethical, but deeper than ethical concepts as they are usually imagined by utilitarians, positivists, instrumentalists, and pragmatists. Theorists in the neo-Kantian line usually at some point surreptitiously claim some sort of content for the aesthetic act or apprehension, and this claim usually has an ethical implication. This notion of ethics is usually deeply antithetical to received notions of good and evil, and particularly those moralities that are centered on utilitarianism, positivism, Plato- nism, or religious miraculism. There has been a name or expression for this striving toward antithetical thinking in almost every theorist of note in the history of criticism, even where the theorist, like Plato, is pro- foundly distrustful of it. Thus we have his "divine madness," Aristotle's "imitation" (in its anti-Platonic aspects), Longinus' "sublime," Boethius' morally dangerous poetry, the sine qua non, Coleridge's "beautiful," Keats' "camelion poet," Blake's "vision," Arnold's "disinterestedness," Wilde's "art for art's sake," and so on. This is to admit freely that many of these examples don't quite escape the accusation that they are terms of literary or aesthetic criteria, and they fall short of antitheticality. But they seek it, and imply a way of looking, making, or acting and thus an ethic. Wilde, who is usually thought to represent the extreme (and dead) end of aestheticism, would be better viewed as arguing antithetically, with much oppositional irony, for the fundamental power of art to influ- ence what he regarded as the deepest level of human action: how we see things." 6. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee, FL, 1983), 150-53, for dis- cussion of this point with respect to Wilde. See also so8-39 for a discussion of the efforts of Baudelare and Mallarme to express an antithetical position. offered their analagous concepts as a principle either of artistic creation (Keats' "negative capability" has a connection) or of viewing (Edward Bullough's "psychical distance"). In virtually all of these cases, such activ- ity is offered as opposed to judgments based on some concept of utility, as utility was identified in utilitarianism or positivism. The problem with this seeking for an antithetical stance is that it is easier to declare what it excludes than what it includes. As a result, we have Smith's argument that, strictly speaking, once everything it excludes is uttered, then there is nothing for it to include. There are two answers to this complaint. First, that is the very point of antitheticality. It is in opposition precisely for the reason that it recognizes what Smith herself recognizes, that a purely Heraclitean discourse is impossible. Therefore every discourse striving for power must be opposed by a discourse strug- gling against its own tendency to invoke power criteria. Second, such a struggle is ethical, but deeper than ethical concepts as they are usually imagined by utilitarians, positivists, instrumentalists, and pragmatists. Theorists in the neo-Kantian line usually at some point surreptitiously claim some sort of content for the aesthetic act or apprehension, and this claim usually has an ethical implication. This notion of ethics is usually deeply antithetical to received notions of good and evil, and particularly those moralities that are centered on utilitarianism, positivism, Plato- nism, or religious miraculism. There has been a name or expression for this striving toward antithetical thinking in almost every theorist of note in the history of criticism, even where the theorist, like Plato, is pro- foundly distrustful of it. Thus we have his "divine madness," Aristotle's "imitation" (in its anti-Platonic aspects), Longinus' "sublime," Boethius' morally dangerous poetry, the sine qua non, Coleridge's "beautiful," Keats' "camelion poet," Blake's "vision," Arnold's "disinterestedness," Wilde's "art for art's sake," and so on. This is to admit freely that many of these examples don't quite escape the accusation that they are terms of literary or aesthetic criteria, and they fall short of antitheticality. But they seek it, and imply a way of looking, making, or acting and thus an ethic. Wilde, who is usually thought to represent the extreme (and dead) end of aestheticism, would be better viewed as arguing antithetically, with much oppositional irony, for the fundamental power of art to influ- ence what he regarded as the deepest level of human action: how we see things.' 6. See my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee, FL, 1983), 15o-53, for dis- cussion of this point with respect to Wilde. See also is8-39 for a discussion of the efforts of Baudelaire and Mallam6 to express an antithetical position.  Antithetical Essays 172 Antithetical Essays 172 Antithetical Essays Generally, the form of this right action ought to be that of providing creative opposition which does not negate prevailing power and what it negates but civilizes it through a Heraclitean oppositional supplementa- tion and change. Such a form must always escape complete capture in the terms habitual to its cyclical contrary. Those terms inevitably make a negation, as in Plato's negation of poetry as irrational possession to be suppressed by mathematical reason as a means to attain to the idea. Aris- totle attempted to rescue poetry by rehabilitation of the term "imitation," but this hardened cyclically into a fixed law involving the so-called uni- ties. That, in its turn, had to be opposed by poets and critics, no one rec- ognizing that poetry had somehow been made successfully under or in spite of the dominating power of both antagonistic principles. Neverthe- less, the struggle against law has always been nearer to the antithetical, even though it can metamorphose into the law, given the opportunity for primary power. "Antithetical" and "primary" are terms I have adopted from Yeats' A Vision (1937).' The "antithetical" strives to refuse all negations arising from the gestures of power: the object over the subject, the universal (or gen- eral) over the particular, the "good" over the "evil," and in all cases vice versa. The statement "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts abso- lutely" is antithetically conceived. Criticism can never achieve indifference with the literary object of its gaze and finds itself at best ironically placed between antithetical and pri- mary. To the critic in such a position, canonization must be a profoundly ambiguous matter. Can there be an antithetical canon with all the impli- cations of power criteria carried by the term "canon"? Literary texts don't make themselves into canons; critics and the action of power do. Insofar as literary texts are pressed into the canon and remain merely impressions of power, the canon is driven only by power criteria. This is the story that Rivkin seems to tell us of the fate of the Hebrew Scriptures. But liter- ary canons can, nevertheless, be harbors of antithetical characteristics in spite of the motives which brought texts into them. It is probably right to see them as, if not the battlefield of power specifically envisaged by Harold Bloom, at least a world of Heraclitean strife. Antithetical charac- teristics from within subvert the canon as expression of old law or even new law. It is obvious that cultural and political circumstances affect the degree to which canons are closed or open: as power criteria have changed, can- Generally, the form of this right action ought to be that of providing creative opposition which does not negate prevailing power and what it negates but civilizes it through a Heraclitean oppositional supplementa- tion and change. Such a form must always escape complete capture in the terms habitual to its cyclical contrary. Those terms inevitably make a negation, as in Plato's negation of poetry as irrational possession to be suppressed by mathematical reason as a means to attain to the idea. Aris- totle attempted to rescue poetry by rehabilitation of the term "imitation," but this hardened cyclically into a fixed law involving the so-called uni- ties. That, in its turn, had to be opposed by poets and critics, no one rec- ognizing that poetry had somehow been made successfully under or in spite of the dominating power of both antagonistic principles. Neverthe- less, the struggle against law has always been nearer to the antithetical, even though it can metamorphose into the law, given the opportunity for primary power. "Antithetical" and "primary" are terms I have adopted from Yeats' A Vision (1937).' The "antithetical" strives to refuse all negations arising from the gestures of power: the object over the subject, the universal (or gen- eral) over the particular, the "good" over the "evil," and in all cases vice versa. The statement "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts abso- lutely" is antithetically conceived. Criticism can never achieve indifference with the literary object of its gaze and finds itself at best ironically placed between antithetical and pri- mary. To the critic in such a position, canonization must be a profoundly ambiguous matter. Can there be an antithetical canon with all the impli- cations of power criteria carried by the term "canon"? Literary texts don't make themselves into canons; critics and the action of power do. Insofar as literary texts are pressed into the canon and remain merely impressions of power, the canon is driven only by power criteria. This is the story that Rivkin seems to tell us of the fate of the Hebrew Scriptures. But liter- ary canons can, nevertheless, be harbors of antithetical characteristics in spite of the motives which brought texts into them. It is probably right to see them as, if not the battlefield of power specifically envisaged by Harold Bloom, at least a world of Heraclitean strife. Antithetical charac- teristics from within subvert the canon as expression of old law or even new law. It is obvious that cultural and political circumstances affect the degree to which canons are closed or open: as power criteria have changed, can- Generally, the form of this right action ought to be that of providing creative opposition which does not negate prevailing power and what it negates but civilizes it through a Heraclitean oppositional supplementa- tion and change. Such a form must always escape complete capture in the terms habitual to its cyclical contrary. Those terms inevitably make a negation, as in Plato's negation of poetry as irrational possession to be suppressed by mathematical reason as a means to attain to the idea. Aris- totle attempted to rescue poetry by rehabilitation of the term "imitation," but this hardened cyclically into a fixed law involving the so-called uni- ties. That, in its turn, had to be opposed by poets and critics, no one rec- ognizing that poetry had somehow been made successfully under or in spite of the dominating power of both antagonistic principles. Neverthe- less, the struggle against law has always been nearer to the antithetical, even though it can metamorphose into the law, given the opportunity for primary power. "Antithetical" and "primary" are terms I have adopted from Yeats' A Vision (1937).' The "antithetical" strives to refuse all negations arising from the gestures of power: the object over the subject, the universal (or gen- eral) over the particular, the "good" over the "evil," and in all cases vice versa. The statement "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts abso- lutely" is antithetically conceived. Criticism can never achieve indifference with the literary object of its gaze and finds itself at best ironically placed between antithetical and pri- mary. To the critic in such a position, canonization must be a profoundly ambiguous matter. Can there be an antithetical canon with all the impli- cations of power criteria carried by the term "canon"? Literary texts don't make themselves into canons; critics and the action of power do. Insofar as literary texts are pressed into the canon and remain merely impressions of power, the canon is driven only by power criteria. This is the story that Rivkin seems to tell us of the fate of the Hebrew Scriptures. But liter- ary canons can, nevertheless, be harbors of antithetical characteristics in spite of the motives which brought texts into them. It is probably right to see them as, if not the battlefield of power specifically envisaged by Harold Bloom, at least a world of Heraclitean strife. Antithetical charac- teristics from within subvert the canon as expression of old law or even new law. It is obvious that cultural and political circumstances affect the degree to which canons are closed or open: as power criteria have changed, can- 7. See ibid., 31z-z3, for a discussion of this matter. 7. See ibid., 312-23, for a discussion of this matter. 7. See ibid., 312-z3, for a discussion of this matter.  Canons: Literary CriterialPower Criteria 17 Canons: Literary CriterialPower Criteria 173 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria S73 ons have changed. The principle of power dictates change through accu- mulation of law, detected heresy, or revolutionary overthrow. Antitheti- cal criteria must require that the canon be contrary to notions of both exclusion and inclusion, closure and openness. Works that enter on the former principle may not always appropriately remain on the latter. The antithetical is always oppositional, not in doctrinal or legal terms but as a provider of representational and experiential forms that are held in sus- picion by primary power. Such power takes shape in different ways in different historical situations and global areas, but it does not change very much deep down because it tends to express itself in terms of negations such as state/individual, abstract idea/instance, object/subject, and so forth. Either side can be privileged, either side negated, though power seems to flow most often-at least in recent times- to the first term in each of these pairs. The antithetical contrary to these pairs is not to rush to the support of the negated, as, for example, much nineteenth-century criticism rushed to the subjective while another objectivizing group tried to make a historical science out of criticism. Rather, the opposition must be opposed. We can see phenomenological criticism as such an attempt, but inside that movement we discover the tendency for subjectivity to dominate, opposed by an objectivizing influx at crucial moments, as if some safety valve had been opened. Other theoretical moves to evade the negation have tried to establish a concrete universal, the analogy of myth, the identity of perceiver and perceived, and the social individual, about which I shall say more later. It is literature itself that goes farthest toward these things. FEMINISM AND THE CANON Whether a text is written by a man or a woman has nothing to do with its admission to or absence from a literary canon on the basis of antitheti- cal criteria. But it certainly does matter, at least at this time, on the basis of power criteria. At the same time, antithetical criteria ought to welcome representation and expression of experience describable as feminine. (It is difficult to imagine that women writers until recently have achieved canonization for reasons of power. Jane Austen must have considerable antithetical force.) We are in the early stages of the admission of such works on the basis principally of power criteria. What will survive, or would survive, on the basis of antithetical criteria remains to be seen and depends to a considerable extent on the antithetical bravery of critics. ons have changed. The principle of power dictates change through accu- mulation of law, detected heresy, or revolutionary overthrow. Antitheti- cal criteria must require that the canon be contrary to notions of both exclusion and inclusion, closure and openness. Works that enter on the former principle may not always appropriately remain on the latter. The antithetical is always oppositional, not in doctrinal or legal terms but as a provider of representational and experiential forms that are held in sus- picion by primary power. Such power takes shape in different ways in different historical situations and global areas, but it does not change very much deep down because it tends to express itself in terms of negations such as state/individual, abstract idea/instance, object/subject, and so forth. Either side can be privileged, either side negated, though power seems to flow most often-at least in recent times- to the first term in each of these pairs. The antithetical contrary to these pairs is not to rush to the support of the negated, as, for example, much nineteenth-century criticism rushed to the subjective while another objectivizing group tried to make a historical science out of criticism. Rather, the opposition must be opposed. We can see phenomenological criticism as such an attempt, but inside that movement we discover the tendency for subjectivity to dominate, opposed by an objectivizing influx at crucial moments, as if some safety valve had been opened. Other theoretical moves to evade the negation have tried to establish a concrete universal, the analogy of myth, the identity of perceiver and perceived, and the social individual, about which I shall say more later. It is literature itself that goes farthest toward these things. FEMINISM AND THE CANON Whether a text is written by a man or a woman has nothing to do with its admission to or absence from a literary canon on the basis of antitheti- cal criteria. But it certainly does matter, at least at this time, on the basis of power criteria. At the same time, antithetical criteria ought to welcome representation and expression of experience describable as feminine. (It is difficult to imagine that women writers until recently have achieved canonization for reasons of power. Jane Austen must have considerable antithetical force.) We are in the early stages of the admission of such works on the basis principally of power criteria. What will survive, or would survive, on the basis of antithetical criteria remains to be seen and depends to a considerable extent on the antithetical bravery of critics. ons have changed. The principle of power dictates change through accu- mulation of law, detected heresy, or revolutionary overthrow. Antitheti- cal criteria must require that the canon be contrary to notions of both exclusion and inclusion, closure and openness. Works that enter on the former principle may not always appropriately remain on the latter. The antithetical is always oppositional, not in doctrinal or legal terms but as a provider of representational and experiential forms that are held in sus- picion by primary power. Such power takes shape in different ways in different historical situations and global areas, but it does not change very much deep down because it tends to express itself in terms of negations such as state/individual, abstract idea/instance, object/subject, and so forth. Either side can be privileged, either side negated, though power seems to flow most often-at least in recent times- to the first term in each of these pairs. The antithetical contrary to these pairs is not to rush to the support of the negated, as, for example, much nineteenth-century criticism rushed to the subjective while another objectivizing group tried to make a historical science out of criticism. Rather, the opposition must be opposed. We can see phenomenological criticism as such an attempt, but inside that movement we discover the tendency for subjectivity to dominate, opposed by an objectivizing influx at crucial moments, as if some safety valve had been opened. Other theoretical moves to evade the negation have tried to establish a concrete universal, the analogy of myth, the identity of perceiver and perceived, and the social individual, about which I shall say more later. It is literature itself that goes farthest toward these things. FEMINISM AND THE CANON Whether a text is written by a man or a woman has nothing to do with its admission to or absence from a literary canon on the basis of antitheti- cal criteria. But it certainly does matter, at least at this time, on the basis of power criteria. At the same time, antithetical criteria ought to welcome representation and expression of experience describable as feminine. (It is difficult to imagine that women writers until recently have achieved canonization for reasons of power. Jane Austen must have considerable antithetical force.) We are in the early stages of the admission of such works on the basis principally of power criteria. What will survive, or would survive, on the basis of antithetical criteria remains to be seen and depends to a considerable extent on the antithetical bravery of critics.  Antithetical Essays 174 Antithetical Essays 174 Antithetical Essays What works already canonized-by men or by women-that all of this activity will drive from the canon is not clear. Lawrence Lipking in his essay "Aristotle's Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment" avers that some of the classics now seem "less heroic, and some of them less funny."' We shall eventually know to what extent power criteria are operating in such remarks, to what extent antithetical ones. The same is true of Lipking's notion of a "women's poetic," for what has just been said implies that there are no such things as male and female writing-from an antithetical point of view. Efforts to establish the latter, as in the work of Helene Cixous, for example, have ended in identifying certain writings by men as feminine. This in itself begins, in spite of its original aim, to break down the distinction as a power distinction. Indeed, it ends by dividing things between the purely literary and everything else representing the strife of power relations. Cixous' search begins to look like a search for the antithetical. We have frequently been puzzled by the persistence of the high evalu- ation of texts that seem opposed to certain political or doctrinal values we support. Some of the canonized modern writers fall into this class. Sexism, fascism, communism, elitism, racism, and curious doctrinal affili- ation seem to abound. Yet critics and readers to whom these views must seem offensive or ridiculous discuss their work with interest and even reverence. Is all of this activity deeply mistaken, unethical, or hopelessly innocent? The problem has always been a vexed one and has given rise to many critical debates. Early twentieth-century movements such as those going under the name of pure poetry and imagism refleet the ex- tremes it was thought necessary to invoke in order to escape all but sheer experience or pure form. But the products of these movements have not been canonized. Debates over the matter of belief in poetry that raged in the 193os and 1g4os were possible only on the ground that beliefs are in some sense present in literature. The fact remains that the Anglo- American critical establishment, which can be described as for the most part politically liberal, in the American sense of the word, though cer- tainly not leftist, has not found itself able to and has not wished to banish from the canon Pound, Eliot, and Lawrence on the right or the early Auden on the left. It is true that some considerable writers have not en- tered the canon or hover on the edge, and this may be for political rea- sons. George Orwell is an interesting case. Joyce Cary is perhaps a victim of some incipient political misreading that invokes power criteria. The point is that something is operating in the case of many canonized mod- 8. Lawrence Lipidng, "Aristotle's Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment," Crical Inquiry so (September 1983): 79. What works already canonized-by men or by women-that all of this activity will drive from the canon is not clear. Lawrence Lipking in his essay "Aristotle's Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment" avers that some of the classics now seem "less heroic, and some of them less funny. We shall eventually know to what extent power criteria are operating in such remarks, to what extent antithetical ones. The same is true of Lipking's notion of a "women's poetic," for what has just been said implies that there are no such things as male and female writing-from an antithetical point of view. Efforts to establish the latter, as in the work of Helne Cixous, for example, have ended in identifying certain writings by men as feminine. This in itself begins, in spite of its original aim, to break down the distinction as a power distinction. Indeed, it ends by dividing things between the purely literary and everything else representing the strife of power relations. Cixous' search begins to look like a search for the antithetical. We have frequently been puzzled by the persistence of the high evalu- ation of texts that seem opposed to certain political or doctrinal values we support. Some of the canonized modern writers fall into this class. Sexism, fascism, communism, elitism, racism, and curious doctrinal afili- ation seem to abound. Yet critics and readers to whom these views must seem offensive or ridiculous discuss their work with interest and even reverence. Is all of this activity deeply mistaken, unethical, or hopelessly innocent? The problem has always been a vexed one and has given rise to many critical debates. Early twentieth-century movements such as those going under the name of pure poetry and imagism reflect the ex- tremes it was thought necessary to invoke in order to escape all but sheer experience or pure form. But the products of these movements have not been canonized. Debates over the matter of belief in poetry that raged in the 1930s and 194os were possible only on the ground that beliefs are in some sense present in literature. The fact remains that the Anglo- American critical establishment, which can be described as for the most part politically liberal, in the American sense of the word, though cer- tainly not leftist, has not found itself able to and has not wished to banish from the canon Pound, Eliot, and Lawrence on the right or the early Auden on the left. It is true that some considerable writers have not en- tered the canon or hover on the edge, and this may be for political rea- sons. George Orwell is an interesting case. Joyce Cary is perhaps a victim of some incipient political misreading that invokes power criteria. The point is that something is operating in the case of many canonized mod- 8. Lawrence Liping, "Aristotle's Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment," Critical Inquinry 1o (September 1983) 79. What works already canonized-by men or by women-that all of this activity will drive from the canon is not clear. Lawrence Lipking in his essay "Aristotle's Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment" avers that some of the classics now seem "less heroic, and some of them less funny."' We shall eventually know to what extent power criteria are operating in such remarks, to what extent antithetical ones. The same is true of Lipking's notion of a "women's poetic," for what has just been said implies that there are no such things as male and female writing-from an antithetical point of view. Efforts to establish the latter, as in the work of Heliene Cixous, for example, have ended in identifying certain writings by men as feminine. This in itself begins, in spite of its original aim, to break down the distinction as a power distinction. Indeed, it ends by dividing things between the purely literary and everything else representing the strife of power relations. Cixous' search begins to look like a search for the antithetical. We have frequently been puzzled by the persistence of the high evalu- ation of texts that seem opposed to certain political or doctrinal values we support. Some of the canonized modem writers fall into this class. Sexism, fascism, communism, elitism, racism, and curious doctrinal affili- ation seem to abound. Yet critics and readers to whom these views must seem offensive or ridiculous discuss their work with interest and even reverence. Is all of this activity deeply mistaken, unethical, or hopelessly innocent? The problem has always been a vexed one and has given rise to many critical debates. Early twentieth-century movements such as those going under the name of pure poetry and imagism reflect the ex- tremes it was thought necessary to invoke in order to escape all but sheer experience or pure form. But the products of these movements have not been canonized. Debates over the matter of belief in poetry that raged in the 1930s and 194os were possible only on the ground that beliefs are in some sense present in literature. The fact remains that the Anglo- American critical establishment, which can be described as for the most part politically liberal, in the American sense of the word, though cer- tainly not leftist, has not found itself able to and has not wished to banish from the canon Pound, Eliot, and Lawrence on the right or the early Auden on the left. It is true that some considerable writers have not en- tered the canon or hover on the edge, and this may be for political rea- sons. George Orwell is an interesting case. Joyce Cary is perhaps a victim of some incipient political misreading that invokes power criteria. The point is that something is operating in the case of many canonized mod- 8. Lawrence Lipidng, "Aristotle's Sister: A Foetics of Abandonment," Critical Inquiry 1o (September 1983): 79-  Canons: Literary Carteria/Ponver Criteria 175 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 175 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 175 erns that is apparently deeper than either literary (whatever they are) or power criteria and seems to be powerfully antithetical to them. Now "powerfully" is an unfortunate word for me to have used, since I employ "power" to express the opposite. Therefore, I shall substitute "visionary" to express the capacity for antithetical persuasion. It is, of course, what Longinus tried to formulate under the rubric of the "sub- lime," perhaps better translated simply as "great writing," the rhetori- cians under "eloquence," Hazlitt under "gusto," Coleridge under the ac- tivity of the "secondary imagination," Yeats under "strangeness." None ever quite succeeded, from a tendency to narrow the confines of each term in order to gain authority in some spatially or temporally local dis- pute. In any case, I shall speak loosely and say visionary antitheticality is a power contrary to power. Antithetical bravery and political bravery are two different things, or, as Blake would say, they should be so regarded-two different things ide- ally. The discovery, the sifting through and out of women's writing is cer- tainly one of the most exciting of today's critical activities. The speed with which it is occurring is astonishing and perhaps a bit frightening, but that is the case with all movements today, frequently giving rise to the phe- nomenon of backlash, the speeding of an unfortunate cyelicity. When power ceases to be the single issue, then criticism will seek to locate the visionary antitheticality in writing by women. (It does now, of course, but under the excessive domination of power criteria, which have spawned numerous specious critical notions.) All along this route, we shall be re- thinking the canon, including that which is already there. At least, we should he doing these things. DECANONIZATION Should-can works be decanonized? Texts holding their positions princi- pally by past and outworn power criteria should be and frequently are decanonized; and this happens rather rapidly, as any examination of the anthologies of, say, fifty years ago reveals. This, of course, can happen as the result of a shift of power criteria, not necessarily the invocation of the antithetical. Eliot's early treatment of Milton is an example of such an attempt. It failed to demote Milton, and Eliot eventually recanted. Blake's critical redemption of Milton is the sort of criticism that asserts antithetical value. Over and over, history has witnessed efforts to purge the canon of figures with ideas unpleasant to contemplate in the corridors of some power-Donne, Dryden, Pope, Shelley, Tennyson. ems that is apparently deeper than either literary (whatever they are) or power criteria and seems to be powerfully antithetical to them. Now "powerfully" is an unfortunate word for me to have used, since I employ "power" to express the opposite. Therefore, I shall substitute "visionary" to express the capacity for antithetical persuasion. It is, of course, what Longinus tried to formulate under the rubric of the "sub- lime," perhaps better translated simply as "great writing," the rhetori- cians under "eloquence," Hazlitt under "gusto," Coleridge under the ac- tivity of the "secondary imagination," Yeats under "strangeness." None ever quite succeeded, from a tendency to narrow the confines of each term in order to gain authority in some spatially or temporally local dis- pute. In any case, I shall speak loosely and say visionary antitheticality is a power contrary to power. Antithetical bravery and political bravery are two different things, or, as Blake would say, they should be so regarded-two different things ide- ally. The discovery, the sifting through and out of women's writing is cer- tainly one of the most exciting of today's critical activities. The speed with which it is occurring is astonishing and perhaps a bit frightening, but that is the case with all movements today, frequently giving rise to the phe- nomenon of backlash, the speeding of an unfortunate cyclicity. When power ceases to be the single issue, then criticism will seek to locate the visionary antitheticality in writing by women. (It does now, of course, but under the excessive domination of power criteria, which have spawned numerous specious critical notions.) All along this route, we shall be re- thinking the canon, including that which is already there. At least, we should be doing these things. DECANONIZATION Should-can works be decanonized? Texts holding their positions princi- pally by past and outworn power criteria should be and frequently are decanonized; and this happens rather rapidly, as any examination of the anthologies of, say, fifty years ago reveals. This, of course, can happen as the result of a shift of power criteria, not necessarily the invocation of the antithetical. Eliot's early treatment of Milton is an example of such an attempt. It failed to demote Milton, and Eliot eventually recanted. Blake's critical redemption of Milton is the sort of criticism that asserts antithetical value. Over and over, history has witnessed efforts to purge the canon of figures with ideas unpleasant to contemplate in the corridors of some power-Donne, Dryden, Pope, Shelley, Tennyson. erns that is apparently deeper than either literary (whatever they are) or power criteria and seems to be powerfully antithetical to them. Now "powerfully" is an unfortunate word for me to have used, since I employ "power" to express the opposite. Therefore, I shall substitute "visionary" to express the capacity for antithetical persuasion. It is, of course, what Longinus tried to formulate under the rubric of the "sub- lime," perhaps better translated simply as "great writing," the rhetori- cians under "eloquence," Hazlitt under "gusto," Coleridge under the ac- tivity of the "secondary imagination," Yeats under "strangeness." None ever quite succeeded, from a tendency to narrow the confines of each term in order to gain authority in some spatially or temporally local dis- pute. In any case, I shall speak loosely and say visionary antitheticality is a power contrary to power. Antithetical bravery and political bravery are two different things, or, as Blake would say, they should be so regarded-two different things ide- ally. The discovery, the sifting through and out of women's writing is cer- tainly one of the most exciting of today's critical activities. The speed with which it is occurring is astonishing and perhaps a bit frightening, but that is the case with all movements today, frequently giving rise to the phe- nomenon of backlash, the speeding of an unfortunate cyclicity. When power ceases to be the single issue, then criticism will seek to locate the visionary antitheticality in writing by women. (It does now, of course, but under the excessive domination of power criteria, which have spawned numerous specious critical notions.) All along this route, we shall be re- thinking the canon, including that which is already there. At least, we should be doing these things. DECANONIZATION Should-can works be decanonized? Texts holding their positions princi- pally by past and outworn power criteria should be and frequently are decanonized; and this happens rather rapidly, as any examination of the anthologies of, say, fifty years ago reveals. This, of course, can happen as the result of a shift of power criteria, not necessarily the invocation of the antithetical. Eliot's early treatment of Milton is an example of such an attempt. It failed to demote Milton, and Eliot eventually recanted. Blake's critical redemption of Milton is the sort of criticism that asserts antithetical value. Over and over, history has witnessed efforts to purge the canon of figures with ideas unpleasant to contemplate in the corridors of some power-Donne, Dryden, Pope, Shelley, Tennyson.  Antithetical Essays 176 Antithetical Essays 176 Antithetical Essays Canonization and decanonization according to purely antithetical crite- ria constitute, of course, a mercifully unachievable ideal, for such criteria are uncategorical. By "uncategorical" I mean that they emerge from a po- sition that stands contrary to the power negations I have mentioned. If we were to analyze the antithetical in Kantian terms, identifying it with the ethical, we would not draw the antithetical from the Kantian practical reason or from the pure reason. It would have to emerge in that system from the judgment as, say, Schiller's ethic of play emerged from the Kant- ian judgment. This notion is, as I have said, frequently trivialized into a narrow formalism or freighted with elitist political baggage by politically oriented critics. Such critics could take a lesson from Blake, who found in Paradise Lost the antithetical suppressed on the surface of that poem by a negating struggle between two forces dedicated to power. But Blake also saw that some part of Milton's poem refused satisfactory solution by means of the triumph of one of these forces. Blake thought that Paradise Lost very nearly went wrong, but the poem's struggle with itself saved its antitheti- cal integrity. One suspects that a similar situation led Eliot to worry wrongly about the artistry of Hamlet at the very point where Hamlet seems to reject both power and "literary" criteria, as Eliot understood the latter. It seems to me that ultimately (and this is a subject to which I can- not devote enough space here) the antithetical is that which shifts the eth- ical issue from a simple either-or matter or a fixed and final word to an ideal of reading where the text continually challenges one to think further in a new light or to think again through the whole-even to the point of unresolvable contradictions-and to be prepared always to bring in the other that the text suddenly seems to have supplied. The antithetical ethic here is recognition of the need to consider yet again in the light of the ever new other, to be dissatisfied with stasis even as one rejects the concept of pure flux that disregards the moments when one must stop and formulate a reading only eventually to go on. Blake's notion was that something in Milton forced utterance antitheti- cal to the drift of his poem. But Blake did not entirely succeed in express- ing this matter in antithetical terms: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it."' But the direction of Blake's own argument had been that Milton was of neither party. Blake then indicated in the sentence I have just quoted that Milton had simply transvaluated values and embraced the negated. g. William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," The Complete Poetry and Prose of Wiliam Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), 35. Canonization and decanonization according to purely antithetical crite- ria constitute, of course, a mercifully unachievable ideal, for such criteria are uncategorical. By "uncategorical" I mean that they emerge from a po- sition that stands contrary to the power negations I have mentioned. If we were to analyze the antithetical in Kantian terms, identifying it with the ethical, we would not draw the antithetical from the Kantian practical reason or from the pure reason. It would have to emerge in that system from thejudgment as, say, Schiller's ethic of play emerged from the Kant- ian judgment. This notion is, as I have said, frequently trivialized into a narrow formalism or freighted with elitist political baggage by politically oriented critics. Such critics could take a lesson from Blake, who found in Paradise Lost the antithetical suppressed on the surface of that poem by a negating struggle between two forces dedicated to power. But Blake also saw that some part of Milton's poem refused satisfactory solution by means of the triumph of one of these forces. Blake thought that Paradise Lost very nearly went wrong, but the poem's struggle with itself saved its antitheti- cal integrity. One suspects that a similar situation led Eliot to worry wrongly about the artistry of Hamlet at the very point where Hamlet seems to reject both power and "literary" criteria, as Eliot understood the latter. It seems to me that ultimately (and this is a subject to which I can- not devote enough space here) the antithetical is that which shifts the eth- ical issue from a simple either-or matter or a fixed and final word to an ideal of reading where the text continually challenges one to think further in a new light or to think again through the whole-even to the point of unresolvable contradictions-and to be prepared always to bring in the other that the text suddenly seems to have supplied. The antithetical ethic here is recognition of the need to consider yet again in the light of the ever new other, to be dissatisfied with stasis even as one rejects the concept of pure flux that disregards the moments when one must stop and formulate a reading only eventually to go on. Blake's notion was that something in Milton forced utterance antitheti- cal to the drift of his poem. But Blake did not entirely succeed in express- ing this matter in antithetical terms: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it."' But the direction of Blake's own argument had been that Milton was of neither party. Blake then indicated in the sentence I have just quoted that Milton had simply transvaluated values and embraced the negated. g. William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), 35. Canonization and decanonization according to purely antithetical crite- ria constitute, of course, a mercifully unachievable ideal, for such criteria are uncategorical. By "uncategorical" I mean that they emerge from a po- sition that stands contrary to the power negations I have mentioned. If we were to analyze the antithetical in Kantian terms, identifying it with the ethical, we would not draw the antithetical from the Kantian practical reason or from the pure reason. It would have to emerge in that system from the judgment as, say, Schiller's ethic of play emerged from the Kant- ian judgment. This notion is, as I have said, frequently trivialized into a narrow formalism or freighted with elitist political baggage by politically oriented critics. Such critics could take a lesson from Blake, who found in Paradise Lost the antithetical suppressed on the surface of that poem by a negating struggle between two forces dedicated to power. But Blake also saw that some part of Milton's poem refused satisfactory solution by means of the triumph of one of these forces. Blake thought that Paradise Lost very nearly went wrong, but the poem's struggle with itself saved its antitheti- cal integrity. One suspects that a similar situation led Eliot to worry wrongly about the artistry of Hamlet at the very point where Hamlet seems to reject both power and "literary" criteria, as Eliot understood the latter. It seems to me that ultimately (and this is a subject to which I can- not devote enough space here) the antithetical is that which shifts the eth- ical issue from a simple either-or matter or a fixed and final word to an ideal of reading where the text continually challenges one to think further in a new light or to think again through the whole-even to the point of unresolvable contradictions-and to be prepared always to bring in the other that the text suddenly seems to have supplied. The antithetical ethic here is recognition of the need to consider yet again in the light of the ever new other, to be dissatisfied with stasis even as one rejects the concept of pure flux that disregards the moments when one must stop and formulate a reading only eventually to go on. Blake's notion was that something in Milton forced utterance antitheti- cal to the drift of his poem. But Blake did not entirely succeed in express- ing this matter in antithetical terms: "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it."* But the direction of Blake's own argument had been that Milton was of neither party. Blake then indicated in the sentence I have just quoted that Milton had simply transvaluated values and embraced the negated. 9. William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), 35-  Canons: Literary CriterialPower Criteria 177 Canons: Literanj Criteria/Power Criteria 177 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 177 This is not an unusual critical failure. Antithetical value can be critically expressed only by patient sustained verbal attention to a text seen as a dramatic and figurative process. A degree of failure here is inevitable. If a critic thought he had achieved ultimate treatment of the antithetical he would be mistaken. Where it seems possible, the work has suffered exhaustion (or the critic has) and certainly does not deserve canonization, for its message is one of stasis or triviality. Indeed ultimate treatment of the antithetical would be self-defeating were it achievable, being no longer antithetical but a power conspiring with stasis. Antithetical judg- ments cannot fully escape expression in the language of power relations. But rather than dismissing the notion of them because they are not pure, I argue that we retain them as ethically necessary fictions. CONTEMPORARY POWER CRITERIA The principal danger for any critical theory or practice is the suppression of antithetical criteria in the choices it implicitly or explicitly makes. Many contemporary theories have suffered this loss, sometimes with the best of antithetical intentions. Some seem, unconsciously perhaps, to rec- ognize the problem and at the critical moment engage in a flight to the negated opposite. I shall briefly examine three groups of contemporary theories in this light. For my purposes I shall treat the Foucauldian and Lacanian together, then the reader-oriented position of Stanley Fish and that of Harold Bloom, also together, and finally deconstruction. 1. The Foucauldian and Lacanian. Michel Foucault's subject is, of course, power. One could argue that his approach to power is, at least initially, antithetical. He is interested in undoing what, in a tacit admis- sion of structuralist influence, he calls the relations of power, everything being seen in differential terms. Things disappear; relations (differences) emerge. This view turns on the problematizing of the I, self, ego, individ- ual, and subject. Foucault wants to get rid of the constitutive subject, and as a result he must also either want to get rid of the constituted object or to valorize the object in some other sense of that term. The former sounds like a possibly antithetical stance; the latter does not. Rather the object turns into the whole complex of power relations which flow through all (non)things. Here individual consciousness and its freedom would be radically negated. It is this latter eventuality that Foucault risks and his language sometimes betrays; to the extent that he succumbs to it, the possibility of a self with a social identity, which would be the con- trary to this negation, is diminished. This is not an unusual critical failure. Antithetical value can be critically expressed only by patient sustained verbal attention to a text seen as a dramatic and figurative process. A degree of failure heere is inevitable. If a critic thought he had achieved ultimate treatment of the antithetical he would be mistaken. Where it seems possible, the work has suffered exhaustion (or the critic has) and certainly does not deserve canonization, for its message is one of stasis or triviality. Indeed ultimate treatment of the antithetical would be self-defeating were it achievable, .being no longer antithetical but a power conspiring with stasis. Antithetical judg- ments cannot fully escape expression in the language of power relations. But rather than dismissing the notion of them because they are not pure, I argue that we retain them as ethically necessary fictions. CONTEMPORARY POWER CRITERIA The principal danger for any critical theory or practice is the suppression of antithetical criteria in the choices it implicitly or explicitly makes. Many contemporary theories have suffered this loss, sometimes with the best of antithetical intentions. Some seem, unconsciously perhaps, to ree- ognize the problem and at the critical moment engage in a flight to the negated opposite. I shall briefly examine three groups of contemporary theories in this light. For my purposes I shall treat the Foucauldian and Lacanian together, then the reader-oriented position of Stanley Fish and that of Harold Bloom, also together, and finally deconstruction. 1. The Foucauldian and Lacanian. Michel Foucault's subject is, of course, power. One could argue that his approach to power is, at least initially, antithetical. He is interested in undoing what, in a tacit admis- sion of structuralist influence, he calls the relations of power, everything being seen in differential terms. Things disappear; relations (differences) emerge. This view turns on the problematizing of the I, self, ego, individ- ual, and subject. Foucault wants to get rid of the constitutive subject, and as a result he must also either want to get rid of the constituted object or to valorize the object in some other sense of that term. The former sounds like a possibly antithetical stance; the latter does not. Rather the object turns into the whole complex of power relations which flow through all (non)things. Here individual consciousness and its freedom would be radically negated. It is this latter eventuality that Foucault risks and his language sometimes betrays; to the extent that he succumbs to it, the possibility of a self with a social identity, which would be the con- trary to this negation, is diminished. This is not an unusual critical failure. Antithetical value can be critically expressed only by patient sustained verbal attention to a text seen as a dramatic and figurative process. A degree of failure here is inevitable. If a critic thought he had achieved ultimate treatment of the antithetical he would be mistaken. Where it seems possible, the work has suffered exhaustion (or the critic has) and certainly does not deserve canonization, for its message is one of stasis or triviality. Indeed ultimate treatment of the antithetical would be self-defeating were it achievable, .being no longer antithetical but a power conspiring with stasis. Antithetical judg- ments cannot fully escape expression in the language of power relations. But rather than dismissing the notion of them because they are not pure, I argue that we retain them as ethically necessary fictions. CONTEMPORARY POWER CRITERIA The principal danger for any critical theory or practice is the suppression of antithetical criteria in the choices it implicitly or explicitly makes. Many contemporary theories have suffered this loss, sometimes with the best of antithetical intentions. Some seem, unconsciously perhaps, to rec- ognize the problem and at the critical moment engage in a flight to the negated opposite. I shall briefly examine three groups of contemporary theories in this light. For my purposes I shall treat the Foucauldian and Lacanian together, then the reader-oriented position of Stanley Fish and that of Harold Bloom, also together, and finally deconstruction. 1. The Foucauldian and Lacanian. Michel Foucault's subject is, of course, power. One could argue that his approach to power is, at least initially, antithetical. He is interested in undoing what, in a tacit admis- sion of structuralist influence, he calls the relations of power, everything being seen in differential terms. Things disappear; relations (differences) emerge. This view turns on the problematizing of the I, self, ego, individ- ual, and subject. Foucault wants to get rid of the constitutive subject, and as a result he must also either want to get rid of the constituted object or to valorize the object in some other sense of that term. The former sounds like a possibly antithetical stance; the latter does not. Rather the object turns into the whole complex of power relations which flow through all (non)things. Here individual consciousness and its freedom would be radically negated. It is this latter eventuality that Foucault risks and his language sometimes betrays; to the extent that he succumbs to it, the possibility of a self with a social identity, which would be the con- trary to this negation, is diminished.  Antithetical Essays 178 Antithetical Essays 178 Antithetical Essays A similar problem arises in the works of Jacques Lacan and is again the consequence of the privileging of difference. Here the original self is still posited as having existed, but it is alienated, forever lost as the child proceeds through the mirror stage into the symbolic or linguistic world. A social web conceived on the analogy of the differential chain of discourse governs all action. Power dominates-the power of the univer- sal over the negated particular, though oddly enough both of these posi- tions are avowedly sympathetic to social freedom. Neither can sustain a vision of anything not subject to ubiquitous differential power. 2. Reader-response criticism. Its history is complex, and I certainly do not do justice to all versions by observing only the position of Stanley Fish. Fish began by emphasizing the way the reader is manipulated by the poet's linear text. Later he has come to emphasize the way the reader makes the poem. This is but the latest version of critical skepticism based on a thorough subjectivity that negates the object. Radical subjectivity has, of course, periodically appeared in different shapes from Berkeley through Pater and France. Rather than the individual negated in favor of external power (as risked by Foucault), here the individual reader's power appears at first absolute. There is no text in Fish's classroom, only Fish exerting the power of his own wit, influencing the object in the form of his students to get the canon right-his way. Yet the opposite finds its ways in, for the Fish who dictates does so by virtue not only of his own wit but also of the professional credentials that the culture has be- stowed on him. He, too, becomes an expression of the relations of power, abandoned to the fiction of consensus, which seems to be saying to him: Go ahead, exert, power; you are not responsible. Fish's student, caught in this play of negations, must ask innocently (?), ironically (?), cynically (?), "Is there a text in this class?" Power seems to be what triumphs here. Fish, who on this principle (if he had enough power) could change the canon at will, has not seemed to have much interest in applying his power criteria to canon formation. In this he is unlike Harold Bloom, who makes this to some extent his aim. Further, he has had as much success as any- one since Northrop Frye ensured the movement of Blake from the periph- ery to the center. Bloom's theory of influence and misprision is a theory of power, and there is no pretense about it. The whole history of poetry is an agonistic power struggle, and his earlier interest in "vision" has been much muted. For Fish and Bloom, with the qualification that in the former social power affects the strength to dictate value and in the latter Freudian pres- sures severely limit freedom, everyone is his own canon-maker, and to the strongest go the spoils. 3. Deconstruction. Surely the most sophisticated, the most self- A similar problem arises in the works of Jacques Lacan and is again the consequence of the privileging of difference. Here the original self is still posited as having existed, but it is alienated, forever lost as the child proceeds through the mirror stage into the symbolic or linguistic world. A social web conceived on the analogy of the differential chain of discourse governs all action. Power dominates-the power of the univer- sal over the negated particular, though oddly enough both of these posi- tions are avowedly sympathetic to social freedom. Neither can sustain a vision of anything not subject to ubiquitous differential power. 2. Reader-response criticism. Its history is complex, and I certainly do not do justice to all versions by observing only the position of Stanley Fish. Fish began by emphasizing the way the reader is manipulated by the poet's linear text. Later he has come to emphasize the way the reader makes the poem. This is but the latest version of critical skepticism based on a thorough subjectivity that negates the object. Radical subjectivity has, of course, periodically appeared in different shapes from Berkeley through Pater and France. Rather than the individual negated in favor of external power (as risked by Foucault), here the individual reader's power appears at first absolute. There is no text in Fish's classroom, only Fish exerting the power of his own wit, influencing the object in the form of his students to get the canon right-his way. Yet the opposite finds its ways in, for the Fish who dictates does so by virtue not only of his own wit but also of the professional credentials that the culture has be- stowed on him. He, too, becomes an expression of the relations of power, abandoned to the fiction of consensus, which seems to be saying to him: Go ahead, exert, power; you are not responsible. Fish's student, caught in this play of negations, must ask innocently (?), ironically (?), cynically (?), "Is there a text in this class?" Power seems to be what triumphs here. Fish, who on this principle (if he had enough power) could change the canon at will, has not seemed to have much interest in applying his power criteria to canon formation. In this he is unlike Harold Bloom, who makes this to some extent his aim. Further, he has had as much success as any- one since Northrop Frye ensured the movement of Blake from the periph- ery to the center. Bloom's theory of influence and misprision is a theory of power, and there is no pretense about it. The whole history of poetry is an agonistic power struggle, and his earlier interest in "vision" has been much muted. For Fish and Bloom, with the qualification that in the former social power affects the strength to dictate value and in the latter Freudian pres- sures severely limit freedom, everyone is his own canon-maker, and to the strongest go the spoils. 3. Deconstruction. Surely the most sophisticated, the most self- A similar problem arises in the works of Jacques Lacan and is again the consequence of the privileging of difference. Here the original self is still posited as having existed, but it is alienated, forever lost as the child proceeds through the mirror stage into the symbolic or linguistic world. A social web conceived on the analogy of the differential chain of discourse governs all action. Power dominates-the power of the univer- sal over the negated particular, though oddly enough both of these posi- tions are avowedly sympathetic to social freedom. Neither can sustain a vision of anything not subject to ubiquitous differential power. a. Reader-response criticism. Its history is complex, and I certainly do not do justice to all versions by observing only the position of Stanley Fish. Fish began by emphasizing the way the reader is manipulated by the poet's linear text. Later he has come to emphasize the way the reader makes the poem. This is but the latest version of critical skepticism based on a thorough subjectivity that negates the object. Radical subjectivity has, of course, periodically appeared in different shapes from Berkeley through Pater and France. Rather than the individual negated in favor of external power (as risked by Foucault), here the individual reader's power appears at first absolute. There is no text in Fish's classroom, only Fish exerting the power of his own wit, influencing the object in the form of his students to get the canon right-his way. Yet the opposite finds its ways in, for the Fish who dictates does so by virtue not only of his own wit but also of the professional credentials that the culture has be- stowed on him. He, too, becomes an expression of the relations of power, abandoned to the fiction of consensus, which seems to be saying to him: Go ahead, exert, power; you are not responsible. Fish's student, caught in this play of negations, must ask innocently (?), ironically (?), cynically (?), "Is there a text in this class?" Power seems to be what triumphs here. Fish, who on this principle (if he had enough power) could change the canon at will, has not seemed to have much interest in applying his power criteria to canon formation. In this he is unlike Harold Bloom, who makes this to some extent his aim. Further, he has had as much success as anv- one since Northrop Frye ensured the movement of Blake from the periph- ery to the center. Bloom's theory of influence and misprision is a theory of power, and there is no pretense about it. The whole history of poetry is an agonistic power struggle, and his earlier interest in "vision" has been much muted. For Fish and Bloom, with the qualification that in the former social power affects the strength to dictate value and in the latter Freudian pres- sures severely limit freedom, everyone is his own canon-maker, and to the strongest go the spoils. 3. Deconstruction. Surely the most sophisticated, the most self-  Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 179 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 17g Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria conscious (and some would say the most decadent) of all contemporary fashionable theories, deconstruction has touched virtually all of the posi- tions and methods flourishing today. This is principally because it is so doggedly linguistic in the model it employs, though its model-that of Saussure driven relentlessly to its conclusion-is by no means that of even most linguists. As I try to show in the introduction to the anthology Critical Theory Since 1965, deconstruction arrives at or as the apotheosis of the linguistic age, successor to the age of epistemology." Deconstruc- tion begins as antithetical in intent, but it is caught in the negating prin- ciple of difference inherited from the structuralism it would deconstruct. One cannot underestimate the sinuousness by which its principal (anti) architect Jacques Derrida manages to escape the traps that he sees all about him, but difference claims him, though, of course, he has contrived the appearance of escape in the coinage diffdrance. I claim it is the ap- pearance of escape because diffdrance, differing from itself as it is said, has already in choosing to be the difference of difference negated indiffer- ence. In every case deconstruction privileges the first in each of the fol- lowing oppositions: difference/indifference, dissemination/unity, writing/ speech, indeed writing/literature. Deconstruction's effect on the canon has been to open it, or it should be. Indeed, it should be more radical than that. Under the aegis of decon- struction there should be no canon, if only for the reason that there is no literature (or there is nothing but literature). Deconstruction has also claimed a radical political stance, for it implies a program questioning all received interpretation. This sounds antithetical in intent. But with only power criteria available, though admittedly these are perpetually subject to question, what remains seems to be only the struggle for power and either the cyclical reemergence of sheer ego or totally dominant ex- ternal oppression. Perhaps this is the reason that deconstruction has been attacked for threatening to leave as its legacy, as it passes from the scene, only a methodology. Yet of the contemporary theories I have mentioned it perhaps comes nearest to the antithetical role. But antitheticality is not acanonical. Rather it performs, or should perform, the role of decanonizing works present by virtue preponderously of power criteria and opening the canon to texts of antithetical value. All of this presents what could be regarded as a dangerous picture. On the other hand, it is easy enough to argue that the scene has always been dangerous. The present situation is perhaps ruled exorbitantly by power criteria, a price we probably have to pay for persistent social oppression. 1o. See Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle, eds., Critical Theory Since 1965 (Tallahassee, FL, 1986), 1-2. conscious (and some would say the most decadent) of all contemporary fashionable theories, deconstruction has touched virtually all of the posi- tions and methods flourishing today. This is principally because it is so doggedly linguistic in the model it employs, though its model-that of Saussure driven relentlessly to its conclusion-is by no means that of even most linguists. As I try to show in the introduction to the anthology Critical Theory Since 1965, deconstruction arrives at or as the apotheosis of the linguistic age, successor to the age of epistemology.'o Deconstruc- tion begins as antithetical in intent, but it is caught in the negating prin- ciple of difference inherited from the structuralism it would deconstruct. One cannot underestimate the sinuousness by which its principal (anti) architect Jacques Derrida manages to escape the traps that he sees all about him, but difference claims him, though, of course, he has contrived the appearance of escape in the coinage differance. I claim it is the ap- pearance of escape because diffirance, differing from itself as it is said, has already in choosing to be the difference of difference negated indiffer- ence. In every case deconstruction privileges the first in each of the fol- lowing oppositions: difference/indifference, dissemination/unity, writing/ speech, indeed writing/literature. Deconstruction's effect on the canon has been to open it, or it should be. Indeed, it should be more radical than that. Under the aegis of decon- struction there should be no canon, if only for the reason that there is no literature (or there is nothing but literature). Deconstruction has also claimed a radical political stance, for it implies a program questioning all received interpretation. This sounds antithetical in intent. But with only power criteria available, though admittedly these are perpetually subject to question, what remains seems to be only the strugglefor power and either the cyclical reemergence of sheer ego or totally dominant ex- ternal oppression. Perhaps this is the reason that deconstruction has been attacked for threatening to leave as its legacy, as it passes from the scene, only a methodology. Yet of the contemporary theories I have mentioned it perhaps comes nearest to the antithetical role. But antitheticality is not acanonical. Rather it performs, or should perform, the role of decanonizing works present by virtue preponderously of power criteria and opening the canon to texts of antithetical value. All of this presents what could be regarded as a dangerous picture. On the other hand, it is easy enough to argue that the scene has always been dangerous. The present situation is perhaps ruled exorbitantly by power criteria, a price we probably have to pay for persistent social oppression. so. See Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle, eds., Critical Theory Since 1965 (Tallahassee, FL, 1986), -2. conscious (and some would say the most decadent) of all contemporary fashionable theories, deconstruction has touched virtually all of the posi- tions and methods flourishing today. This is principally because it is so doggedly linguistic in the model it employs, though its model-that of Saussure driven relentlessly to its conclusion-is by no means that of even most linguists. As I try to show in the introduction to the anthology Critical Theory Since 1965, deconstruction arrives at or as the apotheosis of the linguistic age, successor to the age of epistemology." Deconstruc- tion begins as antithetical in intent, but it is caught in the negating prin- ciple of difference inherited from the structuralism it would deconstruct. One cannot underestimate the sinuousness by which its principal (anti) architect Jacques Derrida manages to escape the traps that he sees all about him, but difference claims him, though, of course, he has contrived the appearance of escape in the coinage differance. I claim it is the ap- pearance of escape because diffarance, differing from itself as it is said, has already in choosing to be the difference of difference negated indiffer- ence. In every case deconstruction privileges the first in each of the fol- lowing oppositions: difference/indifference, dissemination/unity, writing/ speech, indeed writing/literature. Deconstruction's effect on the canon has been to open it, or it should be. Indeed, it should be more radical than that. Under the aegis of decon- struction there should be no canon, if only for the reason that there is no literature (or there is nothing but literature). Deconstruction has also claimed a radical political stance, for it implies a program questioning all received interpretation. This sounds antithetical in intent. But with only power criteria available, though admittedly these are perpetually subject to question, what remains seems to be only the strugglefor power and either the cyclical reemergence of sheer ego or totally dominant ex- ternal oppression. Perhaps this is the reason that deconstruction has been attacked for threatening to leave as its legacy, as it passes from the scene, only a methodology. Yet of the contemporary theories I have mentioned it perhaps comes nearest to the antithetical role. But antitheticality is not acanonical. Rather it performs, or should perform, the role of decanonizing works present by virtue preponderously of power criteria and opening the canon to texts of antithetical value. All of this presents what could be regarded as a dangerous picture. On the other hand, it is easy enough to argue that the scene has always been dangerous. The present situation is perhaps ruled exorbitantly by power criteria, a price we probably have to pay for persistent social oppression. so. See Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle, eds., Critical Theory Since 1965 (Tallahassee, FL, 1986), s-on.  Antithetical Essays 180 Antithetical Essays 8a A Antithetical Essays My view is that there are, nevertheless, two dangers worth signaling: (1) Contemporary theorists are excessively consumed by power criteria. (That the first plenary session devoted to critical theory by this body is devoted to the problem of canons does not refute this notion.)" This is often true even of those who fulminate against power. The danger is the abandonment of antitheticality. (a) Contemporary theorists tend to negate all notions of the self. Certainly the effort here is frequently to oppose the antisocial or antisocietal idea of the self which has been identified, for reasons of power, perhaps too closely with bourgeois economic doe- trine, but there has not emerged from this a true contrary. The danger is abdication of all authority to the state. CANONIZATION OF CRITICAL THEORIES AND TEXTS The immense critical activity, which has constantly accelerated in volume until it has reached incredible proportions and cacophonic resonance (and some would say inexorable tedium), has developed its own canon, now experiencing rapid change. Some remarks about this, particularly in the light of the views of some critics that criticism is now literature (or if there is no literature no different from what was called literature), are appropri- ate here. Anthologies play some role in the canonization of critical theor- ies and texts, though not as powerful a one as might be thought. Occasion- ally anthologists revive a critic or a text or introduce one, but this is fairly rare. They tend to follow and are more or less a measure of canonization in process. There are two kinds of anthology pieces: (a) Representative works of critics who have become well known for a general theory or method (for example, Bloom). Among such critics there are always difficult cases, those who have written no single short text that sufficiently represents their theory or method. Kenneth Burke is an example, and though he is nearly always anthologized, he is not frequently studied or appropri- ately regarded on the basis of what can be learned about his work from an anthology piece. This may be one reason that he seems slightly periph- eral, though certainly he is not. There would be a similar problem with s. This essay was presented in a plenary session on the topic "The English Literary Canon and the Revolutionary Impact of Recent Theory" at the Thirtieth Triennial Confer- ence of the International Association of University Professors of English in York, England, 4 September 1986. My view is that there are, nevertheless, two dangers worth signaling: (1) Contemporary theorists are excessively consumed by power criteria. (That the first plenary session devoted to critical theory by this body is devoted to the problem of canons does not refute this notion.)" This is often true even of those who fulminate against power. The danger is the abandonment of antitheticality. (a) Contemporary theorists tend to negate all notions of the self. Certainly the effort here is frequently to oppose the antisocial or antisocietal idea of the self which has been identified, for reasons of power, perhaps too closely with bourgeois economic doc- trine, but there has not emerged from this a true contrary. The danger is abdication of all authority to the state. CANONIZATION OF CRITICAL THEORIES AND TEXTS The immense critical activity, which has constantly accelerated in volume until it has reached incredible proportions and cacophonic resonance (and some would say inexorable tedium), has developed its own canon, now experiencing rapid change. Some remarks about this, particularly in the light of the views of some critics that criticism is now literature (or if there is no literature no different from what was called literature), are appropri- ate here. Anthologies play some role in the canonization of critical theor- ies and texts, though not as powerful a one as might be thought. Occasion- ally anthologists revive a critic or a text or introduce one, but this is fairly rare. They tend to follow and are more or less a measure of canonization in process. There are two kinds of anthology pieces: (a) Representative works of critics who have become well known for a general theory or method (for example, Bloom). Among such critics there are always difficult cases, those who have written no single short text that sufficiently represents their theory or method. Kenneth Burke is an example, and though he is nearly always anthologized, he is not frequently studied or appropri- ately regarded on the basis of what can be learned about his work from an anthology piece. This may be one reason that he seems slightly periph- eral, though certainly he is not. There would be a similar problem with 11. This essay was presented in a plenary session on the topic "The English Literary Canon and the Revolutionary Impact of Recent Theory" at the Thirtieth Triennial Confer- ence of the International Association of University Professors of English in York, England, 4 September 1986. My view is that there are, nevertheless, two dangers worth signaling: (1) Contemporary theorists are excessively consumed by power criteria. (That the first plenary session devoted to critical theory by this body is devoted to the problem of canons does not refute this notion.)" This is often true even of those who fulminate against power. The danger is the abandonment of antitheticality. (2) Contemporary theorists tend to negate all notions of the self. Certainly the effort here is frequently to oppose the antisocial or antisocietal idea of the self which has been identified, for reasons of power, perhaps too closely with bourgeois economic doc- trine, but there has not emerged from this a true contrary. The danger is abdication of all authority to the state. CANONIZATION OF CRITICAL THEORIES AND TEXTS The immense critical activity, which has constantly accelerated in volume until it has reached incredible proportions and cacophonic resonance (and some would say inexorable tedium), has developed its own canon, now experiencing rapid change. Some remarks about this, particularly in the light of the views of some critics that criticism is now literature (or if there is no literature no different from what was called literature), are appropri- ate here. Anthologies play some role in the canonization of critical theor- ies and texts, though not as powerful a one as might be thought. Occasion- ally anthologists revive a critic or a text or introduce one, but this is fairly rare. They tend to follow and are more or less a measure of canonization in process. There are two kinds of anthology pieces: (1) Representative works of critics who have become well known for a general theory or method (for example, Bloom). Among such critics there are always difficult cases, those who have written no single short text that sufficiently represents their theory or method. Kenneth Burke is an example, and though he is nearly always anthologized, he is not frequently studied or appropri- ately regarded on the basis of what can be learned about his work from an anthology piece. This may be one reason that he seems slightly periph- eral, though certainly he is not. There would be a similar problem with 11. This essay was presented in a plenary session on the topic "The English Literary Canon and the Revolutionary Impact of Recent Theory" at the Thirtieth Triennial Confer- ence of the International Association of University Professors of English in York, England, 4 September 1986.  Canons: Literary CriterialPower Criteria 181 Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 181 Canons: Literary Criterha/Power Criteria Coleridge, perhaps, were he writing today. There is a question of a cer- tain kind of power here-the power of succinctness, perhaps, characteris- tic of Cleanth Brooks, which has made Brooks appear more representative of the issues of his time than Burke. This may seem less true as time passes, but it will still be difficult to anthologize Burke. These problems are exacerbated for the anthologizer by the recent proliferation of rele- vant ideas in fields other than those usually regarded as having to do with literary theory. (2) Specific texts representative of some important devel- opment, though not by a theorist with a developing or developed position of great importance. Such selections in anthologies come relatively early in movements expressing power criteria, as in the case of feminism today. Some of these essays will diminish in importance perhaps. Contemporary critical interests dictate to some extent the change in the critical canon of the past. However, deletion is a dangerous undertak- ing. I venture to say that the Cratylus of Plato now vies with the Ion or Republic for inclusion, because of the contemporary obsession with lan- guage. But the anthologist would be displaying what I regard as a faulty view if he or she were to eliminate either of these traditionally antholo- gized pieces in its favor. The reason is that contemporary readers need not only examples from the past near their own interests but those ex- pressing dominant interests of other ages-on the principle that anti- theticality can survive only by such historical awareness; otherwise we risk being locked in the prison of our own obsessive concerns. This, I take it, is behind the sort of historicism that Jerome J. McGann would apply to poetry in yet another of the essays in Critical Inquiry: "poetry only maintains its life in later ages and cultures when it preserves its integrity, when it confronts those later ages and cultures with a human world which is important to other human worlds precisely because it is different, local, limited." It works the other way around, too. We require those confronta- tions if only in order not to repeat the same folly, and critical theory does have the appearance of a history of folly, though it is more fairly treated seriously as a history inevitably of irony. It is difficult to know what will supplant the linguistic interest. Various political and new historicist positions (McGann's essay represents the lat- ter) have been formulated but have not as yet caused a wholesale shift in model or paradigm. In editing Critical Theory Since 1965, however, I came to feel that the age had reached a point of culmination of some- thing that had begun about two hundred years ago with the first gropings toward a full-fledged theory of language and myth. In the hands of some 12. Jerome J. McGann, "The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti," Critical Inquiry so (September 1983): 142. Coleridge, perhaps, were he writing today. There is a question of a cer- tain kind of power here-the power of succinctness, perhaps, characteris- tic of Cleanth Brooks, which has made Brooks appear more representative of the issues of his time than Burke. This may seem less true as time passes, but it will still be difficult to anthologize Burke. These problems are exacerbated for the anthologizer by the recent proliferation of rele- vant ideas in fields other than those usually regarded as having to do with literary theory. (2) Specific texts representative of some important devel- opment, though not by a theorist with a developing or developed position of great importance. Such selections in anthologies come relatively early in movements expressing power criteria, as in the case of feminism today. Some of these essays will diminish in importance perhaps. Contemporary critical interests dictate to some extent the change in the critical canon of the past. However, deletion is a dangerous undertak- ing. I venture to say that the Cratylus of Plato now vies with the Ion or Republic for inclusion, because of the contemporary obsession with lan- guage. But the anthologist would be displaying what I regard as a faulty view if he or she were to eliminate either of these traditionally antholo- gized pieces in its favor. The reason is that contemporary readers need not only examples from the past near their own interests but those ex- pressing dominant interests of other ages-on the principle that anti- theticality can survive only by such historical awareness; otherwise we risk being locked in the prison of our own obsessive concerns. This, I take it, is behind the sort of historicism that Jerome J. McGann would apply to poetry in yet another of the essays in Critical Inquiry: "poetry only maintains its life in later ages and cultures when it preserves its integrity, when it confronts those later ages and cultures with a human world which is important to other human worlds precisely because it is different, local, limited."a It works the other way around, too. We require those confronta- tions if only in order not to repeat the same folly, and critical theory does have the appearance of a history of folly, though it is more fairly treated seriously as a history inevitably of irony. It is difficult to know what will supplant the linguistic interest. Various political and new historicist positions (McGann's essay represents the lat- ter) have been formulated but have not as yet caused a wholesale shift in model or paradigm. In editing Critical Theory Since 1965, however, I came to feel that the age had reached a point of culmination of some- thing that had begun about two hundred years ago with the first gropings toward a full-fledged theory of language and myth. In the hands of some 12. Jerome J. McGann, "The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti," Critical Inquiry so (September 1983): 142. Coleridge, perhaps, were he writing today. There is a question of a cer- tain kind of power here-the power of succinctness, perhaps, characteris- tic of Cleanth Brooks, which has made Brooks appear more representative of the issues of his time than Burke. This may seem less true as time passes, but it will still be difficult to anthologize Burke. These problems are exacerbated for the anthologizer by the recent proliferation of rele- vant ideas in fields other than those usually regarded as having to do with literary theory. (2) Specific texts representative of some important devel- opment, though not by a theorist with a developing or developed position of great importance. Such selections in anthologies come relatively early in movements expressing power criteria, as in the case of feminism today. Some of these essays will diminish in importance perhaps. Contemporary critical interests dictate to some extent the change in the critical canon of the past. However, deletion is a dangerous undertak- ing. I venture to say that the Cratylus of Plato now vies with the Ion or Republic for inclusion, because of the contemporary obsession with lan- guage. But the anthologist would be displaying what I regard as a faulty view if he or she were to eliminate either of these traditionally antholo- gized pieces in its favor. The reason is that contemporary readers need not only examples from the past near their own interests but those ex- pressing dominant interests of other ages-on the principle that anti- theticality can survive only by such historical awareness; otherwise we risk being locked in the prison of our own obsessive concerns. This, I take it, is behind the sort of historicism that Jerome J. McGann would apply to poetry in yet another of the essays in Critical Inquiry: "poetry only maintains its life in later ages and cultures when it preserves its integrity, when it confronts those later ages and cultures with a human world which is important to other human worlds precisely because it is different, local, limited."" It works the other way around, too. We require those confronta- tions if only in order not to repeat the same folly, and critical theory does have the appearance of a history of folly, though it is more fairly treated seriously as a history inevitably of irony. It is difficult to know what will supplant the linguistic interest. Various political and new historicist positions (McGann's essay represents the lat- ter) have been formulated but have not as yet caused a wholesale shift in model or paradigm. In editing Critical Theory Since 1965, however, I came to feel that the age had reached a point of culmination of some- thing that had begun about two hundred years ago with the first gropings toward a full-fledged theory of language and myth. In the hands of some 1n. Jerome J. McGann, "The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti," Critical Inquiry so (September s983): 142.  Antithetical Essays 182 Antithetical Essays 182 Antithetical Essays theorists today we find what Yeats called the struggle of the fly in the mar- theorists today we find what Yeats called the struggle of the fly in the mar- theorists today we find what Yeats called the struggle of the fly in the mar- malade, language of linguistic difference appearing in new allegorical malade, language of linguistic difference appearing in new allegorical malade, language of linguistic difference appearing in new allegorical forms that provide no progression. This is surely a signal of impending forms that provide no progression. This is surely a signal of impending forms that provide no progression. This is surely a signal of impending modification or revolt that can usher in either a new antithetical or a cycli- modification or revolt that can usher in either a new antithetical or a cycli- modification or revolt that can usher in either a new antithetical or a cycli- cal power struggle. cal power struggle. cal power struggle. I find stirrings in my brightest younger colleagues of desires not so I find stirrings in my brightest younger colleagues of desires not so I find stirrings in my brightest younger colleagues of desires not so much to attack the canon of critical works as to find a way out of what much to attack the canon of critical works as to find a way out of what much to attack the canon of critical works as to find a way out of what they regard as an intellectual impasse. It is as if they are looking for some- they regard as an intellectual impasse. It is as if they are looking for-some- they regard as an intellectual impasse. It is as if they are looking forsome- thing else to know. Deconstruction is coming to look like the necessary thing else to know. Deconstruction is coming to look like the necessary thing else to know. Deconstruction is coming to look like the necessary reductio ad absurdum (and I have great respect for such moments) of the reductio ad absurdum (and I have great respect for such moments) of the reductio ad absurdum (and I have great respect for such moments) of the linguistic age, similar in its time to Berkeley's form of idealism in the epis- linguistic age, similar in its time to Berkeley's form of idealism in the epis- linguistic age, similar in its time to Berkeley's form of idealism in the epis- temological age. Some new theorist, perhaps in some theatrical act of temological age. Some new theorist, perhaps in some theatrical act of temological age. Some new theorist, perhaps in some theatrical act of antitheticality worthy of Dr. Johnson, will kick a referent. It is worth add- antitheticality worthy of Dr. Johnson, will kick a referent. It is worth add- antitheticality worthy of Dr. Johnson, will kick a referent. It is worth add- ing here that the new historicism, or whatever name it properly goes by, ing here that the new historicism, or whatever name it properly goes by, ing here that the new historicism, or whatever name it properly goes by, is a negating response to the ahistorical tendencies in deconstruction that is a negating response to the ahistorical tendencies in deconstruction that is a negating response to the ahistorical tendencies in deconstruction that led some academic critics to declare that the history of criticism up to led some academic critics to declare that the history of criticism up to led some academic critics to declare that the history of criticism up to about 1965 was no longer worth spending time on. Here are power crite- about 1965 was no longer worth spending time on. Here are power crite- about 1965 was no longer worth spending time on. Here are power crite- ria with a vengeance, and there is no doubt that the scene of critical can- ria with a vengeance, and there is no doubt that the scene of critical can- ria with a vengeance, and there is no doubt that the scene of critical can- onization is today chaotic, as one might expect it to be in the immediate onization is today chaotic, as one might expect it to be in the immediate onization is today chaotic, as one might expect it to be in the immediate wake of a major crisis. A lot that has recently seemed important will be wake of a major crisis. A lot that has recently seemed important will be wake of a major crisis. A lot that has recently seemed important will be swept away, perhaps to be recovered like Christina Rossetti by a new his- swept away, perhaps to be recovered like Christina Rossetti by a new his- swept away, perhaps to be recovered like Christina Rossetti by a new his- toricist at some future date. Some important things are suppressed, or toricist at some future date. Some important things are suppressed, or toricist at some future date. Some important things are suppressed, or worse, ignored. Some trivial things are celebrated. An ambitious critic worse, ignored. Some trivial things are celebrated. An ambitious critic worse, ignored. Some trivial things are celebrated. An ambitious critic should look at, say, Ludwig Lewisohn's A Modern Book of Criticism." should look at, say, Ludwig Lewisohn's A Modern Book of Criticism." should look at, say, Ludwig Lewisohn's A Modern Book of Criticism." Look on his work ye mighty and despair. The largest horde of academic Look on his work ye mighty and despair. The largest horde of academic Look on his work ye mighty and despair. The largest horde of academic critics in history must find their way in a fiercely competitive profession, critics in history must find their way in a fiercely competitive profession, critics in history must find their way in a fiercely competitive profession, and one way seems to be to apply one of the languages of contemporary and one way seems to be to apply one of the languages of contemporary and one way seems to be to apply one of the languages of contemporary power criteria to something. power criteria to something. power criteria to something. PRUDENT NOISE PRUDENT NOISE PRUDENT NOISE Barbara Herrnstein Smith's essay, from which I quoted early in this Barbara Herrnstein Smith's essay, from which I quoted early in this Barbara Herrnstein Smith's essay, from which I quoted early in this paper, attacks the criticism of recent times for absenting itself from evalu- paper, attacks the criticism of recent times for absenting itself from evalu- paper, attacks the criticism of recent times for absenting itself from evalu- ation or for asserting the necessary silence of evaluation and thus con- ation or for asserting the necessary silence of evaluation and thus con- ation or for asserting the necessary silence of evaluation and thus con- demning literature itself to silence. This seems to me well intentioned demning literature itself to silence. This seems to me well intentioned demning literature itself to silence. This seems to me well intentioned but mistaken. Literature makes a different kind of noise, or at least we but mistaken. Literature makes a different kind of noise, or at least we but mistaken. Literature makes a different kind of noise, or at least we call it literature because we hear a different kind of noise. The metaphor call it literature because we hear a different kind of noise. The metaphor call it literature because we hear a different kind of noise. The metaphor 13. See Ludwig Lewisohn, A Modern Book of Criticism (New York, 191g). 13. See Ludwig Lewisohn, A Modern Book of Criticism (New York, 1g1g). 13. See Ludwig L.ewiwhn, A Modern Book of Criticism (New York, 1919).  Canons: Literary CriterialPawer Criteria 183 of silence nevertheless has some heuristic as well as mystifying value, though when it is taken literally it is less heuristic than mystifying. Evalu- ation in criticism, unless it evokes only power criteria, occurs tacitly, as a decision to discuss with a certain deference perhaps, to open the text to conversation, to declare interest thereby. Literature is given voice by such mainly tacit judgments, by which means it reenters the culture able to perform antithetical work. The voice of criticism must voyage peri- lously between the Scylla of power criteria and the Charybdis of utterly silent admiration or contempt. The culture deeply requires antithetical vision and the modes of its critical mediation. The more politically vio- lent, the more technologically complex, the more anxious the times, the more confidently or paranoically are works put forth on the basis of power criteria for canonization or for burning. But worse, I fear, visionary works in this climate could be ignored if they do not seem to play in the fields of power. I used to hear it said, even by writers about thirty years ago, that there were not likely any longer to be articulate inglorious Miltons hidden from view. I do not believe this to be true today, if I ever seriously accepted it. (No Blake scholar is likely to have done so.) Because of the recent ne- gating advances of power criteria, the political terms in which we present our destiny to ourselves need their antithetical contrary for purposes of a decent life. Do not be surprised to see a new aestheticism arise to take its place beside the new historicism. This will not be antithetical enough. Canons: Literary Criteria/Power Criteria 183 of silence nevertheless has some heuristic as well as mystifying value, though when it is taken literally it is less heuristic than mystifying. Evalu- ation in criticism, unless it evokes only power criteria, occurs tacitly, as a decision to discuss with a certain deference perhaps, to open the text to conversation, to declare interest thereby. Literature is given voice by such mainly tacit judgments, by which means it reenters the culture able to perform antithetical work. The voice of criticism must voyage peri- lously between the Scylla of power criteria and the Charybdis of utterly silent admiration or contempt. The culture deeply requires antithetical vision and the modes of its critical mediation. The more politically vio- lent, the more technologically complex, the more anxious the times, the more confidently or paranoically are works put forth on the basis of power criteria for canonization or for burning. But worse, I fear, visionary works in this climate could be ignored if they do not seem to play in the fields of power. I used to hear it said, even by writers about thirty years ago, that there were not likely any longer to be articulate inglorious Miltons hidden from view. I do not believe this to be true today, if I ever seriously accepted it. (No Blake scholar is likely to have done so.) Because of the recent ne- gating advances of power criteria, the political terms in which we present our destiny to ourselves need their antithetical contrary for purposes of a decent life. Do not be surprised to see a new aestheticism arise to take its place beside the new historicism. This will not be antithetical enough. Canons: Literanj Criteria/Power Criteria 183 of silence nevertheless has some heuristic as well as mystifying value, though when it is taken literally it is less heuristic than mystifying. Evalu- ation in criticism, unless it evokes only power criteria, occurs tacitly, as a decision to discuss with a certain deference perhaps, to open the text to conversation, to declare interest thereby. Literature is given voice by such mainly tacit judgments, by which means it reenters the culture able to perform antithetical work. The voice of criticism must voyage peri- lously between the Scylla of power criteria and the Charybdis of utterly silent admiration or contempt. The culture deeply requires antithetical vision and the modes of its critical mediation. The more politically vio- lent, the more technologically complex, the more anxious the times, the more confidently or paranoically are works put forth on the basis of power criteria for canonization or for burning. But worse, I fear, visionary works in this climate could be ignored if they do not seem to play in the fields of power. I used to hear it said, even by writers about thirty years ago, that there were not likely any longer to be articulate inglorious Miltons hidden from view. I do not believe this to be true today, if I ever seriously accepted it. (No Blake scholar is likely to have done so.) Because of the recent ne- gating advances of power criteria, the political terms in which we present our destiny to ourselves need their antithetical contrary for purposes of a decent life. Do not be surprised to see a new aestheticism arise to take its place beside the new historicism. This will not be antithetical enough.  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations Blake's Annotations Blake's Annotations Though Blake annotated only the first eight of Reynolds' Discourses (in Malone's second edition of 1798), it is clear that he had read at least the fifteenth and last, the ending of which inspired him to ridicule Reynolds in verse. Reynolds concludes his last discourse with the remark: ". . . I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Acad- emy, and from this place, might be the name of -Michael Angelo."' Blake's notebook verses, entitled "A Pitiful Case," comment: The Villain at the Gallows tree When he is doomed to die To assuage his misery In Virtues praise does cry So Reynolds when he came to die To assuage his bitter woe: Thus aloud did howl & cry Michael Angelo Michael Angelo (E504) Blake treats Reynolds' final remark and perhaps the whole panegyric on Michelangelo, which takes up much of Discourse Fifteen, as a hypo- critical act of contrition generated by fear and misery, not by a true change of heart. For Blake, a hypocrite is someone whose position on any matter is inconsistent with itself, whose acts or particular assertions are in conflict with his fundamental philosophical stance. Hypocrisy is not merely, then, what we call pretense or deliberate charlatanism. It is any error and is as characteristic of the redeemed as of the elect. The task I propose is to revisit the Discourses to determine whether it is possible to declare that the later ones ought to have softened Blake's view of Reynolds in any way or merely enforced his sense of the great gulf between them.' Reynolds later took up a number of matters not spe- 1. Quotations from Reynolds are all taken fom The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. Edmond Malone, ad ed. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1798). The copy of this edition with Blake's annotations is in the British Museum. The present quotation is from Discourse XV, 217-r8. Roman numerals in parentheses refer to the discourse in which the statement may be found. Arabic numerals refer to the page. 2. The Discourses have been visited frequently. In addition to works specifically men- tioned below, particularly worth consultation see Frederick Will, "Blake's Quarrel with 184 Though Blake annotated only the first eight of Reynolds' Discourses (in Malone's second edition of 1798), it is clear that he had read at least the fifteenth and last, the ending of which inspired him to ridicule Reynolds in verse. Reynolds concludes his last discourse with the remark: ". . . I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Acad- emy, and from this place, might be the name of -Michael Angelo."' Blake's notebook verses, entitled "A Pitiful Case," comment: The Villain at the Gallows tree When he is doomed to die To assuage his misery In Virtues praise does cry So Reynolds when he came to die To assuage his bitter woe: Thus aloud did howl & cry Michael Angelo Michael Angelo (E5o4) Blake treats Reynolds' final remark and perhaps the whole panegyric on Michelangelo, which takes up much of Discourse Fifteen, as a hypo- critical act of contrition generated by fear and misery, not by a true change of heart. For Blake, a hypocrite is someone whose position on any matter is inconsistent with itself, whose acts or particular assertions are in conflict with his fundamental philosophical stance. Hypocrisy is not merely, then, what we call pretense or deliberate charlatanism. It is any error and is as characteristic of the redeemed as of the elect. The task I propose is to revisit the Discourses to determine whether it is possible to declare that the later ones ought to have softened Blake's view of Reynolds in any way or merely enforced his sense of the great gulf between them.' Reynolds later took up a number of matters not spe- 1. Quotations from Reynolds are all taken from The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. Edmond Malone, ad ed. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1798). The copy of this edition with Blake's annotations is in the British Museum. The present quotation is from Discourse XV, 217-18. Roman numerals in parentheses refer to the discourse in which the statement may be found. Arabic numerals refer to the page. a. The Discourses have been visited frequently. In addition to works specifically men- tioned below, particularly worth consultation are Frederick Will, "Blake's Quarrel with 184 Though Blake annotated only the first eight of Reynolds' Discourses (in Malone's second edition of 1798), it is clear that he had read at least the fifteenth and last, the ending of which inspired him to ridicule Reynolds in verse. Reynolds concludes his last discourse with the remark: ". . . I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Acad- emy, and from this place, might be the name of -Michael Angelo."' Blake's notebook verses, entitled "A Pitiful Case," comment: The Villain at the Gallows tree When he is doomed to die To assuage his misery In Virtues praise does cry So Reynolds when he came to die To assuage his bitter woe: Thus aloud did howl & cry Michael Angelo Michael Angelo (E5o4) Blake treats Reynolds' final remark and perhaps the whole panegyric on Michelangelo, which takes up much of Discourse Fifteen, as a hypo- critical act of contrition generated by fear and misery, not by a true change of heart. For Blake, a hypocrite is someone whose position on any matter is inconsistent with itself, whose acts or particular assertions are in conflict with his fundamental philosophical stance. Hypocrisy is not merely, then, what we call pretense or deliberate charlatanism. It is any error and is as characteristic of the redeemed as of the elect. The task I propose is to revisit the Discourses to determine whether it is possible to declare that the later ones ought to have softened Blake's view of Reynolds in any way or merely enforced his sense of the great gulf between them.' Reynolds later took up a number of matters not spe- 1. Quotations from Reynolds are all taken from The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. Edmond Malone, ad ed. ([smdon: Cadell and Davies, 1798). The copy of this edition with Blake's annotations is in the British Museum. The present quotation is from Discourse XV, 217-18. Roman numerals in parentheses refer to the discourse in which the statement may be found. Arabic numerals refer to the page. 2. The Discourses have been visited frequently. In addition to works specifically men- tioned below, particularly worth consultation are Frederick Will, "Blake's Quarrel with 184  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 185 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 185 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations cifically dealt with in the first eight-genius, imagination, sculpture, ar- chitecture, the work of Gainsborough and Michelangelo, to mention the most obvious. Still, it seems likely that by the time he had annotated eight discourses, Blake felt that he had fully enough expressed his indig- nation at and his fundamental philosophical differences with Reynolds. In a long note at the beginning of Discourse Eight, he made a kind of summary, which suggests that he had perused them all: Burke's treatise on the Sublime & Beautiful is founded on the Opinions of Newton & Locke on this Treatise Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions. in all his Discourses I read Burkes Treatise when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancement of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the same Contempt & Ab- horrence then; that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. (E65o) The annotations in Blake's books characteristically strike at the alleged philosophical premises of the author. In order to revisit the later discourses, it is necessary to consider the major points of dispute in the first eight. Reynolds is not far into Dis- course One when the first point arises. It has to do with his attempt to define the "grand style" in painting by contrasting Raphael's manner be- fore and after he saw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. He characterizes Raphael's earlier style as a "dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individ- ual objects" (I, g). The artist, he goes on, must improve "partial represen- tation by the general and invariable ideas of nature" (I, g). In these re- marks, Reynolds' complaint is specifically against the artist who is merely an illusionist. He is not interested in the kind of sensuous verisimilitude that allegedly caused birds to pick at the cherries in the paintings of Zeuxis. If this were all that is implied by Reynolds' remarks, Blake might better have remained silent. He could hardly have quarreled with an at- tack on such illusionism, which gives to the artist the secondary role of servile imitator of external nature. But Reynolds grounds his complaint in a way not required by it. These grounds are not absolutely clear until the crucial Discourse Three, though they are implicit in the adjective "ac- Reynolds," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15 (1957): 340-49; and, principally on Reynolds, Lawrence Lipking, The Ordenrig of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 164-o7. cifically dealt with in the first eight-genius, imagination, sculpture, ar- chitecture, the work of Gainsborough and Michelangelo, to mention the most obvious. Still, it seems likely that by the time he had annotated eight discourses, Blake felt that he had fully enough expressed his indig- nation at and his fundamental philosophical differences with Reynolds. In a long note at the beginning of Discourse Eight, he made a kind of summary, which suggests that he had perused them all: Burke's treatise on the Sublime & Beautiful is founded on the Opinions of Newton & Locke on this Treatise Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions. in all his Discourses I read Burkes Treatise when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancement of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the same Contempt & Ab- horrence then; that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. (E65s) The annotations in Blake's books characteristically strike at the alleged philosophical premises of the author. In order to revisit the later discourses, it is necessary to consider the major points of dispute in the first eight. Reynolds is not far into Dis- course One when the first point arises. It has to do with his attempt to define the "grand style" in painting by contrasting Raphael's manner be- fore and after he saw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. He characterizes Raphael's earlier style as a "dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individ- ual objects" (I, g). The artist, he goes on, must improve "partial represen- tation by the general and invariable ideas of nature" (I, 9). In these re- marks, Reynolds' complaint is specifically against the artist who is merely an illusionist. He is not interested in the kind of sensuous verisimilitude that allegedly caused birds to pick at the cherries in the paintings of Zeuxis. If this were all that is implied by Reynolds' remarks, Blake might better have remained silent. He could hardly have quarreled with an at- tack on such illusionism, which gives to the artist the secondary role of servile imitator of external nature. But Reynolds grounds his complaint in a way not required by it. These grounds are not absolutely clear until the crucial Discourse Three, though they are implicit in the adjective "ac- Reynolds," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15 (1957): 34o-49; and, principally on Reynolds, Lawrence Lipking, The Ordering of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 164-zo7. cifically dealt with in the first eight-genius, imagination, sculpture, ar- chitecture, the work of Gainsborough and Michelangelo, to mention the most obvious. Still, it seems likely that by the time he had annotated eight discourses, Blake felt that he had fully enough expressed his indig- nation at and his fundamental philosophical differences with Reynolds. In a long note at the beginning of Discourse Eight, he made a kind of summary, which suggests that he had perused them all: Burke's treatise on the Sublime & Beautiful is founded on the Opinions of Newton & Locke on this Treatise Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions. in all his Discourses I read Burkes Treatise when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancement of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the same Contempt & Ab- horrence then; that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. (E65o) The annotations in Blake's books characteristically strike at the alleged philosophical premises of the author. In order to revisit the later discourses, it is necessary to consider the major points of dispute in the first eight. Reynolds is not far into Dis- course One when the first point arises. It has to do with his attempt to define the "grand style" in painting by contrasting Raphael's manner be- fore and after he saw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. He characterizes Raphael's earlier style as a "dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individ- ual objects" (I, g). The artist, he goes on, must improve "partial represen- tation by the general and invariable ideas of nature" (I, 9). In these re- marks, Reynolds' complaint is specifically against the artist who is merely an illusionist. He is not interested in the kind of sensuous verisimilitude that allegedly caused birds to pick at the cherries in the paintings of Zeuxis. If this were all that is implied by Reynolds' remarks, Blake might better have remained silent. He could hardly have quarreled with an at- tack on such illusionism, which gives to the artist the secondary role of servile imitator of external nature. But Reynolds grounds his complaint in a way not required by it. These grounds are not absolutely clear until the crucial Discourse Three, though they are implicit in the adjective "ac- Reynolds," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Crticism 15 (1957): 340-49; and, principally on Reynolds, Lawrence Lipking, The Ordering of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 197o), 164-07.  Antithetical Essays 186 Antithetical Essays 186 Antithetical Essays cidental," which he applies to "minute discriminations" in Discourse One, and to which I shall return. In Discourse Three, the most comprehensive of the early discourses, Reynolds expands his complaint about minute dis- criminations. It is not merely illusionism to which he objects, but repre- sentation of "all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 58). Here he displays clearly his presuppositions, which earlier lurk only in the single word "accidental," a term that we come to learn has a certain relationship to Reynolds' various concepts of nature. If Reynolds employed the term "nature" in only one sense, what he has to say about the artist would be far clearer; but, as Roger Fry pointed out many years ago, Reynolds uses the term in more than one way. Fry notes that he uses it to denote (1) "the sum of visible phenomena not made by artifice," (a) the Aristotelian "immanent force working in the re- fractory medium of matter towards the highest perfection of form," and (3) "whatever is agreeable to the affections and predispositions of the mind."' The first and third of these usages are clearly present in Reynolds. But in citing the second, Fry assimilates him to Aristotle rather too easily, without noting that what is present is really a mixture of Platonic and em- piricist notions. This is important in Blake's quarrel with him. It is worth examining Reynolds' language with some care on the point, since Rern- olds' whole conception of the grand style turns on it. The word "accidental" is a good place to begin. It implies the location of fundamental reality beyond any of the natures enunciated by Fry. It implies that the local details of our experience are hardly real at all and that we are always seeking, like Aristotle's nature, for an ideal form. That ideal form is there and is the reality. As Reynolds presents it, it has a substantial quality that it lacks in Aristotle. It appears to be more like a Platonic idea. Where Reynolds connects the grand style with the im- provement of "partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature," (I, 9) he has introduced a meaning for nature not covered by Fry's triad. Nature itself becomes the ideal substance that Aristotle said nature only endeavors to produce. If this were the only meaning for nature that Reynolds proffers, or if he called external experience "secondary nature" or something of the sort, we would have far less difficulty with his terminology. Or if he limited the term "nature" to the world in its so-called accidental multiformity and gave the name "ideas" to what man builds up from it inductively by the process of generalization, things would be clearer. If he chose the former 3. Boger Fry, ed., Discourses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds (London: Seeley, 1905), 39-40. cidental," which he applies to "minute discriminations" in Discourse One, and to which I shall return. In Discourse Three, the most comprehensive of the early discourses, Reynolds expands his complaint about minute dis- criminations. It is not merely illusionism to which he objects, but repre- sentation of "all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 58). Here he displays clearly his presuppositions, which earlier lurk only in the single word "accidental," a term that we come to learn has a certain relationship to Reynolds' various concepts of nature. If Reynolds employed the term "nature" in only one sense, what he has to say about the artist would be far clearer; but, as Roger Fry pointed out many years ago, Reynolds uses the term in more than one way. Frv notes that he uses it to denote (1) "the sum of visible phenomena not made by artifice," (a) the Aristotelian "immanent force working in the re- fractory medium of matter towards the highest perfection of form," and (3) "whatever is agreeable to the affections and predispositions of the mind."' The first and third of these usages are clearly present in Reynolds. But in citing the second, Fry assimilates him to Aristotle rather too easily, without noting that what is present is really a mixture of Platonic and em- piricist notions. This is important in Blake's quarrel with him. It is worth examining Reynolds' language with some care on the point, since Reyn- olds' whole conception of the grand style turns on it. The word "accidental" is a good place to begin. It implies the location of fundamental reality beyond any of the natures enunciated by Fry. It implies that the local details of our experience are hardly real at all and that we are always seeking, like Aristotle's nature, for an ideal form. That ideal form is there and is the reality. As Reynolds presents it, it has a substantial quality that it lacks in Aristotle. It appears to be more like a Platonic idea. Where Reynolds connects the grand style with the im- provement of "partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature," (I, 9) he has introduced a meaning for nature not covered by Fry's triad. Nature itself becomes the ideal substance that Aristotle said nature only endeavors to produce. If this were the only meaning for nature that Reynolds proffers, or if he called external experience "secondary nature" or something of the sort, we would have far less difflculty with his terminology. Or if he limited the term "nature" to the world in its so-called accidental multiformity and gave the name "ideas" to what man builds up from it inductively by the process of generalization, things would be clearer. If he chose the former 3. Roger Fry, ed., Discourses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds (London: Seeley, 1905). 39-40. cidental," which he applies to "minute discriminations" in Discourse One, and to which I shall return. In Discourse Three, the most comprehensive of the early discourses, Reynolds expands his complaint about minute dis- criminations. It is not merely illusionism to which he objects, but repre- sentation of "all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 58). Here he displays clearly his presuppositions, which earlier lurk only in the single word "accidental," a term that we come to learn has a certain relationship to Reynolds' various concepts of nature. If Reynolds employed the term "nature" in only one sense, what he has to say about the artist would be far clearer; but, as Roger Fry pointed out many years ago, Reynolds uses the term in more than one way. Fry notes that he uses it to denote (1) "the sum of visible phenomena not made by artifice," (a) the Aristotelian "immanent force working in the re- fractory medium of matter towards the highest perfection of form," and (3) "whatever is agreeable to the affections and predispositions of the mind."3 The first and third of these usages are clearly present in Reynolds. But in citing the second, Fry assimilates him to Aristotle rather too easily, without noting that what is present is really a mixture of Platonic and em- piricist notions. This is important in Blake's quarrel with him. It is worth examining Reynolds' language with some care on the point, since Reyn- olds' whole conception of the grand style turns on it. The word "accidental" is a good place to begin. It implies the location of fundamental reality beyond any of the natures enunciated by Frv. It implies that the local details of our experience are hardly real at all and that we are always seeking, like Aristotle's nature, for an ideal form. That ideal form is there and is the reality. As Reynolds presents it, it has a substantial quality that it lacks in Aristotle. It appears to be more like a Platonic idea. Where Reynolds connects the grand style with the im- provement of "partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature," (I, g) he has introduced a meaning for nature not covered by Fry's triad. Nature itself becomes the ideal substance that Aristotle said nature only endeavors to produce. If this were the only meaning for nature that Reynolds proffers, or if he called external experience "secondary nature" or something of the sort, we would have far less difficulty with his terminology. Or if he limited the term "nature" to the world in its so-called accidental multiformity and gave the name "ideas" to what man builds up from it inductively by the process of generalization, things would be clearer. If he chose the former 3. Boger Fry, ed., Discourses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds (London: Seeley, 1905), 39-40-  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 187 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 187 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 187 route, we would call Reynolds a Platonist, and, if the latter, an empiricist. As we have him, Reynolds presents us with a terminological quagmire; and we are confused about the location of ideas and of nature implied in terms like "accidental," "partial," "general," and "invariable." The whole sentence to which I have been referring is as follows: On the sight of the Capella Sistina, he [Raphael] immediately from a dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and indi- vidual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which im- proves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. (I, 9) What Reynolds calls "partial representation" could be, from another point of view, a more complete representation of external nature than what he himself advocates. But from his own point of view, the more complete in that sense the more partial in his sense, since to be complete in the former sense is to introduce mere accident, which only contributes to the spectator's distraction from what is meant to be conveyed-either a Pla- tonic form or a generalization. The term "invariable," however, leads us to believe he is probably referring here to a Platonic idea. There is little or nothing in Plato inviting us to call his own ideas "gen- eral." The term "general" in Reynolds establishes an empirical point of view entirely different from Plato's or from Aristotle's. It suggests that ideas are built up by a rational process of induction rather than discovered as existent metaphysical forms that the accidental particulars of nature copy independent of human creative involvement. What we have in Reynolds is an attempt to force the inductive generalization from sense data to meet and become identical with the Platonic idea. This joining is implied in Reynolds' term "central form," which he advances in Dis- course Three. "Central form," which is achieved by the grand style, is then identified with "beauty." All else is "accident" or "deformity" (III, 58). From the artist's practical point of view, search for the "central form," which Reynolds calls a "perfect state of nature" is also a search for "ideal beauty" (III, 59). There is avoidance of the Platonic criticism of poets and artists because the artistic process, as Reynolds sees it, is a rational and conceptual one and involves a transcendence of the deformed copies, de- formity in this case being a surplus of accidents more often than some sort of formal strangeness. Reynolds seems to be tied to a simple quantitative model. The artist's search for "central form" via generalization begins with "reiterated experi- ence, and a close comparison of the objects in nature" (III, 6u). Deviation route, we would call Reynolds a Platonist, and, if the latter, an empiricist. As we have him, Reynolds presents us with a terminological quagmire; and we are confused about the location of ideas and of nature implied in terms like "accidental," "partial," "general," and "invariable." The whole sentence to which I have been referring is as follows: On the sight of the Capella Sistina, he [Raphael] immediately from a dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and indi- vidual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which im- proves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. (I, 9) What Reynolds calls "partial representation" could be, from another point of view, a more complete representation of external nature than what he himself advocates. But from his own point of view, the more complete in that sense the more partial in his sense, since to be complete in the former sense is to introduce mere accident, which only contributes to the spectator's distraction from what is meant to be conveyed-either a Pla- tonic form or a generalization. The term "invariable," however, leads us to believe he is probably referring here to a Platonic idea. There is little or nothing in Plato inviting us to call his own ideas "gen- eral." The term "general" in Reynolds establishes an empirical point of view entirely different from Plato's or from Aristotle's. It suggests that ideas are built up by a rational process of induction rather than discovered as existent metaphysical forms that the accidental particulars of nature copy independent of human creative involvement. What we have in Reynolds is an attempt to force the inductive generalization from sense data to meet and become identical with the Platonic idea. This joining is implied in Reynolds' term "central form," which he advances in Dis- course Three. "Central form," which is achieved by the grand style, is then identified with "beauty." All else is "accident" or "deformity" (III, 58). From the artist's practical point of view, search for the "central form," which Reynolds calls a "perfect state of nature" is also a search for "ideal beauty" (III, 59). There is avoidance of the Platonic criticism of poets and artists because the artistic process, as Reynolds sees it, is a rational and conceptual one and involves a transcendence of the deformed copies, de- formity in this case being a surplus of accidents more often than some sort of formal strangeness. Reynolds seems to be tied to a simple quantitative model. The artist's search for "central form" via generalization begins with "reiterated experi- ence, and a close comparison of the objects in nature" (III, 6o). Deviation route, we would call Reynolds a Platonist, and, if the latter, an empiricist. As we have him, Reynolds presents us with a terminological quagmire; and we are confused about the location of ideas and of nature implied in terms like "accidental," "partial," "general," and "invariable." The whole sentence to which I have been referring is as follows: On the sight of the Capella Sistina, he [Raphael] immediately from a dry, Gothick, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and indi- vidual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which im- proves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. (I, 9) What Reynolds calls "partial representation" could be, from another point of view, a more complete representation of external nature than what he himself advocates. But from his own point of view, the more complete in that sense the more partial in his sense, since to be complete in the former sense is to introduce mere accident, which only contributes to the spectator's distraction from what is meant to be conveyed-either a Pla- tonic form or a generalization. The term "invariable," however, leads us to believe he is probably referring here to a Platonic idea. There is little or nothing in Plato inviting us to call his own ideas "gen- eral." The term "general" in Reynolds establishes an empirical point of view entirely different from Plato's or from Aristotle's. It suggests that ideas are built up by a rational process of induction rather than discovered as existent metaphysical forms that the accidental particulars of nature copy independent of human creative involvement. What we have in Reynolds is an attempt to force the inductive generalization from sense data to meet and become identical with the Platonic idea. This joining is implied in Reynolds' term "central form," which he advances in Dis- course Three. "Central form," which is achieved by the grand style, is then identified with "beauty." All else is "accident" or "deformity" (III, 58). From the artist's practical point of view, search for the "central form," which Reynolds calls a "perfect state of nature" is also a search for "ideal beauty" (III, 59). There is avoidance of the Platonic criticism of poets and artists because the artistic process, as Reynolds sees it, is a rational and conceptual one and involves a transcendence of the deformed copies, de- formity in this case being a surplus of accidents more often than some sort of formal strangeness. Reynolds seems to be tied to a simple quantitative model. The artist's search for "central form" via generalization begins with "reiterated experi- ence, and a close comparison of the objects in nature" (III, 6o). Deviation  Antithetical Essays 188 Antithetical Essays 188 Antithetical Essays from this inductive process, which operates according to the laws of associationist psychology, results in "deformity." From the artist's practi- cal point of view the proper result must be a generalization: "The whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 57-58). On the other hand, from the metaphysical point of view the result is an idea: ". . . all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature" (III, 53), in its eternality and invariability. But the route to it through sen- sible observation proceeding to abstraction is not Plato's, who does not reduce the variety of nature to the abstract idea. One of Reynolds' problems in keeping these two ideas together is to avoid collapsing everything into the eternal, ideal perfection of the One, which is the ultimate Platonic idea. On the face of it, this would eliminate the role of the artist, who must obliterate every image he creates as he passes ever upward toward more expansive generalizations or toward the unrepresentable. Here Reynolds tries to save art, or rather his theory, by introducing the principle of several "central forms" (III, 62). These he claims to be separate and distinct from each other and yet each undenia- bly beautiful, that is, each contains a different ideal of beauty. He declares that each of these is based upon a class, not an individual. This view may be all right for an empirical, or even an Aristotelian, Reynolds, but it is not adequate for the Platonic Reynolds, who must quickly assert that the "highest perfection" cannot be discovered in any single class but only in "that form which is taken [abstracted] from them all" and in some way "partakes equally" of them (III, 63). The insistence on many classes, each with its ideal of beauty, Reynolds must maintain in order to avoid the complete disappearance of the artistic image into a Platonic idea, which defies representation and renders art either false and impossible or absolutely pure, transparent allegory (in Blake's derogatory sense of the word), where the image only stands arbi- trarily for an idea. But as I have noted, Reynolds' argument drives him toward the One, even as he resists. The artist is therefore to be seen as creating general ideas by a process of induction identical to the concep- tual processes of natural philosophy. Or he is seen as struggling to dis- cover the idea by a process which systematically eliminates accident from external nature until finally all the dross is removed; but were he to suc- ceed, would not his allegorical image also have to be erased? In neither case is the artist possessed of innate ideas; he follows a method, and it is the only method. The model of the mind is that of Locke and Hartley. The mind is a tabula rasa, and it operates by association. The model is spatially simple, ideas being like building blocks. The work from this inductive process, which operates according to the laws of associationist psychology, results in "deformity." From the artist's practi- cal point of view the proper result must be a generalization: "The whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 57-58). On the other hand, from the metaphysical point of view the result is an idea: ". . . all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature" (III, 53), in its eternality and invariability. But the route to it through sen- sible observation proceeding to abstraction is not Plato's, who does not reduce the variety of nature to the abstract idea. One of Reynolds' problems in keeping these two ideas together is to avoid collapsing everything into the eternal, ideal perfection of the One, which is the ultimate Platonic idea. On the face of it, this would eliminate the role of the artist, who must obliterate every image he creates as he passes ever upward toward more expansive generalizations or toward the unrepresentable. Here Reynolds tries to save art, or rather his theory, by introducing the principle of several "central forms" (III, 62). These he claims to be separate and distinct from each other and yet each undenia- bly beautiful, that is, each contains a different ideal of beauty. He declares that each of these is based upon a class, not an individual. This view may be all right for an empirical, or even an Aristotelian, Reynolds, but it is not adequate for the Platonic Reynolds, who must quickly assert that the "highest perfection" cannot be discovered in any single class but only in "that form which is taken [abstracted] from them all" and in some way "partakes equally" of them (III, 63). The insistence on many classes, each with its ideal of beauty, Reynolds must maintain in order to avoid the complete disappearance of the artistic image into a Platonic idea, which defies representation and renders art either false and impossible or absolutely pure, transparent allegory (in Blake's derogatory sense of the word), where the image only stands arbi- trarily for an idea. But as I have noted, Reynolds' argument drives him toward the One, even as he resists. The artist is therefore to be seen as creating general ideas by a process of induction identical to the concep- tual processes of natural philosophy. Or he is seen as struggling to dis- cover the idea by a process which systematically eliminates accident from external nature until finally all the dross is removed; but were he to suc- ceed, would not his allegorical image also have to be erased? In neither case is the artist possessed of innate ideas; he follows a method, and it is the only method. The model of the mind is that of Locke and Hartley. The mind is a tabula rasa, and it operates by association. The model is spatially simple, ideas being like building blocks. The work from this inductive process, which operates according to the laws of associationist psychology, results in "deformity." From the artist's practi- cal point of view the proper result must be a generalization: 'The whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind" (III, 57-58). On the other hand, from the metaphysical point of view the result is an idea: ". . . all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature" (III, 53), in its eternality and invariability. But the route to it through sen- sible observation proceeding to abstraction is not Plato's, who does not reduce the variety of nature to the abstract idea. One of Reynolds' problems in keeping these two ideas together is to avoid collapsing everything into the eternal, ideal perfection of the One, which is the ultimate Platonic idea. On the face of it, this would eliminate the role of the artist, who must obliterate every image he creates as he passes ever upward toward more expansive generalizations or toward the unrepresentable. Here Reynolds tries to save art, or rather his theory, by introducing the principle of several "central forms" (III, 62). These he claims to be separate and distinct from each other and yet each undenia- bly beautiful, that is, each contains a different ideal of beauty. He declares that each of these is based upon a class, not an individual. This view may be all right for an empirical, or even an Aristotelian, Reynolds, but it is not adequate for the Platonic Reynolds, who must quickly assert that the "highest perfection" cannot be discovered in any single class but only in "that form which is taken [abstracted] from them all" and in some way "partakes equally" of them (III, 63). The insistence on many classes, each with its ideal of beauty, Reynolds must maintain in order to avoid the complete disappearance of the artistic image into a Platonic idea, which defies representation and renders art either false and impossible or absolutely pure, transparent allegory (in Blake's derogatory sense of the word), where the image only stands arbi- trarily for an idea. But as I have noted, Reynolds' argument drives him toward the One, even as he resists. The artist is therefore to be seen as creating general ideas by a process of induction identical to the concep- tual processes of natural philosophy. Or he is seen as struggling to dis- cover the idea by a process which systematically eliminates accident from external nature until finally all the dross is removed; but were he to suc- ceed, would not his allegorical image also have to be erased? In neither case is the artist possessed of innate ideas; he follows a method, and it is the only method. The model of the mind is that of Locke and Hartley. The mind is a tabula rasa, and it operates by association. The model is spatially simple, ideas being like building blocks. The work  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 18g Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 18g Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations of art is the product of a formula: "The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other" (V, 12o). The imagina- tion for Reynolds, following Burke, "is incapable of producing anything originally of itself, and can only vary and combine those ideas with which it is furnished by means of the senses" (VII, 220). It must follow from this that beauty is to be equated with symmetry and harmony in the old classical sense. Reynolds proceeds to do just that. In such a system there is not much place for the sublime in art, even though on first impression the striving to get beyond external nature that Reynolds attributes to the grand style might be an effort toward sublim- ity, in one sense of the word. But the effort either destroys the image or makes the image valuable only as a purely transparent allegory: "The sublime impresses the mind at once with one great idea" (IV, 97). A great idea is, of course, for Reynolds a general idea, and a general idea is one built up or abstracted from many accidents and made into a harmony. Reynolds tries to establish a principle of beauty based on generality and really subsumes sublimity under it. Blake, on the other hand, holds to a principle of sublimity based on particularity and tends to subsume beauty. Reynolds groups the grand, the general, the beautiful together, drains the term "sublime" of its antithetical meaning and opposes these terms with certain undesirables: "ornamental," "particular," "passionate," and "deformed." Blake's fundamental disagreement with Reynolds can best be ap- proached in the light of Reynolds' attempted compromise between an empirical and a Platonic stance and particularly with respect to Reynolds' attack on minute particulars. It is typical of Blake's insistence on getting to fundamental presuppositions that he does not bother to distinguish be- tween Reynolds' complaint against illusionist technique and Reynolds' strictures against all use of local detail. Blake sees at once the central issue. In Discourse Three Reynolds remarks, "The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse man- kind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas" (III, 52-53). Blake jumps on this with: "Without Minute Neatness of Execution. The Sublime cannot Exist! Grandeur of Ideas is founded on Precision of Ideas" (E636). Blake does not care to note that Reynolds explains himself in a further clause: ". . . instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination" (III, 53). On the matter of this kind of deception, Blake must have been in agreement with Reynolds. But for Blake that was not the issue at hand. No doubt he had already read Discourse One, and the criticism of the of art is the product of a formula: "The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other" (V, 12o). The imagina- tion for Reynolds, following Burke, "is incapable of producing anything originally of itself, and can only vary and combine those ideas with which it is furnished by means of the senses" (VII, 220). It must follow from this that beauty is to be equated with symmetry and harmony in the old classical sense. Reynolds proceeds to do just that. In such a system there is not much place for the sublime in art, even though on first impression the striving to get beyond external nature that Reynolds attributes to the grand style might be an effort toward sublim- ity, in one sense of the word. But the effort either destroys the image or makes the image valuable only as a purely transparent allegory: "The sublime impresses the mind at once with one great idea" (IV, 97). A great idea is, of course, for Reynolds a general idea, and a general idea is one built up or abstracted from many accidents and made into a harmony. Reynolds tries to establish a principle of beauty based on generality and really subsumes sublimity under it. Blake, on the other hand, holds to a principle of sublimity based on particularity and tends to subsume beauty. Reynolds groups the grand, the general, the beautiful together, drains the term "sublime" of its antithetical meaning and opposes these terms with certain undesirables: "ornamental," "particular," "passionate," and "deformed." Blake's fundamental disagreement with Reynolds can best be ap- proached in the light of Reynolds' attempted compromise between an empirical and a Platonic stance and particularly with respect to Reynolds' attack on minute particulars. It is typical of Blake's insistence on getting to fundamental presuppositions that he does not bother to distinguish be- tween Reynolds' complaint against illusionist technique and Reynolds' strictures against all use of local detail. Blake sees at once the central issue. In Discourse Three Reynolds remarks, "The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse man- kind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas" (III, 52-53). Blake jumps on this with: "Without Minute Neatness of Execution. The Sublime cannot Exist! Grandeur of Ideas is founded on Precision of Ideas" (E636). Blake does not care to note that Reynolds explains himself in a further clause: ". . . instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination" (III, 53). On the matter of this kind of deception, Blake must have been in agreement with Reynolds. But for Blake that was not the issue at hand. No doubt he had already read Discourse One, and the criticism of the of art is the product of a formula: "The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other" (V, 120). The imagina- tion for Reynolds, following Burke, "is incapable of producing anything originally of itself, and can only vary and combine those ideas with which it is furnished by means of the senses" (VII, 220). It must follow from this that beauty is to be equated with symmetry and harmony in the old classical sense. Reynolds proceeds to do just that. In such a system there is not much place for the sublime in art, even though on first impression the striving to get beyond external nature that Reynolds attributes to the grand style might be an effort toward sublim- ity, in one sense of the word. But the effort either destroys the image or makes the image valuable only as a purely transparent allegory: "The sublime impresses the mind at once with one great idea" (IV, 97). A great idea is, of course, for Reynolds a general idea, and a general idea is one built up or abstracted from many accidents and made into a harmony. Reynolds tries to establish a principle of beauty based on generality and really subsumes sublimity under it. Blake, on the other hand, holds to a principle of sublimity based on particularity and tends to subsume beauty. Reynolds groups the grand, the general, the beautiful together, drains the term "sublime" of its antithetical meaning and opposes these terms with certain undesirables: "ornamental," "particular," "passionate," and "deformed." Blake's fundamental disagreement with Reynolds can best be ap- proached in the light of Reynolds' attempted compromise between an empirical and a Platonic stance and particularly with respect to Reynolds' attack on minute particulars. It is typical of Blake's insistence on getting to fundamental presuppositions that he does not bother to distinguish be- tween Reynolds' complaint against illusionist technique and Reynolds' strictures against all use of local detail. Blake sees at once the central issue. In Discourse Three Reynolds remarks, "The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse man- kind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas" (III, 52-53). Blake jumps on this with: "Without Minute Neatness of Execution. The Sublime cannot Exist! Grandeur of Ideas is founded on Precision of Ideas" (E636). Blake does not care to note that Reynolds explains himself in a further clause: . . . instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination" (III, 53). On the matter of this kind of deception, Blake must have been in agreement with Reynolds. But for Blake that was not the issue at hand. No doubt he had already read Discourse One, and the criticism of the  Antithetical Essays Igo Antithetical Essays ee A Antithetical Essays early Raphael as attending too much to "minute accidental [my italics] discrimination of particular and individual objects," (I, g), and saw the implication of "accidental" as fundamental. He remarks there: "minute Discrimination is Not Accidental" (E632). Later on, in Discourse Three, Reynolds carries his argument farther-much farther-and calls the "ac- cidents" of nature deformity, to which, of course, Blake objects violently. Reynolds' way to justify avoiding minute, illusionist copying of nature, which he apparently instinctively dislikes and must find a reasonable ar- gument against, is by recourse to the general or Platonic ideas as the true reality to be copied. He does not seem to recognize that in neither case is there any image to be copied but only an abstract idea, so that the result can only be a naive allegory. For Blake form must be immediately grasped, indeed imposed, by the imagination, copied or abstracted from so-called accidental particulars or copied quixotically from Platonic forms. Blake's route is neither the empirical nor the Platonic. Perhaps the best single key to Blake's quarrel with Reynolds is his an- notation to Reynolds' introduction of the concept of "central form" in Dis- course Three. Reynolds has been discussing the "idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the Ideal Beauty" (III, 59). This idea Reyn- olds in his Platonic way calls "divine," though with a certain reservation. He says that it "seems [my italics] to have a right to the epithet of diine" and it appears to be "possessed of the will and intention of the Creator" (III, 59). The artist who comes into possession of this idea succeeds. How does this occur? By means of empirical processes: ". . . it is from a reite- rated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is deformity" (III, 60). Blake's re- sponse to this is that if we grant the existence of such a "central form," and Blake does not grant it ontological status-but if we should-"it does not therefore follow that all other Forms are Deformity" (E637). The fact for Blake is that all forms are created by the mind of the poet and give shape to nature: "All Forms are Perfect in the Poets Mind. But these are not Abstracted nor Compounded from Nature but are from Imagination" (E637). A little later on Blake denies Reynolds' "central form" entirely be- cause it is itself an abstraction compounded from nature, and Blake at this point claims that general nature does not exist, because "Strictly Speaking All Knowledge is Particular" (E637). This strict nominalism, however, Blake tempers when Reynolds introduces the matter of species and classes. In Reynolds' system each of these classes has a central form of its own, though of these central forms there is in turn a central form for a more inclusive class, and so on, presumably infinitely to the imageless One. Reynolds introduces the matter of species in order to halt the re- early Raphael as attending too much to "minute accidental [my italics] discrimination of particular and individual objects," (I, g), and saw the implication of "accidental" as fundamental. He remarks there: "minute Discrimination is Not Accidental" (E632). Later on, in Discourse Three, Reynolds carries his argument farther-much farther-and calls the "ac- cidents" of nature deformity, to which, of course, Blake objects violently. Reynolds' way to justify avoiding minute, illusionist copying of nature, which he apparently instinctively dislikes and must find a reasonable ar- gument against, is by recourse to the general or Platonic ideas as the true reality to be copied. He does not seem to recognize that in neither case is there any image to be copied but only an abstract idea, so that the result can only be a naive allegory. For Blake form must be immediately grasped, indeed imposed, by the imagination, copied or abstracted from so-called accidental particulars or copied quixotically from Platonic forms. Blake's route is neither the empirical nor the Platonic. Perhaps the best single key to Blake's quarrel with Reynolds is his an- notation to Reynolds' introduction of the concept of "central form" in Dis- course Three. Reynolds has been discussing the "idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the Ideal Beauty" (III, 59). This idea Reyn- olds in his Platonic way calls "divine," though with a certain reservation. He says that it "seems [my italics] to have a right to the epithet of divine" and it appears to be "possessed of the will and intention of the Creator" (III, 59). The artist who comes into possession of this idea succeeds. How does this occur? By means of empirical processes: ". . . it is from a reite- rated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is deformity" (III, 60). Blake's re- sponse to this is that if we grant the existence of such a "central form," and Blake does not grant it ontological status-but if we should-"it does not therefore follow that all other Forms are Deformity" (E637). The fact for Blake is that all forms are created by the mind of the poet and give shape to nature: "All Forms are Perfect in the Poets Mind. But these are not Abstracted nor Compounded from Nature but are from Imagination" (E637). A little later on Blake denies Reynolds' "central form" entirely be- cause it is itself an abstraction compounded from nature, and Blake at this point claims that general nature does not exist, because "Strictly Speaking All Knowledge is Particular" (E637). This strict nominalism, however, Blake tempers when Reynolds introduces the matter of species and classes. In Reynolds' system each of these classes has a central form of its own, though of these central forms there is in turn a central form for a more inclusive class, and so on, presumably infinitely to the imageless One. Reynolds introduces the matter of species in order to halt the re- early Raphael as attending too much to "minute accidental [my italics] discrimination of particular and individual objects," (I, 9), and saw the implication of "accidental" as fundamental. He remarks there: "minute Discrimination is Not Accidental" (E632). Later on, in Discourse Three, Reynolds carries his argument farther-much farther-and calls the "ac- cidents" of nature deformity, to which, of course, Blake objects violently. Reynolds' way to justify avoiding minute, illusionist copying of nature, which he apparently instinctively dislikes and must find a reasonable ar- gument against, is by recourse to the general or Platonic ideas as the true reality to be copied. He does not seem to recognize that in neither case is there any image to be copied but only an abstract idea, so that the result can only be a naive allegory. For Blake form must be immediately grasped, indeed imposed, by the imagination, copied or abstracted from so-called accidental particulars or copied quixotically from Platonic forms. Blake's route is neither the empirical nor the Platonic. Perhaps the best single key to Blake's quarrel with Reynolds is his an- notation to Reynolds' introduction of the concept of "central form" in Dis- course Three. Reynolds has been discussing the "idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the Ideal Beauty" (III, 59). This idea Reyn- olds in his Platonic way calls "divine," though with a certain reservation. He says that it "seems [my italics] to have a right to the epithet of divine" and it appears to be "possessed of the will and intention of the Creator" (III, 59). The artist who comes into possession of this idea succeeds. How does this occur? By means of empirical processes:". . . it is from a reite- rated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is deformity" (III, 60). Blake's re- sponse to this is that if we grant the existence of such a "central form," and Blake does not grant it ontological status-but if we should-"it does not therefore follow that all other Forms are Deformity" (E637). The fact for Blake is that all forms are created by the mind of the poet and give shape to nature: "All Forms are Perfect in the Poets Mind. But these are not Abstracted nor Compounded from Nature but are from Imagination" (E637). A little later on Blake denies Reynolds' "central form" entirely be- cause it is itself an abstraction compounded from nature, and Blake at this point claims that general nature does not exist, because "Strictly Speaking All Knowledge is Particular" (E637). This strict nominalism, however, Blake tempers when Reynolds introduces the matter of species and classes. In Reynolds' system each of these classes has a central form of its own, though of these central forms there is in turn a central form for a more inclusive class, and so on, presumably infinitely to the imageless One. Reynolds introduces the matter of species in order to halt the re-  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 191 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 191 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations gress. There is, for example, a perfect human image-a form abstracted from the various types of gladiator, Apollo, Hercules, etc. (III, 63). Blake is critical of all this. He observes that Reynolds has, in fact, aban- doned the idea of one central form and introduced many (E637). The re- mark that best expresses his own view is brief: "Every Class is Individual" (E637). He is distinguishing between the artist who creates the classes of men and gives those classes individuality, as he claims Chaucer did in his particularized Canterbury pilgrims, and a class concept divested of particularity and, in Blake's mind, inevitably of any imagistic sub- stance, substantiality being from imagination and drained out in the proc- ess of generalization from sense data. The distinction is similar to that made by Giambattista Vico in The New Science between "abstract" and "imaginative" universals. According to Vice, the earliest people did not have "intelligible class concepts of things."' They moved from particulars to universals not by a process of generalization but by a "poetic logic" that enlarges the particular into a mythic figure rather than reducing each par- ticular to those elements it has in common with all others of its class. Blake would claim the particularity of each class or imaginative universal on the basis of the same principle of poetic apprehension rather than ab- stractive impoverishment, the poet's vehicle of apprehension being trop- ological language. Thus he would claim that each thing inhabits in its to- tality the class to which it belongs. Goethe tried to carry, somewhat quixotically, into modem science itself a similar principle when he dis- played to Schiller a "symbolic plant." All Blake's disagreements with Reynolds on how the artist proceeds may be referred back to this point. Blake sees the process of generalizing or abstracting from particulars as fundamentally passive and determined. It must operate mechanically according to fixed laws. It always has to end in the same place, which is for Blake a nowhere. Connected to this is Blake's vigorous objection whenever Reynolds treats artistic technique apart from imaginative conception. Indeed, Blake is so adamant on this point that he complains about Reynolds even when Reynolds deplores the separation himself. Yet strictly speaking Blake is right to complain, since for him Reynolds' position requires a distinction between thought and ex- ecution and results in a mimetic theory of a naive sort. Blake's theory of active making holds thought and execution together; Reynolds' theory of abstracting separates them, the process of abstraction occurring for Reyn- olds previous to expression in a medium. Blake's artistic act, on the other hand, requires a medium in which to think out the Vichean "imaginative 4. The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. T . Bergin and M. H. Fish, rev. trans. of the 3d ed. of 1744 (Ithaca: Cormell University Press, 1968), nS5-32. gress. There is, for example, a perfect human image-a form abstracted from the various types of gladiator, Apollo, Hercules, etc. (III, 63). Blake is critical of all this. He observes that Reynolds has, in fact, aban- doned the idea of one central form and introduced many (E637). The re- mark that best expresses his own view is brief: "Every Class is Individual" (E637). He is distinguishing between the artist who creates the classes of men and gives those classes individuality, as he claims Chaucer did in his particularized Canterbury pilgrims, and a class concept divested of particularity and, in Blake's mind, inevitably of any imagistic sub- stance, substantiality being from imagination and drained out in the proc- ess of generalization from sense data. The distinction is similar to that made by Giambattista Vice in The New Science between "abstract" and 'imaginative" universals. According to Vico, the earliest people did not have "intelligible class concepts of things."4 They moved from particulars to universals not by a process of generalization but by a "poetic logic" that enlarges the particular into a mythic figure rather than reducing each par- ticular to those elements it has in common with all others of its class. Blake would claim the particularity of each class or imaginative universal on the basis of the same principle of poetic apprehension rather than ab- stractive impoverishment, the poet's vehicle of apprehension being trop- ological language. Thus he would claim that each thing inhabits in its to- tality the class to which it belongs. Goethe tried to carry, somewhat quixotically, into modem science itself a similar principle when he dis- played to Schiller a "symbolic plant." All Blake's disagreements with Reynolds on how the artist proceeds may be referred back to this point. Blake sees the process of generalizing or abstracting from particulars as fundamentally passive and determined. It must operate mechanically according to fixed laws. It always has to end in the same place, which is for Blake a nowhere. Connected to this is Blake's vigorous objection whenever Reynolds treats artistic technique apart from imaginative conception. Indeed, Blake is so adamant on this point that he complains about Reynolds even when Reynolds deplores the separation himself. Yet strictly speaking Blake is right to complain, since for him Reynolds' position requires a distinction between thought and ex- ecution and results in a mimetic theory of a naive sort. Blake's theory of active making holds thought and execution together; Reynolds' theory of abstracting separates them, the process of abstraction occurring for Reyn- olds previous to expression in a medium. Blake's artistic act, on the other hand, requires a medium in which to think out the Vichean "imaginative 4. The New Science ofGiambattista Vico, trans. T. G. Bergin and M.. Fish, rev. trans. of the 3d ed. of 1744 (Ithaca: Comell University Press, ig68), 15--32. gress. There is, for example, a perfect human image-a form abstracted from the various types of gladiator, Apollo, Hercules, etc. (III, 63). Blake is critical of all this. He observes that Reynolds has, in fact, aban- doned the idea of one central form and introduced many (E637). The re- mark that best expresses his own view is brief: "Every Class is Individual" (E637). He is distinguishing between the artist who creates the classes of men and gives those classes individuality, as he claims Chaucer did in his particularized Canterbury pilgrims, and a class concept divested of particularity and, in Blake's mind, inevitably of any imagistic sub- stance, substantiality being from imagination and drained out in the proc- ess of generalization from sense data. The distinction is similar to that made by Giambattista Vico in The New Science between "abstract" and "imaginative" universals. According to Vico, the earliest people did not have "intelligible class concepts of things."' They moved from particulars to universals not by a process of generalization but by a "poetic logic" that enlarges the particular into a mythic figure rather than reducing each par- ticular to those elements it has in common with all others of its class. Blake would claim the particularity of each class or imaginative universal on the basis of the same principle of poetic apprehension rather than ab- stractive impoverishment, the poet's vehicle of apprehension being trop- ological language. Thus he would claim that each thing inhabits in its to- tality the class to which it belongs. Goethe tried to carry, somewhat quixotically, into modern science itself a similar principle when he dis- played to Schiller a "symbolic plant." All Blake's disagreements with Reynolds on how the artist proceeds may be referred back to this point. Blake sees the process of generalizing or abstracting from particulars as fundamentally passive and determined. It must operate mechanically according to fixed laws. It always has to end in the same place, which is for Blake a nowhere. Connected to this is Blake's vigorous objection whenever Reynolds treats artistic technique apart from imaginative conception. Indeed, Blake is so adamant on this point that he complains about Reynolds even when Reynolds deplores the separation himself. Yet strictly speaking Blake is right to complain, since for him Reynolds' position requires a distinction between thought and ex- ecution and results in a mimetic theory of a naive sort. Blake's theory of active making holds thought and execution together; Reynolds' theory of abstracting separates them, the process of abstraction occurring for Reyn- olds previous to expression in a medium. Blake's artistic act, on the other hand, requires a medium in which to think out the Vichean "imaginative 4. The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fish, rev. trans. of the 3d ed. of 1744 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 115-3.  Antithetical Essays 192 Antithetical Essays 192 Antithetical Essays universal." It is for Blake a characteristic of imaginative universals that they are radical creations and have no existence as concepts previous to their expression, though obviously concepts can then be abstracted from them. The drift of Reynolds' argument is that mechanical authority and tech- nique are worthless unless they have some grand concept behind them. The drift of Blake's annotations is that execution is the act of creating art and cannot really be discussed in a void of imaginative content. As usual, Blake goes to Reynolds' presuppositions rather than quarreling only with what the statements appear to say on the surface. Reynolds is, even from Blake's point of view, quite right to complain about a flashy shallow tech- nique: "A facility in composing,-a lively, and what is called a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambi- tions" (I, 13). In annotating this and later remarks like it, Blake refuses to consider that Reynolds is warning against a "facility" that is vapid, and insists that when Reynolds talks about facility, he means real care in exe- cution. He calls Reynolds' remark "Supremely Insolent" and cites the fol- lowing reasons: Why this Sentence should be begun by the Words A Facility in Composing I cannot tell unless it was to cast a stigma upon Real facility in Composition by Assimilating it with a Pretence to & Imitation of Facility in Execution or are we to understand him to mean that Facility in Composing is a Frivolous pursuit. A Facility in Composing is the Greatest Power ofArt & Belongs to None but the Greatest Artists i.e. the Most Minutely Dis- criminating & Determinate. (E632) Blake is puzzled by Reynolds' inconsistency, but in fact they are using the term "facility" in different senses. Blake insists that "facility" should refer to creative execution, not the execution of a copy of a previous con- cept. Thus he is simply unable to imagine, or refuses to imagine, what false facility could be. Where there is no creativity there is no facility, since facility is defined by what it creates. If it merely copies, it is not facility. Thus Blake can say that "Mechanical Excellence is the Only Vehi- cle of Genius" (E632) and "Execution is the Chariot of Genius" (E632). It is really everything. Where imagination is lacking, there is no such power. Where mechanical excellence is lacking there is no imagination. After following Reynolds' argument for awhile, the best Blake can say of him is: "This is all Self-Contradictory! Truth & Falshood Jumbled To- gether" (E633). universal." It is for Blake a characteristic of imaginative universals that they are radical creations and have no existence as concepts previous to their expression, though obviously concepts can then be abstracted from them. The drift of Reynolds' argument is that mechanical authority and tech- nique are worthless unless they have some grand concept behind them. The drift of Blake's annotations is that execution is the act of creating art and cannot really be discussed in a void of imaginative content. As usual, Blake goes to Reynolds' presuppositions rather than quarreling only with what the statements appear to say on the surface. Reynolds is, even from Blake's point of view, quite right to complain about a flashy shallow tech- nique: "A facility in composing,-a lively, and what is called a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambi- tions" (I, 13). In annotating this and later remarks like it, Blake refuses to consider that Reynolds is warning against a "facility" that is vapid, and insists that when Reynolds talks about facility, he means real care in exe- cution. He calls Reynolds' remark "Supremely Insolent" and cites the fol- lowing reasons: Why this Sentence should be begun by the Words A Facility in Composing I cannot tell unless it was to cast a stigma upon Real facility in Composition by Assimilating it with a Pretence to & Imitation of Facility in Execution or are we to understand him to mean that Facility in Composing is a Frivolous pursuit. A Facility in Composing is the Greatest Power of Art & Belongs to None but the Greatest Artists i.e. the Most Minutely Dis- criminating & Determinate. (E632) Blake is puzzled by Reynolds' inconsistency, but in fact they are using the term "facility" in different senses. Blake insists that "facility" should refer to creative execution, not the execution of a copy of a previous con- cept. Thus he is simply unable to imagine, or refuses to imagine, what false facility could be. Where there is no creativity there is no facility, since facility is defined by what it creates. If it merely copies, it is not facility. Thus Blake can say that "Mechanical Excellence is the Only Vehi- cle of Genius" (E632) and "Execution is the Chariot of Genius" (E632). It is really everything. Where imagination is lacking, there is no such power. Where mechanical excellence is lacking there is no imagination. After following Reynolds' argument for awhile, the best Blake can say of him is: "This is all Self-Contradictory! Truth & Falshood Jumbled To- gether" (E633). universal." It is for Blake a characteristic of imaginative universals that they are radical creations and have no existence as concepts previous to their expression, though obviously concepts can then be abstracted from them. The drift of Reynolds' argument is that mechanical authority and tech- nique are worthless unless they have some grand concept behind them. The drift of Blake's annotations is that execution is the act of creating art and cannot really be discussed in a void of imaginative content. As usual, Blake goes to Reynolds' presuppositions rather than quarreling only with what the statements appear to say on the surface. Reynolds is, even from Blake's point of view, quite right to complain about a flashy shallow tech- nique: "A facility in composing,-a lively, and what is called a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambi- tions" (I, 13). In annotating this and later remarks like it, Blake refuses to consider that Reynolds is warning against a "facility" that is vapid, and insists that when Reynolds talks about facility, he means real care in exe- cution. He calls Reynolds' remark "Supremely Insolent" and cites the fol- lowing reasons: Why this Sentence should be begun by the Words A Facility in Composing I cannot tell unless it was to cast a stigma upon Real facility in Composition by Assimilating it with a Pretence to & Imitation of Facility in Execution or are we to understand him to mean that Facility in Composing is a Frivolous pursuit. A Facility in Composing is the Greatest Power of Art & Belongs to None but the Greatest Artists i.e. the Most Minutely Dis- criminating & Determinate. (E632) Blake is puzzled by Reynolds' inconsistency, but in fact they are using the term "facility" in different senses. Blake insists that "facility" should refer to creative execution, not the execution of a copy of a previous con- cept. Thus he is simply unable to imagine, or refuses to imagine, what false facility could be. Where there is no creativity there is no facility, since facility is defined by what it creates. If it merely copies, it is not facility. Thus Blake can say that "Mechanical Excellence is the Only Vehi- cle of Genius" (E632) and "Execution is the Chariot of Genius" (E632). It is really everything. Where imagination is lacking, there is no such power. Where mechanical excellence is lacking there is no imagination. After following Reynolds' argument for awhile, the best Blake can say of him is: "This is all Self-Contradictory! Truth & Falshood Jumbled To- gether" (E633)-  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 193 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 193 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 193 The whole matter of copying and drawing from models, about which Blake sometimes agrees and sometimes disagrees with Reynolds, can be pushed back to the same epistemological issue. Blake advises copying as valuable training in learning the "language of art" and does not under- stand how Reynolds can agree with him and still attack the painters of "minute particulars." It is sometimes a matter of emphasis. Blake is always angered when Reynolds warns against arrogant originality because Blake suspects that Reynolds never allows anyone to trust to his own invention. Reynolds thinks, in fact, that the young "inventor" is usually derivative and comes to originality only through long effort. Blake, on the other hand, recognizes the young painter's need to copy as part of his appren- ticeship. Reynolds sees that to do this endlessly is never to become more than an apprentice. There is really no contradiction here, but Blake wants there to be one. Part of the problem at this point is Blake's refusal to see that Reynolds is adjusting his discourse to a certain audience. As Robert Wark has observed, "Many apparent shifts in opinion and inconsistencies in the Discourses dissolve at once when the passages are read in context, with due attention to the level of the student to whom they are ad- dressed."' Earlier, Walter J. Hipple argued that often the supposed incon- sistencies in Reynolds are actually caused by the reader's "overlooking or confounding the several stages Reynolds prescribes for the education of artists" and "juxtaposing passages without regard to the 'level' of their argumentative contexts."" Though Wark sees very little change in point of view or emphasis, an earlier critic, Wilson O. Clough, detects "some- thing like a mellowing, almost a conversion."' These two positions, inci- dentally, are not necessarily antithetical, and I shall come to accept both in their ways, though I do not myself regard anything in the later Reyn- olds as close to a conversion. If there is a change that would have strongly affected Blake's attitude, it would have to have occurred in Reynolds' fundamental tenets. Though Blake might well have been sensitive to a mellowing and have com- mented on it, it is likely that he would have treated it as a surprise or with a certain sarcasm, pointing out Reynolds' inconsistency. If a funda- mental change is detectable in the later discourses it is likely to have oc- curred in connection with Reynolds' exposition of "genius" in Discourse Eleven and "imagination" in Discourse Thirteen. 5. Robert R. Wark, ed., Discourses on Art by Sir Joshua Reynolds (San Marino: Hun- tington Library, 1959), xvii. 6. Walter J. Hipple, "General and Particular in the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Study in Method," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11 (1953): 232. 7. Wilson D. Clough, "Reason and Genius," Philological Quarterly 23 (1944): 46-50. The whole matter of copying and drawing from models, about which Blake sometimes agrees and sometimes disagrees with Reynolds, can be pushed back to the same epistemological issue. Blake advises copying as valuable training in learning the "language of art" and does not under- stand how Reynolds can agree with him and still attack the painters of "minute particulars." It is sometimes a matter of emphasis. Blake is always angered when Reynolds warns against arrogant originality because Blake suspects that Reynolds never allows anyone to trust to his own invention. Reynolds thinks, in fact, that the young "inventor" is usually derivative and comes to originality only through long effort. Blake, on the other hand, recognizes the young painter's need to copy as part of his appren- ticeship. Reynolds sees that to do this endlessly is never to become more than an apprentice. There is really no contradiction here, but Blake wants there to be one. Part of the problem at this point is Blake's refusal to see that Reynolds is adjusting his discourse to a certain audience. As Robert Wark has observed, "Many apparent shifts in opinion and inconsistencies in the Discourses dissolve at once when the passages are read in context, with due attention to the level of the student to whom they are ad- dressed."' Earlier, Walter J. Hipple argued that often the supposed incon- sistencies in Reynolds are actually caused by the reader's "overlooking or confounding the several stages Reynolds prescribes for the education of artists" and "juxtaposing passages without regard to the 'level' of their argumentative contexts."* Though Wark sees very little change in point of view or emphasis, an earlier critic, Wilson O. Clough, detects "some- thing like a mellowing, almost a conversion."' These two positions, inci- dentally, are not necessarily antithetical, and I shall come to accept both in their ways, though I do not myself regard anything in the later Reyn- olds as close to a conversion. If there is a change that would have strongly affected Blake's attitude, it would have to have occurred in Reynolds' fundamental tenets. Though Blake might well have been sensitive to a mellowing and have com- mented on it, it is likely that he would have treated it as a surprise or with a certain sarcasm, pointing out Reynolds' inconsistency. If a funda- mental change is detectable in the later discourses it is likely to have oc- curred in connection with Reynolds' exposition of "genius" in Discourse Eleven and "imagination" in Discourse Thirteen. 5. Robert R. Wark, ed., Discourses on Art by Sir Joshua Reynolds (San Marino: Hun- tington Library, 1959), xvii. 6. Walter J. Hipple, "General and Particular in the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Study in Method," Joumral of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11 (1953): 232. 7. Wilson D. Clough, "Reason and Genius,' Philolgical Quarterly 23 (1944): 46-50. The whole matter of copying and drawing from models, about which Blake sometimes agrees and sometimes disagrees with Reynolds, can be pushed back to the same epistemological issue. Blake advises copying as valuable training in learning the "language of art' and does not under- stand how Reynolds can agree with him and still attack the painters of "minute particulars." It is sometimes a matter of emphasis. Blake is always angered when Reynolds warns against arrogant originality because Blake suspects that Reynolds never allows anyone to trust to his own invention. Reynolds thinks, in fact, that the young "inventor" is usually derivative and comes to originality only through long effort. Blake, on the other hand, recognizes the young painter's need to copy as part of his appren- ticeship. Reynolds sees that to do this endlessly is never to become more than an apprentice. There is really no contradiction here, but Blake wants there to be one. Part of the problem at this point is Blake's refusal to see that Reynolds is adjusting his discourse to a certain audience. As Robert Wark has observed, "Many apparent shifts in opinion and inconsistencies in the Discourses dissolve at once when the passages are read in context, with due attention to the level of the student to whom they are ad- dressed."' Earlier, Walter J. Hipple argued that often the supposed incon- sistencies in Reynolds are actually caused by the reader's "overlooking or confounding the several stages Reynolds prescribes for the education of artists" and "juxtaposing passages without regard to the 'level' of their argumentative contexts." Though Wark sees very little change in point of view or emphasis, an earlier critic, Wilson O. Clough, detects "some- thing like a mellowing, almost a conversion."' These two positions, inci- dentally, are not necessarily antithetical, and I shall come to accept both in their ways, though I do not myself regard anything in the later Reyn- olds as close to a conversion. If there is a change that would have strongly affected Blake's attitude, it would have to have occurred in Reynolds' fundamental tenets. Though Blake might well have been sensitive to a mellowing and have com- mented on it, it is likely that he would have treated it as a surprise or with a certain sarcasm, pointing out Reynolds' inconsistency. If a funda- mental change is detectable in the later discourses it is likely to have oc- curred in connection with Reynolds' exposition of "genius" in Discourse Eleven and "imagination" in Discourse Thirteen. 5. Robert R. Wark, ed., Discourses on Art by Sir Joshua Reynolds (San Marino: Hun- tington Library, 1959), xvii. 6. Walter J. Hipple, "General and Particular in the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Study in Method," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11 (1953): 232. 7. Wilson D. Clough, "Reason and Genius," Philological Quarterly 23 (1944): 46-50.  Antithetical Essays 194 Antithetical Essays 194 Antithetical Essays As early as Discourse Two Reynolds has warned beginners not to de- pend on their own genius (II, 44), and Blake makes no comment on this, even though the passage summarizes Reynolds' attitude in the whole dis- course. He does complain about Reynolds' later remarks, however. At the end of Discourse Four Reynolds states that the errors of genius are par- donable (IV, too), and Blake argues that genius has no error (E641). In Discourse Six Reynolds argues that genius is different in different times and places (VI, 152), and Blake believes that it is always and everywhere the same (E645). In Discourse Seven Reynolds is sarcastic about those who wait for the call of genius (VII, 197), and Blake objects to his attitude (E647-48). He also objects to Reynolds' remark that taste and genius are a product of learning and not innate powers. These remarks by Reynolds on genius are all made in connection with other dominating topics. In Discourse Eleven Reynolds attempts an ex- tended treatment of genius itself. Here he continues to claim that genius can err and that a work can be faultless and exhibit no genius. Blake would, of course, continue to disagree, the difference being over the na- ture of beauty, Reynolds treating beauty in terms of the classical theory of harmony and proportion and Blake subsuming beauty under the sub- lime. Reynolds continues to talk about "the Genius of mechanical perform- ance" (XI, 43), implying that there can be such genius apart from a con- tent, while Blake would, of course, reject the separation. But in his argument Reynolds appears to soften his strictures against minute particulars. He concedes, "A Painter must have the power of con- tracting as well as dilating his sight; because, he that does not at all ex- press particulars, expresses nothing" (XI, 43). But this, in the end, turns out to be no more than a slight softening, because Reynolds immediately adds that expression of detail alone does not prove genius and any detail that does not contribute to the expression of the "main characteristic" is "worse than useless" (XI, 44) since it draws attention from the principal point. The word "express" is employed a number of times and gives a somewhat new tone to the argument. It is joined by references to the "pleasure" of the spectator. The use of the former suggests a slight move- ment in a direction Blake might have welcomed. The latter, however, re- veals a maintenance of the values Reynolds has held all along, for pleasure is defined not as a result of the artist's power of imitation but of his expres- sion of the general idea. It appears that Reynolds regards the mind as fundamentally attuned to general or Platonic ideas and less to external nature. Seeing this, Blake would have been correct to conclude that fun- damentally Reynolds had not changed his views by shifting the focus of his argument from the question of objective beauty to that of pleasure. Blake would also have objected vigorously, and I think scornfully, to As early as Discourse Two Reynolds has warned beginners not to de- pend on their own genius (II, 44), and Blake makes no comment on this, even though the passage summarizes Reynolds' attitude in the whole dis- course. He does complain about Reynolds' later remarks, however. At the end of Discourse Four Reynolds states that the errors of genius are par- donable (IV, m11), and Blake argues that genius has no error (E641). In Discourse Six Reynolds argues that genius is different in different times and places (VI, 152), and Blake believes that it is always and everywhere the same (E645). In Discourse Seven Reynolds is sarcastic about those who wait for the call of genius (VII, 197), and Blake objects to his attitude (E647-48). He also objects to Reynolds' remark that taste and genius are a product of learning and not innate powers. These remarks by Reynolds on genius are all made in connection with other dominating topics. In Discourse Eleven Reynolds attempts an ex- tended treatment of genius itself. Here he continues to claim that genius can err and that a work can be faultless and exhibit no genius. Blake would, of course, continue to disagree, the difference being over the na- ture of beauty, Reynolds treating beauty in terms of the classical theory of harmony and proportion and Blake subsuming beauty under the sub- lime. Reynolds continues to talk about "the Genius of mechanical perform- ance" (XI, 43), implying that there can be such genius apart from a con- tent, while Blake would, of course, reject the separation. But in his argument Reynolds appears to soften his strictures against minute particulars. He concedes, "A Painter must have the power of con- tracting as well as dilating his sight; because, he that does not at all ex- press particulars, expresses nothing" (XI, 43). But this, in the end, turns out to be no more than a slight softening, because Reynolds immediately adds that expression of detail alone does not prove genius and any detail that does not contribute to the expression of the "main characteristic" is "worse than useless" (XI, 44) since it draws attention from the principal point. The word "express" is employed a number of times and gives a somewhat new tone to the argument. It is joined by references to the "pleasure" of the spectator. The use of the former suggests a slight move- ment in a direction Blake might have welcomed. The latter, however, re- veals a maintenance of the values Reynolds has held all along, for pleasure is defined not as a result of the artist's power of imitation but of his expres- sion of the general idea. It appears that Reynolds regards the mind as fundamentally attuned to general or Platonic ideas and less to external nature. Seeing this, Blake would have been correct to conclude that fun- damentally Reynolds had not changed his views by shifting the focus of his argument from the question of objective beauty to that of pleasure. Blake would also have objected vigorously, and I think scornfully, to As early as Discourse Two Reynolds has warned beginners not to de- pend on their own genius (II, 44), and Blake makes no comment on this, even though the passage summarizes Reynolds' attitude in the whole dis- course. He does complain about Reynolds' later remarks, however. At the end of Discourse Four Reynolds states that the errors of genius are par- donable (IV, ott), and Blake argues that genius has no error (E641). In Discourse Six Reynolds argues that genius is different in different times and places (VI, 152), and Blake believes that it is always and everywhere the same (E645). In Discourse Seven Reynolds is sarcastic about those who wait for the call of genius (VII, 197), and Blake objects to his attitude (E647-48). He also objects to Reynolds' remark that taste and genius are a product of learning and not innate powers. These remarks by Reynolds on genius are all made in connection with other dominating topics. In Discourse Eleven Reynolds attempts an ex- tended treatment of genius itself. Here he continues to claim that genius can err and that a work can be faultless and exhibit no genius. Blake would, of course, continue to disagree, the difference being over the na- ture of beauty, Reynolds treating beauty in terms of the classical theory of harmony and proportion and Blake subsuming beauty under the sub- lime. Reynolds continues to talk about "the Genius of mechanical perform- ance" (XI, 43), implying that there can be such genius apart from a con- tent, while Blake would, of course, reject the separation. But in his argument Reynolds appears to soften his strictures against minute particulars. He concedes, "A Painter must have the power of con- tracting as well as dilating his sight; because, he that does not at all ex- press particulars, expresses nothing" (XI, 43). But this, in the end, turns out to be no more than a slight softening, because Reynolds immediately adds that expression of detail alone does not prove genius and any detail that does not contribute to the expression of the "main characteristic" is "worse than useless" (XI, 44) since it draws attention from the principal point. The word "express" is employed a number of times and gives a somewhat new tone to the argument. It is joined by references to the "pleasure" of the spectator. The use of the former suggests a slight move- ment in a direction Blake might have welcomed. The latter, however, re- veals a maintenance of the values Reynolds has held all along, for pleasure is defined not as a result of the artist's power of imitation but of his expres- sion of the general idea. It appears that Reynolds regards the mind as fundamentally attuned to general or Platonic ideas and less to external nature. Seeing this, Blake would have been correct to conclude that fun- damentally Reynolds had not changed his views by shifting the focus of his argument from the question of objective beauty to that of pleasure. Blake would also have objected vigorously, and I think scornfully, to  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations ' ' 195 Reynolds' efforts to establish a principle of taste and beauty on the ground that "we are pleased" at seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inade- quate mens (XI, 224). This argument might have suggested to Blake that Reynolds' complaints against a certain kind of minute illusionism are merely a cover for approbation of another sort of visual trickery. The whole concept of general effect remains paramount, yet it is clear that Reynolds has tried in the later discourses to be more careful with his terms: ". . . I commend nothing for want of exactness; I mean to point out that kind of exactness which is the best . . ." (XI, 65). That kind he attempts, as we shall see, to free from imitation in a more radical way than he did heretofore. There are statements in Discourse Twelve that Blake might have been compelled to comment on favorably: "I would rather wish a student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a pre- scribed task" (XII, 74). Reynolds proceeds to claim that no one method is suitable to all artists and that love of method is, for many, a love of idleness (XII, 76-77). These remarks Blake might have regarded as incon- sistent with earlier ones, but in fact they are not, for they are addressed not to the raw novice but to students who have advanced beyond the concerns addressed in the first discourses. All of these remarks are predi- cated on the idea that genius and taste are developed by study and learn- ing and that study and learning make more possible the ability to follow out impulses successfully to artistic ends. On the matter of learning, Blake would have disagreed, claiming that taste and genius are innate. Blake and Reynolds seem to be driven to opposite extremes by the reigning system of thought and terminology at hand. Blake claims the innateness of taste and genius because he rejects the limitations put on the term "learning" as it was understood in his time to proceed by association. He chooses to throw out the concept of learning. Reynolds seeks a way to include taste and genius in the current theory of learning. The problem reasserts itself most vigorously in Reynolds' remarks on the imagination, which occur in the important Discourse Thirteen. Blake has already clashed with Reynolds with respect to matters of sublimity, enthusiasm, passion, and inspiration-many of the terms Blake connects with imagination. One imagines him to have read what Reynolds had to say in Discourse Thirteen with skepticism. Blake had already argued that "Singular & Particular Detail" is the foundation of the sublime (E637), while Reynolds had already called obscurity one source of it (VII, 197). Enthusiasm Reynolds had warned against when it is unaccompanied by determined systematic study, and he argued that "enthusiastick admira- tion seldom promotes knowledge" (III, 55). Blake connected enthusiasm Revisiting Reynolds Discourses and Blake s Annotations 195 Reynolds' efforts to establish a principle of taste and beauty on the ground that "we are pleased" at seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inade- quate mens (XI, 224). This argument might have suggested to Blake that Reynolds' complaints against a certain kind of minute illusionism are merely a cover for approbation of another sort of visual trickery. The whole concept of general effect remains paramount, yet it is clear that Reynolds has tried in the later discourses to be more careful with his terms: ". . . I commend nothing for want of exactness; I mean to point out that kind of exactness which is the best . . ." (XI, 65). That kind he attempts, as we shall see, to free from imitation in a more radical way than he did heretofore. There are statements in Discourse Twelve that Blake might have been compelled to comment on favorably: "I would rather wish a student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a pre- scribed task" (XII, 74). Reynolds proceeds to claim that no one method is suitable to all artists and that love of method is, for many, a love of idleness (XII, 76-77). These remarks Blake might have regarded as incon- sistent with earlier ones, but in fact they are not, for they are addressed not to the raw novice but to students who have advanced beyond the concerns addressed in the first discourses. All of these remarks are predi- cated on the idea that genius and taste are developed by study and learn- ing and that study and learning make more possible the ability to follow out impulses successfully to artistic ends. On the matter of learning, Blake would have disagreed, claiming that taste and genius are innate. Blake and Reynolds seem to be driven to opposite extremes by the reigning system of thought and terminology at hand. Blake claims the innateness of taste and genius because he rejects the limitations put on the term "learning" as it was understood in his time to proceed by association. He chooses to throw out the concept of learning. Reynolds seeks a way to include taste and genius in the current theory of learning. The problem reasserts itself most vigorously in Reynolds' remarks on the imagination, which occur in the important Discourse Thirteen. Blake has already clashed with Reynolds with respect to matters of sublimity, enthusiasm, passion, and inspiration-many of the terms Blake connects with imagination. One imagines him to have read what Reynolds had to say in Discourse Thirteen with skepticism. Blake had already argued that "Singular & Particular Detail" is the foundation of the sublime (E637), while Reynolds had already called obscurity one source of it (VII, 197). Enthusiasm Reynolds had warned against when it is unaccompanied by determined systematic study, and he argued that "enthusiastick admira- tion seldom promotes knowledge" (III, 55). Blake connected enthusiasm Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 195 Reynolds' efforts to establish a principle of taste and beauty on the ground that "we are pleased" at seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inade- quate mens (XI, 224). This argument might have suggested to Blake that Reynolds' complaints against a certain kind of minute illusionism are merely a cover for approbation of another sort of visual trickery. The whole concept of general effect remains paramount, yet it is clear that Reynolds has tried in the later discourses to be more careful with his terms: ". . . I commend nothing for want of exactness; I mean to point out that kind of exactness which is the best . . ." (XI, 65). That kind he attempts, as we shall see, to free from imitation in a more radical way than he did heretofore. There are statements in Discourse Twelve that Blake might have been compelled to comment on favorably: "I would rather wish a student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a pre- scribed task" (XII, 74). Reynolds proceeds to claim that no one method is suitable to all artists and that love of method is, for many, a love of idleness (XII, 76-77). These remarks Blake might have regarded as incon- sistent with earlier ones, but in fact they are not, for they are addressed not to the raw novice but to students who have advanced beyond the concerns addressed in the first discourses. All of these remarks are predi- cated on the idea that genius and taste are developed by study and learn- ing and that study and learning make more possible the ability to follow out impulses successfully to artistic ends. On the matter of learning, Blake would have disagreed, claiming that taste and genius are innate. Blake and Reynolds seem to be driven to opposite extremes by the reigning system of thought and terminology at hand. Blake claims the innateness of taste and genius because he rejects the limitations put on the term "learning" as it was understood in his time to proceed by association. He chooses to throw out the concept of learning. Reynolds seeks a way to include taste and genius in the current theory of learning. The problem reasserts itself most vigorously in Reynolds' remarks on the imagination, which occur in the important Discourse Thirteen. Blake has already clashed with Reynolds with respect to matters of sublimity, enthusiasm, passion, and inspiration-many of the terms Blake connects with imagination. One imagines him to have read what Reynolds had to say in Discourse Thirteen with skepticism. Blake had already argued that "Singular & Particular Detail" is the foundation of the sublime (E637), while Reynolds had already called obscurity one source of it (VII, 197). Enthusiasm Reynolds had warned against when it is unaccompanied by determined systematic study, and he argued that "enthusiastick admira- tion seldom promotes knowledge" (III, 55). Blake connected enthusiasm  Antithetical Essays 196 Antithetical Essays 196 Antithetical Essays directly with knowledge. Passion, too, Reynolds had found dangerous when given rein (V, 117-O8), and Blake had responded, "Passion & Ex- pression is Beauty Itself' (E642). The fundamental question to ask of Reynolds' Discourse Thirteen is whether he comes to define "imagination" as an independent mental power or merely as a special mode of operation of the reason. If the for- mer, Blake could possibly come to agreement with him; if the latter, their disagreement would remain as fundamentally wide as ever, though Blake might detect in Reynolds' appropriation of and dwelling upon the term, along with certain other gestures, a softening. From Blake's point of view, Reynolds starts out in a rather encouraging way. He states that whether the imagination be affected is the only test of art (XIII, 114), all other principles being tested by this one. But at once he implies that the imagination depends upon the memory, which in his view operates by the process of association (XIII, r14-15). So much, for the moment, for affect and the spectator. The artist's imagination in oper- ation is described as follows: the artist's "animated thoughts" proceed from "the fullness of his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever passed in his mind. These ideas are infused into his design, without any conscious ef- fort" (XIII, 116). They should not, Reynolds warns, be overly considered and corrected or they will become commonplace. Here again is the famil- iar associationist theory of memory and knowledge, in which no radically creative act can be attributed to the mind. What occurs is the moving about of the elements of the memory into new combinations by a sort of spontaneous working, rather than a deliberate act, of the reason. It is finally a matter of unconscious (because radically foreshortened) as against conscious behavior, both operating according to the same principles. It is precisely what Blake called "corporeal understanding." In Reynolds' system reason gives way to feeling and sentiment only because it still contains them. Reynolds warns against "an unfounded dis- trust of the imagination and feeling, in favour of narrow, partial, confined argumentative theories," but he goes on to say that "reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this minute it is re- quired to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling" (XIII, 116-17). This attempted paradox is not successful. In truth, imagination and feeling are, for Reynolds, determined by rational principles, the only difference being the rapidity of the unconscious process. Blake would have seen immediately that for Reynolds the imagination has no creative power and is merely a species of the corporeal understanding, possessing only the appearance of "vision." Most of Discourse Thirteen is about affect and the role of the spectator. directly with knowledge. Passion, too, Reynolds had found dangerous when given rein (V, 117-18), and Blake had responded, "Passion & Ex- pression is Beauty Itself" (E642). The fundamental question to ask of Reynolds' Discourse Thirteen is whether he comes to define "imagination" as an independent mental power or merely as a special mode of operation of the reason. If the for- mer, Blake could possibly come to agreement with him; if the latter, their disagreement would remain as fundamentally wide as ever, though Blake might detect in Reynolds' appropriation of and dwelling upon the term, along with certain other gestures, a softening. From Blake's point of view, Reynolds starts out in a rather encouraging way. He states that whether the imagination be affected is the only test of art (XIII, 114), all other principles being tested by this one. But at once he implies that the imagination depends upon the memory, which in his view operates by the process of association (XIII, 114-15). So much, for the moment, for affect and the spectator. The artist's imagination in oper- ation is described as follows: the artist's "animated thoughts" proceed from "the fullness of his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever passed in his mind. These ideas are infused into his design, without any conscious ef- fort" (XIII, s16). They should not, Reynolds warns, be overly considered and corrected or they will become commonplace. Here again is the famil- iar associationist theory of memory and knowledge, in which no radically creative act can be attributed to the mind. What occurs is the moving about of the elements of the memory into new combinations by a sort of spontaneous working, rather than a deliberate act, of the reason. It is finally a matter of unconscious (because radically foreshortened) as against conscious behavior, both operating according to the same principles. It is precisely what Blake called "corporeal understanding." In Reynolds' system reason gives way to feeling and sentiment only because it still contains them. Reynolds warns against "an unfounded dis- trust of the imagination and feeling, in favour of narrow, partial, confined argumentative theories," but he goes on to say that "reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this minute it is re- quired to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling" (XIII, 16-17). This attempted paradox is not successful. In truth, imagination and feeling are, for Reynolds, determined by rational principles, the only difference being the rapidity of the unconscious process. Blake would have seen immediately that for Reynolds the imagination has no creative power and is merely a species of the corporeal understanding, possessing only the appearance of "vision." Most of Discourse Thirteen is about affect and the role of the spectator. directly with knowledge. Passion, too, Reynolds had found dangerous when given rein (V, 117-8), and Blake had responded, "Passion & Ex- pression is Beauty Itself' (E642). The fundamental question to ask of Reynolds' Discourse Thirteen is whether he comes to define "imagination" as an independent mental power or merely as a special mode of operation of the reason. If the for- mer, Blake could possibly come to agreement with him; if the latter, their disagreement would remain as fundamentally wide as ever, though Blake might detect in Reynolds' appropriation of and dwelling upon the term, along with certain other gestures, a softening. From Blake's point of view, Reynolds starts out in a rather encouraging way. He states that whether the imagination be affected is the only test of art (XIII, 114), all other principles being tested by this one. But at once he implies that the imagination depends upon the memory, which in his view operates by the process of association (XIII, 114-15). So much, for the moment, for affect and the spectator. The artist's imagination in oper- ation is described as follows: the artist's "animated thoughts" proceed from "the fullness of his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever passed in his mind. These ideas are infused into his design, without any conscious ef- fort" (XIII, to6). They should not, Reynolds warns, be overly considered and corrected or they will become commonplace. Here again is the famil- iar associationist theory of memory and knowledge, in which no radically creative act can be attributed to the mind. What occurs is the moving about of the elements of the memory into new combinations by a sort of spontaneous working, rather than a deliberate act, of the reason. It is finally a matter of unconscious (because radically foreshortened) as against conscious behavior, both operating according to the same principles. It is precisely what Blake called "corporeal understanding." In Reynolds' system reason gives way to feeling and sentiment only because it still contains them. Reynolds warns against "an unfounded dis- trust of the imagination and feeling, in favour of narrow, partial, confined argumentative theories," but he goes on to say that "reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this minute it is re- quired to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling" (XIII, t16-17). This attempted paradox is not successful. In truth, imagination and feeling are, for Reynolds, determined by rational principles, the only difference being the rapidity of the unconscious process. Blake would have seen immediately that for Reynolds the imagination has no creative power and is merely a species of the corporeal understanding, possessing only the appearance of "vision." Most of Discourse Thirteen is about affect and the role of the spectator.  Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 197 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations e97 Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations 197 It is important to notice that Reynolds seems at the outset if not to have abandoned at least to have deemphasized in his argument against minute particulars both the empirical and the Platonic descriptions of the artistic process. Here the attack on minute copying of external nature is ex- panded into an attack on imitation. Painting, he now says, is "in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature" (XIII, 119). Certainly out of its context Blake could have applauded this remark, for he could have applied his own definition of external nature- the dead primary world of Locke-to the statement, rather than Reyn- olds', which turns out again to be the secondary world of Plato. Reynolds argues that poetry and painting deviate from nature in order to please the imagination of the spectator, which wishes to move in a realm beyond the mundane, where its own "natural propensities" may be gratified. It is curious that on the one hand Reynolds argues that taste is learned and on the other that art is judgable by the "natural propensities" of the spec- tator, which are above nature. The Platonic and the general have flowed back into the argument under the new aegis of affect, and we return to the position of the early discourses after all. The ultimately natural pro- pensities of man are resolved into a desire for "congruity, coherence, and consistency" (XIII, 123). These classical standards had already been prof- fered in Discourse Seven, but there Reynolds was still concerned with imitation. There he said: The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrange- ment with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resem- blance of a picture to an original, and touched with the har- mony of music. (VII, 2oo) In eliminating concern for "agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented" Reynolds has actually gone farther toward the Platonic and general than he had before, even though he has ap- peared to soften his stand on the matter of minute particulars. To Reynolds' statement above, Blake, remarked: "Demonstration Sim- ilitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning Invention Identity & Mel- ody are Objects of Intuition" (E648). This remark remains symbolic of Blake's differences with the arguments of the later discourses. In Dis- course Thirteen Reynolds speaks of artists addressing themselves to "an- It is important to notice that Reynolds seems at the outset if not to have abandoned at least to have deemphasized in his argument against minute particulars both the empirical and the Platonic descriptions of the artistic process. Here the attack on minute copying of external nature is ex- panded into an attack on imitation. Painting, he now says, is "in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature" (XIII, 119). Certainly out of its context Blake could have applauded this remark, for he could have applied his own definition of external nature- the dead primary world of Locke-to the statement, rather than Reyn- olds', which turns out again to be the secondary world of Plato. Reynolds argues that poetry and painting deviate from nature in order to please the imagination of the spectator, which wishes to move in a realm beyond the mundane, where its own "natural propensities" may be gratified. It is curious that on the one hand Reynolds argues that taste is learned and on the other that art is judgable by the "natural propensities" of the spec- tator, which are above nature. The Platonic and the general have flowed back into the argument under the new aegis of affect, and we return to the position of the early discourses after all. The ultimately natural pro- pensities of man are resolved into a desire for "congruity, coherence, and consistency" (XIII, 123). These classical standards had already been prof- fered in Discourse Seven, but there Reynolds was still concerned with imitation. There he said: The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrange- ment with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resem- blance of a picture to an original, and touched with the har- mony of music. (VII, zoo) In eliminating concern for "agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented" Reynolds has actually gone farther toward the Platonic and general than he had before, even though he has ap- peared to soften his stand on the matter of minute particulars. To Reynolds' statement above, Blake, remarked: "Demonstration Sim- ilitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning Invention Identity & Mel- ody are Objects of Intuition" (E648). This remark remains symbolic of Blake's differences with the arguments of the later discourses. In Dis- course Thirteen Reynolds speaks of artists addressing themselves to "an- It is important to notice that Reynolds seems at the outset if not to have abandoned at least to have deemphasized in his argument against minute particulars both the empirical and the Platonic descriptions of the artistic process. Here the attack on minute copying of external nature is ex- panded into an attack on imitation. Painting, he now says, is "in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature" (XIII, 11g). Certainly out of its context Blake could have applauded this remark, for he could have applied his own definition of external nature- the dead primary world of Locke-to the statement, rather than Reyn- olds', which turns out again to be the secondary world of Plato. Reynolds argues that poetry and painting deviate from nature in order to please the imagination of the spectator, which wishes to move in a realm beyond the mundane, where its own "natural propensities" may be gratified. It is curious that on the one hand Reynolds argues that taste is learned and on the other that art is judgable by the "natural propensities" of the spec- tator, which are above nature. The Platonic and the general have flowed back into the argument under the new aegis of affect, and we return to the position of the early discourses after all. The ultimately natural pro- pensities of man are resolved into a desire for "congruity, coherence, and consistency" (XIII, 123). These classical standards had already been prof- fered in Discourse Seven, but there Reynolds was still concerned with imitation. There he said: The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrange- ment with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resem- blance of a picture to an original, and touched with the har- mony of music. (VII, zoo) In eliminating concern for "agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented" Reynolds has actually gone farther toward the Platonic and general than he had before, even though he has ap- peared to soften his stand on the matter of minute particulars. To Reynolds' statement above, Blake, remarked: "Demonstration Sim- ilitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning Invention Identity & Mel- ody are Objects of Intuition" (E648). This remark remains symbolic of Blake's differences with the arguments of the later discourses. In Dis- course Thirteen Reynolds speaks of artists addressing themselves to "an-  Antithetical Essays 198 Antithetical Essays 198 Antithetical Essays other faculty of the mind" than reason (XIII, 126), but his own system makes that faculty only a special instance of the mind's single faculty; Blake claims the existence of a radically different faculty. Yet I can just imagine Blake concluding that Reynolds, in searching for a way to admit imagination into his system, was also trying to move to a more expansive view of mental powers. I can imagine him sensing this also in the remark that directs the painter and poet to be allowed to "dare every thing" (XIII, 125) and in the attempt in Discourse Fifteen to come to terms with the genius of Michelangelo. Even the word "visionary" appears with the word "enthusiasm" in honorific contexts in Discourse Fourteen (XIV, 169), and Blake might have remembered a remark of his own when he discov- ered Reynolds distinguishing "that which addresses itself to the imagina- tion from that which is solely addressed to the eye" (XV, 188). At the same time, Blake was not likely to forget that in Reynolds the term "imagina- tion" is not yet emancipated from the reason and that Reynolds' complaint about the eye is merely the old complaint about minute particulars. In the end Reynolds returns to the distinction between the "narrow idea of Nature" and the "grandeur of the general ideas" (XV, 192). It is a division that for Blake had no meaning. Involved in Blake's quarrel with Reynolds was, of course, his indigna- tion against Reynolds as symbolic of an alien class that dominated society and in his view suppressed the very same genius that Reynolds wrote about. At the beginning of his annotations, which Blake was confident posterity would read, Blake warns the reader to expect "Nothing but In- dignation & Resentment" (E625). There is plenty of both. The warning is consistent with Blake's views about expression. Indignation was passion and expression and therefore beauty; all else would be hypocrisy and error. Yet one feels, in spite of all this by way of explanation of Blake's performance, that Blake has dealt badly with Reynolds. He deliberately refuses to recognize that at different times Reynolds is speaking about dif- ferent levels of artistic sophistication when he gives advice; he does not comment on the later discourses, where Reynolds may earn at least slight redemption; and he has no sense at all that Reynolds' humility may be quite honest. Indeed, Blake's thought has no place for humility except as it is subsumed under hypocrisy, an error similar in form to subsuming imagination under reason. If one sides with Blake in his epistemological quarrel with Reynolds, one is not obliged to accept his ad hominem at- tack. In despising humility Blake also seems to have lost sight of charity. I think we can fault him for that in spite of his devil's remark that there would be no mercy, that is to say charity, if no one was poor (E462). The devil's view is somewhat narrower than that of St. Paul. other faculty of the mind" than reason (XIII, 126), but his own system makes that faculty only a special instance of the mind's single faculty; Blake claims the existence of a radically different faculty. Yet I can just imagine Blake concluding that Reynolds, in searching for a way to admit imagination into his system, was also trying to move to a more expansive view of mental powers. I can imagine him sensing this also in the remark that directs the painter and poet to be allowed to "dare every thing" (XIII, 125) and in the attempt in Discourse Fifteen to come to terms with the genius of Michelangelo. Even the word "visionary" appears with the word "enthusiasm" in honorific contexts in Discourse Fourteen (XIV, 169), and Blake might have remembered a remark of his own when he discov- ered Reynolds distinguishing "that which addresses itself to the imagina- tion from that which is solely addressed to the eye" (XV, 188). At the same time, Blake was not likely to forget that in Reynolds the term "imagina- tion" is not yet emancipated from the reason and that Reynolds' complaint about the eye is merely the old complaint about minute particulars. In the end Reynolds returns to the distinction between the "narrow idea of Nature" and the "grandeur of the general ideas" (XV, 192). It is a division that for Blake had no meaning. Involved in Blake's quarrel with Reynolds was, of course, his indigna- tion against Reynolds as symbolic of an alien class that dominated society and in his view suppressed the very same genius that Reynolds wrote about. At the beginning of his annotations, which Blake was confident posterity would read, Blake warns the reader to expect "Nothing but In- dignation & Resentment" (E625). There is plenty of both. The warning is consistent with Blake's views about expression. Indignation was passion and expression and therefore beauty; all else would be hypocrisy and error. Yet one feels, in spite of all this by way of explanation of Blake's performance, that Blake has dealt badly with Reynolds. He deliberately refuses to recognize that at different times Reynolds is speaking about dif- ferent levels of artistic sophistication when he gives advice; he does not comment on the later discourses, where Reynolds may earn at least slight redemption; and he has no sense at all that Reynolds' humility may be quite honest. Indeed, Blake's thought has no place for humility except as it is subsumed under hypocrisy, an error similar in form to subsuming imagination under reason. If one sides with Blake in his epistemological quarrel with Reynolds, one is not obliged to accept his ad hominem at- tack. In despising humility Blake also seems to have lost sight of charity. I think we can fault him for that in spite of his devil's remark that there would be no mercy, that is to say charity, if no one was poor (E462). The devil's view is somewhat narrower than that of St. Paul. other faculty of the mind" than reason (XIII, 126), but his own system makes that faculty only a special instance of the mind's single faculty; Blake claims the existence of a radically different faculty. Yet I can just imagine Blake concluding that Reynolds, in searching for a way to admit imagination into his system, was also trying to move to a more expansive view of mental powers. I can imagine him sensing this also in the remark that directs the painter and poet to be allowed to "dare every thing" (XIII, 125) and in the attempt in Discourse Fifteen to come to terms with the genius of Michelangelo. Even the word "visionary" appears with the word "enthusiasm" in honorific contexts in Discourse Fourteen (XIV, 169), and Blake might have remembered a remark of his own when he discov- ered Reynolds distinguishing "that which addresses itself to the imagina- tion from that which is solely addressed to the eye" (XV, 188). At the same time, Blake was not likely to forget that in Reynolds the term "imagina- tion" is not yet emancipated from the reason and that Reynolds' complaint about the eye is merely the old complaint about minute particulars. In the end Reynolds returns to the distinction between the "narrow idea of Nature" and the "grandeur of the general ideas" (XV, 192). It is a division that for Blake had no meaning. Involved in Blake's quarrel with Reynolds was, of course, his indigna- tion against Reynolds as symbolic of an alien class that dominated society and in his view suppressed the very same genius that Reynolds wrote about. At the beginning of his annotations, which Blake was confident posterity would read, Blake warns the reader to expect "Nothing but In- dignation & Resentment" (E625). There is plenty of both. The warning is consistent with Blake's views about expression. Indignation was passion and expression and therefore beauty; all else would be hypocrisy and error. Yet one feels, in spite of all this by way of explanation of Blake's performance, that Blake has dealt badly with Reynolds. He deliberately refuses to recognize that at different times Reynolds is speaking about dif- ferent levels of artistic sophistication when he gives advice; he does not comment on the later discourses, where Reynolds may earn at least slight redemption; and he has no sense at all that Reynolds' humility may be quite honest. Indeed, Blake's thought has no place for humility except as it is subsumed under hypocrisy, an error similar in form to subsuming imagination under reason. If one sides with Blake in his epistemological quarrel with Reynolds, one is not obliged to accept his ad hominem at- tack. In despising humility Blake also seems to have lost sight of chanitv. I think we can fault him for that in spite of his devil's remark that there would be no mercy, that is to say charity, if no one was poor (E462). The devil's view is somewhat narrower than that of St. Paul.  Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities Every talk should make three points. Mine will follow this Horatian sort of rule, subdividing my third point, however, into a triad. The points I shall make are fairly obvious ones in the literature of the literature of cit- ies, of which (I have discovered) there is quite a lot. My aim on the whole is to make some observations about William Blake's treatment of cities, which is I think appropriate here because as in so many other matters, his treatment of cities is extensive and nearly symbolically complete, though perhaps Joyce found a way or two to go beyond him. THE CITY AND COUNTRY IN ROMANTICISM In the Phaedrs of Plato, Phaedrus on a country walk with Socrates re- marks that Socrates rarely leaves the city, even though on this walk Socra- tes has obviously enjoyed the countryside. Socrates' oft-quoted reply is, "You must forgive me, dear friend; I'm a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do." The quotation from romanticism usually offered to counter this is Wordsworth's about impulses drawn from vernal woods, though here the villains are books, not cities. There are, of course, plenty of examples from American literature demonstrating little affection for the learning that cities promulgate. Americans, as Burton Pike has observed in The Image of the City in Modern Literature, have had little of the ancient Greek attachment to the polis or the modern French love for Paris. Cer- tainly there is little in English or American romanticism remotely like what Ernst Curtius finds in a poem in praise of Milan written in the year 738. It carries out classical rules for eulogies of cities which admonish one to describe the site and praise the city's cultivation of the arts and sci- ences, its martyrs, their relics, its saints, its princes of the church, its the- ologians, the piety of its people, to say nothing of the reigning monarch, the archbishops, and the city's achievements in wars against the infidel. But the idea that one should write this formal poem of praise faded out in the Renaissance, setting in motion what Pike calls a withdrawal of Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities Every talk should make three points. Mine will follow this Horatian sort of rule, subdividing my third point, however, into a triad. The points I shall make are fairly obvious ones in the literature of the literature of cit- ies, of which (I have discovered) there is quite a lot. My aim on the whole is to make some observations about William Blake's treatment of cities, which is I think appropriate here because as in so many other matters, his treatment of cities is extensive and nearly symbolically complete, though perhaps Joyce found a way or two to go beyond him. THE CITY AND COUNTRY IN ROMANTICISM In the Phaedrus of Plato, Phaedrus on a country walk with Socrates re- marks that Socrates rarely leaves the city, even though on this walk Socra- tes has obviously enjoyed the countryside. Socrates' oft-quoted reply is, "You must forgive me, dear friend; I'm a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do." The quotation from romanticism usually offered to counter this is Wordsworth's about impulses drawn from vernal woods, though here the villains are books, not cities. There are, of course, plenty of examples from American literature demonstrating little affection for the learning that cities promulgate. Americans, as Burton Pike has observed in The Image of the City in Modern Literature, have had little of the ancient Greek attachment to the polis or the modern French love for Paris. Cer- tainly there is little in English or American romanticism remotely like what Ernst Curtius finds in a poem in praise of Milan written in the year 738. It carries out classical rules for eulogies of cities which admonish one to describe the site and praise the city's cultivation of the arts and sci- ences, its martyrs, their relics, its saints, its princes of the church, its the- ologians, the piety of its people, to say nothing of the reigning monarch, the archbishops, and the city's achievements in wars against the infidel. But the idea that one should write this formal poem of praise faded out in the Renaissance, setting in motion what Pike calls a withdrawal of Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities Every talk should make three points. Mine will follow this Horatian sort of rule, subdividing my third point, however, into a triad. The points I shall make are fairly obvious ones in the literature of the literature of cit- ies, of which (I have discovered) there is quite a lot. My aim on the whole is to make some observations about William Blake's treatment of cities, which is I think appropriate here because as in so many other matters, his treatment of cities is extensive and nearly symbolically complete, though perhaps Joyce found a way or two to go beyond him. THE CITY AND COUNTRY IN ROMANTICISM In the Phaedros of Plato, Phaedrms on a country walk with Socrates re- marks that Socrates rarely leaves the city, even though on this walk Socra- tes has obviously enjoyed the countryside. Socrates' oft-quoted reply is, "You must forgive me, dear friend; I'm a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do." The quotation from romanticism usually offered to counter this is Wordsworth's about impulses drawn from vernal woods, though here the villains are books, not cities. There are, of course, plenty of examples from American literature demonstrating little affection for the learning that cities promulgate. Americans, as Burton Pike has observed in The Image of the City in Modern Literature, have had little of the ancient Greek attachment to the polis or the modern French love for Paris. Cer- tainly there is little in English or American romanticism remotely like what Ernst Curtius finds in a poem in praise of Milan written in the year 738. It carries out classical rules for eulogies of cities which admonish one to describe the site and praise the city's cultivation of the arts and sci- ences, its martyrs, their relics, its saints, its princes of the church, its the- ologians, the piety of its people, to say nothing of the reigning monarch, the archbishops, and the city's achievements in wars against the infidel. But the idea that one should write this formal poem of praise faded out in the Renaissance, setting in motion what Pike calls a withdrawal of 199 igg 199  Antithetical Essays 2oo0 Antithetical Essays zoo Antithetical Essays meaning from the city as a human community while leaving it exposed to the apocalyptic process in time. Thus eventually we have poems in ro- manticism like Byron's Darkness. Pike sees all of this triggered by the growth of individualism and the resultant loss of community eventuating in poems toward the end of the nineteenth century like James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night, the city of solitude, not community, the city of limbo rather than of heaven or hell. It is appropriate to mention here that the first city builder is said by the Bible to be Cain, not a good portent. The isolation of the individual in the subject as well as in the city becomes a major theme. Wordsworth's travail in the city, his praise of nature and specifically of the country is, as I have said, usually taken to be definitive of romanticism, and when one comes to Blake the poem London can al- ways be evinced as an example of romantic reaction to the city, as it has been used recently in William Thesing's The London Muse to show one aspect of romantic response. But as David Punter has pointed out, Blake actually extends and complicates the typical eighteenth-century attitude in that poem and did not make, therefore, a complete break with his predecessors: The by-now traditional eighteenth-century critique had hinged on disorder and chaos, but Blake discerns beneath this apparent randomness, this jungle facade, a sinister and intri- cately connected system according to which poverty and mo- rality, righteous warfare and bloody death, marriage and pros- titution are all aspects of a single phenomenon which is simultaneously a metaphysical loss of vision and a failure of eq- uitable social organizations. (Criticism, Winter 1981, 9) In the end, though, it is not even that simple. Blake was a city boy born into the shop-keeper class, quite different in background from Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. He was at home in the city. He was also deeply immersed in the Bible and thought of literary cities in its terms. Certainly, also, he was well enough read in Plato to under- stand what Plato was saying about the relation of learning to cities. THE MODERN VISION OF THE CITY AS A LABYRINTH Ariadne's thread was supposed to lead Theseus out of the labyrinth, and it did. Wordsworth's thread is one of memory, which leads him back meaning from the city as a human community while leaving it exposed to the apocalyptic process in time. Thus eventually we have poems in ro- manticism like Byron's Darkness. Pike sees all of this triggered by the growth of individualism and the resultant loss of community eventuating in poems toward the end of the nineteenth century like James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night, the city of solitude, not community, the city of limbo rather than of heaven or hell. It is appropriate to mention here that the first city builder is said by the Bible to be Cain, not a good portent. The isolation of the individual in the subject as well as in the city becomes a major theme. Wordsworth's travail in the city, his praise of nature and specifically of the country is, as I have said, usually taken to be definitive of romanticism, and when one comes to Blake the poem London can al- ways be evinced as an example of romantic reaction to the city, as it has been used recently in William Thesing's The London Muse to show one aspect of romantic response. But as David Punter has pointed out, Blake actually extends and complicates the typical eighteenth-century attitude in that poem and did not make, therefore, a complete break with his predecessors: The by-now traditional eighteenth-century critique had hinged on disorder and chaos, but Blake discerns beneath this apparent randomness, this jungle facade, a sinister and intri- cately connected system according to which poverty and mo- rality, righteous warfare and bloody death, marriage and pros- titution are all aspects of a single phenomenon which is simultaneously a metaphysical loss of vision and a failure of eq- uitable social organizations. (Criticism, Winter 1981, 9) In the end, though, it is not even that simple. Blake was a city boy born into the shop-keeper class, quite different in background from Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. He was at home in the city. He was also deeply immersed in the Bible and thought of literary cities in its terms. Certainly, also, he was well enough read in Plato to under- stand what Plato was saying about the relation of learning to cities. THE MODERN VISION OF THE CITY AS A LABYRINTH Ariadne's thread was supposed to lead Theseus out of the labyrinth, and it did. Wordsworth's thread is one of memory, which leads him back meaning from the city as a human community while leaving it exposed to the apocalyptic process in time. Thus eventually we have poems in ro- manticism like Byron's Darkness. Pike sees all of this triggered by the growth of individualism and the resultant loss of community eventuating in poems toward the end of the nineteenth century like James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night, the city of solitude, not community, the city of limbo rather than of heaven or hell. It is appropriate to mention here that the first city builder is said by the Bible to be Cain, not a good portent. The isolation of the individual in the subject as well as in the city becomes a major theme. Wordsworth's travail in the city, his praise of nature and specifically of the country is, as I have said, usually taken to be definitive of romanticism, and when one comes to Blake the poem London can al- ways be evinced as an example of romantic reaction to the city, as it has been used recently in William Thesing's The London Muse to show one aspect of romantic response. But as David Punter has pointed out, Blake actually extends and complicates the typical eighteenth-century attitude in that poem and did not make, therefore, a complete break with his predecessors: The by-now traditional eighteenth-century critique had hinged on disorder and chaos, but Blake discerns beneath this apparent randomness, this jungle facade, a sinister and intri- cately connected system according to which poverty and mo- rality, righteous warfare and bloody death, marriage and pros- titution are all aspects of a single phenomenon which is simultaneously a metaphysical loss of vision and a failure of eq- uitable social organizations. (Criticism, Winter 1981, g) In the end, though, it is not even that simple. Blake was a city boy born into the shop-keeper class, quite different in background from Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. He was at home in the city. He was also deeply immersed in the Bible and thought of literary cities in its terms. Certainly, also, he was well enough read in Plato to under- stand what Plato was saying about the relation of learning to cities. THE MODERN VISION OF THE CITY AS A LABYRINTH Ariadne's thread was supposed to lead Theseus out of the labyrinth, and it did. Wordsworth's thread is one of memory, which leads him back  Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities 2i1 Blake's Cities: Verbal Ciities 201 Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities through renovating spots of time away in spirit from the minotaur of Lon- don culture. Certainly the labyrinth expresses a deeply ambivalent feel- ing, at best, about the city. The perspective often employed in its use is from within rather than from above, where there may be hope of im- posing a design upon it. This design might well take the form of mapping, as it does in a way in Joyce's Ulysses. It has often been observed that in Ulysses Joyce rarely describes Dublin. He does, however, map it or, rather, lead us (as in the Wandering Rocks section) to think in terms of relations rather than objects. This seems to be the sort of distance that breeds friendships. Joyce's readers love Dublin in the way that certain baseball fans often love the statistics of the game more than any specific game. It is perhaps a matter of comfortable perspective. With Blake there is a difference: neither map nor labyrinth, but rather reversal of the labyrinth's location. To follow Ariadne's thread gets us into Jerusalem, both city and poem, not out of it: I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball: It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall. TYPES OF LITERARY CITIES Following the precedent of the Bible, literary cities are frequently differ- entiated as good or evil, Jerusalem and Babylon, with the bad outnumber- ing the good. Burton Pike observes that the Hebrew word used for city also meant "enemy" and related words carried meanings of watching angel, vengeance, and terror. The word embodies historically all the am- bivalence felt about cities throughout time. Blake here is not unusual but more complete than most. His Jerusalem is surely the good city of the Bible, though in its fallen state, as it is for the most part seen, it is the alienated emanation of man. It is above all human, a woman; and at times it is treated as if it were a poem, Blake's poem by that name. And it is declared to be located-at least in its fallen state-in England. Blake's evil city is Babylon, which is associated with sin and negation and is nature distanced into an alienated object in both the epistemologi- cal and sexual senses. In other words, it is Jerusalem wrongly perceived. But Blake complicates this simple picture by introducing two other major cities (as well as several minor ones) into his text-Golgonooza and Lon- through renovating spots of time away in spirit from the minotaur of Lon- don culture. Certainly the labyrinth expresses a deeply ambivalent feel- ing, at best, about the city. The perspective often employed in its use is from within rather than from above, where there may be hope of im- posing a design upon it. This design might well take the form of mapping, as it does in a way in Joyce's Ulysses. It has often been observed that in Ulysses Joyce rarely describes Dublin. He does, however, map it or, rather, lead us (as in the Wandering Rocks section) to think in terms of relations rather than objects. This seems to be the sort of distance that breeds friendships. Joyce's readers love Dublin in the way that certain baseball fans often love the statistics of the game more than any specific game. It is perhaps a matter of comfortable perspective. With Blake there is a difference: neither map nor labyrinth, but rather reversal of the labyrinth's location. To follow Ariadne's thread gets us into Jerusalem, both city and poem, not out of it: I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball: It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall. TYPES OF LITERARY CITIES Following the precedent of the Bible, literary cities are frequently differ- entiated as good or evil, Jerusalem and Babylon, with the bad outnumber- ing the good. Burton Pike observes that the Hebrew word used for city also meant "enemy" and related words carried meanings of watching angel, vengeance, and terror. The word embodies historically all the am- bivalence felt about cities throughout time. Blake here is not unusual but more complete than most. His Jerusalem is surely the good city of the Bible, though in its fallen state, as it is for the most part seen, it is the alienated emanation of man. It is above all human, a woman; and at times it is treated as if it were a poem, Blake's poem by that name. And it is declared to be located-at least in its fallen state-in England. Blake's evil city is Babylon, which is associated with sin and negation and is nature distanced into an alienated object in both the epistemologi- cal and sexual senses. In other words, it is Jerusalem wrongly perceived. But Blake complicates this simple picture by introducing two other major cities (as well as several minor ones) into his text-Golgonooza and Lon- through renovating spots of time away in spirit from the minotaur of Lon- don culture. Certainly the labyrinth expresses a deeply ambivalent feel- ing, at best, about the city. The perspective often employed in its use is from within rather than from above, where there may be hope of im- posing a design upon it. This design might well take the form of mapping, as it does in a way in Joyce's Ulysses. It has often been observed that in Ulysses Joyce rarely describes Dublin. He does, however, map it or, rather, lead us (as in the Wandering Rocks section) to think in terms of relations rather than objects. This seems to be the sort of distance that breeds friendships. Joyce's readers love Dublin in the way that certain baseball fans often love the statistics of the game more than any specific game. It is perhaps a matter of comfortable perspective. With Blake there is a difference: neither map nor labyrinth, but rather reversal of the labyrinth's location. To follow Ariadne's thread gets us into Jerusalem, both city and poem, not out of it: I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball: It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall. TYPES OF LITERARY CITIES Following the precedent of the Bible, literary cities are frequently differ- entiated as good or evil, Jerusalem and Babylon, with the bad outnumber- ing the good. Burton Pike observes that the Hebrew word used for city also meant "enemy" and related words carried meanings of watching angel, vengeance, and terror. The word embodies historically all the am- bivalence felt about cities throughout time. Blake here is not unusual but more complete than most. His Jerusalem is surely the good city of the Bible, though in its fallen state, as it is for the most part seen, it is the alienated emanation of man. It is above all human, a woman; and at times it is treated as if it were a poem, Blake's poem by that name. And it is declared to be located-at least in its fallen state-in England. Blake's evil city is Babylon, which is associated with sin and negation and is nature distanced into an alienated object in both the epistemologi- cal and sexual senses. In other words, it is Jerusalem wrongly perceived. But Blake complicates this simple picture by introducing two other major cities (as well as several minor ones) into his text--Golgonooza and Lon-  Antithetical Essays zoz Antithetical Essays zoz Antithetical Essays don, the latter of which is not easily classifiable as good or evil and the former of which is, as far as I know, unique in literature. Both require more subtle classification. In the end, of course, all four cities are, in a sense, the same one under different aspects. Good and evil are by no means the only divisions by which literary cities may be classified. They are divisible on the basis of whether the writer treats them as primarily spatial or primarily temporal entities. They can further be regarded as to whether they are internal or external cities- cities of the spirit or cities of the world. Blake does all of these things and adds a fourth (there are always four in Blake) by offering the possibil- ity of a city contained entirely in words as against a city merely pointed to by words. The first division-that between good and evil-is simple. The last three divisions are my subject in the remainder of my remarks. Spatial and temporal forms According to Mircea Eliade in envisioning a city ancient man had recourse to a celestial model or archetype. This I shall call a Platonizing of the city. A city created this way is only a copy. The original is an idea or form, though when we imagine it to ourselves it becomes a spatial image. There is something fixed, therefore, about any so-called archetype and when subjected to use it becomes a stereotype. On the other hand, with respect to later images of the city there creeps in a tendency to temporalize the image under the attitude that makes impermanence itself the only perma- nence. This is reflected outside literature everywhere in contemporary life from the throwaway carton to the skyscraper that can be torn down more quickly than it can be quickly built. The tendency of the modern is to look backward and see everywhere the impermanence of those an- cient cities that set out to glorify the fixed celestial model: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair": the line contains the ultimate irony about cities and power. Now, there is no doubt that Blake draws on the archetype of the celestial city, but he evades its fixity and attempts to glorify its impermanence, since for him, time is the mercy of eternity, allowing us to escape fixity. The problem with Blake's Babylon is that it is fixity-a world of universal natural and moral law. The problem with Blake's fallen or lost Jerusalem is that it is distanced as the epistemological object in that world of nature and dis- tanced as the sexual object in that world of morality. It is imprisoned in and as Babylon. Blake's city of Golgonooza is entirely temporal. It is the temporal act that always escapes the effort to define it by measurement, a spatial way of thinking. It is the condition of work. Blake describes it at some length don, the latter of which is not easily classifiable as good or evil and the former of which is, as far as I know, unique in literature. Both require more subtle classification. In the end, of course, all four cities are, in a sense, the same one under different aspects. Good and evil are by no means the only divisions by which literary cities may be classified. They are divisible on the basis of whether the writer treats them as primarily spatial or primarily temporal entities. They can further be regarded as to whether they are internal or external cities- cities of the spirit or cities of the world. Blake does all of these things and adds a fourth (there are always four in Blake) by offering the possibil- ity of a city contained entirely in words as against a city merely pointed to by words. The first division-that between good and evil-is simple. The last three divisions are my subject in the remainder of my remarks. Spatial and temporal forms According to Mircea Eliade in envisioning a city ancient man had recourse to a celestial model or archetype. This I shall call a Platonizing of the city. A city created this way is only a copy. The original is an idea or form, though when we imagine it to ourselves it becomes a spatial image. There is something fixed, therefore, about any so-called archetype and when subjected to use it becomes a stereotype. on the other hand, with respect to later images of the city there creeps in a tendency to temporalize the image under the attitude that makes impermanence itself the only perma- nence. This is reflected outside literature everywhere in contemporary life from the throwaway carton to the skyscraper that can be torn down more quickly than it can be quickly built. The tendency of the modern is to look backward and see everywhere the impermanence of those an- cient cities that set out to glorify the fixed celestial model: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair" the line contains the ultimate irony about cities and power. Now, there is no doubt that Blake draws on the archetype of the celestial city, but he evades its fixity and attempts to glorify its impermanence, since for him, time is the mercy of eternity, allowing us to escape fixity. The problem with Blake's Babylon is that it is fixity-a world of universal natural and moral law. The problem with Blake's fallen or lost Jerusalem is that it is distanced as the epistemological object in that world of nature and dis- tanced as the sexual object in that world of morality. It is imprisoned in and as Babylon. Blake's city of Golgonooza is entirely temporal. It is the temporal act that always escapes the effort to define it by measurement, a spatial way of thinking. It is the condition of work. Blake describes it at some length don, the latter of which is not easily classifiable as good or evil and the former of which is, as far as I know, unique in literature. Both require more subtle classification. In the end, of course, all four cities are, in a sense, the same one under different aspects. Good and evil are by no means the only divisions by which literary cities may be classified. They are divisible on the basis of whether the writer treats them as primarily spatial or primarily temporal entities. They can further be regarded as to whether they are internal or external cities- cities of the spirit or cities of the world. Blake does all of these things and adds a fourth (there are always four in Blake) by offering the possibil- ity of a city contained entirely in words as against a city merely pointed to by words. The first division-that between good and evil-is simple. The last three divisions are my subject in the remainder of my remarks. Spatial and temporal forms According to Mircea Eliade in envisioning a city ancient man had recourse to a celestial model or archetype. This I shall call a Platonizing of the city. A city created this way is only a copy. The original is an idea or form, though when we imagine it to ourselves it becomes a spatial image. There is something fixed, therefore, about any so-called archetype and when subjected to use it becomes a stereotype. On the other hand, with respect to later images of the city there creeps in a tendency to temporalize the image under the attitude that makes impermanence itself the only perma- nence. This is reflected outside literature everywhere in contemporary life from the throwaway carton to the skyscraper that can be torn down more quickly than it can be quickly built. The tendency of the modern is to look backward and see everywhere the impermanence of those an- cient cities that set out to glorify the fixed celestial model: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair: the line contains the ultimate irony about cities and power. Now, there is no doubt that Blake draws on the archetype of the celestial city, but he evades its fixity and attempts to glorify its impermanence, since for him, time is the mercy of eternity, allowing us to escape fixity. The problem with Blake's Babylon is that it is fixity-a world of universal natural and moral law. The problem with Blake's fallen or lost Jerusalem is that it is distanced as the epistemological object in that world of nature and dis- tanced as the sexual object in that world of morality. It is imprisoned in and as Babylon. Blake's city of Golgonooza is entirely temporal. It is the temporal act that always escapes the effort to define it by measurement, a spatial way of thinking. It is the condition of work. Blake describes it at some length  Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities z03 Blake's Cities: Verbal Citiess zo3 Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities in Chapter 1 of Jerusalem, but in such a way that what spatial form we can give to it is radically paradoxical. Every time we think we have a "map" of it Blake produces a line frustrating our aim. We cannot see it from above, though S. Foster Damon made a valiant somewhat Quixotic effort to do so in his Blake Dictionary. It is also impossible to adopt a perspective from inside it so as to treat it as a labyrinth. It is quite radi- cally the temporal work of Blake's heroic blacksmith Los. London, on the other hand, is treated both temporally and spatially. It has suburbs. A river runs through it. It contains streets and churches. But it is also continually building and decaying. However, as David Punter has pointed out, it is not regarded therefore as a chaos beyond our power to understood, as so many other literary cities have been. In- deed, in Blake's poem Jerusalem, Los takes his globe of fire to explore London; and clearly he is exploring the interior of a gigantic human body, which is to say that the fallen or external London can be seen as the ema- nation of an internal or spiritual world. External and internal forms In the Old Testament, Jerusalem is an external historical city, though fre- quently spiritualized as a woman. The return to and the rebuilding of this external Jerusalem, much ravaged in Biblical and later ages, is a major theme. In the New Testament sayings of Jesus, the city is clearly internalized-a city to be built or rebuilt within us. That tradition Blake, of course, takes up in his poems, where the problem is to get Jerusalem, Albion's emanation, inside him again. The same problem is set forth in Los's struggle to build Jerusalem in the heart of London. The odd tradi- tion Blake uses here is the one that declares England to have been the site of ancient humanity and the external Jerusalem of the holy land to be a part of the dispersal of the original English civilization of gigantic, learned men. This Blake internalizes, making Jerusalem the lost integrity of the British people, among other things. Just as the Kingdom of God is supposed to be within, so is the city. On the other hand, the false alien city of Babylon is always outside, thus something we can be imprisoned within, like a labyrinth. The city of words and the city pointed to by words It has usually been presumed that when Jesus spoke of the Kingdom within us, he did not speak of this interiority as purely verbal. On the other hand, there is some reason to think that he may have been hinting at just that, and this seems to be the way Blake read him: He is the Word, in Chapter s of Jerusalem, but in such a way that what spatial form we can give to it is radically paradoxical. Every time we think we have a "map" of it Blake produces a line frustrating our aim. We cannot see it from above, though S. Foster Damon made a valiant somewhat Quixotic effort to do so in his Blake Dictionary. It is also impossible to adopt a perspective from inside it so as to treat it as a labyrinth. It is quite radi- cally the temporal work of Blake's heroic blacksmith Los. London, on the other hand, is treated both temporally and spatially. It has suburbs. A river runs through it. It contains streets and churches. But it is also continually building and decaying. However, as David Punter has pointed out, it is not regarded therefore as a chaos beyond our power to understood, as so many other literary cities have been. In- deed, in Blake's poem Jerusalem, Los takes his globe of fire to explore London; and clearly he is exploring the interior of a gigantic human body, which is to say that the fallen or external London can be seen as the ema- nation of an internal or spiritual world. External and internal forms In the Old Testament, Jerusalem is an external historical city, though fre- quently spiritualized as a woman. The return to and the rebuilding of this external Jerusalem, much ravaged in Biblical and later ages, is a major theme. In the New Testament sayings of Jesus, the city is clearly internalized-a city to be built or rebuilt within us. That tradition Blake, of course, takes up in his poems, where the problem is to get Jerusalem, Albion's emanation, inside him again. The same problem is set forth in Los's struggle to build Jerusalem in the heart of London. The odd tradi- tion Blake uses here is the one that declares England to have been the site of ancient humanity and the external Jerusalem of the holy land to be a part of the dispersal of the original English civilization of gigantic, learned men. This Blake internalizes, making Jerusalem the lost integrity of the British people, among other things. Just as the Kingdom of God is supposed to be within, so is the city. On the other hand, the false alien city of Babylon is always outside, thus something we can be imprisoned within, like a labyrinth. The city of words and the city pointed to by words It has usually been presumed that when Jesus spoke of the Kingdom within us, he did not speak of this interiority as purely verbal. On the other hand, there is some reason to think that he may have been hinting at just that, and this seems to be the way Blake read him: He is the Word, in Chapter s of Jerusalem, but in such a way that what spatial form we can give to it is radically paradoxical. Every time we think we have a "map" of it Blake produces a line frustrating our aim. We cannot see it from above, though S. Foster Damon made a valiant somewhat Quixotic effort to do so in his Blake Dictionary. It is also impossible to adopt a perspective from inside it so as to treat it as a labyrinth. It is quite radi- cally the temporal work of Blake's heroic blacksmith Los. London, on the other hand, is treated both temporally and spatially. It has suburbs. A river runs through it. It contains streets and churches. But it is also continually building and decaying. However, as David Punter has pointed out, it is not regarded therefore as a chaos beyond our power to understood, as so many other literary cities have been. In- deed, in Blake's poem Jerusalem, Los takes his globe of fire to explore London; and clearly he is exploring the interior of a gigantic human body, which is to say that the fallen or external London can be seen as the ema- nation of an internal or spiritual world. External and internal forms In the Old Testament, Jerusalem is an external historical city, though fre- quently spiritualized as a woman. The return to and the rebuilding of this external Jerusalem, much ravaged in Biblical and later ages, is a major theme. In the New Testament sayings of Jesus, the city is clearly internalized-a city to be built or rebuilt within us. That tradition Blake, of course, takes up in his poems, where the problem is to get Jerusalem, Albion's emanation, inside him again. The same problem is set forth in Los's struggle to build Jerusalem in the heart of London. The odd tradi- tion Blake uses here is the one that declares England to have been the site of ancient humanity and the external Jerusalem of the holy land to be a part of the dispersal of the original English civilization of gigantic, learned men. This Blake internalizes, making Jerusalem the lost integrity of the British people, among other things. Just as the Kingdom of God is supposed to be within, so is the city. On the other hand, the false alien city of Babylon is always outside, thus something we can be imprisoned within, like a labyrinth. The city of words and the city pointed to by words It has usually been presumed that when Jesus spoke of the Kingdom within us, he did not speak of this interiority as purely verbal. On the other hand, there is some reason to think that he may have been hinting at just that, and this seems to be the way Blake read him: He is the Word,  Antithetical Essays zo4 Antithetical Essays o4 Antithetical Essays the Word is the Kingdom that is properly within us. For Blake, it seems, the spiritual is itself verbal and the city within us is therefore not just a city of the word but a verbal city-or at least always emanating forth as words. Externally this is a Babel of competing tongues, the din of the city of Dis, but Blake would have us rescue ourselves from that city, which is really a wasteland. We are to do this by rolling the linear form of our reading up into a unity. To recognize the unity of Jersalem the poem is to grasp its fundamental metaphorical nature, which is language as identity. This is the language Blake thought the ancient poets spoke when they named and identified all things. In the word identity are in- volved two things: (1) identification of something as itself; (o) identifica- tion of something with or as something else. Identity harbors both uniqueness and relation, but one notices that linguistic identifica- tion always combines the two aspects since verbal identification is always identification as, and the metaphorical is central. When we begin to take apart Jerusalem's identity we are unraveling a metaphorical ball, so to speak. Jerusalem is a city, a woman; it is inside Albion but emanates forth; people are in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is in people. In this taking apart, Jerusalem escapes us and is, as Blake says, "scattered abroad through non entity"; it becomes something words only vainly point to. By the same token, Blake's Golgonooza as the city of the creative act remains always radically in the text. It is a city with gates (modeled on the many gates of the historical Jerusalem, behind which is the celestial archetype), but each gate is described as within the others even as they stand at the four points of the compass. Then we are told that these four points are breadth, height and depth, inwardness, and outwardness. Clearly we must keep moving in our reading, escaping fixity as our facul- ties are roused to act. There is no way we can extract this city from Blake's linguistic act and fix it in an external map or model. But what about London, we say? Surely it is a real (external) city. Yet Blake would surely say it is what people make it, and this making has always and will always begin with the language that envisions it. Certainly this is clear enough about London's past, which is only in texts. As for the present, Blake seems to think that we can only define the present of anything in terms of ethical being, not as an infinitesimally divisible point in time. The London of that infinitesimal point can never be found by any form of imagination. It is external and abstract. The ethical mo- ment that is the act of constituting what London is and should be is a linguistic act. In some places in his poetry, Blake named a London he seems to have felt sorry for. It is an old man, blind and age-bent, requir- ing a guide. But he also saw London as a "human awful wonder,"continually building and decaying and full of potentiality. the Word is the Kingdom that is properly within us. For Blake, it seems, the spiritual is itself verbal and the city within us is therefore not just a city of the word but a verbal city-or at least always emanating forth as words. Externally this is a Babel of competing tongues, the din of the city of Dis, but Blake would have us rescue ourselves from that city, which is really a wasteland. We are to do this by rolling the linear form of our reading up into a unity. To recognize the unity of Jerusalem the poem is to grasp its fundamental metaphorical nature, which is language as identity. This is the language Blake thought the ancient poets spoke when they named and identified all things. In the word identity are in- volved two things: (1) identification of something as itself; (2) identifica- tion of something with or as something else. Identity harbors both uniqueness and relation, but one notices that linguistic identifica- tion always combines the two aspects since verbal identification is always identification as, and the metaphorical is central. When we begin to take apart Jerusalem's identity we are unraveling a metaphorical ball, so to speak. Jerusalem is a city, a woman; it is inside Albion but emanates forth; people are in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is in people. In this taking apart, Jerusalem escapes us and is, as Blake says, "scattered abroad through non entity"; it becomes something words only vainly point to. By the same token, Blake's Golgonooza as the city of the creative act remains always radically in the text. It is a city with gates (modeled on the many gates of the historical Jerusalem, behind which is the celestial archetype), but each gate is described as within the others even as they stand at the four points of the compass. Then we are told that these four points are breadth, height and depth, inwardness, and outwardness. Clearly we must keep moving in our reading, escaping fixity as our facul- ties are roused to act. There is no way we can extract this city from Blake's linguistic act and fix it in an external map or model. But what about London, we say? Surely it is a real (external) city. Yet Blake would surely say it is what people make it, and this making has always and will always begin with the language that envisions it. Certainly this is clear enough about London's past, which is only in texts. As for the present, Blake seems to think that we can only define the present of anything in terms of ethical being, not as an infinitesimally divisible point in time. The London of that infinitesimal point can never be found by any form of imagination. It is external and abstract. The ethical mo- ment that is the act of constituting what London is and should be is a linguistic act. In some places in his poetry, Blake named a London he seems to have felt sorry for. It is an old man, blind and age-bent, requir- ingaguide. But he also saw London as a"human awful wonder,'continually building and decaying and full of potentiality. the Word is the Kingdom that is properly within us. For Blake, it seems, the spiritual is itself verbal and the city within us is therefore not just a city of the word but a verbal city-or at least always emanating forth as words. Externally this is a Babel of competing tongues, the din of the city of Dis, but Blake would have us rescue ourselves from that city, which is really a wasteland. We are to do this by rolling the linear form of our reading up into a unity. To recognize the unity of Jerusalem the poem is to grasp its fundamental metaphorical nature, which is language as identity. This is the language Blake thought the ancient poets spoke when they named and identified all things. In the word identity are in- volved two things: (1) identification of something as itself; (2) identifica- tion of something with or as something else. Identity harbors both uniqueness and relation, but one notices that linguistic identifica- tion always combines the two aspects since verbal identification is always identification as, and the metaphorical is central. When we begin to take apart Jerusalem's identity we are unraveling a metaphorical ball, so to speak. Jerusalem is a city, a woman; it is inside Albion but emanates forth; people are in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is in people. In this taking apart, Jerusalem escapes us and is, as Blake says, "scattered abroad through non entity"; it becomes something words only vainly point to. By the same token, Blake's Golgonooza as the city of the creative act remains always radically in the text. It is a city with gates (modeled on the many gates of the historical Jerusalem, behind which is the celestial archetype), but each gate is described as within the others even as they stand at the four points of the compass. Then we are told that these four points are breadth, height and depth, inwardness, and outwardness. Clearly we must keep moving in our reading, escaping fixity as our facul- ties are roused to act. There is no way we can extract this city from Blake's linguistic act and fix it in an external map or model. But what about London, we say? Surely it is a real (external) city. Yet Blake would surely say it is what people make it, and this making has always and will always begin with the language that envisions it. Certainly this is clear enough about London's past, which is only in texts. As for the present, Blake seems to think that we can only define the present of anything in terms of ethical being, not as an infinitesimally divisible point in time. The London of that infinitesimal point can never be found by any form of imagination. It is external and abstract. The ethical mo- ment that is the act of constituting what London is and should be is a linguistic act. In some places in his poetry, Blake named a London he seems to have felt sorry for. It is an old man, blind and age-bent, requir- ing a guide. But he also saw London as a "human awful wonder," continually building and decaying and full of potentiality.  Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities 2o Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities We can say, I think, that spiritual progress was made when in the Bibli- cal texts the external city of Jerusalem came to be seen as less important than the internal one of the spirit. This progress, which Blake describes as potential in everyone, is connected with an observation by Northrop Frye in The Great Code that generally the heathen kingdoms of the Bible seem to have produced the most impressive external objects-cities with palaces and temples. The Israelites, on the other hand, produced a book. This book, indeed, made those heathen cities and temples far greater than an external version of them permits. And the cities in the text sur- vived their lesser external counterparts. In what sense greater? Not just in physical size in the Bible but simply by virtue of being in a book. There they partake of the antithesis of the verbal to the world. They assume ethical meaning in ethical time and space. The cities made of words are in this sense our real cities, and all of our cities are to be found in the four of William Blake, who attempted to write a poem that would restore the internal Jerusalem to us-as the text to which we are invited to open ourselves. We can say, I think, that spiritual progress was made when in the Bibli- cal texts the external city of Jerusalem came to be seen as less important than the internal one of the spirit. This progress, which Blake describes as potential in everyone, is connected with an observation by Northrop Frye in The Great Code that generally the heathen kingdoms of the Bible seem to have produced the most impressive external objects-cities with palaces and temples. The Israelites, on the other hand, produced a book. This book, indeed, made those heathen cities and temples far greater than an external version of them permits. And the cities in the text sur- vived their lesser external counterparts. In what sense greater? Not just in physical size in the Bible but simply by virtue of being in a book. There they partake of the antithesis of the verbal to the world. They assume ethical meaning in ethical time and space. The cities made of words are in this sense our real cities, and all of our cities are to be found in the four of William Blake, who attempted to write a poem that would restore the internal Jerusalem to us-as the text to which we are invited to open ourselves. Blake's Cities: Verbal Cities 205 We can say, I think, that spiritual progress was made when in the Bibli- cal texts the external city of Jerusalem came to be seen as less important than the internal one of the spirit. This progress, which Blake describes as potential in everyone, is connected with an observation by Northrop Frye in The Great Code that generally the heathen kingdoms of the Bible seem to have produced the most impressive external objects-cities with palaces and temples. The Israelites, on the other hand, produced a book. This book, indeed, made those heathen cities and temples far greater than an external version of them permits. And the cities in the text sur- vived their lesser external counterparts. In what sense greater? Not just in physical size in the Bible but simply by virtue of being in a book. There they partake of the antithesis of the verbal to the world. They assume ethical meaning in ethical time and space. The cities made of words are in this sense our real cities, and all of our cities are to be found in the four of William Blake, who attempted to write a poem that would restore the internal Jerusalem to us-as the text to which we are invited to open ourselves.  Thinking Cassirer Thinking Cassirer Thinking Cassirer In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when Ernst Cassirer was a doctoral candidate at Marburg preparing his study of Descartes and Leib- niz, there was a movement led by his teachers, the Marburg philosophers Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, which had as its rallying cry "Back to Kant." One was not simply to return to Kant to accept all he said, but to start from Kant again. Cassirer's thought was formed in this atmo- sphere, and it proved to be a liberation for him. More recently it has been regarded as a limitation everywhere present in his work. Contemporary phenomenologists have particularly regarded it as so. Cassirer is not any longer in the high style of contemporary literary theory. Ricoeur men- tions his theory of the symbol only to declare it too broad for his use,' though Foucault, it is said, has shown some liking for him. Even in the earlier days of twentieth-century American theory he was never quite in, in spite of his lurking in Susanne Langer's various books, Wilbur M. Urban's Language and Reality, some of Philip Wheelwright, Frye's notion of the symbol, Eliseo Vivas' appropriation of him to justify certain proce- dures roughly associated with the New Criticism, Kenneth Burke's trans- fer of his concept of the symbolic from its neo-Kantian base into Burkeism, and Charles Feidelson's use of him to study symbolism in American literature.' But it can be said on the whole that in academic literary fashion three things are true that bear on Cassirer's present reputation: (a) many aca- demic critics are not very happy about commitment to any philosophical position, especially Americans, who would rather use things then em- brace them, turning commitment to method; (2) Cassirer seemed to lose Freud and Philosophy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), i02. a. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Mentor Books, 1951); Feel- ing and Form (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953); Wilbur M. Urban, Language and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1939); Philip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1954); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); Eliseo Vivas, Creation and Discovery (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965); D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and Triumph of Art (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, sg60); Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley and Las Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), esp. 3-z4; Charles Feidelson, Symbolism and American Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when Ernst Cassirer was a doctoral candidate at Marburg preparing his study of Descartes and Leib- niz, there was a movement led by his teachers, the Marburg philosophers Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, which had as its rallying cry "Back to Kant." One was not simply to return to Kant to accept all he said, but to start from Kant again. Cassirer's thought was formed in this atmo- sphere, and it proved to be a liberation for him. More recently it has been regarded as a limitation everywhere present in his work. Contemporary phenomenologists have particularly regarded it as so. Cassirer is not any longer in the high style of contemporary literary theory. Ricoeur men- tions his theory of the symbol only to declare it too broad for his use,' though Foucault, it is said, has shown some liking for him. Even in the earlier days of twentieth-century American theory he was never quite in, in spite of his lurking in Susanne Langer's various books, Wilbur M. Urban's Language and Reality, some of Philip Wheelwright, Frye's notion of the symbol, Eliseo Vivas' appropriation of him to justify certain proce- dures roughly associated with the New Criticism, Kenneth Burke's trans- fer of his concept of the symbolic from its neo-Kantian base into Burkeism, and Charles Feidelson's use of him to study symbolism in American literature.' But it can be said on the whole that in academic literary fashion three things are true that bear on Cassirer's present reputation: (s) many aca- demic critics are not very happy about commitment to any philosophical position, especially Americans, who would rather use things then em- brace them, turning commitment to method; (2) Cassirer seemed to lose . Freud and Philosophy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), so-a2. z. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Mentor Books, 1951); Feel- ing and Form (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953); Wilbur M. Urban, Language and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1939); Philip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1954); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); Eliseo Vivas, Creation and Discovery (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965); D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and Triumph of Art (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 196o); Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), esp. 3-z4; Charles Feidelson, Symbolism and American Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when Ernst Cassirer was a doctoral candidate at Marburg preparing his study of Descartes and Leib- niz, there was a movement led by his teachers, the Marburg philosophers Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, which had as its rallying cry 'Back to Kant." One was not simply to return to Kant to accept all he said, but to start from Kant again. Cassirer's thought was formed in this atmo- sphere, and it proved to be a liberation for him. More recently it has been regarded as a limitation everywhere present in his work. Contemporary phenomenologists have particularly regarded it as so. Cassirer is not any longer in the high style of contemporary literary theory. Ricoeur men- tions his theory of the symbol only to declare it too broad for his use,' though Foucault, it is said, has shown some liking for him. Even in the earlier days of twentieth-century American theory he was never quite in, in spite of his lurking in Susanne Langer's various books, Wilbur M. Urban's Language and Reality, some of Philip Wheelwright, Frye's notion of the symbol, Eliseo Vivas' appropriation of him to justify certain proce- dures roughly associated with the New Criticism, Kenneth Burke's trans- fer of his concept of the symbolic from its neo-Kantian base into Burkeism, and Charles Feidelson's use of him to study symbolism in American literature.' But it can be said on the whole that in academic literary fashion three things are true that bear on Cassirer's present reputation: (1) many aca- demic critics are not very happy about commitment to any philosophical position, especially Americans, who would rather use things then em- brace them, turning commitment to method; (2) Cassirer seemed to lose 1. Freud and Philosophy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), 10-st. 2. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Mentor Books, 195); Feel- ing and Form (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953); Wilbur M. Urban, Lamguage and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1939); Philip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1954); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); Eliseo Vivas, Creation and Discovery (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965); D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and Triumph of Art (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960); Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley and Las Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), esp. 3-24; Charles Feidelson, Symbolism and American Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).  T hinking Cassirer 207 Thinking Cassirer ao7 Thinking Cassirer out to Heidegger sometime in the sixties; and (3) post-structuralism would regard Cassirer as someone who never managed to come to a true appre- ciation of difference. Right now we do not have a true appreciation of Cassirer and what his difference from certain contemporary trends may mean to us and pos- sibly lead us to. I do not have in mind a "Back to Cassirer" movement; however, I do want to advocate that we think Cassirer anew, but not by rejecting the Heideggerian opposite. Indeed, my point will be that Cassi- rer and Heidegger are true contraries in the Blakean sense of prolific use, and I like to think of them in the phrase of Empedocles: "Never shall boundless time be emptied of that pair." Empedocles was thinking of concord and discord, and these terms will serve for my characterization of Cassirer and Heidegger respectively. Cassirer was a prodigious writer, and his work covers such a vast array of subjects and disciplines that I cannot begin to claim a grasp of a whole that contains writings on Leibniz, Descartes, the Platonic Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Einstein's theory of relativ- ity, concepts of substance and function, freedom and form, the problem of knowledge, myth, language, the phenomenology of science, the myth of the state, and of course the symbolic. But as Blake suggests that fools should, I shall persist in my folly. With a touch of the prudence Blake warns against, I shall try to speak only about the Cassirer that seems im- portant to literary theory and criticism, leaving aside his works in intellec- tual history and the philosophy of science. But to limit my task in this way is exceedingly difficult, because (as it is with most philosophers) Cassirer's writings on literature and art are not the ones that are most provocative for criticism and theory.' In any case, Cassirer's whole way of thinking about any symbolic form such as art was to emphasize its rela- tions (his term for "difference") to other human symbolic activities. I want to begin with a story that interested him and that he retells and comments on in An Essay on Man, one of his last works. It is a story on which he came to base much of what he had to say about the symbol. I want to end by recalling a once well-known story about him. In between I shall endeavor to show what seems to be his specific importance to liter- ary theory through brief consideration of Cassirer on language and his connection with structuralism, Cassirer on mythical thought and myth's connection with art, and Cassirer and phenomenology. My view is that Cassirer stands at a critical point between his romantic forebears and the post-modern. At one time he seemed to me a way into the future from 3. For a more extensive treatment of Cassirer in the tradition of the symbolic see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). out to Heidegger sometime in the sixties; and (3) post-structuralism would regard Cassirer as someone who never managed to come to a true appre- ciation of difference. Right now we do not have a true appreciation of Cassirer and what his difference from certain contemporary trends may mean to us and pos- sibly lead us to. I do not have in mind a "Back to Cassirer" movement; however, I do want to advocate that we think Cassirer anew, but not by rejecting the Heideggerian opposite. Indeed, my point will be that Cassi- rer and Heidegger are true contraries in the Blakean sense of prolific use, and I like to think of them in the phrase of Empedocles: "Never shall boundless time be emptied of that pair." Empedocles was thinking of concord and discord, and these terms will serve for my characterization of Cassirer and Heidegger respectively. Cassirer was a prodigious writer, and his work covers such a vast array of subjects and disciplines that I cannot begin to claim a grasp of a whole that contains writings on Leibniz, Descartes, the Platonic Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Einstein's theory of relativ- ity, concepts of substance and function, freedom and form, the problem of knowledge, myth, language, the phenomenology of science, the myth of the state, and of course the symbolic. But as Blake suggests that fools should, I shall persist in my folly. With a touch of the prudence Blake warns against, I shall try to speak only about the Cassirer that seems im- portant to literary theory and criticism, leaving aside his works in intellec- tual history and the philosophy of science. But to limit my task in this way is exceedingly difficult, because (as it is with most philosophers) Cassirer's writings on literature and art are not the ones that are most provocative for criticism and theory.' In any case, Cassirer's whole way of thinking about any symbolic form such as art was to emphasize its rela- tions (his term for "difference") to other human symbolic activities. I want to begin with a story that interested him and that he retells and comments on in An Essay on Man, one of his last works. It is a story on which he came to base much of what he had to say about the symbol. I want to end by recalling a once well-known story about him. In between I shall endeavor to show what seems to be his specific importance to liter- ary theory through brief consideration of Cassirer on language and his connection with structuralism, Cassirer on mythical thought and myth's connection with art, and Cassirer and phenomenology. My view is that Cassirer stands at a critical point between his romantic forebears and the post-modern. At one time he seemed to me a way into the future from 3. For a more extensive treatment of Cassirer in the tradition of the symbolic see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). out to Heidegger sometime in the sixties; and (3) post-structuralism would regard Cassirer as someone who never managed to come to a true appre- ciation of difference. Right now we do not have a true appreciation of Cassirer and what his difference from certain contemporary trends may mean to us and pos- sibly lead us to. I do not have in mind a "Back to Cassirer" movement; however, I do want to advocate that we think Cassirer anew, but not by rejecting the Heideggerian opposite. Indeed, my point will be that Cassi- rer and Heidegger are true contraries in the Blakean sense of prolific use, and I like to think of them in the phrase of Empedocles: "Never shall boundless time be emptied of that pair." Empedocles was thinking of concord and discord, and these terms will serve for my characterization of Cassirer and Heidegger respectively. Cassirer was a prodigious writer, and his work covers such a vast array of subjects and disciplines that I cannot begin to claim a grasp of a whole that contains writings on Leibniz, Descartes, the Platonic Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Einstein's theory of relativ- ity, concepts of substance and function, freedom and form, the problem of knowledge, myth, language, the phenomenology of science, the myth of the state, and of course the symbolic. But as Blake suggests that fools should, I shall persist in my folly. With a touch of the prudence Blake warns against, I shall try to speak only about the Cassirer that seems im- portant to literary theory and criticism, leaving aside his works in intellec- tual history and the philosophy of science. But to limit my task in this way is exceedingly difficult, because (as it is with most philosophers) Cassirer's writings on literature and art are not the ones that are most provocative for criticism and theory.' In any case, Cassirer's whole way of thinking about any symbolic form such as art was to emphasize its rela- tions (his term for "difference") to other human symbolic activities. I want to begin with a story that interested him and that he retells and comments on in An Essay on Man, one of his last works. It is a story on which he came to base much of what he had to say about the symbol. I want to end by recalling a once well-known story about him. In between I shall endeavor to show what seems to be his specific importance to liter- ary theory through brief consideration of Cassirer on language and his connection with structuralism, Cassirer on mythical thought and myth's connection with art, and Cassirer and phenomenology. My view is that Cassirer stands at a critical point between his romantic forebears and the post-modern. At one time he seemed to me a way into the future from 3. For a more extensive treatment of Cassirer in the tradition of the symbolic see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983).  Antithetical Essays 2o8 Antithetical Essays as8 Antithetical Essays the romantic. Now he seems to me an important link to attitudes it would be well to recall though not necessarily call up, for the sake of the future. The story that interested Cassirer and that he retells in An Essay on Man is the well-known one about Helen Keller and her progression from the use of the sign to possession of symbols. The story begins when her teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, one day casually spelled out the word "water" for her. I now read directly from Mrs. Sullivan's account of Helen Keller's life and education, quoted at greater length by Cassirer: This morning, while she [Helen] was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water." When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after breakfast . . . [Later on] we went out to the pump house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon the sen- sation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed.' From this moment, Helen Keller knew that a word can have things, that, to quote Cassirer, "the symbolic function is not restricted to particular cases but is a principle of universal applicability."' Words had become in- struments of thought. This famous case, and that of Laura Bridgman, which Cassirer also mentions, shows that human beings are not depen- dent entirely on the quality of their sense impressions. The cultural world is not based on materials but on its form and structure, and this form can be expressed in any sense material. Further, form and structure are al- ways seen as function. One of Cassirer's most important early works in the philosophy of science, his Substance and Function, concerns itself with the shift in physics from the notion of things to events, substance to function-a function that is the form or structure by which physics con- stitutes the world. This notion in science Cassirer applies with modifica- tions everywhere in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. In every case- myth, art, religion, history, science-these symbolic forms show the breakdown of the notion of a substance to be copied or represented and transform that old notion into the mobile, variable, relational, dynamic, 4. An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 34. Quoted from Helen Keller, The Story of My Life (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1902), "Supplementary Account of Helen Keller's Life and Education," 315ff. 5. An Essay on Man, 34-35. the romantic. Now he seems to me an important link to attitudes it would be well to recall though not necessarily call up, for the sake of the future. The story that interested Cassirer and that he retells in An Essay on Man is the well-known one about Helen Keller and her progression from the use of the sign to possession of symbols. The story begins when her teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, one day casually spelled out the word "water" for her. I now read directly from Mrs. Sullivan's account of Helen Keller's life and education, quoted at greater length by Cassirer: This morning, while she [Helen] was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water." When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after breakfast . . . [Later on] we went out to the pump house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon the sen- sation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. From this moment, Helen Keller knew that a word can have things, that, to quote Cassirer, "the symbolic function is not restricted to particular cases but is a principle of universal applicability."' Words had become in- struments of thought. This famous case, and that of Laura Bridgman, which Cassirer also mentions, shows that human beings are not depen- dent entirely on the quality of their sense impressions. The cultural world is not based on materials but on its form and structure, and this form can be expressed in any sense material. Further, form and structure are al- ways seen as function. One of Cassirer's most important early works in the philosophy of science, his Substance and Function, concerns itself with the shift in physics from the notion of things to events, substance to function-a function that is the form or structure by which physics con- stitutes the world. This notion in science Cassirer applies with modifica- tions everywhere in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. In every case- myth, art, religion, history, science-these symbolic forms show the breakdown of the notion of a substance to be copied or represented and transform that old notion into the mobile, variable, relational, dynamic, 4. An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 34. Quoted from Helen Keller, The Story of My Life (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1902), "Supplementary Account of Helen Keller's Life and Education," 315E 5. An Essay on Man, 34-35. the romantic. Now he seems to me an important link to attitudes it would be well to recall though not necessarily call up, for the sake of the future. The story that interested Cassirer and that he retells in An Essay on Man is the well-known one about Helen Keller and her progression from the use of the sign to possession of symbols. The story begins when her teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, one day casually spelled out the word "water" for her. I now read directly from Mrs. Sullivan's account of Helen Keller's life and education, quoted at greater length by Cassirer: This morning, while she [Helen] was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water." When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after breakfast . . . [Later on] we went out to the pump house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon the sen- sation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed.' From this moment, Helen Keller knew that a word can have things, that, to quote Cassirer, "the symbolic function is not restricted to particular cases but is a principle of universal applicability."' Words had become in- struments of thought. This famous case, and that of Laura Bridgman, which Cassirer also mentions, shows that human beings are not depen- dent entirely on the quality of their sense impressions. The cultural world is not based on materials but on its form and structure, and this form can be expressed in any sense material. Further, form and structure are al- ways seen as function. One of Cassirer's most important early works in the philosophy of science, his Substance and Function, concerns itself with the shift in physics from the notion of things to events, substance to function-a function that is the form or structure by which physics con- stitutes the world. This notion in science Cassirer applies with modifica- tions everywhere in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. In every case- myth, art, religion, history, science-these symbolic forms show the breakdown of the notion of a substance to be copied or represented and transform that old notion into the mobile, variable, relational, dynamic, 4. An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, ig44), 34. Quoted from Helen Keller, The Story of My Life (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1go2), "Supplementarv Account of Helen Keller's Life and Education," 315. 5. An Essay on Man, 34-35.  Thinking Cassirer Tog Thinking Cassirer zog Thinking Cassirer reflective, constitutive world made in the symbol. Even the word "form" itself undergoes this change. In the story I have retold from Cassirer's retelling, Helen Keller came suddenly to understand the symbolism of speech, passing in the process from a more subjective state to an objective state, from an emotional atti- tude to a theoretical attitude. That was the first step. The second step was recognition that "a symbol is not only universal but extremely varia- ble."' This term "variability" is Cassirer's for Saussure's idea of the arbi- trary nature of the sign. It is characteristic of Cassirer that this term tends to express positively the power of language as an instrument. The third step was to see the symbol as belonging to a system of "relations," Cassirer's term for the linguistic "difference" of structuralism, again a pos- itive term. (I use the term "positive" not by any means to identify Cassirer with positivism, which he opposed, but to emphasize Cassirer's sense of the cultural potentiality of language.) Now the important thing about Cas- sirer on this matter is that he reminds us of the constitutive power of language, which maintains some element of referentiality, even as he ree- ognizes difference, though a difference which always belongs to some sys- tem or anti-system and is therefore relational. Cassirer holds to a connec- tion to the world even as he sees language as differential (or, as he says, relational). The connection lies in language's power to constitute, in the Kantian sense, culture. And this is what the Helen Keller story illustrates for him. In his short book Language and Myth and the late An Essay on Man, Cassirer makes reference to the old search for the origins of lan- guage and says only that language and myth must have been of a twin birth.' His Helen Keller story begins language in the individual case. Lan- guage is already there, of course, but it is discovered by the individual in its fullness, and the discovery particularizes the word all over again, rather in the way that Usener's theory posits primitive creation of the "momentary deity," a theory Cassirer mentions in Language and Mythsc Helen Keller's moment is a Crocean moment where the general term is recognized as general but in a unique context so that its constitutive power momentarily dominates its differential character and forces refer- ence. On the matter of language and this point in particular Cassirer is quite self-consciously in the debt of the neo-Kantian theorist of language Wil- 6. Ibid., 36. 7. Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1946), esp. 34. 8. H. Usener, Gtternamen (Bonn, 1896); An Essay on Man, 17ff. reflective, constitutive world made in the symbol. Even the word "form" itself undergoes this change. In the story I have retold from Cassirer's retelling, Helen Keller came suddenly to understand the symbolism of speech, passing in the process from a more subjective state to an objective state, from an emotional atti- tude to a theoretical attitude. That was the first step. The second step was recognition that "a symbol is not only universal but extremely varia- ble."' This term "variability" is Cassirer's for Saussure's idea of the arbi- trary nature of the sign. It is characteristic of Cassirer that this term tends to express positively the power of language as an instrument. The third step was to see the symbol as belonging to a system of "relations," Cassirer's term for the linguistic "difference" of structuralism, again a pos- itive term. (I use the term "positive" not by any means to identify Cassirer with positivism, which he opposed, but to emphasize Cassirer's sense of the cultural potentiality of language.) Now the important thing about Cas- sirer on this matter is that he reminds us of the constitutive power of language, which maintains some element of referentiality, even as he ree- ognizes difference, though a difference which always belongs to some sys- tem or anti-system and is therefore relational. Cassirer holds to a connec- tion to the world even as he sees language as differential (or, as he says, relational). The connection lies in language's power to constitute, in the Kantian sense, culture. And this is what the Helen Keller story illustrates for him. In his short book Language and Myth and the late An Essay on Man, Cassirer makes reference to the old search for the origins of lan- guage and says only that language and myth must have been of a twin birth.' His Helen Keller story begins language in the individual case. Lan- guage is already there, of course, but it is discovered by the individual in its fullness, and the discovery particularizes the word all over again, rather in the way that Usener's theory posits primitive creation of the "momentary deity," a theory Cassirer mentions in Language and Myth5 Helen Keller's moment is a Crocean moment where the general term is recognized as general but in a unique context so that its constitutive power momentarily dominates its differential character and forces refer- ence. On the matter of language and this point in particular Cassirer is quite self-consciously in the debt of the neo-Kantian theorist of language Wil- 6. Ibid., 36. 7. Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1946), esp. 34. 8. H. Usener, Gotternamen (Bonn, 1896); An Essay on Man, 17ff. reflective, constitutive world made in the symbol. Even the word "form" itself undergoes this change. In the story I have retold from Cassirer's retelling, Helen Keller came suddenly to understand the symbolism of speech, passing in the process from a more subjective state to an objective state, from an emotional atti- tude to a theoretical attitude. That was the first step. The second step was recognition that "a symbol is not only universal but extremely varia- ble." This term "variability" is Cassirer's for Saussure's idea of the arbi- trary nature of the sign. It is characteristic of Cassirer that this term tends to express positively the power of language as an instrument. The third step was to see the symbol as belonging to a system of "relations," Cassirer's term for the linguistic "difference" of structuralism, again a pos- itive term. (I use the term "positive" not by any means to identify Cassirer with positivism, which he opposed, but to emphasize Cassirer's sense of the cultural potentiality of language.) Now the important thing about Cas- sirer on this matter is that he reminds us of the constitutive power of language, which maintains some element of referentiality, even as he ree- ognizes difference, though a difference which always belongs to some sys- tem or anti-system and is therefore relational. Cassirer holds to a connec- tion to the world even as he sees language as differential (or, as he says, relational). The connection lies in language's power to constitute, in the Kantian sense, culture. And this is what the Helen Keller story illustrates for him. In his short book Language and Myth and the late An Essay on Man, Cassirer makes reference to the old search for the origins of lan- guage and says only that language and myth must have been of a twin birth.' His Helen Keller story begins language in the individual case. Lan- guage is already there, of course, but it is discovered by the individual in its fullness, and the discovery particularizes the word all over again, rather in the way that Usener's theory posits primitive creation of the "momentary deity," a theory Cassirer mentions in Language and Myth.' Helen Keller's moment is a Crocean moment where the general term is recognized as general but in a unique context so that its constitutive power momentarily dominates its differential character and forces refer- ence. On the matter of language and this point in particular Cassirer is quite self-consciously in the debt of the neo-Kantian theorist of language Wil- 6. Ibid., 36. 7. Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1946), esp. 34. 8. H. Usener, Gotternamen (Bonn, 1896); An Essay on Man, 17ff.  Antithetical Essays 210 Antithetical Essays 210 Antithetical Essays helm Von Humboldt. Writing in the late forties, Wilbur M. Urban re- marked: "Ernst Cassirer is, in my opinion, the first of modern phioso- phers to see the full significance of the relations of the problems of language to problems of philosophy and, therefore, the first also to de- velop a philosophy of language in the full sense of the word. " It was Cassi- rer who shifted the epistemological question to the area of language. Cas- sirer fully embraces the Humboldtian notion that "languages are not really means for representing already known truths but are rather instru- ments for discovering previously unrecognized ones"' and that "no object is possible without [language] for the psyche."" Humboldt also wrote: The least advantageous influence on any sort of interesting treatment of linguistic studies is exerted by the narrow notion that language originated as a convention and that words are nothing but signs for things or concepts which are indepen- dent of them. This view up to a point is surely correct but be- yond this point it is deadly because as soon as it begins to pre- dominate it kills all mental activity and exiles all life." Humboldt's aim here is to emphasize the constitutive element. What Cas- sirer calls the variability of the symbol allows for constant renewal of this constitutive power, since language in its relationality and variability is dy- namic, always on the move, and people gather experience into them- selves by means of it. But both Humboldt and Cassirer recognize that in another sense lan- guage is an enclosure. Humboldt says: Man thinks, feels, and lives within language alone. . . . But he senses and knows that language is only a means for him; that there is an invisible realm outside it in which he seeks to feel at home and that it is for this reason that he needs the aid of language. The most commonplace observation and the profoundest thought, both lament the inadequacy of lan- guage." 9. "Cassirer's Philosophy of Language," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Evanston: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949), 4o3. so. Von Humboldt, Humanist without Portfolio: An Anthology of the Writings of Wil- helm Von Humboldt, trans. Marianne Cowan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963), 246. u. Ibid., 293. 12. Ibid., 249. 13. Ibid., 298. helm Von Humboldt. Writing in the late forties, Wilbur M. Urban re- marked: "Ernst Cassirer is, in my opinion, the first of modern philoso- phers to see the full significance of the relations of the problems of language to problems of philosophy and, therefore, the first also to de- velop a philosophy of language in the full sense of the word."' It was Cassi- rer who shifted the epistemological question to the area of language. Cas- sirer fully embraces the Humboldtian notion that "languages are not really means for representing already known truths but are rather instru- ments for discovering previously unrecognized ones"'o and that "no object is possible without [language] for the psyche."" Humboldt also wrote: The least advantageous influence on any sort of interesting treatment of linguistic studies is exerted by the narrow notion that language originated as a convention and that words are nothing but signs for things or concepts which are indepen- dent of them. This view up to a point is surely correct but be- yond this point it is deadly because as soon as it begins to pre- dominate it kills all mental activity and exiles all life." Humboldt's aim here is to emphasize the constitutive element. What Cas- sirer calls the variability of the symbol allows for constant renewal of this constitutive power, since language in its relationality and variability is dy- namic, always on the move, and people gather experience into them- selves by means of it. But both Humboldt and Cassirer recognize that in another sense lan- guage is an enclosure. Humboldt says: Man thinks, feels, and lives within language alone.. But he senses and knows that language is only a means for him; that there is an invisible realm outside it in which he seeks to feel at home and that it is for this reason that he needs the aid of language. The most commonplace observation and the profoundest thought, both lament the inadequacy of lan- guage.' 9. "Casirer's Philosophy of Language," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Evanston: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949), 403. so. Von Humboldt, Humanist without Portfolio: An Anthology of the Wrings of Wil- helm Von Humboldt, trans. Marianne Cowan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963), 246. ss. Ibid., 293. 12. Ibid., 24g. 13. Ibid., 298. helm Von Humboldt. Writing in the late forties, Wilbur M. Urban re- marked: "Ernst Cassirer is, in my opinion, the first of modern philoso- phers to see the full significance of the relations of the problems of language to problems of philosophy and, therefore, the first also to de- velop a philosophy of language in the full sense of the word."' It was Cassi- rer who shifted the epistemological question to the area of language. Cas- sirer fully embraces the Humboldtian notion that "languages are not really means for representing already known truths but are rather instru- ments for discovering previously unrecognized ones"o and that "no object is possible without [language] for the psyche."" Humboldt also wrote: The least advantageous influence on any sort of interesting treatment of linguistic studies is exerted by the narrow notion that language originated as a convention and that words are nothing but signs for things or concepts which are indepen- dent of them. This view up to a point is surely correct but be- yond this point it is deadly because as soon as it begins to pre- dominate it kills all mental activity and exiles all life." Humboldt's aim here is to emphasize the constitutive element. What Cas- sirer calls the variability of the symbol allows for constant renewal of this constitutive power, since language in its relationality and variability is dy- namic, always on the move, and people gather experience into them- selves by means of it. But both Humboldt and Cassirer recognize that in another sense lan- guage is an enclosure. Humboldt says: Man thinks, feels, and lives within language alone.. But he senses and knows that language is only a means for him; that there is an invisible realm outside it in which he seeks to feel at home and that it is for this reason that he needs the aid of language. The most commonplace observation and the profoundest thought, both lament the inadequacy of lan- guage." 9. "Cassirer's Philosophy of Language," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Evanston: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949), 403. 1o. Von Humboldt, Humanist without Portfolio: An Anthology of the Writings of Wil- helm Von Humboldt, trans. Marianne Cowan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963), 246. ss. Ibid., 293. 12. Ibid., 24g. 13. Ibid., 298.  Thinking Cassirer Cassirer says: ass Thinking Cassirer es Thinking Cassirer Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Lan- guage, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tan- gled web of human experience." Language, you note, is something man-made, not something given by God. There was, then, an origin. But the origin can't be known. A sort of beginning shrouded in mystery might be imagined. One might fictively constitute it in the shape of Helen Keller's experience. It would be tied to personal emergence from a sign world to a symbol world at the moment when one begins the art (and science) of one's life. There are ominous metaphors in Cassirer's statement, as I am sure Paul de Man would be the first to observe-the net and the tangled web-figures that surely a student of Blake like myself cannot let pass. They are, of course, mild compared to those with which de Man himself characterizes lan- guage: figures of seduction, aberration, subterfuge, illusion, lies, under- handedness, secretiveness, pretence, deceit, and complicity. And there are others in Cassirer: Man is so "enveloped" in this web that he "cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial me- dium."" Yet Cassirer is inclined not to emphasize the sense of loss that Edward Said notices in all beginnings, or the element of trans- gression." Cassirer is interested in the other side by temperament and ethical stance; and that, today, could be his value to us. He will study language outside the limits that naturalistic assumptions create, and he will see man as the animal potentially liberated by his capacity to symbolize. But he must liberate himself, and the task never ends, for not only is the sym- bol dynamic itself, but its constitution of the cultural world never ceases to require interpretation and reinterpretation. For Cassirer man is the an- imal symbolicum. Now, as you can see, the symbol as Cassirer under- stands it is not the miraculous or theological symbol of religious tradition, 14. An Essay on Man, 25. 15. Ibid. 16. Edward Said, Beginnings (New York:Basic Books, 1975), esp. P. 353. Cassirer says: Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Lan- guage, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tan- gled web of human experience." Language, you note, is something man-made, not something given by God. There was, then, an origin. But the origin can't be known. A sort of beginning shrouded in mystery might be imagined. One might fictively constitute it in the shape of Helen Keller's experience. It would be tied to personal emergence from a sign world to a symbol world at the moment when one begins the art (and science) of one's life. There are ominous metaphors in Cassirer's statement, as I am sure Paul de Man would be the first to observe-the net and the tangled web-figures that surely a student of Blake like myself cannot let pass. They are, of course, mild compared to those with which de Man himself characterizes lan- guage: figures of seduction, aberration, subterfuge, illusion, lies, under- handedness, secretiveness, pretence, deceit, and complicity. And there are others in Cassirer: Man is so "enveloped" in this web that he "cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial me- dium."" Yet Cassirer is inclined not to emphasize the sense of loss that Edward Said notices in all beginnings, or the element of trans- gression." Cassirer is interested in the other side by temperament and ethical stance; and that, today, could be his value to us. He will study language outside the limits that naturalistic assumptions create, and he will see man as the animal potentially liberated by his capacity to symbolize. But he must liberate himself, and the task never ends, for not only is the sym- bol dynamic itself, but its constitution of the cultural world never ceases to require interpretation and reinterpretation. For Cassirer man is the an- imal symbolicum. Now, as you can see, the symbol as Cassirer under- stands it is not the miraculous or theological symbol of religious tradition, 14. An Essay on Man, a5. 15. Ibid. 16. Edward Said, Beginnings (New York:Basic Books, 1975), esp. 3. 3s3 Cassirer says: Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Lan- guage, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tan- gled web of human experience." Language, you note, is something man-made, not something given by God. There was, then, an origin. But the origin can't be known. A sort of beginning shrouded in mystery might be imagined. One might fictively constitute it in the shape of Helen Keller's experience. It would be tied to personal emergence from a sign world to a symbol world at the moment when one begins the art (and science) of one's life. There are ominous metaphors in Cassirer's statement, as I am sure Paul de Man would be the first to observe-the net and the tangled web-figures that surely a student of Blake like myself cannot let pass. They are, of course, mild compared to those with which de Man himself characterizes lan- guage: figures of seduction, aberration, subterfuge, illusion, lies, under- handedness, secretiveness, pretence, deceit, and complicity. And there are others in Cassirer: Man is so "enveloped" in this web that he "cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial me- dium."" Yet Cassirer is inclined not to emphasize the sense of loss that Edward Said notices in all beginnings, or the element of trans- gression." Cassirer is interested in the other side by temperament and ethical stance; and that, today, could be his value to us. He will study language outside the limits that naturalistic assumptions create, and he will see man as the animal potentially liberated by his capacity to symbolize. But he must liberate himself, and the task never ends, for not only is the sym- bol dynamic itself, but its constitution of the cultural world never ceases to require interpretation and reinterpretation. For Cassirer man is the an- imal symbolicum. Now, as you can see, the symbol as Cassirer under- stands it is not the miraculous or theological symbol of religious tradition, 14. An Essay on Man, 25. 15. Ibid. 16. Edward Said, Beginnings (New York:Basic Books, 1975), esp. p. 353.  Antithetical Essays 212 Antithetical Essays 212 Antithetical Essays so much deplored by Walter Benjamin." Cassirer would hold with Croce that the symbol symbolizes nothing on the other side from nature or from us. Rather, it symbolizes relations, functions, differences, which its sys- tem constitutes from human experience for the future. The symbolic al- ways has a further potential of meaning, and this idea, though not, I think developed adequately by Cassirer is, nevertheless, an important reflec- tion of his general attitude and ethic, which connects the use of language with spiritual growth. The notion of reference implicit in the constitutive symbolic system- system as reference-makes it possible, as Cassirer shows in his Sub- stance and Function," to evade the necessity of a material object of refer- ence and to constitute the world of physics as one of functions. Helen Keller constituted the idea of water in the word as physics constitutes function as substance or, shall we say, dissolves the idea of substance in function. Helen Keller made possible a life for herself, which she had been shut out from until the age of seven. "What's water but the gener- ated soul?" asks Yeats, whose line might be an epigraph for the Helen Keller story." Cassirer says: In the usual logical view, the concept is born only when the signification of the word is sharply delineated and unambigu- ously fixed through definition according to genus proximum and differentia specifia. But to penetrate to the ultimate source of the concept, our thinking must go back to a deeper stratum, must seek those factors of synthesis and analysis which are at work in the process of word formation itself, and which are decisive for the ordering of all our representations according to specific linguistic categories.nD When water generated Helen Keller's spirit or Helen Keller projected her spirit into "water," a polarity also occurred; as Urban remarks, "With- out the element of polarity, and therefore of the reference of the presenta- tion to that which is presented, that is without some elements of repre- sentation, the entire notion of knowledge collapses."" Cassirer displaces 17. The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborn (London: NLB, 1977), esp. 159-85 18. Substance and Function (1910) and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, trans. W. C. and M. C. Swabey (Chicago and London: Open Court Press, 1923). 19. "Coote Park and Ballylee, 1931," Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, ig6), 239- 20. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim, I: "Language" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 280. 21. "Cassirer's Philosophy of Language," 413. so much deplored by Walter Benjamin." Cassirer would hold with Croce that the symbol symbolizes nothing on the other side from nature or from us. Rather, it symbolizes relations, functions, differences, which its sys- tem constitutes from human experience for the future. The symbolic al- ways has a further potential of meaning, and this idea, though not, I think developed adequately by Cassirer is, nevertheless, an important reflec- tion of his general attitude and ethic, which connects the use of language with spiritual growth. The notion of reference implicit in the constitutive symbolic system- system as reference-makes it possible, as Cassirer shows in his Sub- stance and Function," to evade the necessity of a material object of refer- ence and to constitute the world of physics as one of functions. Helen Keller constituted the idea of water in the word as physics constitutes function as substance or, shall we say, dissolves the idea of substance in function. Helen Keller made possible a life for herself, which she had been shut out from until the age of seven. "What's water but the gener- ated soul?" asks Yeats, whose line might be an epigraph for the Helen Keller story." Cassirer says: In the usual logical view, the concept is born only when the signification of the word is sharply delineated and unambigu- ously fixed through definition according to genus proximum and differentia speciia. But to penetrate to the ultimate source of the concept, our thinking must go back to a deeper stratum, must seek those factors of synthesis and analysis which are at work in the pocess of word formation itself, and which are decisive for the ordering of all our representations according to specific linguistic categories.5 When water generated Helen Keller's spirit or Helen Keller projected her spirit into "water," a polarity also occurred; as Urban remarks, "With- out the element of polarity, and therefore of the reference of the presenta- tion to that which is presented, that is without some elements of repre- sentation, the entire notion of knowledge collapses." Cassirer displaces 17. The Origin ofGerman Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborn (Laondon: NLB, 1977), esp. 159-85-. 18. Substance and Function (191o) and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, trans. W. C. and M. C. Swabey (Chicago and London: Open Court Press, 1923). i9. "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931," Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 239. 20. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim, I: "Language" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 280. 21. "Cassirer's Philosophy of Language," 413. so much deplored by Walter Benjamin." Cassirer would hold with Croce that the symbol symbolizes nothing on the other side from nature or from us. Rather, it symbolizes relations, functions, differences, which its sys- tem constitutes from human experience for the future. The symbolic al- ways has a further potential of meaning, and this idea, though not, I think developed adequately by Cassirer is, nevertheless, an important reflec- tion of his general attitude and ethic, which connects the use of language with spiritual growth. The notion of reference implicit in the constitutive symbolic system- system as reference-makes it possible, as Cassirer shows in his Sub- stance and Function," to evade the necessity of a material object of refer- ence and to constitute the world of physics as one of functions. Helen Keller constituted the idea of water in the word as physics constitutes function as substance or, shall we say, dissolves the idea of substance in function. Helen Keller made possible a life for herself, which she had been shut out from until the age of seven. "What's water but the gener- ated soul?" asks Yeats, whose line might be an epigraph for the Helen Keller story."9 Cassirer says: In the usual logical view, the concept is born only when the signification of the word is sharply delineated and unambigu- ously fixed through definition according to genus proximum and differentia specifia. But to penetrate to the ultimate source of the concept, our thinking must go back to a deeper stratum, must seek those factors of synthesis and analysis which are at work in the process of word formation itself, and which are decisive for the ordering of all our representations according to specific linguistic categories.a When water generated Helen Keller's spirit or Helen Keller projected her spirit into "water," a polarity also occurred; as Urban remarks, "With- out the element of polarity, and therefore of the reference of the presenta- tion to that which is presented, that is without some elements of repre- sentation, the entire notion of knowledge collapses."" Cassirer displaces 17. The Origin of eran Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborn (London: NLB, 1977), esp. 159-85. 18. Substance and Function (1910) and Einstein's Theory of Relatvity, trans. W. C. and M. C. Swabey (Chicago and London: Open Court Press, 1923). 19. "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931," Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 239. 20. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forns, trans. Ralph Manheim, I: "Language" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 280. 21. "Cassirer's Philosophy of Language," 413.  Thinking Cassirer 213 Thinking Cassirer 213 Thinking Cassirer the polarity itself into language as a symbolic form-or almost, for I think he was not as radical as he could have been in this matter. By this I mean that the polarity of subject-object regarded as a product of language be- comes a category of the symbolic form of science. That Cassirer employs the term "relation" rather than "difference," for the most part, emphasizes his notion of the synthetic process of language as thought generating wholes from differences, which the wholes then contain. Language, then, is for Cassirer neither closed, nor open, or it is both closed and open. It is referential by means of its relationality and constitutive power. It is "fictive," in the sense of making, a term Cassirer takes over from the mathematician Heinrich Hertz, though he could have gotten it from Vaihinger and elsewhere.0 However, Cassirer would no doubt have rebelled against Vaihinger's neo-Kantian critical positivism. Language is a vehicle of making; the idea of the made henceforth takes the place, for the most part, of truth. But Cassirer does not deny that this forming, making language can go wrong. It often does: The philosophy of language is here confronted with the same dilemma as appears in the study of every symbolic form. The highest, indeed the only, task of all these forms is to unite men. But none of them can bring about this unity without at the same time dividing and separating men. Thus what was intended to secure the harmony of culture becomes the source of the deepest discords and discussions. This is the great an- tinomy of the religious life. This same dialectic appears in human speech. Without speech there would be no community of men. Yet there is no more serious obstacle to such commu- nity than the diversity of speech. One cannot help noting here the curious remark that language was "in- tended to secure the harmony of culture." By whom? By a God who gave language to man? Then certainly language cannot be called a human achievement. By man who consciously invented it? Impossible. Man was not man before language. A slip? The ghost of theology? Perhaps. I delib- erately resist the temptation of deconstruction for the possibility and the risk of construction: Cassirer must, indeed has to, (at least I want him to) mean that language embodies the possibility of attaining a cultural 22. Hertz, Die Prinzipien der Mechanik (Leipzig: F. A. Barth, s894); Hans Vaihinger, The Philosophy of As If, trans. C. K. Ogden (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). 23. An Essay on Man, 129-30. the polarity itself into language as a symbolic form-or almost, for I think he was not as radical as he could have been in this matter. By this I mean that the polarity of subject-object regarded as a product of language be- comes a category of the symbolic form of science. That Cassirer employs the term "relation" rather than "difference," for the most part, emphasizes his notion of the synthetic process of language as thought generating wholes from differences, which the wholes then contain. Language, then, is for Cassirer neither closed, nor open, or it is both closed and open. It is referential by means of its relationality and constitutive power. It is "fictive," in the sense of making, a term Cassirer takes over from the mathematician Heinrich Hertz, though he could have gotten it from Vaihinger and elsewhere.' However, Cassirer would no doubt have rebelled against Vaihinger's neo-Kantian critical positivism. Language is a vehicle of making; the idea of the made henceforth takes the place, for the most part, of truth. But Cassirer does not deny that this forming, making language can go wrong. It often does: The philosophy of language is here confronted with the same dilemma as appears in the study of every symbolic form. The highest, indeed the only, task of all these forms is to unite men. But none of them can bring about this unity without at the same time dividing and separating men. Thus what was intended to secure the harmony of culture becomes the source of the deepest discords and discussions. This is the great an- tinomy of the religious life. This same dialectic appears in human speech. Without speech there would be no community of men. Yet there is no more serious obstacle to such commu- nity than the diversity of speech.n One cannot help noting here the curious remark that language was "in- tended to secure the harmony of culture." By whom? By a God who gave language to man? Then certainly language cannot be called a human achievement. By man who consciously invented it? Impossible. Man was not man before language. A slip? The ghost of theology? Perhaps. I delib- erately resist the temptation of deconstruction for the possibility and the risk of construction: Cassirer must, indeed has to, (at least I want him to) mean that language embodies the possibility of attaining a cultural zz. Hertz, Die Prinzipien der Mechanik (Leipzig: F. A. Barth, 1894); Hans Vaihinger, The Philosophy of As If, trans. C. K. Ogden (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). z3. An Essay on Man, 129-30. the polarity itself into language as a symbolic form-or almost, for I think he was not as radical as he could have been in this matter. By this I mean that the polarity of subject-object regarded as a product of language be- comes a category of the symbolic form of science. That Cassirer employs the term "relation" rather than "difference," for the most part, emphasizes his notion of the synthetic process of language as thought generating wholes from differences, which the wholes then contain. Language, then, is for Cassirer neither closed, nor open, or it is both closed and open. It is referential by means of its relationality and constitutive power. It is "fictive," in the sense of making, a term Cassirer takes over from the mathematician Heinrich Hertz, though he could have gotten it from Vaihinger and elsewhere.a However, Cassirer would no doubt have rebelled against Vaihinger's neo-Kantian critical positivism. Language is a vehicle of making; the idea of the made henceforth takes the place, for the most part, of truth. But Cassirer does not deny that this forming, making language can go wrong. It often does: The philosophy of language is here confronted with the same dilemma as appears in the study of every symbolic form. The highest, indeed the only, task of all these forms is to unite men. But none of them can bring about this unity without at the same time dividing and separating men. Thus what was intended to secure the harmony of culture becomes the source of the deepest discords and discussions. This is the great an- tinomy of the religious life. This same dialectic appears in human speech. Without speech there would be no community of men. Yet there is no more serious obstacle to such commu- nity than the diversity of speech." One cannot help noting here the curious remark that language was "in- tended to secure the harmony of culture." By whom? By a God who gave language to man? Then certainly language cannot be called a human achievement. By man who consciously invented it? Impossible. Man was not man before language. A slip? The ghost of theology? Perhaps. I delib- erately resist the temptation of deconstruction for the possibility and the risk of construction: Cassirer must, indeed has to, (at least I want him to) mean that language embodies the possibility of attaining a cultural so. Hertz, Die Prinzipien der Mechanik (Leipzig: F. A. Barth, 1894); Hans Vaihinger, The Philosophy of As If, trans. C. K. Ogden (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925). 23. An Essay on Man, 1293-o.  Antithetical Essays 214 Antithetical Essays 214 Antithetical Essays whole of differences. But this whole is imagined not as a fixed substance but as on the move, as function. It should be noted too that Cassirer's notion of language is fundamentally not that of communication, but rather of creation. Still, creation can go as easily wrong as communication, and Cassirer is well aware of this. But for him language is fundamentally all we have, for better or for worse. He hopes it can be for better. Also one notes that when language goes wrong, it ought to be regarded as doing so not vis-A-vis some truth independent of function but vis-a-vis making a liveable culture, which suggests that truth is relative to the nature of each form of the symbolic and is a product of those forms rather than something retrieved by them. This, in turn, suggests that symbolic forms generate an ethic of human relations. The ethical world, for Cassirer, is never given. It is always in the making. Cassirer tried to broaden epistemology beyond the boundaries of sci- entific cognition where the Marburg neo-Kantians left it. He chose this path rather than the rejection of epistemology characteristic of modern phenomenology. He himself began as a student of scientific cognition, but his development was toward consideration of other ways of knowing or making. These ways are themselves systems or symbolic forms. In addi- tion to language, the fundamental or primordial form is mythical thought. On the matter of myth Cassirer's principal forebears are Vico, Herder, and Schelling. From Vico he takes the idea of "poetic logic and imagina- tive universals" as well as the idea of trying to know something from in- side itself even while maintaining the polarity necessary to knowledge. In The New Science, Vico speaks of the difficulty of such a vantage: "We had to descend from these human and refined natures of ours to those quite wild and savage natures, which we cannot at all imagine and can contemplate only with great effort."" Cassirer writes: "We cannot reduce myth to certain fixed static elements; we must strive to grasp it in its inner life, in its mobility and diversity, in its dynamic principle."I These words embody description of what Cassirer means by a phenomenological ap- proach. He uses the term in a roughly Hegelian sense of understanding from within and grasping the whole in the form of its internal rela- tions. "Myth" for Cassirer does not mean "myths" but the dynamic which gives rise to them. He rejects the tradition of allegorical interpretation of myths as of no use in determining the dynamic of myth. He accepts z4. The Nae Science of Giambattista Vies, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 100. 25. An Essay on Man, 76. whole of differences. But this whole is imagined not as a fixed substance but as on the move, as function. It should be noted too that Cassirer's notion of language is fundamentally not that of communication, but rather of creation. Still, creation can go as easily wrong as communication, and Cassirer is well aware of this. But for him language is fundamentally all we have, for better or for worse. He hopes it can be for better. Also one notes that when language goes wrong, it ought to be regarded as doing so not vis-a-vis some truth independent of function but vis-a-vis making a liveable culture, which suggests that truth is relative to the nature of each form of the symbolic and is a product of those forms rather than something retrieved by them. This, in turn, suggests that symbolic forms generate an ethic of human relations. The ethical world, for Cassirer, is never given. It is always in the making. Cassirer tried to broaden epistemology beyond the boundaries of sci- entific cognition where the Marburg neo-Kantians left it. He chose this path rather than the rejection of epistemology characteristic of modern phenomenology. He himself began as a student of scientific cognition, but his development was toward consideration of other ways of knowing or making. These ways are themselves systems or symbolic forms. In addi- tion to language, the fundamental or primordial form is mythical thought. On the matter of myth Cassirer's principal forebears are Vico, Herder, and Schelling. From Vico he takes the idea of "poetic logic and imagina- tive universals" as well as the idea of trying to know something from in- side itself even while maintaining the polarity necessary to knowledge. In The New Science, Vico speaks of the difficulty of such a vantage: "We had to descend from these human and refined natures of ours to those quite wild and savage natures, which we cannot at all imagine and can contemplate only with great effort."' Cassirer writes: "We cannot reduce myth to certain fixed static elements; we must strive to grasp it in its inner life, in its mobility and diversity, in its dynamic principle. " These words embody description of what Cassirer means by a phenomenological ap- proach. He uses the term in a roughly Hegelian sense of understanding from within and grasping the whole in the form of its internal rela- tions. "Myth" for Cassirer does not mean "myths" but the dynamic which gives rise to them. He rejects the tradition of allegorical interpretation of myths as of no use in determining the dynamic of myth. He accepts a4. The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 100. 25. An Essay on Man, 76. whole of differences. But this whole is imagined not as a fixed substance but as on the move, as function. It should be noted too that Cassirer's notion of language is fundamentally not that of communication, but rather of creation. Still, creation can go as easily wrong as communication, and Cassirer is well aware of this. But for him language is fundamentally all we have, for better or for worse. He hopes it can be for better. Also one notes that when language goes wrong, it ought to be regarded as doing so not vis-a-vis some truth independent of function but vis-a-vis making a liveable culture, which suggests that truth is relative to the nature of each form of the symbolic and is a product of those forms rather than something retrieved by them. This, in turn, suggests that symbolic forms generate an ethic of human relations. The ethical world, for Cassirer, is never given. It is always in the making. Cassirer tried to broaden epistemology beyond the boundaries of sci- entific cognition where the Marburg neo-Kantians left it. He chose this path rather than the rejection of epistemology characteristic of modern phenomenology. He himself began as a student of scientific cognition, but his development was toward consideration of other ways of knowing or making. These ways are themselves systems or symbolic forms. In addi- tion to language, the fundamental or primordial form is mythical thought. On the matter of myth Cassirer's principal forebears are Vico, Herder, and Schelling. From Vico he takes the idea of "poetic logic and imagina- tive universals" as well as the idea of trying to know something from in- side itself even while maintaining the polarity necessary to knowledge. In The New Science, Vico speaks of the difficulty of such a vantage: "We had to descend from these human and refined natures of ours to those quite wild and savage natures, which we cannot at all imagine and can contemplate only with great effort. " Cassirer writes: "We cannot reduce myth to certain fixed static elements; we must strive to grasp it in its inner life, in its mobility and diversity, in its dynamic principle."' These words embody description of what Cassirer means by a phenomenological ap- proach. He uses the term in a roughly Hegelian sense of understanding from within and grasping the whole in the form of its internal rela- tions. "Myth" for Cassirer does not mean "myths" but the dynamic which gives rise to them. He rejects the tradition of allegorical interpretation of myths as of no use in determining the dynamic of myth. He accepts 24. The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 10m. 25. An Essay on Man, 76.  Thinking Cassirer 215 Thinking Cassirer 215 Thinking Cassirer 215 what he regarded as Vico's notion of mythical thought as an independent configuring power of human consciousness. He emphasizes the creative element in Vice's notion of the poetic and turns the imagistic element into the creative. He thinks that Schelling's characterization of myth as requiring "tautegorical" interpretation expresses a similar attitude,a but he is suspicious of Schelling's tendency to blur all difference. Myth is one of the means by which consciousness moves from passive captivity in sense to a world of its own theoretical creations. He would, I think, accept Levi-Strauss' characterization of myth as a "science of the concrete" only if one were to allow the term "science" to enlarge itself to contain other forms of making from that of normal science. This would have to include the rule of metaphorical relation. In Cassirer's view this means that one tries to grasp myth on its own terms. These matters are discussed at length in volume two of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Myth, on the whole, operates with "concrete unifying images" instead of ideal rela- tional forms. In scientific cognition relation comes between elements as an ideal signification, but in myth there is simply a concrescence or coin- cidence of the members of a relation." The ground here seems to be one of the sort of relation implicit in the tropes of metaphor and synecdoche, freed of their rationalistic, rhetorical definitions. In the cultural world myth eventuates in arts and religion, which are two quite different forms. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms stops just short of a discussion of art or of a systematic, or let us say anti-systematic, discussion of tropes. I say his discussion would have to have an element of anti-system (by way of irony about his predicament) in order to keep trying to see myth from its own point of view-an impossibility, of course, because in myth there is no point of view, no subject or object. Still the effort is the important thing, and has an ethical element and achieves a balance. In An Essay on Man the chapter on art leaves us somewhat dissatisfied because of a fundamental ambiguity in Cassirer's approach, not this critical balance which would seem to be necessary between rational and aesthetic consti- tution. The ambiguity arises because Cassirer's discussion of art and lan- guage draws a contrast between art and language even though most of his examples of art are linguistic in nature. Further, he has already treated language and myth, which prefigures art, as a twin birth. This problem has its roots in a scientific positivism that lingers in his vocabulary. In considering language, he tends to assume that language's progressive de- velopment is strictly toward the conceptual abstractions of science. Lan- 26. Schelling, Philmophie der Mythologie (1856); Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 4. 27. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 1I, 64. what he regarded as Vico's notion of mythical thought as an independent configuring power of human consciousness. He emphasizes the creative element in Vico's notion of the poetic and turns the imagistic element into the creative. He thinks that Schelling's characterization of myth as requiring "tautegorical" interpretation expresses a similar attitude,"but he is suspicious of Schelling's tendency to blur all difference. Myth is one of the means by which consciousness moves from passive captivity in sense to a world of its own theoretical creations. He would, I think, accept L6vi-Strauss' characterization of myth as a "science of the concrete" only if one were to allow the term "science" to enlarge itself to contain other forms of making from that of normal science. This would have to include the rule of metaphorical relation. In Cassirer's view this means that one tries to grasp myth on its own terms. These matters are discussed at length in volume two of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Myth, on the whole, operates with "concrete unifying images" instead of ideal rela- tional forms. In scientific cognition relation comes between elements as an ideal signification, but in myth there is simply a concrescence or coin- cidence of the members of a relation." The ground here seems to be one of the sort of relation implicit in the tropes of metaphor and synecdoche, freed of their rationalistic, rhetorical definitions. In the cultural world myth eventuates in arts and religion, which are two quite different forms. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms stops just short of a discussion of art or of a systematic, or let us say anti-systematic, discussion of tropes. I say his discussion would have to have an element of anti-system (by way of irony about his predicament) in order to keep trying to see myth from its own point of view-an impossibility, of course, because in myth there is no point of view, no subject or object. Still the effort is the important thing, and has an ethical element and achieves a balance. In An Essay on Man the chapter on art leaves us somewhat dissatisfied because of a fundamental ambiguity in Cassirer's approach, not this critical balance which would seem to be necessary between rational and aesthetic consti- tution. The ambiguity arises because Cassirer's discussion of art and lan- guage draws a contrast between art and language even though most of his examples of art are linguistic in nature. Further, he has already treated language and myth, which prefigures art, as a twin birth. This problem has its roots in a scientific positivism that lingers in his vocabulary. In considering language, he tends to assume that language's progressive de- velopment is strictly toward the conceptual abstractions of science. Lan- 26. Schelhing, Philosophie der Mythologie (1856); Philosophy of Symbolic Fors II, 4. 27. Philosophy of Symbolic Forns II, 64. what he regarded as Vice's notion of mythical thought as an independent configuring power of human consciousness. He emphasizes the creative element in Vico's notion of the poetic and turns the imagistic element into the creative. He thinks that Schelling's characterization of myth as requiring "tautegorical" interpretation expresses a similar attitude," but he is suspicious of Schelling's tendency to blur all difference. Myth is one of the means by which consciousness moves from passive captivity in sense to a world of its own theoretical creations. He would, I think, accept Levi-Strauss' characterization of myth as a "science of the concrete" only if one were to allow the term "science" to enlarge itself to contain other forms of making from that of normal science. This would have to include the rule of metaphorical relation. In Cassirer's view this means that one tries to grasp myth on its own terms. These matters are discussed at length in volume two of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Myth, on the whole, operates with "concrete unifying images" instead of ideal rela- tional forms. In scientific cognition relation comes between elements as an ideal signification, but in myth there is simply a concrescence or coin- cidence of the members of a relation." The ground here seems to be one of the sort of relation implicit in the tropes of metaphor and synecdoche, freed of their rationalistic, rhetorical definitions. In the cultural world myth eventuates in arts and religion, which are two quite different forms. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms stops just short of a discussion of art or of a systematic, or let us say anti-systematic, discussion of tropes. I say his discussion would have to have an element of anti-system (by way of irony about his predicament) in order to keep trying to see myth from its own point of view-an impossibility, of course, because in myth there is no point of view, no subject or object. Still the effort is the important thing, and has an ethical element and achieves a balance. In An Essay on Man the chapter on art leaves us somewhat dissatisfied because of a fundamental ambiguity in Cassirer's approach, not this critical balance which would seem to be necessary between rational and aesthetic consti- tution. The ambiguity arises because Cassirer's discussion of art and lan- guage draws a contrast between art and language even though most of his examples of art are linguistic in nature. Further, he has already treated language and myth, which prefigures art, as a twin birth. This problem has its roots in a scientific positivism that lingers in his vocabulary. In considering language, he tends to assume that language's progressive de- velopment is strictly toward the conceptual abstractions of science. Lan- 26. Schelling, Philosophie der Mythologie (1856); Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 4. 27. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 64.  16 Antithetical Essays guage, in this view, gradually emancipates itself from myth. Art is con- trasted to language and science by being shown to perform another function. Language and science abbreviate reality, while art intensifies it: Language and science depend upon one and the same process of abstraction; art may be described as a continuous process of concretion. In our specific description of a given object we begin with a great number of observations which at first sight are only a loose conglomerate of detached facts. But the far- ther we proceed the more these individual phenomena tend to assume a definite shape and become a systematic whole. What science is searching for is some central feature of a given object from which all its particular qualities may be derived. . . . But art does not admit of this sort of conceptual simplifi- cation and deductive generalization. It does not inquire into the qualities or causes of things; it gives us intuition of the form of things. But this too is by no means a mere repetition of something we had before." This statement unfortunately suggests an "actual" world that can be known and that can be abbreviated or intensified. But Cassirer's basic view, to which he comes at the end, is that knowledge is made symboli- cally, not copied from a previous given. There is a more difficult problem: The distinction between art and language leaves poetry in the void unless Cassirer is prepared to make an addendum that offers a theory of the po- etic use of language as somehow special and explains its nature. But his theory of myth as born a twin with language ought to lead him to a notion not of the special nature of the poetic but rather of the scientific. The relation of myth to art awaits development here, for in Cassirer art clearly ought to be regarded as surpassing myth in the direction of the emanci- pated Viconian "imaginative universal" as science does in the direction of the "abstract universal." Cassirer's last work, The Myth of the State, wor- ries the dangers of a myth not surpassed." It stands, incidentally, as an answer to those who thought Cassirer saw all through rose-colored glasses. The analogy of literary art and myth would appropriately begin for Cas- sirer with their common opposition to the subject/object distinction char- 28. An Essay on Man, 143. 29. The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946). Antithetical Essays z16 Antithetical Essays guage, in this view, gradually emancipates itself from myth. Art is con- trasted to language and science by being shown to perform another function. Language and science abbreviate reality, while art intensifies it: Language and science depend upon one and the same process of abstraction; art may be described as a continuous process of concretion. In our specific description of a given object we begin with a great number of observations which at first sight are only a loose conglomerate of detached facts. But the far- ther we proceed the more these individual phenomena tend to assume a definite shape and become a systematic whole. What science is searching for is some central feature of a given object from which all its particular qualities may be derived. . . . But art does not admit of this sort of conceptual simplifi- cation and deductive generalization. It does not inquire into the qualities or causes of things; it gives us intuition of the form of things. But this too is by no means a mere repetition of something we had before." This statement unfortunately suggests an "actual" world that can be known and that can be abbreviated or intensified. But Cassirer's basic view, to which he comes at the end, is that knowledge is made symboli- cally, not copied from a previous given. There is a more difficult problem: The distinction between art and language leaves poetry in the void unless Cassirer is prepared to make an addendum that offers a theory of the po- etic use of language as somehow special and explains its nature. But his theory of myth as born a twin with language ought to lead him to a notion not of the special nature of the poetic but rather of the scientific. The relation of myth to art awaits development here, for in Cassirer art clearly ought to be regarded as surpassing myth in the direction of the emanci- pated Viconian "imaginative universal" as science does in the direction of the "abstract universal." Cassirer's last work, The Myth of the State, wor- ries the dangers of a myth not surpassed.n It stands, incidentally, as an answer to those who thought Cassirer saw all through rose-colored glasses. The analogy of literary art and myth would appropriately begin for Cas- sirer with their common opposition to the subject/object distinction char- 28. An Essay on Man, 143. a9. The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946). guage, in this view, gradually emancipates itself from myth. Art is con- trasted to language and science by being shown to perform another function. Language and science abbreviate reality, while art intensifies it: Language and science depend upon one and the same process of abstraction; art may be described as a continuous process of concretion. In our specific description of a given object we begin with a great number of observations which at first sight are only a loose conglomerate of detached facts. But the far- ther we proceed the more these individual phenomena tend to assume a definite shape and become a systematic whole. What science is searching for is some central feature of a given object from which all its particular qualities may be derived. . . . But art does not admit of this sort of conceptual simplifi- cation and deductive generalization. It does not inquire into the qualities or causes of things; it gives us intuition of the form of things. But this too is by no means a mere repetition of something we had before.0 This statement unfortunately suggests an "actual" world that can be known and that can be abbreviated or intensified. But Cassirer's basic view, to which he comes at the end, is that knowledge is made symboli- cally, not copied from a previous given. There is a more difficult problem: The distinction between art and language leaves poetry in the void unless Cassirer is prepared to make an addendum that offers a theory of the po- etic use of language as somehow special and explains its nature. But his theory of myth as born a twin with language ought to lead him to a notion not of the special nature of the poetic but rather of the scientific. The relation of myth to art awaits development here, for in Cassirer art clearly ought to be regarded as surpassing myth in the direction of the emanci- pated Viconian "imaginative universal" as science does in the direction of the "abstract universal." Cassirer's last work, The Myth of the State, wor- ries the dangers of a myth not surpassed." It stands, incidentally, as an answer to those who thought Cassirer saw all through rose-colored glasses. The analogy of literary art and myth would appropriately begin for Cas- sirer with their common opposition to the subject/object distinction char- n8. An Essay on Man, 143. 29. The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946).  Thinking Cassirer 217 Thinking Cassirer 217 Thinking Cassirer 217 acteristic of science. But art differs from myth in its acceptance of the po- larity even as it opposes it. Art is conscious of its making something. Myth is not. Here Cassirer needs a distinction that opposes difference and indif- ference to identity, which includes while at the same time is contrary to both of the others; in other words a true Blakean contrariety with its own logic or (we might say) anti-logic. Cassirer never quite gets this far, and his theory of art remains ambiguous, but provocative."0 Cassirer's position, particularly vis-A-vis religion, has been strongly op- posed by modern phenomenology, sometimes unfairly. The complaint arises out of the difference between a neo-Kantian and a hermeneutic per- spective. One of the earliest phenomenological critics of Cassirer was Heidegger himself. This phenomenological criticism is, of course, im- plicit in Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics," and I shall return to their opposition when I tell my concluding story. Briefly, Cassirer treats religion as a symbolic form that arises in a so- phisticated way from mythical thinking. It is never entirely removed from its source, but it is different, too, by virtue of the way it constitutes its knowledge about the signs it employs. For religion, signs are "means of expression which, though they reveal a determinate meaning, must nec- essarily remain inadequate to it, which 'point' to this meaning but never wholly exhaust it."' Religious signs are thus allegorical, a term which is not opposed to symbol, as in so much romantic usage, but lies within it, as a mode of symbolic. It appears that Cassirer, like Walter Benjamin and others, thinks of the romantic and theological symbols as immediately fall- ing from their miraculous power of containing their signified and refer- ents (as in the Eucharist) to the arbitrary relations of allegory. Mysticism, in Cassirer's view, goes farther to reject even the religious allegorical sign as completely inadequate. In religion, the world itself is a world of signs like Baudelaire's dictionary of nature. There is always a something else from which the sign borrows its authority. Cassirer's point is that the process of allegoresis allows religion to remain in the particular while yet not being confined strictly to it, and religion depends on the tension be- tween a hidden reality and a sensuous image standing for it. It is fair to say, I think, that the contemporary phenomenologists' atti- tude toward Cassirer, arising in part from his treatment of religion, is fun- 30. For a discussion of this matter see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, esp. chaps. 8 and 12. 31. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929), trans. James S. Churchill, (Blooming- ton: Indiana University Press, 1962). 32. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 539. acteristic of science. But art differs from myth in its acceptance of the po- larity even as it opposes it. Art is conscious of its making something. Myth is not. Here Cassirer needs a distinction that opposes difference and indif- ference to identity, which includes while at the same time is contrary to both of the others; in other words a true Blakean contrariety with its own logic or (we might say) anti-logic. Cassirer never quite gets this far, and his theory of art remains ambiguous, but provocative." Cassirer's position, particularly vis-A-vis religion, has been strongly op- posed by modern phenomenology, sometimes unfairly. The complaint arises out of the difference between a neo-Kantian and a hermeneutic per- spective. One of the earliest phenomenological critics of Cassirer was Heidegger himself. This phenomenological criticism is, of course, im- plicit in Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics," and I shall return to their opposition when I tell my concluding story. Briefly, Cassirer treats religion as a symbolic form that arises in a so- phisticated way from mythical thinking. It is never entirely removed from its source, but it is different, too, by virtue of the way it constitutes its knowledge about the signs it employs. For religion, signs are "means of expression which, though they reveal a determinate meaning, must nec- essarily remain inadequate to it, which 'point' to this meaning but never wholly exhaust it."" Religious signs are thus allegorical, a term which is not opposed to symbol, as in so much romantic usage, but lies within it, as a mode of symbolic. It appears that Cassirer, like Walter Benjamin and others, thinks of the romantic and theological symbols as immediately fall- ing from their miraculous power of containing their signified and refer- ents (as in the Eucharist) to the arbitrary relations of allegory. Mysticism, in Cassirer's view, goes farther to reject even the religious allegorical sign as completely inadequate. In religion, the world itself is a world of signs like Baudelaire's dictionary of nature. There is always a something else from which the sign borrows its authority. Cassirer's point is that the process of allegoresis allows religion to remain in the particular while yet not being confined strictly to it, and religion depends on the tension be- tween a hidden reality and a sensuous image standing for it. It is fair to say, I think, that the contemporary phenomenologists' atti- tude toward Cassirer, arising in part from his treatment of religion, is fun- 30. For a discussion of this matter see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, esp. chaps. 8 and 12. 31. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929), trans. James S. Churchill, (Blooming- ton: Indiana University Press, 1962). 3z. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 239. acteristic of science. But art differs from myth in its acceptance of the po- larity even as it opposes it. Art is conscious of its making something. Myth is not. Here Cassirer needs a distinction that opposes difference and indif- ference to identity, which includes while at the same time is contrary to both of the others; in other words a true Blakean contrariety with its own logic or (we might say) anti-logic. Cassirer never quite gets this far, and his theory of art remains ambiguous, but provocative.0 Cassirer's position, particularly vis-A-vis religion, has been strongly op- posed by modern phenomenology, sometimes unfairly. The complaint arises out of the difference between a neo-Kantian and a hermeneutic per- spective. One of the earliest phenomenological critics of Cassirer was Heidegger himself. This phenomenological criticism is, of course, im- plicit in Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics," and I shall return to their opposition when I tell my concluding story. Briefly, Cassirer treats religion as a symbolic form that arises in a so- phisticated way from mythical thinking. It is never entirely removed from its source, but it is different, too, by virtue of the way it constitutes its knowledge about the signs it employs. For religion, signs are "means of expression which, though they reveal a determinate meaning, must nec- essarily remain inadequate to it, which 'point' to this meaning but never wholly exhaust it."' Religious signs are thus allegorical, a term which is not opposed to symbol, as in so much romantic usage, but lies within it, as a mode of symbolic. It appears that Cassirer, like Walter Benjamin and others, thinks of the romantic and theological symbols as immediately fall- ing from their miraculous power of containing their signified and refer- ents (as in the Eucharist) to the arbitrary relations of allegory. Mysticism, in Cassirer's view, goes farther to reject even the religious allegorical sign as completely inadequate. In religion, the world itself is a world of signs like Baudelaire's dictionary of nature. There is always a something else from which the sign borrows its authority. Cassirer's point is that the process of allegoresis allows religion to remain in the particular while yet not being confined strictly to it, and religion depends on the tension be- tween a hidden reality and a sensuous image standing for it. It is fair to say, I think, that the contemporary phenomenologists' atti- tude toward Cassirer, arising in part from his treatment of religion, is fun- 30. For a discussion of this matter see my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, esp. chaps. 8 and 12. 31. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929), trans. James S. Churchill, (Blooming- ton: Indiana University Press, 1962). 32. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II, 239.  Antithetical Essays 218 Antithetical Essays 218 Antithetical Essays damentally still that of Fritz Kaufmann's essay of the late forties: "Cassirer's philosophy," he remarks, "suffers from too much light,"" that is, too much humanism. Where, Kaufmann asks, is love and hatred, fear and trembling, shame and repentance, guilt and sin? The objection is principally against Cassirer's neo-Kantian holding to the unknowability of the ding an sich and his apparent reduction of religion simply to an- other example of human creativity-yet another symbolic form. For the phenomenologist, creativity is not all. It needs to be opposed and finally, I think, triumphed over by recognition of some greater reality that is not symbolically determinable. Cassirer, it is claimed, ignores the spiritual poverty of man, his ultimate need for divine mercy, his radical inability to "express certain experiences in an adequate way as well as his unique capacity for going into hiding by the very means of communication."" It is true that Cassirer does not dwell much on this last matter, though he recognizes it; and on the need for divine mercy I do not think he dwells at all. He certainly was in dread much of his life of what man was making. But his early work on the philosophy of science turned him toward the power of the Kantian constitutive understanding to make and the possibil- ity of its making well. When he came to art this positivity remained char- acteristic of his approach. Art he sees as a positive making rather than a constant prelude to a negative theology. In this sense, Cassirer's Apollonian attitude seems a deliberate con- trary or reprobate approach to what he saw around him and in the dark future he feared. He seems to have believed that God expresses Himself in and through man rather than dispensing punishment or mercy from some position in the sky or hiding there. This Apollonian nature Hendrik J. Pos describes in his essay "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," which con- tains the story I borrow to conclude these remarks." In 1929, Cassirer and Heidegger appeared at a symposium at Davos University on the subject of Kant. Cassirer, of course, had written extensively on and edited Kant." Heidegger's book on Kant would be reviewed by Cassirer in Kant- Studien two years later. Their differences in approaching Kant were fun- damental. Heidegger's view was that the central problem in Kant was that of the "metaphysical comprehension of being"; Kant's philosophy was one of finitude with no access to divinity. Pos remarks: 33. 'Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, SO. 34. 'Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," 843-44. 35. The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, esp. 67-69. 36. See especially Kant's Life and Thought (1918), trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1981). damentally still that of Fritz Kaufmann's essay of the late forties: "Cassirer's philosophy," he remarks, "suffers from too much light,"" that is, too much humanism. Where, Kaufmann asks, is love and hatred, fear and trembling, shame and repentance, guilt and sin? The objection is principally against Cassirer's neo-Kantian holding to the unknowability of the ding an sich and his apparent reduction of religion simply to an- other example of human creativity-yet another symbolic form. For the phenomenologist, creativity is not all. It needs to be opposed and finally, I think, triumphed over by recognition of some greater reality that is not symbolically determinable. Cassirer, it is claimed, ignores the spiritual poverty of man, his ultimate need for divine mercy, his radical inability to "express certain experiences in an adequate way as well as his unique capacity for going into hiding by the very means of communication."' It is true that Cassirer does not dwell much on this last matter, though he recognizes it; and on the need for divine mercy I do not think he dwells at all. He certainly was in dread much of his life of what man was making. But his early work on the philosophy of science turned him toward the power of the Kantian constitutive understanding to make and the possibil- ity of its making well. When he came to art this positivity remained char- acteristic of his approach. Art he sees as a positive making rather than a constant prelude to a negative theology. In this sense, Cassirer's Apollonian attitude seems a deliberate con- trary or reprobate approach to what he saw around him and in the dark future he feared. He seems to have believed that God expresses Himself in and through man rather than dispensing punishment or mercy from some position in the sky or hiding there. This Apollonian nature Hendrik J. Pos describes in his essay "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," which con- tains the story I borrow to conclude these remarks." In 1929, Cassirer and Heidegger appeared at a symposium at Davos University on the subject of Kant. Cassirer, of course, had written extensively on and edited Kant." Heidegger's book on Kant would be reviewed by Cassirer in Kant- Studien two years later. Their differences in approaching Kant were fun- damental. Heidegger's view was that the central problem in Kant was that of the "metaphysical comprehension of being"; Kant's philosophy was one of finitude with no access to divinity. Pos remarks: 33. "Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, 841. 34. "Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," 843-44. 35. The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, esp. 67-9. 36. See especially Kant's Life and Thought (1918), trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1981). damentally still that of Fritz Kaufmann's essay of the late forties: "Cassirer's philosophy," he remarks, "suffers from too much light,"" that is, too much humanism. Where, Kaufmann asks, is love and hatred, fear and trembling, shame and repentance, guilt and sin? The objection is principally against Cassirer's neo-Kantian holding to the unknowability of the ding an sick and his apparent reduction of religion simply to an- other example of human creativity-yet another symbolic form. For the phenomenologist, creativity is not all. It needs to be opposed and finally, I think, triumphed over by recognition of some greater reality that is not symbolically determinable. Cassirer, it is claimed, ignores the spiritual poverty of man, his ultimate need for divine mercy, his radical inability to "express certain experiences in an adequate way as well as his unique capacity for going into hiding by the very means of communication."' It is true that Cassirer does not dwell much on this last matter, though he recognizes it; and on the need for divine mercy I do not think he dwells at all. He certainly was in dread much of his life of what man was making. But his early work on the philosophy of science turned him toward the power of the Kantian constitutive understanding to make and the possibil- ity of its making well. When he came to art this positivity remained char- acteristic of his approach. Art he sees as a positive making rather than a constant prelude to a negative theology. In this sense, Cassirer's Apollonian attitude seems a deliberate con- trary or reprobate approach to what he saw around him and in the dark future he feared. He seems to have believed that God expresses Himself in and through man rather than dispensing punishment or mercy from some position in the sky or hiding there. This Apollonian nature Hendrik J. Pos describes in his essay "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," which con- tains the story I borrow to conclude these remarks." In 1929, Cassirer and Heidegger appeared at a symposium at Davos University on the subject of Kant. Cassirer, of course, had written extensively on and edited Kant." Heidegger's book on Kant would be reviewed by Cassirer in Kant- Studien two years later. Their differences in approaching Kant were fun- damental. Heidegger's view was that the central problem in Kant was that of the "metaphysical comprehension of being"; Kant's philosophy was one of finitude with no access to divinity. Pos remarks: 33. "Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, 841. 34. "Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," 843-44- 35. The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, esp. 67-6g. 36. See especially Kant's Life and Thought (1g18), trans. James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1981).  Tinkin Casie 219 Thikin uasie 219c Thnigmasre1 Heidegger persisted in the tenninus a quo, in the situation at the point of departure, which for him is the dominating fac- tor in all philosophizing. Cassirer aimed at the terminus ad quem, at liberation through the spiritual form, in science, practical activity, and art." The two views did not meet. About Pos' sensitive recollection one can perhaps say that "terminus" is not quite the right word since for Cassirer the task is endless. If in taking his position Heidegger had not much to say about or in behalf of science, Cassirer in his way tended to diminish religion in its usual sense, locating God in the human spirit and fictiona- lizing the relation between man and an external deity. In this matter Hei- degger and Cassirer seemed to be continuing the nineteenth-century wars of religion and science. With respect to art they clashed in a somewhat different way. Art for Heidegger, it seems to me, is subordinate to reli- gion. For Cassirer it is an independent form, part of cultural making, com- pletely secular, containing possibilities for a secular culture. If Cassirer had carried out the dialectic of symbolic forms at which he hints at the end of An Essay on Man, we would have found art and religion contrary in a positive Blakean sense. In Davos in 1929 the debate went on for some time, with Cassirer ad- mitting that metaphysical expressions are not lacking in Kant's text; but Heidegger refused to grant that the Critique of Pure Reason was aimed at the grounding of scientific knowledge of nature. Pos describes Cassirer as representing in this debate the "best in the universalistic traditions of German culture," Apollonian, the master of exposition, as he had so often shown in his writings.0 Pus describes Heidegger as sending forth "feelings of loneliness, of oppression, and of frustration, such as one has in anxious dreams, but now present in a clear and wakeful mind."u Heidegger had the ear of Germany's academic youth. The soil for the reception of his philosophy had been prepared. When the discussion ended, Cassirer of- fered his hand to Heidegger, who refused it. The man who offered his hand was forced under Naziism to resign his professorship at Hamburg in 1933 and to emigrate to Sweden, coming finally to the United States where he taught first at Yale, then at Colum- bia, until his death in exile on April 13, 1945. Heideggers' connection with or tolerance of or by the Nazi regime has been much debated, and I have no opinion about it or its relation to his 37. "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," 67. 38. Ibid., 67. 39. Ibid., 68. Heidegger persisted in the terminus a quo, in the situation at the point of departure, which for him is the dominating fac- tor in all philosophizing. Cassirer aimed at the terminus ad quem, at liberation through the spiritual form, in science, practical activity, and art." The two views did not meet. About Pos' sensitive recollection one can perhaps say that "terminus" is not quite the right word since for Cassirer the task is endless. If in taking his position Heidegger had not much to say about or in behalf of science, Cassirer in his way tended to diminish religion in its usual sense, locating God in the human spirit and fictiona- lizing the relation between man and an external deity. In this matter Hei- degger and Cassirer seemed to be continuing the nineteenth-century wars of religion and science. With respect to art they clashed in a somewhat different way. Art for Heidegger, it seems to me, is subordinate to reli- gion. For Cassirer it is an independent form, part of cultural making, com- pletely secular, containing possibilities for a secular culture. If Cassirer had carried out the dialectic of symbolic forms at which he hints at the end of An Essay on Man, we would have found art and religion contrary in a positive Blakean sense. In Davos in 1929 the debate went on for some time, with Cassirer ad- mitting that metaphysical expressions are not lacking in Kant's text; but Heidegger refused to grant that the Critique of Pure Reason was aimed at the grounding of scientific knowledge of nature. Pos describes Cassirer as representing in this debate the "best in the universalistic traditions of German culture," Apollonian, the master of exposition, as he had so often shown in his writings.0 Pos describes Heidegger as sending forth "feelings of loneliness, of oppression, and of frustration, such as one has in anxious dreams, but now present in a clear and wakeful mind."0 Heidegger had the ear of Germany's academic youth. The soil for the reception of his philosophy had been prepared. When the discussion ended, Cassirer of- fered his hand to Heidegger, who refused it. The man who offered his hand was forced under Naziism to resign his professorship at Hamburg in 1933 and to emigrate to Sweden, coming finally to the United States where he taught first at Yale, then at Colum- bia, until his death in exile on April 13, 1945. Heideggers' connection with or tolerance of or by the Nazi regime has been much debated, and I have no opinion about it or its relation to his Heidegger persisted in the terminus a quo, in the situation at the point of departure, which for him is the dominating fac- tor in all philosophizing. Cassirer aimed at the terminus ad quem, at liberation through the spiritual form, in science, practical activity, and art." The two views did not meet. About Pos' sensitive recollection one can perhaps say that "terminus" is not quite the right word since for Cassirer the task is endless. If in taking his position Heidegger had not much to say about or in behalf of science, Cassirer in his way tended to diminish religion in its usual sense, locating God in the human spirit and fictiona- lizing the relation between man and an external deity. In this matter Hei- degger and Cassirer seemed to be continuing the nineteenth-century wars of religion and science. With respect to art they clashed in a somewhat different way. Art for Heidegger, it seems to me, is subordinate to reli- gion. For Cassirer it is an independent form, part of cultural making, com- pletely secular, containing possibilities for a secular culture. If Cassirer had carried out the dialectic of symbolic forms at which he hints at the end of An Essay on Man, we would have found art and religion contrary in a positive Blakean sense. In Davos in 1929 the debate went on for some time, with Cassirer ad- mitting that metaphysical expressions are not lacking in Kant's text; but Heidegger refused to grant that the Critique of Pure Reason was aimed at the grounding of scientific knowledge of nature. Pos describes Cassirer as representing in this debate the "best in the universalistic traditions of German culture," Apollonian, the master of exposition, as he had so often shown in his writings.' Pos describes Heidegger as sending forth "feelings of loneliness, of oppression, and of frustration, such as one has in anxious dreams, but now present in a clear and wakeful mind." Heidegger had the ear of Germany's academic youth. The soil for the reception of his philosophy had been prepared. When the discussion ended, Cassirer of- fered his hand to Heidegger, who refused it. The man who offered his hand was forced under Naziism to resign his professorship at Hamburg in 1933 and to emigrate to Sweden, coming finally to the United States where he taught first at Yale, then at Colum- bia, until his death in exile on April 13, 1945. Heideggers' connection with or tolerance of or by the Nazi regime has been much debated, and I have no opinion about it or its relation to his 37. "Rcollections of Ernst Cassirer," 67. 38. Ibid., 67. 39. Ibid., 68. 37. "Rmttections of Ernst Cassirer," 67. 38. Ibid., 67. 39. Ibid., 68.  Antithetical Essays 220 Antithetical Essays zo Antithetical Essays thought. Let me say only two things. First, there is something to be pon- dered on in the offer of that hand and its refusal, and it is not just the anti-Semitism there, though there is an irony, for Vico and, I think, Edward Said would regard Cassirer as what Vico called a "Gentile," that is to say, "secular"philosopher. *Cassirer, hounded from Germany, speaks consistently of human cultural possibility, and he builds his ethic on this stance. Heidegger speaks often enough of darkness and loss, and he finds his ethic by negativity in the nothingness there. Cassirer speaks of the future of language, Heidegger of a past from which we and language fell. Second, in that moment of the proffered hand, Cassirer did in my view triumph over Heidegger, though whether there will be another triumph in the future I do not know. In any case, my aim has been not to engineer a second triumph for Cassirer, but to think him and to see both Cassirer and Heidegger-concord and discord-a pair never emptied out of time. 40. See Said, Beginnings, p- 353: "Human intelligence means for Vim the willed pespe- tration, the constantly experienced order of being. The collective human fate is far from a simple choice over extinction. It entails the historical creation (also constantly experi- enced) of an order of meaning different from (hence gentile-i.e. sthe world of the gentes and families) the order of God's sacred history." thought. Let me say only two things. First, there is something to be pon- dered on in the offer of that hand and its refusal, and it is not just the anti-Semitism there, though there is an irony, for Vico and, I think, Edward Said would regard Cassirer as what Vico called a "Gentile," that is to say, "secular" philosopher. Cassirer, hounded from Germany, speaks consistently of human cultural possibility, and he builds his ethic on this stance. Heidegger speaks often enough of darkness and loss, and he finds his ethic by negativity in the nothingness there. Cassirer speaks of the future of language, Heidegger of a past from which we and language fell. Second, in that moment of the proffered hand, Cassirer did in my view triumph over Heidegger, though whether there will be another triumph in the future I do not know. In any case, my aim has been not to engineer a second triumph for Cassirer, but to think him and to see both Cassirer and Heidegger-concord and discord-a pair never emptied out of time. 40. See Said, Beginnings, p. 353: "Human intelligence means for Vim the willed perpe- tration, the constantly experienced order of being. The collective human fate is far from a simple choice over extinction. It entails the historical creation (also mnstantly experi- enced) of an order of meaning different from (hence gentile-i.e. the world of the gentes and families) the order of God's sacred history." thought. Let me say only two things. First, there is something to be pon- dered on in the offer of that hand and its refusal, and it is not just the anti-Semitism there, though there is an irony, for Vico and, I think, Edward Said would regard Cassirer as what Vico called a "Gentile," that is to say, "secular" philosopher. 0 Cassirer, hounded from Germany, speaks consistently of human cultural possibility, and he builds his ethic on this stance. Heidegger speaks often enough of darkness and loss, and he finds his ethic by negativity in the nothingness there. Cassirer speaks of the future of language, Heidegger of a past from which we and language fell. Second, in that moment of the proffered hand, Cassirer did in my view triumph over Heidegger, though whether there will be another triumph in the future I do not know. In any case, my aim has been not to engineer a second triumph for Cassirer, but to think him and to see both Cassirer and Heidegger-concord and discord-a pair never emptied out of time. 40. See Said, Beginnings, p. 353: "Human intelligence means for Vico the willed perpe- tration, the constantly experienced order of being. The collective human fate is far from a simple choice over extinction. It entails the historical creation (also constantly experi- enced) of an order of meaning different from (hence gentile-i.e. the world of the gentes and families) the order of God's sacred history."  PART THREE PART THREE PART THREE   The Fate of Knowledge Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T. S. ELIOT, "THE ROCK The subject assigned, education and knowledge, is so vast that I trust the reader will allow me at the outset to venture some broad historical gener- alizations. I begin by inquiring into what people in western society over time have thought knowledge, or at least important knowledge, to be about. My presumption will be that education has always been regarded, in part, as the transmission of important knowledge. But the notion of what knowledge is important has changed over the ages. I speak broadly when I divide the history of attitudes toward knowledge in the West into three great phases, each of which implies different objects and aims for education, and in the third of which these objects and aims remain a mat- ter of sometimes bitter debate, advocation, resistance, and indecision. The three ages I shall call, respectively, the age of the knowledge of Being, the age of the knowledge of knowing (epistemology), and the age of the hegemony of language. I shall then proceed to a discussion of what the word "knowledge" has meant. This will be followed by an inquiry into how the word has been used in some recent well-publicized reports on education. Finally, I shall offer some brief suggestions toward a redefinition of "knowledge" and the establishment of certain kinds of aca- demic courses. A HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE It was Plato, of course, who invented a hierarchy of imitations leading at the top to pure Being or the Idea, which is regarded as the ultimate object of knowledge. In Cratylus, he summarizes, using the example of a circle: "We have then, first a name, second, a description, third, an The Fate of Knowledge Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T. S. ELIOT, 'THE ROCK" The subject assigned, education and knowledge, is so vast that I trust the reader will allow me at the outset to venture some broad historical gener- alizations. I begin by inquiring into what people in western society over time have thought knowledge, or at least important knowledge, to be about. My presumption will be that education has always been regarded, in part, as the transmission of important knowledge. But the notion of what knowledge is important has changed over the ages. I speak broadly when I divide the history of attitudes toward knowledge in the West into three great phases, each of which implies different objects and aims for education, and in the third of which these objects and aims remain a mat- ter of sometimes bitter debate, advocation, resistance, and indecision. The three ages I shall call, respectively, the age of the knowledge of Being, the age of the knowledge of knowing (epistemology), and the age of the hegemony of language. I shall then proceed to a discussion of what the word "knowledge" has meant. This will be followed by an inquiry into how the word has been used in some recent well-publicized reports on education. Finally, I shall offer some brief suggestions toward a redefinition of "knowledge" and the establishment of certain kinds of aca- demic courses. A HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE It was Plato, of course, who invented a hierarchy of imitations leading at the top to pure Being or the Idea, which is regarded as the ultimate object of knowledge. In Cratylus, he summarizes, using the example of a circle: "We have then, first a name, second, a description, third, an The Fate of Knowledge Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T. S. ELIOT, "THE ROCK" The subject assigned, education and knowledge, is so vast that I trust the reader will allow me at the outset to venture some broad historical gener- alizations. I begin by inquiring into what people in western society over time have thought knowledge, or at least important knowledge, to be about. My presumption will be that education has always been regarded, in part, as the transmission of important knowledge. But the notion of what knowledge is important has changed over the ages. I speak broadly when I divide the history of attitudes toward knowledge in the West into three great phases, each of which implies different objects and aims for education, and in the third of which these objects and aims remain a mat- ter of sometimes bitter debate, advocation, resistance, and indecision. The three ages I shall call, respectively, the age of the knowledge of Being, the age of the knowledge of knowing (epistemology), and the age of the hegemony of language. I shall then proceed to a discussion of what the word "knowledge" has meant. This will be followed by an inquiry into how the word has been used in some recent well-publicized reports on education. Finally, I shall offer some brief suggestions toward a redefinition of "knowledge" and the establishment of certain kinds of aca- demic courses. A HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE It was Plato, of course, who invented a hierarchy of imitations leading at the top to pure Being or the Idea, which is regarded as the ultimate object of knowledge. In Cratylus, he summarizes, using the example of a circle: "We have then, first a name, second, a description, third, an  Antithetical Essays 224 Antithetical Essays 224 Antithetical Essays image, and fourth, a knowledge of the object."' But beyond these, we are reminded, there is a fifth, which is the Idea itself. Names and descriptions are verbal and have the arbitrary relation to the object that characterizes language. The image is phenomenal and temporary like a model worked on a lathe. What Plato calls "knowledge of the object" is "one thing more that is found not in sounds, nor in shapes of bodies, but in minds."' This differs from the preceding three, but falls short of the real circle, which can be known fully only by proceeding up the whole hierarchy, leaving behind all but what reason reveals as the truth, not the phenomenal par- ticular but the essential Idea, for which particulars merely stand in either an arbitrary or an imitative relation. Thus true knowledge is that "essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of genera- tion and decay."' Rising above language, image, and opinion, Platonic knowledge would reside in mathematics and geometry as the avenue to the pure Idea and as the model of the proper process: . . . that which the reason itself lays hold of by the power of dialectic, treating its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards so to speak, to enable it to rise to that which re- quires no assumption and is the starting point of all, and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward to the conclusion, making no use whatever of any object of sense but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas.' The Socrates of Republic admonishes the young to study mathematics and reminds us of the ancient and continuing quarrel between philosophy and poetry.' Whether Being is lodged in the Idea or in teleological nature, as in Aristotle, the means to its apprehension is reason, and reason is identified by Plato with number. Language must, if it is to aspire to any- thing like truth, seek the condition of number, which in turn leads to the Idea or logos, the principle by which the world of flux and appearance is activated and ordered. For Plato, any education not leading to Being by rational means is false, and probably dangerous to the order of the state, which requires the i Plato, Cratylus, 342.b. 2. Ibid., 324.c. 3. Plato Republic VI, 485.a-b. 4. Ibid., VII, 51L b-c. 5. Ibid., X, 607.b. image, and fourth, a knowledge of the object."' But beyond these, we are reminded, there is a fifth, which is the Idea itself. Names and descriptions are verbal and have the arbitrary relation to the object that characterizes language. The image is phenomenal and temporary like a model worked on a lathe. What Plato calls "knowledge of the object" is "one thing more that is found not in sounds, nor in shapes of bodies, but in minds."' This differs from the preceding three, but falls short of the real circle, which can be known fully only by proceeding up the whole hierarchy, leaving behind all but what reason reveals as the truth, not the phenomenal par- ticular but the essential Idea, for which particulars merely stand in either an arbitrary or an imitative relation. Thus true knowledge is that "essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of genera- tion and decay."' Rising above language, image, and opinion, Platonic knowledge would reside in mathematics and geometry as the avenue to the pure Idea and as the model of the proper process: . . . that which the reason itself lays hold of by the power of dialectic, treating its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards so to speak, to enable it to rise to that which re- quires no assumption and is the starting point of all, and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward to the conclusion, making no use whatever of any object of sense but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas.' The Socrates of Republic admonishes the young to study mathematics and reminds us of the ancient and continuing quarrel between philosophy and poetry.' Whether Being is lodged in the Idea or in teleological nature, as in Aristotle, the means to its apprehension is reason, and reason is identified by Plato with number. Language must, if it is to aspire to any- thing like truth, seek the condition of number, which in turn leads to the Idea or logos, the principle by which the world of flux and appearance is activated and ordered. For Plato, any education not leading to Being by rational means is false, and probably dangerous to the order of the state, which requires the L Plato, Cratylus, 34b. z. Ibid., 324. . 3. Plato Republic VI, 485.a-b. 4. Ibid., VII, 51-b-c. 5. Ibid., X, 607.b. image, and fourth, a knowledge of the object."' But beyond these, we are reminded, there is a fifth, which is the Idea itself. Names and descriptions are verbal and have the arbitrary relation to the object that characterizes language. The image is phenomenal and temporary like a model worked on a lathe. What Plato calls "knowledge of the object" is "one thing more that is found not in sounds, nor in shapes of bodies, but in minds."' This differs from the preceding three, but falls short of the real circle, which can be known fully only by proceeding up the whole hierarchy, leaving behind all but what reason reveals as the truth, not the phenomenal par- ticular but the essential Idea, for which particulars merely stand in either an arbitrary or an imitative relation. Thus true knowledge is that "essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of genera- tion and decay."' Rising above language, image, and opinion, Platonic knowledge would reside in mathematics and geometry as the avenue to the pure Idea and as the model of the proper process: . . . that which the reason itself lays hold of by the power of dialectic, treating its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards so to speak, to enable it to rise to that which re- quires no assumption and is the starting point of all, and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward to the conclusion, making no use whatever of any object of sense but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas.' The Socrates of Republic admonishes the young to study mathematics and reminds us of the ancient and continuing quarrel between philosophy and poetry.' Whether Being is lodged in the Idea or in teleological nature, as in Aristotle, the means to its apprehension is reason, and reason is identified by Plato with number. Language must, if it is to aspire to any- thing like truth, seek the condition of number, which in turn leads to the Idea or logos, the principle by which the world of flux and appearance is activated and ordered. For Plato, any education not leading to Being by rational means is false, and probably dangerous to the order of the state, which requires the , Plato, Cratylus, 342.b. a. Ibid., 324.c. 3. Plato Republic VI, 485.a-b. 4. Ibid., VII, s1b-c. 5. ibid., X, 607.b.  The Fate of Knoroledge zz5 The Fate of Knowledge 225 The Fate of Knowledge governorship of reason. For centuries following Plato, the aim of knowl- edge was this logos or later, in medieval theology, God. In Plato, it is the state, maintained by the wisdom of an elite educated in reason, that stands for logos. In medieval theology, it is the Church. Both ideally control education. The age of the knowledge of knowing (or epistemology) arises with the development of modem science. In this age, knowing itself becomes an object of knowledge, whether the method is rationalism or empiricism. Otherwise knowing is aimed at phenomenal nature, and soon the human being becomes a part of that nature. If in the age of the knowledge of Being the fundamental opposition is that of appearance and Being, with Being privileged, in the age of epistemology the opposition exists entirely in the realm of what Plato called appearances. It is that of the perceiving subject and perceived object, with the object privileged. After this divi- sion is established and knowing declared to be based on it, true knowl- edge becomes knowledge of the object without the subject's interference. The object replaces logos as the residence of what Being there is. But this truth, rather than remaining located in external matter, tends to be- come idealized in the language of mathematical structures. It is of importance that the privileging of the object nevertheless pre- sents a scenario in which one begins with the subject looking outward toward the object. Coleridge, following Schelling, tried to show that given the distinction of subject and object some form of idealization was inevitable. Whether this is so or not, it is clear enough that in the age of epistemology knowledge was hewn in two, producing what William Blake called a "cloven fiction"-subjective experience divided from objec- tive knowledge. The latter was that which was amenable to verification (later falsification). The former, because connected to individual experi- ence, could not be declared to have the universality necessary to qualify it for privilege. This occurred even though the fiction had centered all knowing on human acts and a secularized natural Being. The old concerns for Being enunciated in their particular ways by Plato and by the medieval theologians remained, of course, but they lost ground after a long struggle in the universities to what was first called "natural philosophy" and finally "natural science." In this process, the dominant model for learning ceased to be language-in practice, Latin and Greek-and number was regarded as the avenue to the material world. The dominant science was physics, but the methods of experiment and systematic investigation generated new disciplines, each attempting to capture for its own prestige the valu- able verbal currency "objective knowledge." In these disciplines, the problem of the subject remained a vexation. governorship of reason. For centuries following Plato, the aim of knowl- edge was this logos or later, in medieval theology, God. In Plato, it is the state, maintained by the wisdom of an elite educated in reason, that stands for logos. In medieval theology, it is the Church. Both ideally control education. The age of the knowledge of knowing (or epistemology) arises with the development of modern science. In this age, knowing itself becomes an object of knowledge, whether the method is rationalism or empiricism. Otherwise knowing is aimed at phenomenal nature, and soon the human being becomes a part of that nature. If in the age of the knowledge of Being the fundamental opposition is that of appearance and Being, with Being privileged, in the age of epistemology the opposition exists entirely in the realm of what Plato called appearances. It is that of the perceiving subject and perceived object, with the object privileged. After this divi- sion is established and knowing declared to be based on it, true knowl- edge becomes knowledge of the object without the subject's interference. The object replaces logos as the residence of what Being there is. But this truth, rather than remaining located in external matter, tends to be- come idealized in the language of mathematical structures. It is of importance that the privileging of the object nevertheless pre- sents a scenario in which one begins with the subject looking outward toward the object. Coleridge, following Schelling, tried to show that given the distinction of subject and object some form of idealization was inevitable. Whether this is so or not, it is clear enough that in the age of epistemology knowledge was hewn in two, producing what William Blake called a "cloven fiction"-subjective experience divided from objec- tive knowledge. The latter was that which was amenable to verification (later falsification). The former, because connected to individual experi- ence, could not be declared to have the universality necessary to qualify it for privilege. This occurred even though the fiction had centered all knowing on human acts and a secularized natural Being. The old concerns for Being enunciated in their particular ways by Plato and by the medieval theologians remained, of course, but they lost ground after a long struggle in the universities to what was first called "natural philosophy" and finally "natural science." In this process, the dominant model for learning ceased to be language-in practice, Latin and Greek-and number was regarded as the avenue to the material world. The dominant science was physics, but the methods of experiment and systematic investigation generated new disciplines, each attempting to capture for its own prestige the valu- able verbal currency "objective knowledge." In these disciplines, the problem of the subject remained a vexation. governorship of reason. For centuries following Plato, the aim of knowl- edge was this logos or later, in medieval theology, God. In Plato, it is the state, maintained by the wisdom of an elite educated in reason, that stands for logos. In medieval theology, it is the Church. Both ideally control education. The age of the knowledge of knowing (or epistemology) arises with the development of modern science. In this age, knowing itself becomes an object of knowledge, whether the method is rationalism or empiricism. Otherwise knowing is aimed at phenomenal nature, and soon the human being becomes a part of that nature. If in the age of the knowledge of Being the fundamental opposition is that of appearance and Being, with Being privileged, in the age of epistemology the opposition exists entirely in the realm of what Plato called appearances. It is that of the perceiving subject and perceived object, with the object privileged. After this divi- sion is established and knowing declared to be based on it, true knowl- edge becomes knowledge of the object without the subject's interference. The object replaces logos as the residence of what Being there is. But this truth, rather than remaining located in external matter, tends to be- come idealized in the language of mathematical structures. It is of importance that the privileging of the object nevertheless pre- sents a scenario in which one begins with the subject looking outward toward the object. Coleridge, following Schelling, tried to show that given the distinction of subject and object some form of idealization was inevitable. Whether this is so or not, it is clear enough that in the age of epistemology knowledge was hewn in two, producing what William Blake called a "cloven fiction"-subjective experience divided from objec- tive knowledge. The latter was that which was amenable to verification (later falsification). The former, because connected to individual experi- ence, could not be declared to have the universality necessary to qualify it for privilege. This occurred even though the fiction had centered all knowing on human acts and a secularized natural Being. The old concerns for Being enunciated in their particular ways by Plato and by the medieval theologians remained, of course, but they lost ground after a long struggle in the universities to what was first called "natural philosophy" and finally "natural science." In this process, the dominant model for learning ceased to be language-in practice, Latin and Greek-and number was regarded as the avenue to the material world. The dominant science was physics, but the methods of experiment and systematic investigation generated new disciplines, each attempting to capture for its own prestige the valu- able verbal currency "objective knowledge." In these disciplines, the problem of the subject remained a vexation.  Antithetical Essays 226 Antithetical Essays 226 Antithetical Essays Could the subject's presence ever be eliminated as an influence on data? To what extent could social events and human behavior be mathemati- cized? Could there be such a thing as a science of the subject? A subjec- tive science? The tendency of each such science, in order to capture the power that comes with the ownership of"knowledge," was to try to objec- tify the subject or to create the concept of a body of knowledge that con- stituted the subject (or in this case "object"). In the humanities this re- sulted in the establishment of a literary canon or established object to be known. Knowing took the form of establishing texts according to devel- oped methods, of remembering them, and of interpreting them according to methods secularized from those of theology in the age of the knowledge of Being. Generally the early history of the social sciences was character- ized by an effort to establish behavioral objectivity by means of number and experiment. All of these developments were efforts to capture "knowledge" according to the new rules of the game, which were grounded in the subject/object fiction. Even as the age of epistemology reached its apotheosis it would have been possible to notice two things. First, there remained the vestiges of the age of the knowledge of Being. If we look, for example, at the writings of Dr. Johnson or the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the late eight- eenth century, we notice that the idea of what the artist presents is a curious mixture of empiricist and Platonic notions: the artist seeks that central or original form from which all other forms are deviations. Yet the artist seeks also that generality which contains the common characteristics of all the instances of the type.4 Second, the epistemological age flowers only to provide the seed for its successor, the age of the hegemony of language. The notion of the pas- sivity of the subject as a recipient of sense data capable of making nothing new of this material except rearrangements of it generated its opposite, the notion of the activity of the subject in forming the object, as in Kant's concept of the categorical understanding or Coleridge's later definitions of primary and secondary imagination. Kant did not offer a theory ac- knowledging language's role in such a process, and Coleridge's writings are full of ambiguity about language; but writers of a neo-Kantian bent from von Humboldt to Cassirer eventually offer a theory. Knowledge came to be seen as something produced rather than discovered-and produced in a variety of symbolic forms, of which the most fundamental is language 6. See "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations" 184-198. Could the subject's presence ever be eliminated as an influence on data? To what extent could social events and human behavior be mathemati- cized? Could there be such a thing as a science of the subject? A subjec- tive science? The tendency of each such science, in order to capture the power that comes with the ownership of "knowledge," was to try to objec- tify the subject or to create the concept of a body of knowledge that con- stituted the subject (or in this case "object"). In the humanities this re- sulted in the establishment of a literary canon or established object to be known. Knowing took the form of establishing texts according to devel- oped methods, of remembering them, and of interpreting them according to methods secularized from those of theology in the age of the knowledge of Being. Generally the early history of the social sciences was character- ized by an effort to establish behavioral objectivity by means of number and experiment. All of these developments were efforts to capture "knowledge" according to the new rules of the game, which were grounded in the subject/object fiction. Even as the age of epistemology reached its apotheosis it would have been possible to notice two things. First, there remained the vestiges of the age of the knowledge of Being. If we look, for example, at the writings of Dr. Johnson or the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the late eight- eenth century, we notice that the idea of what the artist presents is a curious mixture of empiricist and Platonic notions: the artist seeks that central or original form from which all other forms are deviations. Yet the artist seeks also that generality which contains the common characteristics of all the instances of the type.' Second, the epistemological age flowers only to provide the seed for its successor, the age of the hegemony of language. The notion of the pas- sivity of the subject as a recipient of sense data capable of making nothing new of this material except rearrangements of it generated its opposite, the notion of the activity of the subject in forming the object, as in Kant's concept of the categorical understanding or Coleridge's later definitions of primary and secondary imagination. Kant did not offer a theory ac- knowledging language's role in such a process, and Coleridge's writings are full of ambiguity about language; but writers of a neo-Kantian bent from von Humboldt to Cassirer eventually offer a theory. Knowledge came to be seen as something produced rather than discovered-and produced in a variety of symbolic forms, of which the most fundamental is language 6. See "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations," 184-198. Could the subject's presence ever be eliminated as an influence on data? To what extent could social events and human behavior be mathemati- cized? Could there be such a thing as a science of the subject? A subjec- tive science? The tendency of each such science, in order to capture the power that comes with the ownership of "knowledge," was to try to objec- tify the subject or to create the concept of a body of knowledge that con- stituted the subject (or in this case "object"). In the humanities this re- sulted in the establishment of a literary canon or established object to be known. Knowing took the form of establishing texts according to devel- oped methods, of remembering them, and of interpreting them according to methods secularized from those of theology in the age of the knowledge of Being. Generally the early history of the social sciences was character- ized by an effort to establish behavioral objectivity by means of number and experiment. All of these developments were efforts to capture "knowledge" according to the new rules of the game, which were grounded in the subject/object fiction. Even as the age of epistemology reached its apotheosis it would have been possible to notice two things. First, there remained the vestiges of the age of the knowledge of Being. If we look, for example, at the writings of Dr. Johnson or the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the late eight- eenth century, we notice that the idea of what the artist presents is a curious mixture of empiricist and Platonic notions: the artist seeks that central or original form from which all other forms are deviations. Yet the artist seeks also that generality which contains the common characteristics of all the instances of the type.' Second, the epistemological age flowers only to provide the seed for its successor, the age of the hegemony of language. The notion of the pas- sivity of the subject as a recipient of sense data capable of making nothing new of this material except rearrangements of it generated its opposite, the notion of the activity of the subject in forming the object, as in Kant's concept of the categorical understanding or Coleridge's later definitions of primary and secondary imagination. Kant did not offer a theory ac- knowledging language's role in such a process, and Coleridge's writings are full of ambiguity about language; but writers of a neo-Kantian bent from von Humboldt to Cassirer eventually offer a theory. Knowledge came to be seen as something produced rather than discovered-and produced in a variety of symbolic forms, of which the most fundamental is language 6. See "Revisiting Reynolds' Discourses and Blake's Annotations," 184-198.  The Fate of Knowledge 227 The Fate of Knowledge 227 The Fate of Knowledge 227 itself. Number is regarded as a refinement of language in the direction of abstraction from any referent. Artistic forms are regarded as languages that abstract toward the fictive particular. At the same time, the development of phenomenology marks an effort to replace the isolation of the subject's consciousness from objects by de- claring for intersubjectivity and transcendental consciousness, but comes to have to cope with the presence of language. It tries to establish lan- guage as a mediation where the distinction subject/object disappears; but its very retention of the term "subjectivity" tends to condemn it to the distinction it opposes. The early stages of the hegemony of language are characterized by a wrenching of the term "reality" away from the object as the privileged holder of truth passively apprehended in sense experience or copied in linguistic or mathematical formulas. The shift is to the active constitution of the object in symbolic forms, which constitution blurs and often erases the distinction between the object and knowledge of it. This bundle of object and knowledge is called by some a fiction with none of the connota- tion of untruth but all of the connotation of making that is implicit in the word's etymology. If there is an object beyond this symbolic form, one cannot know it anymore than one can know the Kantian thing-in-itself, which always remains hidden behind the understanding's operations. There is a sense that in this new age not just Being and God are re- duced to objects of faith or to words trapped in the system of language, but so is the material world itself displaced into the operations of symbolic fictions to be judged for their elegance and coherence rather than their adequacy of correspondence to a Being only constitutable in their forms in the first place. The model for all forms of knowing becomes language. But this linguistic humanism, as one might call it, with man as the cre- ator and manipulator of his languages, was soon seen to have another and darker side. Heidegger's often echoed observation that language speaks man, that man lives in language, reveals it. Though language can be treated in the way Cassirer did, as a liberation from the nearly mute con- dition of the other animals, it can also be regarded as a limitation that separates man from Being. Heidegger himself tried to relocate Being so that it could be available to human consciousness. This was attempted by striving not to recapture the word "knowledge" but to substitute the term "consciousness" itself as the privileged term, while at the same time denigrating the age of epistemology as the ominous mastery of technology over the object. Consciousness was always, according to Husserl, the consciousness of something. Yet language had to be the mediator of this something, and so the whole problem of subject/object seemed to repeat itself. Number is regarded as a refinement of language in the direction of abstraction from any referent. Artistic forms are regarded as languages that abstract toward the fictive particular. At the same time, the development of phenomenology marks an effort to replace the isolation of the subject's consciousness from objects by de- claring for intersubjectivity and transcendental consciousness, but comes to have to cope with the presence of language. It tries to establish lan- guage as a mediation where the distinction subject/object disappears; but its very retention of the term "subjectivity" tends to condemn it to the distinction it opposes. The early stages of the hegemony of language are characterized by a wrenching of the term "reality" away from the object as the privileged holder of truth passively apprehended in sense experience or copied in linguistic or mathematical formulas. The shift is to the active constitution of the object in symbolic forms, which constitution blurs and often erases the distinction between the object and knowledge of it. This bundle of object and knowledge is called by some a fiction with none of the connota- tion of untruth but all of the connotation of making that is implicit in the word's etymology. If there is an object beyond this symbolic form, one cannot know it anymore than one can know the Kantian thing-in-itself, which always remains hidden behind the understanding's operations. There is a sense that in this new age not just Being and God are re- duced to objects of faith or to words trapped in the system of language, but so is the material world itself displaced into the operations of symbolic fictions to be judged for their elegance and coherence rather than their adequacy of correspondence to a Being only constitutable in their forms in the first place. The model for all forms of knowing becomes language. But this linguistic humanism, as one might call it, with man as the cre- ator and manipulator of his languages, was soon seen to have another and darker side. Heidegger's often echoed observation that language speaks man, that man lives in language, reveals it. Though language can be treated in the way Cassirer did, as a liberation from the nearly mute con- dition of the other animals, it can also be regarded as a limitation that separates man from Being. Heidegger himself tried to relocate Being so that it could be available to human consciousness. This was attempted by striving not to recapture the word "knowledge" but to substitute the term "consciousness" itself as the privileged term, while at the same time denigrating the age of epistemology as the ominous mastery of technology over the object. Consciousness was always, according to Husserl, the consciousness of something. Yet language had to be the mediator of this something, and so the whole problem of subject/object seemed to repeat itself. Number is regarded as a refinement of language in the direction of abstraction from any referent. Artistic forms are regarded as languages that abstract toward the fictive particular. At the same time, the development of phenomenology marks an effort to replace the isolation of the subject's consciousness from objects by de- claring for intersubjectivity and transcendental consciousness, but comes to have to cope with the presence of language. It tries to establish lan- guage as a mediation where the distinction subject/object disappears; but its very retention of the term "subjectivity" tends to condemn it to the distinction it opposes. The early stages of the hegemony of language are characterized by a wrenching of the term "reality" away from the object as the privileged holder of truth passively apprehended in sense experience or copied in linguistic or mathematical formulas. The shift is to the active constitution of the object in symbolic forms, which constitution blurs and often erases the distinction between the object and knowledge of it. This bundle of object and knowledge is called by some a fiction with none of the connota- tion of untruth but all of the connotation of making that is implicit in the word's etymology. If there is an object beyond this symbolic form, one cannot know it anymore than one can know the Kantian thing-in-itself, which always remains hidden behind the understanding's operations. There is a sense that in this new age not just Being and God are re- duced to objects of faith or to words trapped in the system of language, but so is the material world itself displaced into the operations of symbolic fictions to be judged for their elegance and coherence rather than their adequacy of correspondence to a Being only constitutable in their forms in the first place. The model for all forms of knowing becomes language. But this linguistic humanism, as one might call it, with man as the cre- ator and manipulator of his languages, was soon seen to have another and darker side. Heidegger's often echoed observation that language speaks man, that man lives in language, reveals it. Though language can be treated in the way Cassirer did, as a liberation from the nearly mute con- dition of the other animals, it can also be regarded as a limitation that separates man from Being. Heidegger himself tried to relocate Being so that it could be available to human consciousness. This was attempted by striving not to recapture the word "knowledge" but to substitute the term "consciousness" itself as the privileged term, while at the same time denigrating the age of epistemology as the ominous mastery of technology over the object. Consciousness was always, according to Husserl, the consciousness of something. Yet language had to be the mediator of this something, and so the whole problem of subject/object seemed to repeat  Antithetical Essays 228 Antithetical Essays za8 Antithetical Essays itself. Further, the idea of the knowing subject or of subject-oriented knowing seemed in some views to be a product of political forces that had given rise to or came concurrently with the hegemony of the laissez- faire individual and with it economic tyranny. Perhaps, it was thought, it would be better if the concept of Man identified at least historically with this robber-baron figure (the new form of feudal lord) were to disap- pear. Therefore, the hegemony of language over Man, in the sense in which epistemological man was taken to exist, was welcomed in some quarters as politically good, that is to say, a liberation from the old idea of the isolated subject in an endless struggle to cope with or subdue and master the world around him in the form of the other object or "it." Human beings were seen as products deeply woven into cultural struc- tures, which were themselves treated on the model of linguistic systems. This meant that language itself was now the concern of knowledge as well as constituting the shape of knowing, the structure from which everything emerged and to which everything returned, like Being in the old Platonism. The model of language became the container of a variety of disciplines. But there were different models of the model. One of the most influential of these was that offered by structural linguistics usually associated with the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. This model can be seen to have operated somewhere in all of the human sciences in re- cent times-anthropology, economics, politics, psychoanalysis, and liter- ary criticism, among others. But even where structuralism did not rule, language in some sense became the center, as in ordinary-language phi- losophy and one of its outgrowths, speech-act theory. In a different way, language became the central term in the new discipline of computer sci- ence. Books entitled The Prison House of Language and The Rule of Meta- phor appeared. Eighteenth-century theorists of language like G. B. Vico were revived. Language, no longer a copy or arbitrary allegory of the real and no longer an emanation of Man, became now the ruler of men, the shaper of its own linguistic real. No longer beyond language, as Plato averred, Being (now merely being) is, if anywhere, lodged in the structure of lan- guage itself. Changes in thinking about the natural sciences have been equally pro- found, and although the model that has driven these changes has not been the structuralist one of language, it is fair to say that a concept of symbolic fictions or makings has been central. The idea of empiricism as the foun- dation of science has been largely dismissed. The whole realm of the phi- losophy of science has become a battleground since the notion has been put forward that science and its processes are governed to some consider- able extent by the social and institutional fabric in which the work is car- itself. Further, the idea of the knowing subject or of subject-oriented knowing seemed in some views to be a product of political forces that had given rise to or came concurrently with the hegemony of the laissez- faire individual and with it economic tyranny. Perhaps, it was thought, it would be better if the concept of Man identified at least historically with this robber-baron figure (the new form of feudal lord) were to disap- pear. Therefore, the hegemony of language over Man, in the sense in which epistemological man was taken to exist, was welcomed in some quarters as politically good, that is to say, a liberation from the old idea of the isolated subject in an endless struggle to cope with or subdue and master the world around him in the form of the other object or "it." Human beings were seen as products deeply woven into cultural struc- tures, which were themselves treated on the model of linguistic systems. This meant that language itself was now the concern of knowledge as well as constituting the shape of knowing, the structure from which everything emerged and to which everything returned, like Being in the old Platonism. The model of language became the container of a variety of disciplines. But there were different models of the model. One of the most influential of these was that offered by structural linguistics usually associated with the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. This model can be seen to have operated somewhere in all of the human sciences in re- cent times-anthropology, economics, politics, psychoanalysis, and liter- ary criticism, among others. But even where structuralism did not rule, language in some sense became the center, as in ordinary-language phi- losophy and one of its outgrowths, speech-act theory. In a different way, language became the central term in the new discipline of computer sci- ence. Books entitled The Prison House of Language and The Rule of Meta- phor appeared. Eighteenth-century theorists of language like G. B. Vico were revived. Language, no longer a copy or arbitrary allegory of the real and no longer an emanation of Man, became now the ruler of men, the shaper of its own linguistic real. No longer beyond language, as Plato averred, Being (now merely being) is, if anywhere, lodged in the structure of lan- guage itself. Changes in thinking about the natural sciences have been equally pro- found, and although the model that has driven these changes has not been the structuralist one of language, it is fair to say that a concept of symbolic fictions or makings has been central. The idea of empiricism as the foun- dation of science has been largely dismissed. The whole realm of the phi- losophy of science has become a battleground since the notion has been put forward that science and its processes are governed to some consider- able extent by the social and institutional fabric in which the work is car- itself. Further, the idea of the knowing subject or of subject-oriented knowing seemed in some views to be a product of political forces that had given rise to or came concurrently with the hegemony of the laissez- faire individual and with it economic tyranny. Perhaps, it was thought, it would be better if the concept of Man identified at least historically with this robber-baron figure (the new form of feudal lord) were to disap- pear. Therefore, the hegemony of language over Man, in the sense in which epistemological man was taken to exist, was welcomed in some quarters as politically good, that is to say, a liberation from the old idea of the isolated subject in an endless struggle to cope with or subdue and master the world around him in the form of the other object or "it." Human beings were seen as products deeply woven into cultural struc- tures, which were themselves treated on the model of linguistic systems. This meant that language itself was now the concern of knowledge as well as constituting the shape of knowing, the structure from which everything emerged and to which everything returned, like Being in the old Platonism. The model of language became the container of a variety of disciplines. But there were different models of the model. One of the most influential of these was that offered by structural linguistics usually associated with the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. This model can be seen to have operated somewhere in all of the human sciences in re- cent times-anthropology, economics, politics, psychoanalysis, and liter- ary criticism, among others. But even where structuralism did not rule, language in some sense became the center, as in ordinary-language phi- losophy and one of its outgrowths, speech-act theory. In a different way, language became the central term in the new discipline of computer sci- ence. Books entitled The Prison House of Language and The Rule of Meta- phor appeared. Eighteenth-century theorists of language like G. B. Vico were revived. Language, no longer a copy or arbitrary allegory of the real and no longer an emanation of Man, became now the ruler of men, the shaper of its own linguistic real. No longer beyond language, as Plato averred, Being (now merely being) is, if anywhere, lodged in the structure of lan- guage itself. Changes in thinking about the natural sciences have been equally pro- found, and although the model that has driven these changes has not been the structuralist one of language, it is fair to say that a concept of symbolic fictions or makings has been central. The idea of empiricism as the foun- dation of science has been largely dismissed. The whole realm of the phi- losophy of science has become a battleground since the notion has been put forward that science and its processes are governed to some consider- able extent by the social and institutional fabric in which the work is mar-  The Fate of Knowledge d9 The Fate of Knowledge 22g The Fate of Knowledge ried on and the nature of that work is constituted. From Michael Pslanyi's concept of "tacit knowledge" to Gerald Holton's "public science," the role of the scientist has been hemmed in and structured according to laws that have little to do with the old idea of the autonomous subject investigating an object. Even the idea of progress, so closely identified in many minds with that subject, and gradual development, in which the process of veri- fication and of falsification is the rule, have been modified in some quar- ters by the concept of relatively sudden shifts of paradigms, as expounded in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The idea of discontinuity, fissures, gaps (that is to say, differences) has dominated the revolutionary writings of Michel Foucault about the human sciences. This notion of differences is itself at the center of the structuralist model as put forth by de Saussure. Foucault's method is to treat all things on the analogy of differential systems, or, more accurately, to study rela- tions rather than things, on the ground that things are products of rela- tions rather than the other way around. Gone is the synthetic activity of the subject. Present is the "proliferation of discontinuities." The intellectual activity known as deconstruction seeks to extend structuralism to its logical and possibly absurd conclusions. At the same time, while still linguistic in its model it may well signal the passing of the apotheosis of the hegemony of language. It has its counterparts in the previous ages: the Greek skeptics and, in another aspect, the Sophists; the Berkeleyan reduction by extension of Locke's empiricism. It plays in language, from which Jacques Derrida, its leading exponent, claims we cannot escape: From this language it is necessary for us to try to free our- selves. Not actually to try to free ourselves from it, for that is impossible without forgetting our historical condition. But to imagine [rever] it. Not actually to free ourselves from it, which would be senseless and would deprive us of the light of sense. But to resist it as far as possible.' This fine honing of the problem of the age of the hegemony of language has not yet been surpassed, at least insofar as the problem is treated in terms of a particular sort of differential linguistics. Where education has not tacitly or deliberately and openly resisted the age of the hegemony of language, it has for the most part failed to enter it. To the extent that this is so, it has been a reactionary force. If this short history has had anything to it, it would appear that "knowl- 7. Jacques Derrida, GEcriture et la Difference (Paris: Seuil, 1967). (My translation.) ried on and the nature of that work is constituted. From Michael Polanyi's concept of "tacit knowledge" to Gerald Holton's "public science," the role of the scientist has been hemmed in and structured according to laws that have little to do with the old idea of the autonomous subject investigating an object. Even the idea of progress, so closely identified in many minds with that subject, and gradual development, in which the process of veri- fication and of falsification is the rule, have been modified in some quar- ters by the concept of relatively sudden shifts of paradigms, as expounded in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The idea of discontinuity, fissures, gaps (that is to say, differences) has dominated the revolutionary writings of Michel Foucault about the human sciences. This notion of differences is itself at the center of the structuralist model as put forth by de Saussure. Foucault's method is to treat all things on the analogy of differential systems, or, more accurately, to study rela- tions rather than things, on the gcound that things are products of rela- tions rather than the other way around. Gone is the synthetic activity of the subject. Present is the "proliferation of discontinuities." The intellectual activity known as deconstruction seeks to extend structuralism to its logical and possibly absurd conclusions. At the same time, while still linguistic in its model it may well signal the passing of the apotheosis of the hegemony of language. It has its counterparts in the previous ages: the Greek skeptics and, in another aspect, the Sophists; the Berkeleyan reduction by extension of Locke's empiricism. It plays in language, from which Jacques Derrida, its leading exponent, claims we cannot escape: From this language it is necessary for us to try to free our- selves. Not actually to try to free ourselves from it, for that is impossible without forgetting our historical condition. But to imagine [rever] it. Not actually to free ourselves from it, which would be senseless and would deprive us of the light of sense. But to resist it as far as possible.' This fine honing of the problem of the age of the hegemony of language has not yet been surpassed, at least insofar as the problem is treated in terms of a particular sort of differential linguistics. Where education has not tacitly or deliberately and openly resisted the age of the hegemony of language, it has for the most part failed to enter it. To the extent that this is so, it has been a reactionary force. If this short history has had anything to it, it would appear that "knowl- 7. Jacques Derrida, LEcriture et la Differnce (Paris: Seuil, 1967). (My translation.) ried on and the nature of that work is constituted. From Michael Polanyi's concept of "tacit knowledge" to Gerald Holton's "public science," the role of the scientist has been hemmed in and structured according to laws that have little to do with the old idea of the autonomous subject investigating an object. Even the idea of progress, so closely identified in many minds with that subject, and gradual development, in which the process of veri- fication and of falsification is the rule, have been modified in some quar- ters by the concept of relatively sudden shifts of paradigms, as expounded in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The idea of discontinuity, fissures, gaps (that is to say, differences) has dominated the revolutionary writings of Michel Foucault about the human sciences. This notion of differences is itself at the center of the structuralist model as put forth by de Saussure. Foucault's method is to treat all things on the analogy of differential systems, or, more accurately, to study rela- tions rather than things, on the ground that things are products of rela- tions rather than the other way around. Gone is the synthetic activity of the subject. Present is the "proliferation of discontinuities." The intellectual activity known as deconstruction seeks to extend structuralism to its logical and possibly absurd conclusions. At the same time, while still linguistic in its model it may well signal the passing of the apotheosis of the hegemony of language. It has its counterparts in the previous ages: the Greek skeptics and, in another aspect, the Sophists; the Berkeleyan reduction by extension of Locke's empiricism. It plays in language, from which Jacques Derrida, its leading exponent, claims we cannot escape: From this language it is necessary for us to try to free our- selves. Not actually to try to free ourselves from it, for that is impossible without forgetting our historical condition. But to imagine [rever] it. Not actually to free ourselves from it, which would be senseless and would deprive us of the light of sense. But to resist it as far as possible.' This fine honing of the problem of the age of the hegemony of language has not yet been surpassed, at least insofar as the problem is treated in terms of a particular sort of differential linguistics. Where education has not tacitly or deliberately and openly resisted the age of the hegemony of language, it has for the most part failed to enter it. To the extent that this is so, it has been a reactionary force. If this short history has had anything to it, it would appear that "knowl- 7. Jacques Derrida, L'Ecriture et la Difference (Paris: Seuil, 1967). (My translation.)  Antithetical Essays 230 Antithetical Essays 230 Antithetical Essays edge" in the sense of"knowing that," as scholars of education say, is unsta- ble in meaning because "that" is given different significances and values in the different ages I have named. In each succeeding age there has been a struggle to bring education, whether empowered by church or state, to recognize the new significances. KNOWLEDGE: THE WORD Another way to constitute a history of "knowledge" is to study how "knowledge" has been employed over time. I am no expert on the history of the word, and so I shall steal as much as I can from the Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest meanings of "knowledge" in English seem to have been acknowledgement, confession, legal and other forms of cogni- zance, judicial investigation, notice, and recognition. Later uses had to do with the fact ofknowing a thing or a person, familiarity gained by expe- rience, personal acquaintance, sexual intimacy, acquaintance with a fact or matter, a state of being aware or informed, consciousness (of anything), intellectual acquaintance with a perception of fact or truth, clear and cer- tain mutual apprehension, and the fact or state or condition of under- standing. These last would include Locke's concept of knowledge: . . nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or dis- agreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." (By "idea" Locke meant something like a mind-dependent representation of external objects.) In addition to these, "knowledge" has meant acquaintance with a branch of learning, a language, or the like; theoretical or practical understanding of an art, science, or industry; the skill to do something; the fact or condi- tion of having been instructed or of having information acquired by study or research; acquaintance with ascertained truths, facts, or principles; in- formation acquired by study; learning; erudition; the sum of what is known; a branch of learning; and, last, a sign or mark by which anything is known, recognized, or distinguished-a token. But this last is said to be obsolete, in the sense in which it was used in 1523 in the following sentence: "At theyr departying they thought to make a knowledge that they had been there; for they set the subbarbes afyre." This old meaning, it may turn out, still has a certain relevance in that it makes knowledge inhabit a symbol or a token, and thus involves something rife with mean- ing. Now, generally speaking, what A. D. Woozley says in his introduction to epistemology has been fairly common usage among philosophers. There are facts, propositions, and sentences: edge" in the sense of "knowing that," as scholars of education say, is unsta- ble in meaning because "that" is given different significances and values in the different ages I have named. In each succeeding age there has been a struggle to bring education, whether empowered by church or state, to recognize the new signifieances. KNOWLEDGE: THE WORD Another way to constitute a history of "knowledge" is to study how "knowledge" has been employed over time. I am no expert on the history of the word, and so I shall steal as much as I can from the Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest meanings of "knowledge" in English seem to have been acknowledgement, confession, legal and other forms of cogni- zance, judicial investigation, notice, and recognition. Later uses had to do with the fact of knowing a thing or a person, familiarity gained by expe- rience, personal acquaintance, sexual intimacy, acquaintance with a fact or matter, a state of being aware or informed, consciousness (of anything), intellectual acquaintance with a perception of fact or truth, clear and cer- tain mutual apprehension, and the fact or state or condition of under- standing. These last would include Locke's concept of knowledge: . . . nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or dis- agreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." (By "idea" Locke meant something like a mind-dependent representation of external objects.) In addition to these, "knowledge" has meant acquaintance with a branch of learning, a language, or the like; theoretical or practical understanding of an art, science, or industry; the skill to do something; the fact or condi- tion of having been instructed or of having information acquired by study or research; acquaintance with ascertained truths, facts, or principles; in- formation acquired by study; learning; erudition; the sum of what is known; a branch of learning; and, last, a sign or mark by which anything is known, recognized, or distinguished-a token. But this last is said to be obsolete, in the sense in which it was used in 1523 in the following sentence: "At theyr departying they thought to make a knowledge that they had been there; for they set the subbarbes afyre." This old meaning, it may turn out, still has a certain relevance in that it makes knowledge inhabit a symbol or a token, and thus involves something rife with mean- ing. Now, generally speaking, what A. D. Woozley says in his introduction to epistemology has been fairly common usage among philosophers. There are facts, propositions, and sentences: edge" in the sense of "knowing that," as scholars of education say, is unsta- ble in meaning because "that" is given different significances and values in the different ages I have named. In each succeeding age there has been a struggle to bring education, whether empowered by church or state, to recognize the new significances. KNOWLEDGE: THE WORD Another way to constitute a history of "knowledge" is to study how "knowledge" has been employed over time. I am no expert on the history of the word, and so I shall steal as much as I can from the Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest meanings of "knowledge" in English seem to have been acknowledgement, confession, legal and other forms of cogni- zance, judicial investigation, notice, and recognition. Later uses had to do with the fact of knowing a thing or a person, familiarity gained by expe- rience, personal acquaintance, sexual intimacy, acquaintance with a fact or matter, a state of being aware or informed, consciousness (of anything), intellectual acquaintance with a perception of fact or truth, clear and cer- tain mutual apprehension, and the fact or state or condition of under- standing. These last would include Locke's concept of knowledge: . . nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or dis- agreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." (By "idea" Locke meant something like a mind-dependent representation of external objects.) In addition to these, "knowledge" has meant acquaintance with a branch of learning, a language, or the like; theoretical or practical understanding of an art, science, or industry; the skill to do something; the fact or condi- tion of having been instructed or of having information acquired by study or research; acquaintance with ascertained truths, facts, or principles; in- formation acquired by study; learning; erudition; the sum of what is known; a branch of learning; and, last, a sign or mark by which anything is known, recognized, or distinguished-a token. But this last is said to be obsolete, in the sense in which it was used in 1523 in the following sentence: "At theyr departying they thought to make a knowledge that they had been there; for they set the subbarbes afyre." This old meaning, it may turn out, still has a certain relevance in that it makes knowledge inhabit a symbol or a token, and thus involves something rife with mean- ing. Now, generally speaking, what A. D. Woozley says in his introduction to epistemology has been fairly common usage among philosophers. There are facts, propositions, and sentences:  The Fate of Knowledge 231 The Fate of Knowledge 231 The Fate of Knowledge 231 Required to use some name for the object of a man's belief, philosophers commonly use the word "proposition": what I be- lieve is a proposition, and my belief is true if the proposition corresponds to the facts, false if it does not. Again, a proposi- tion is normally distinguished from a sentence by saying that a sentence is a form of words combined according to the gram- matical and syntactical rules of the language to which the sen- tence belongs, while a proposition is not a form of words at all, but is what the sentence means.' This statement raises more problems than it solves. What is the status of the proposition? Where can we find it, or how can we constitute it? If we cannot locate it, does that mean we cannot have knowledge, since the proposition seems to be conflated with meaning and knowledge seems to be the meaning of the facts? But is it not fair to say that meaning is itself linguistic and does not merely appear in sentences but comes as sen- tences (to continue to use Woozley's terms)? Further, the meaning of these sentences will come as sentences, and so on and on. And do not the facts come as sentences or other symbols, which remain facts when verified or unless falsified (according to Popper) by their failure to exist in accord with other sentences or symbols and/or (according to Kuhn) made obsolete by a shift in the prevailing paradigm? If this is so, it appears that the obsolete meaning of "knowledge" as a sign or mark may not be quite obsolete after all and may actually take precedence over some of those more common usages recited by the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, some will say that to discuss education in connection only with knowledge is foolish because it is tacitly to assume too narrow a con- cept of education or too narrow a concept of knowledge, excluding con- sciousness of, acquaintance, and recognition-terms that might apply, for example, to training in connoisseurship in the fine arts, and even to what Polanyi calls "tacit knowledge." Indeed, these terms and their connection to the privileged term "knowledge" have been fought over, the aim fre- quently having been to identify appreciation with knowledge or to define it as a form of knowledge, as if to succeed in doing so would establish the discipline involved higher up on the hierarchy of educational sub- jects. The association of knowledge with the natural sciences in the age of epistemology also has the result of causing other disciplines both to seek to steal the term or to adopt so-called experimental or empirical methods (or unconscious parodies of them like Zola's experimental novel 8. Anthony D. Woozley, Theory of Knowledge (London: Hutchinson, 1949), a. Required to use some name for the object of a man's belief, philosophers commonly use the word "proposition": what I be- lieve is a proposition, and my belief is true if the proposition corresponds to the facts, false if it does not. Again, a proposi- tion is normally distinguished from a sentence by saying that a sentence is a form of words combined according to the gram- matical and syntactical rules of the language to which the sen- tence belongs, while a proposition is not a form of words at all, but is what the sentence means.' This statement raises more problems than it solves. What is the status of the proposition? Where can we find it, or how can we constitute it? If we cannot locate it, does that mean we cannot have knowledge, since the proposition seems to be conflated with meaning and knowledge seems to be the meaning of the facts? But is it not fair to say that meaning is itself linguistic and does not merely appear in sentences but comes as sen- tences (to continue to use Woozley's terms)? Further, the meaning of these sentences will come as sentences, and so on and on. And do not the facts come as sentences or other symbols, which remain facts when verified or unless falsified (according to Popper) by their failure to exist in accord with other sentences or symbols and/or (according to Kuhn) made obsolete by a shift in the prevailing paradigm? If this is so, it appears that the obsolete meaning of "knowledge" as a sign or mark may not be quite obsolete after all and may actually take precedence over some of those more common usages recited by the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, some will say that to discuss education in connection only with knowledge is foolish because it is tacitly to assume too narrow a con- cept of education or too narrow a concept of knowledge, excluding con- sciousness of, acquaintance, and recognition-terms that might apply, for example, to training in connoisseurship in the fine arts, and even to what folanyi calls "tacit knowledge." Indeed, these terms and their connection to the privileged term "knowledge" have been fought over, the aim fre- quently having been to identify appreciation with knowledge or to define it as a form of knowledge, as if to succeed in doing so would establish the discipline involved higher up on the hierarchy of educational sub- jects. The association of knowledge with the natural sciences in the age of epistemology also has the result of causing other disciplines both to seek to steal the term or to adopt so-called experimental or empirical methods (or unconscious parodies of them like Zola's experimental novel 8. Anthony D. Wooley, Theory of Knowledge (London: Hutchinson, 1949), ng. Required to use some name for the object of a man's belief, philosophers commonly use the word "proposition": what I be- lieve is a proposition, and my belief is true if the proposition corresponds to the facts, false if it does not. Again, a proposi- tion is normally distinguished from a sentence by saying that a sentence is a form of words combined according to the gram- matical and syntactical rules of the language to which the sen- tence belongs, while a proposition is not a form of words at all, but is what the sentence means.' This statement raises more problems than it solves. What is the status of the proposition? Where can we find it, or how can we constitute it? If we cannot locate it, does that mean we cannot have knowledge, since the proposition seems to be conflated with meaning and knowledge seems to be the meaning of the facts? But is it not fair to say that meaning is itself linguistic and does not merely appear in sentences but comes as sen- tences (to continue to use Woozley's terms)? Further, the meaning of these sentences will come as sentences, and so on and on. And do not the facts come as sentences or other symbols, which remain facts when verified or unless falsified (according to Popper) by their failure to exist in accord with other sentences or symbols and/or (according to Kuhn) made obsolete by a shift in the prevailing paradigm? If this is so, it appears that the obsolete meaning of "knowledge" as a sign or mark may not be quite obsolete after all and may actually take precedence over some of those more common usages recited by the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, some will say that to discuss education in connection only with knowledge is foolish because it is tacitly to assume too narrow a con- cept of education or too narrow a concept of knowledge, excluding con- sciousness of, acquaintance, and recognition-terms that might apply, for example, to training in connoisseurship in the fine arts, and even to what Polanyi calls "tacit knowledge." Indeed, these terms and their connection to the privileged term "knowledge" have been fought over, the aim fre- quently having been to identify appreciation with knowledge or to define it as a form of knowledge, as if to succeed in doing so would establish the discipline involved higher up on the hierarchy of educational sub- jects. The association of knowledge with the natural sciences in the age of epistemology also has the result of causing other disciplines both to seek to steal the term or to adopt so-called experimental or empirical methods (or unconscious parodies of them like Zola's experimental novel 8. Anthony D. Woozley, Theory of Knowledge (London: Hutchinson, 1949), 29.  Antithetical Essays 232 Antithetical Essays 232 Antithetical Essays or Taine's history). Another strategy was to fly to the apparent opposite, eschewing the equation knowledge/objectivity and claiming for subjectiv- ity a different (sometimes occult) kind of knowledge, or accepting solip- sism, as in the famous conclusion to The Renaissance of Walter Pater, or establishing intersubjectivity, as in some versions of phenomenology.' Such tendencies appear today in, for example, reader-response literary criticism, though it ranges all the way from a rigid empiricism to attempts to establish an objective ground or subjective universality in a reading community. Debates in the arena of general education have been riddled with con- fusions about the current meanings of "knowledge" and the degree to which they overlap terms like "appreciation" and "wisdom." KNOWLEDGE AND GENERAL EDUCATION The educational profession has been bombarded over the last few years with panel and commission reports on what is wrong with education in the United States, what should be done about curriculum, how best to prepare teachers, and so forth. The term "knowledge" plays in these re- ports in ways that may throw some light on fundamental current attitudes and reveal to what extent thinking in high places has adequately engaged itself with the problems posed by the age of the hegemony of language. Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Higher Education di- vides educational aims into providing knowledge, capacities, and skills."0 Two statements illustrate the fate of "knowledge" in this widely circulated report. First, "capacities and skills are the truly enduring effects of higher education." The skills specifically mentioned are those of writing and speaking, critical thinking and analysis, synthesizing, imagining, and cre- ating. (The report does not tell us what the difference between a skill and an ability or a capacity is.) The report claims not to underestimate the importance of the "content or raw material of [a] discipline," but it does not go on to say what such content should be. Whether "knowledge" is involved in any of this, beyond apprehension of"content" or "raw material 9. Some of the sad history of this is told in my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Talla- hassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). 10. U.S. National Institute of Education, Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education, Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Ameri- can Higher Education (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984). or Taine's history). Another strategy was to fly to the apparent opposite, eschewing the equation knowledge/objectivity and claiming for subjectiv- ity a different (sometimes occult) kind of knowledge, or accepting solip- sism, as in the famous conclusion to The Renaissance of Walter Pater, or establishing intersubjectivity, as in some versions of phenomenology.' Such tendencies appear today in, for example, reader-response literary criticism, though it ranges all the way from a rigid empiricism to attempts to establish an objective ground or subjective universality in a reading community. Debates in the arena of general education have been riddled with con- fusions about the current meanings of "knowledge" and the degree to which they overlap terms like "appreciation" and "wisdom." KNOWLEDGE AND GENERAL EDUCATION The educational profession has been bombarded over the last few years with panel and commission reports on what is wrong with education in the United States, what should be done about curriculum, how best to prepare teachers, and so forth. The term "knowledge" plays in these re- ports in ways that may throw some light on fundamental current attitudes and reveal to what extent thinking in high places has adequately engaged itself with the problems posed by the age of the hegemony of language. Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Higher Education di- vides educational aims into providing knowledge, capacities, and skills." Two statements illustrate the fate of "knowledge" in this widely circulated report. First, "capacities and skills are the truly enduring effects of higher education." The skills specifically mentioned are those of writing and speaking, critical thinking and analysis, synthesizing, imagining, and cre- ating. (The report does not tell us what the difference between a skill and an ability or a capacity is.) The report claims not to underestimate the importance of the "content or raw material of [a] discipline," but it does not go on to say what such content should be. Whether "knowledge" is involved in any of this, beyond apprehension of"content" or "raw material g. Some of the sad history of this is told in my Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Talla- hassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). so. U.S. National Institute of Education, Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American H igher Education, Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Ameri- can Higher Education (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984). or Taine's history). Another strategy was to fly to the apparent opposite, eschewing the equation knowledge/objectivity and claiming for subjectiv- ity a different (sometimes occult) kind of knowledge, or accepting solip- sism, as in the famous conclusion to The Renaissance of Walter Pater, or establishing intersubjectivity, as in some versions of phenomenology.' Such tendencies appear today in, for example, reader-response literary criticism, though it ranges all the way from a rigid empiricism to attempts to establish an objective ground or subjective universality in a reading community. Debates in the arena of general education have been riddled with con- fusions about the current meanings of "knowledge" and the degree to which they overlap terms like "appreciation" and "wisdom." KNOWLEDGE AND GENERAL EDUCATION The educational profession has been bombarded over the last few years with panel and commission reports on what is wrong with education in the United States, what should be done about curriculum, how best to prepare teachers, and so forth. The term "knowledge" plays in these re- ports in ways that may throw some light on fundamental current attitudes and reveal to what extent thinking in high places has adequately engaged itself with the problems posed by the age of the hegemony of language. Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Higher Education di- vides educational aims into providing knowledge, capacities, and skills." Two statements illustrate the fate of"knowledge" in this widely circulated report. First, "capacities and skills are the truly enduring effects of higher education." The skills specifically mentioned are those of writing and speaking, critical thinking and analysis, synthesizing, imagining, and cre- ating. (The report does not tell us what the difference between a skill and an ability or a capacity is.) The report claims not to underestimate the importance of the "content or raw material of [a] discipline," but it does not go on to say what such content should be. Whether "knowledge" is involved in any of this, beyond apprehension of'content" or "raw material 9. Some of the sad history of this is told in my Philosophy ofthe Literary Symbolic (Talla- hassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). so. U.S. National Institute of Education, Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education, Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of Ameri- can Higher Education (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, '9s4)  The Fate of Knowledge 2,3 The Fate of Knowledge 233 The Fate of Knowledge 233 of a discipline," is uncertain. It appears that "knowledge" refers to owner- ship of some substance. Second, "we were not charged to define 'the knowledge most worth having,' and it would be inappropriate for us to do so." It is interesting that the phrase "knowledge most worth having" is in quotation marks, as if it referred to a fiction or unreal entity. The responsibility for declar- ing what is most worth knowing is said to be that of the individual aca- demic institution. A wedge is driven between the concepts of knowing how (though "knowing" is not used principally in this sense in the report) and knowing about or that. The former seems to be the province of blue ribbon panels, the latter of institutions; but there is little doubt that the panel thinks rules about the former are more important than constituting the latter. Further, one might notice that the panel itself could be imag- ined as representative of yet a larger institution, for it seeks to speak in the best interests of the nation. In other words, skills, capacities, and abilities are containers in this report for a content (the objects) of knowledge never specified except in- sofar as they are declared tacitly to be things properly to be sought, pur- sued, or owned. Institutional faculties should indicate what knowledge, skills, and capabilities are expected of students and should assess their and their students' success in providing and gaining these things. Pre- sumably the institution would develop some means of accountability, and all of this is declared possible because there already is much knowledge about "conditions under which student learning and growth can be maxi- mized and about the methods and benchmarks by which these changes can be measured." But something is missing from this formula, and the reason is the separation of knowledge from skills and so forth, as if one of these things were the broth and the other the pot. What happens if the institutional decisions about the objects of knowledge are inadequate? (The question, of course, is "inadequate to what?") Will all the skills in the world then be of any value? And vice versa? Can a report that does not speak of the what of knowledge be more than a series of encouraging (or discouraging) shouts? Is the problem deeper than this? Does the divi- sion lead to hollow pieties? Do these pieties mask, however innocently, a position heavily laden with the ideology of classical liberalism as it be- came established in the age of epistemology? Is it inadequate in a new age? The Carnegie Task Force report A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the of a discipline," is uncertain. It appears that "knowledge" refers to owner- ship of some substance. Second, "we were not charged to define 'the knowledge most worth having,' and it would be inappropriate for us to do so." It is interesting that the phrase "knowledge most worth having" is in quotation marks, as if it referred to a fiction or unreal entity. The responsibility for declar- ing what is most worth knowing is said to be that of the individual aca- demic institution. A wedge is driven between the concepts of knowing how (though "knowing" is not used principally in this sense in the report) and knowing about or that. The former seems to be the province of blue ribbon panels, the latter of institutions; but there is little doubt that the panel thinks rules about the former are more important than constituting the latter. Further, one might notice that the panel itself could be imag- ined as representative of yet a larger institution, for it seeks to speak in the best interests of the nation. In other words, skills, capacities, and abilities are containers in this report for a content (the objects) of knowledge never specified except in- sofar as they are declared tacitly to be things properly to be sought, pur- sued, or owned. Institutional faculties should indicate what knowledge, skills, and capabilities are expected of students and should assess their and their students' success in providing and gaining these things. Pre- sumably the institution would develop some means of accountability, and all of this is declared possible because there already is much knowledge about "conditions under which student learning and growth can be maxi- mized and about the methods and benchmarks by which these changes can be measured." But something is missing from this formula, and the reason is the separation of knowledge from skills and so forth, as if one of these things were the broth and the other the pot. What happens if the institutional decisions about the objects of knowledge are inadequate? (The question, of course, is "inadequate to what?") Will all the skills in the world then be of any value? And vice versa? Can a report that does not speak of the what of knowledge be more than a series of encouraging (or discouraging) shouts? Is the problem deeper than this? Does the divi- sion lead to hollow pieties? Do these pieties mask, however innocently, a position heavily laden with the ideology of classical liberalism as it be- came established in the age of epistemology? Is it inadequate in a new age? The Carnegie Task Force report A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the of a discipline," is uncertain. It appears that "knowledge" refers to owner- ship of some substance. Second, "we were not charged to define 'the knowledge most worth having,' and it would be inappropriate for us to do so." It is interesting that the phrase "knowledge most worth having" is in quotation marks, as if it referred to a fiction or unreal entity. The responsibility for declar- ing what is most worth knowing is said to be that of the individual aca- demic institution. A wedge is driven between the concepts of knowing how (though "knowing" is not used principally in this sense in the report) and knowing about or that. The former seems to be the province of blue ribbon panels, the latter of institutions; but there is little doubt that the panel thinks rules about the former are more important than constituting the latter. Further, one might notice that the panel itself could be imag- ined as representative of yet a larger institution, for it seeks to speak in the best interests of the nation. In other words, skills, capacities, and abilities are containers in this report for a content (the objects) of knowledge never specified except in- sofar as they are declared tacitly to be things properly to be sought, pur- sued, or owned. Institutional faculties should indicate what knowledge, skills, and capabilities are expected of students and should assess their and their students' success in providing and gaining these things. Pre- sumably the institution would develop some means of accountability, and all of this is declared possible because there already is much knowledge about "conditions under which student learning and growth can be maxi- mized and about the methods and benchmarks by which these changes can be measured." But something is missing from this formula, and the reason is the separation of knowledge from skills and so forth, as if one of these things were the broth and the other the pot. What happens if the institutional decisions about the objects of knowledge are inadequate? (The question, of course, is "inadequate to what?") Will all the skills in the world then be of any value? And vice versa? Can a report that does not speak of the what of knowledge be more than a series of encouraging (or discouraging) shouts? Is the problem deeper than this? Does the divi- sion lead to hollow pieties? Do these pieties mask, however innocently, a position heavily laden with the ideology of classical liberalism as it be- came established in the age of epistemology? Is it inadequate in a new age? The Carnegie Task Force report A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the  234 Antithetical Essays 21st Century is forthright about its vision of the aims of education." They are aims designed to further the goals of the state in its economic competi- tion with foreign governments. It is these aims and that of "binding . . . citizens together in a commonweal" that dictate the need to provide ac- cess to a "shared cultural and intellectual tradition." The problem here is the tacit notion that the traditions of the culture are a fixed content and adequate to a dynamically changing population. This gives the meta- phor of "binding" with all its good intentions a sinister side. At first glance, the program proposed does not seem to place much importance on the word "knowledge." The term appears very late. The following paragraph does not contain it, but rather emphasizes the need for a new burst of American know-how treated in terms of"skills," "feeling for," and "ability": The skills needed now are not routine. Our economy will be increasingly dependent on people who have a good intuitive grasp of the ways in which all kinds of physical and social sys- tems work. They must possess a feeling for mathematical con- cepts and the ways in which they can be applied to difficult problems, an ability to see patterns of meaning where others see only confusion: a cultivated creativity that leads them to new problems, new products, and new services before their competitors get to them; and, in many cases, the ability to work with other people in complex organizational environ- ments where work groups must decide for themselves how to get the job done." The following sentence does introduce "knowing," with more than one sense implied: "They [citizens] will not come to the workplace knowing all they need to know, but knowing how to figure out what they need to know, where to get it, and how to make meaning out of it." One sense here is knowing how or skills; another is that of ownership or appropria- tion of an object or substance. A third, which we have not seen before, involves the introduction of "meaning" in connection with knowledge. This is complicated by a metaphoric description of knowledge as Protean in form, for the report refers to the need to learn all the time as the knowl- edge required to do work "twists and turns with new challenges and the progress of science and technology." It is difficult to sort out all of this 11. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, Task Force on Teaching as a Profes- sion, A Nation Prepared: Teachersfor the 2ast Century (Hyattsville, MD: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986). 12. Ibid., 20. 234 Antithetical Essays 21st Century is forthright about its vision of the aims of education." They are aims designed to further the goals of the state in its economic competi- tion with foreign governments. It is these aims and that of "binding . . . citizens together in a commonweal" that dictate the need to provide an- cess to a "shared cultural and intellectual tradition." The problem here is the tacit notion that the traditions of the culture are a fixed content and adequate to a dynamically changing population. This gives the meta- phor of "binding" with all its good intentions a sinister side. At first glance, the program proposed does not seem to place much importance on the word "knowledge." The term appears very late. The following paragraph does not contain it, but rather emphasizes the need for a new burst of American know-how treated in terms of"skills," "feeling for," and "ability": The skills needed now are not routine. Our economy will be increasingly dependent on people who have a good intuitive grasp of the ways in which all kinds of physical and social sys- tems work. They must possess a feeling for mathematical con- cepts and the ways in which they can be applied to difficult problems, an ability to see patterns of meaning where others see only confusion: a cultivated creativity that leads them to new problems, new products, and new services before their competitors get to them; and, in many cases, the ability to work with other people in complex organizational environ- ments where work groups must decide for themselves how to get the job done." The following sentence does introduce "knowing," with more than one sense implied: "They [citizens] will not come to the workplace knowing all they need to know, but knowing how to figure out what they need to know, where to get it, and how to make meaning out of it." One sense here is knowing how or skills; another is that of ownership or appropria- tion of an object or substance. A third, which we have not seen before, involves the introduction of "meaning" in connection with knowledge. This is complicated by a metaphoric description of knowledge as Protean in form, for the report refers to the need to learn all the time as the knowl- edge required to do work "twists and turns with new challenges and the progress of science and technology." It is difficult to sort out all of this i. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, Task Force on Teaching as a Profes- sion, A Nation Prepared Teachersfor the 21st Century (Hyattsville, MD: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986). 12. Ibid, . 234 Antithetical Essays nst Century is forthright about its vision of the aims of education." They are aims designed to further the goals of the state in its economic competi- tion with foreign governments. It is these aims and that of "binding . . . citizens together in a commonweal" that dictate the need to provide ac- cess to a "shared cultural and intellectual tradition." The problem here is the tacit notion that the traditions of the culture are a fixed content and adequate to a dynamically changing population. This gives the meta- phor of "binding" with all its good intentions a sinister side. At first glance, the program proposed does not seem to place much importance on the word "knowledge." The term appears very late. The following paragraph does not contain it, but rather emphasizes the need for a new burst of American know-how treated in terms of"skills," "feeling for," and "ability": The skills needed now are not routine. Our economy will be increasingly dependent on people who have a good intuitive grasp of the ways in which all kinds of physical and social sys- tems work. They must possess a feeling for mathematical con- cepts and the ways in which they can be applied to difficult problems, an ability to see patterns of meaning where others see only confusion: a cultivated creativity that leads them to new problems, new products, and new services before their competitors get to them; and, in many cases, the ability to work with other people in complex organizational environ- ments where work groups must decide for themselves how to get the job done." The following sentence does introduce "knowing," with more than one sense implied: "They [citizens] will not come to the workplace knowing all they need to know, but knowing how to figure out what they need to know, where to get it, and how to make meaning out of it." One sense here is knowing how or skills; another is that of ownership or appropria- tion of an object or substance. A third, which we have not seen before, involves the introduction of "meaning" in connection with knowledge. This is complicated by a metaphoric description of knowledge as Protean in form, for the report refers to the need to learn all the time as the knowl- edge required to do work "twists and turns with new challenges and the progress of science and technology." It is difficult to sort out all of this n. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, Task Force on Teaching as a Profes- sion, A Nation Prepared Teachersfor the 22st Century (Hyattsville, MD: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986). 12. Ibid., o.  The Fate of Knowledge z35 The Fate of Knowledge 235 The Fate of Knowledge 235 and get at what is implicit. On the one hand, knowledge is a sort of com- modity; on the other, it is synonymous with a skill. Finally, it fades away in both of these senses to be replaced by created meaning. Perhaps one could say that in addition to the split between knowledge that or about and skills, there is another split, every bit as specious, between knowl- edge and meaning. Meaning seems here to be something that knowledge is submitted to. Further, this report declares there is nothing static about knowledge, though perhaps the report intends to say that there is nothing static about what needs to be known. But perhaps what the report should have acknowledged was that, like a proposition, knowledge has no exis- tence except as meaning and that we cannot conceive of meaning in any form but that of words or symbolic systems and that it is this meaning that is Protean, for in definition it gives way to other words and so on, and that meaning is itself an endless building or process. Before our eyes the received concept of knowledge that or about on which these reports are tacitly based seems to unravel. But before we con- sider this, it is worthwhile to examine a third report, that written by Wil- liam J. Bennett, then chairman of the National Endowment for the Hu- manities, later secretary of the Department of Education. The title of the report is To Reclaim a Legacy and is concerned with higher education and the humanities." In this report, the word "knowledge" is employed eight times, and the word "know" five. The former is preceded in its various appearances by "fundamental," "rudimentary," "essential," "explicit body of," and "certain essential areas of" All of these employments are hon- orific. In addition, the term "knowledge" is treated as a possession or some- thing it is desirable to possess. The word is employed pejoratively when it is followed by "seen as relative." The verbal form is used when refer- ence is made honorifically to knowing "a common culture rooted in civili- zation's lasting vision," to knowing "what is worth knowing," and to know- ing "what is important in our heritage that all educated persons know." At first, Bennett does not appear to take the nationalistic line of the Car- negie report. He claims for his community western culture or civilization, though he seems to regard it as having been a progress toward American political and judicial institutions. Like the authors of Involvement in Learning, Bennett declares that it is up to academic institutions to decide what knowledge is most worth having, but one suspects that the principles he puts forward tend to nar- row the definition of such knowledge. The agenda is clear; as the title of the report implies, Bennett's aim is to turn the clock back to a time 13. William J. Bennett, To Reclaim a Legacy: Report on the Humanities in H igher Edu- cation (Washington: National Endowment for the Humanities, 1984). and get at what is implicit. On the one hand, knowledge is a sort of com- modity; on the other, it is synonymous with a skill. Finally, it fades away in both of these senses to be replaced by created meaning. Perhaps one could say that in addition to the split between knowledge that or about and skills, there is another split, every bit as specious, between knowl- edge and meaning. Meaning seems here to be something that knowledge is submitted to. Further, this report declares there is nothing static about knowledge, though perhaps the report intends to say that there is nothing static about what needs to be known. But perhaps what the report should have acknowledged was that, like a proposition, knowledge has no exis- tence except as meaning and that we cannot conceive of meaning in any form but that of words or symbolic systems and that it is this meaning that is Protean, for in definition it gives way to other words and so on, and that meaning is itself an endless building or process. Before our eyes the received concept of knowledge that or about on which these reports are tacitly based seems to unravel. But before we con- sider this, it is worthwhile to examine a third report, that written by Wil- liam J. Bennett, then chairman of the National Endowment for the Hu- manities, later secretary of the Department of Education. The title of the report is To Reclaim a Legacy and is concerned with higher education and the humanities." In this report, the word "knowledge" is employed eight times, and the word "know" five. The former is preceded in its various appearances by "fundamental," "rudimentary," "essential," "explicit body of," and "certain essential areas of." All of these employments are hon- orific. In addition, the term "knowledge" is treated as a possession or some- thing it is desirable to possess. The word is employed pejoratively when it is followed by "seen as relative." The verbal form is used when refer- ence is made honorifically to knowing "a common culture rooted in civili- zation's lasting vision," to knowing "what is worth knowing," and to know- ing "what is important in our heritage that all educated persons know." At first, Bennett does not appear to take the nationalistic line of the Car- negie report. He claims for his community western culture or civilization, though he seems to regard it as having been a progress toward American political and judicial institutions. Like the authors of Involvement in Learning, Bennett declares that it is up to academic institutions to decide what knowledge is most worth having, but one suspects that the principles he puts forward tend to nar- row the definition of such knowledge. The agenda is clear; as the title of the report implies, Bennett's aim is to turn the clock back to a time 13. William J. Bennett, To Reclaim a Legacy: Report on the Humanities in Higher Edu- cation (Washington: National Endowment for the Humanities, 1984). and get at what is implicit. On the one hand, knowledge is a sort of com- modity; on the other, it is synonymous with a skill. Finally, it fades away in both of these senses to be replaced by created meaning. Perhaps one could say that in addition to the split between knowledge that or about and skills, there is another split, every bit as specious, between knowl- edge and meaning. Meaning seems heere to be something that knowledge is submitted to. Further, this report declares there is nothing static about knowledge, though perhaps the report intends to say that there is nothing static about what needs to be known. But perhaps what the report should have acknowledged was that, like a proposition, knowledge has no exis- tence except as meaning and that we cannot conceive of meaning in any form but that of words or symbolic systems and that it is this meaning that is Protean, for in definition it gives way to other words and so on, and that meaning is itself an endless building or process. Before our eyes the received concept of knowledge that or about on which these reports are tacitly based seems to unravel. But before we con- sider this, it is worthwhile to examine a third report, that written by Wil- liam J. Bennett, then chairman of the National Endowment for the Hu- manities, later secretary of the Department of Education. The title of the report is To Reclaim a Legacy and is concerned with higher education and the humanities." In this report, the word "knowledge" is employed eight times, and the word "know" five. The former is preceded in its various appearances by "fundamental," "rudimentary," "essential," "explicit body of," and "certain essential areas of." All of these employments are hon- orific. In addition, the term "knowledge" is treated as a possession or some- thing it is desirable to possess. The word is employed pejoratively when it is followed by "seen as relative." The verbal form is used when refer- ence is made honorifically to knowing "a common culture rooted in civili- zation's lasting vision," to knowing "what is worth knowing," and to know- ing "what is important in our heritage that all educated persons know." At first, Bennett does not appear to take the nationalistic line of the Car- negie report. He claims for his community western culture or civilization, though he seems to regard it as having been a progress toward American political and judicial institutions. Like the authors of Involvement in Learning, Bennett declares that it is up to academic institutions to decide what knowledge is most worth having, but one suspects that the principles he puts forward tend to nar- row the definition of such knowledge. The agenda is clear; as the title of the report implies, Bennett's aim is to turn the clock back to a time 13. William J. Bennett, To Reclaim a Legacy: Report on the Humanities in Higher Edu- cation (Washington: National Endowment for the Humanities, 1984).  Antithetical Essays 236 Antithetical Essays 236 Antithetical Essays when supposedly the heritage was claimed. The educational establish- ment has somehow lost touch with truth and morality. This happened when, first, knowledge came to be seen as relative in importance, relative especially to consumer interests, second, the desired ends of education changed from "knowledge" to "inquiry," from (in other words) contents to skills, and, third, college curricula became based on doubt about the possibility of reaching a consensus about the most significant thoughts, thinkers, and so forth. The program implicit here harkens back to Plato's approach in Repub- lic and Laws. Education begins to look like an initiation ceremony into a tribal structure. It involves establishment of membership in a culture, and this membership is at one point tellingly described with the word "shareholders." The program looks to the past for all of its values, and fixed institutions are apparently to be protected. The specific knowledges called for are unexceptionable. We have heard of them before; knowledge of the origins and development of western civilization, basic chronology, careful reading of literary masterworks, understanding of the most signifi- cant debates in the history of philosophy, proficiency in a foreign lan- guage, study of a nonwestern culture, and study of the history of science and technology. It is a content-based curriculum that is being advised, in contrast to the Carnegie report's skill-based approach. The former seems to be looking to a fixed wise past or at least a teleological accumula- tion of wisdom. The latter seems to look to the future, though it is hardly Promethean. Richard Ohmann has recently pointed to a problem that he sees in Bennett's approach: . . [B]odies of knowledge and the people (profes- sionals) who mediate them work through institutions designed to serve in part the self-interest of the practitioners and . . . these institutions and practices must respond in part to dominant groups and powerful forces in the society at large."" I would put this somewhat differently and empha- size the power of institutions themselves to dominate groups and inter- ests, to develop a life of their own that dominant groups and powerful interests have difficulty controlling. When institutions and the language of the tribe cease to be put in a position where questioning of them is possible, the very values that both Bennett and the Carnegie report seem to profess become more uncertain of preservation. 14. Richard Ohmann, "English in America, Ten Years Later (with an aside on dechairing the Department)," ADE Bulletin 89 (Winter 1985): 12. This essay strongly criticizes Bennett's To Reclaim a Legacy. when supposedly the heritage was claimed. The educational establish- ment has somehow lost touch with truth and morality. This happened when, first, knowledge came to be seen as relative in importance, relative especially to consumer interests, second, the desired ends of education changed from "knowledge" to "inquiry," from (in other words) contents to skills, and, third, college curricula became based on doubt about the possibility of reaching a consensus about the most significant thoughts, thinkers, and so forth. The program implicit here harkens back to Plato's approach in Repub- lic and Laws. Education begins to look like an initiation ceremony into a tribal structure. It involves establishment of membership in a culture, and this membership is at one point tellingly described with the word "shareholders." The program looks to the past for all of its values, and fixed institutions are apparently to be protected. The specific knowledges called for are unexceptionable. We have heard of them before: knowledge of the origins and development of western civilization, basic chronology, careful reading of literary masterworks, understanding of the most signifi- cant debates in the history of philosophy, proficiency in a foreign lan- guage, study of a nonwestern culture, and study of the history of science and technology. It is a content-based curriculum that is being advised, in contrast to the Carnegie report's skill-based approach. The former seems to be looking to a fixed wise past or at least a teleological accumula- tion of wisdom. The latter seems to look to the future, though it is hardly Promethean. Richard Ohmann has recently pointed to a problem that he sees in Bennett's approach: ". . . [B]odies of knowledge and the people (profes- sionals) who mediate them work through institutions designed to serve in part the self-interest of the practitioners and . . . these institutions and practices must respond in part to dominant groups and powerful forces in the society at large.""1 I would put this somewhat differently and empha- size the power of institutions themselves to dominate groups and inter- ests, to develop a life of their own that dominant groups and powerful interests have difficulty controlling. When institutions and the language of the tribe cease to be put in a position where questioning of them is possible, the very values that both Bennett and the Carnegie report seem to profess become more uncertain of preservation. 14. Richard Ohmann, "English in America, Ten Years Later (with an aside on dechairing the Department)," ADE Bulletin 89 (Winter 1985): 12. This essay strongly criticizes Bennett's To Reclaim a Legacy. when supposedly the heritage was claimed. The educational establish- ment has somehow lost touch with truth and morality. This happened when, first, knowledge came to be seen as relative in importance, relative especially to consumer interests, second, the desired ends of education changed from "knowledge" to "inquiry," from (in other words) contents to skills, and, third, college curricula became based on doubt about the possibility of reaching a consensus about the most significant thoughts, thinkers, and so forth. The program implicit here harkens back to Plato's approach in Repub- lic and Laws. Education begins to look like an initiation ceremony into a tribal structure. It involves establishment of membership in a culture, and this membership is at one point tellingly described with the word "shareholders." The program looks to the past for all of its values, and fixed institutions are apparently to be protected. The specific knowledges called for are unexceptionable. We have heard of them before: knowledge of the origins and development of western civilization, basic chronology, careful reading of literary masterworks, understanding of the most signifi- cant debates in the history of philosophy, proficiency in a foreign lan- guage, study of a nonwestern culture, and study of the history of science and technology. It is a content-based curriculum that is being advised, in contrast to the Carnegie report's skill-based approach. The former seems to be looking to a fixed wise past or at least a teleological accumula- tion of wisdom. The latter seems to look to the future, though it is hardly Promethean. Richard Ohmann has recently pointed to a problem that he sees in Bennett's approach:". . . [Blodies of knowledge and the people (profes- sionals) who mediate them work through institutions designed to serve in part the self-interest of the practitioners and . . . these institutions and practices must respond in part to dominant groups and powerful forces in the society at large."" I would put this somewhat differently and empha- size the power of institutions themselves to dominate groups and inter- ests, to develop a life of their own that dominant groups and powerful interests have difficulty controlling. When institutions and the language of the tribe cease to be put in a position where questioning of them is possible, the very values that both Bennett and the Carnegie report seem to profess become more uncertain of preservation. 14. Richard Ohmn, "English in America, Ten Years Later (with an aside on dechairing the Department)," ADE Bulletin 89 (Winter 1985): 12. This essay strongly criticizes Bennett's To eclaim a Legacy.  T he Fate of Knowledge 237 The Fate of Knowledge 237 The Fate of Knowledge a37 GENERAL EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE Is not the splitting of knowledge between skills and content the problem that makes all of these reports seem so arid? This causes me to return to the curious archaic meaning of "knowledge" that the Oxford English Dictionary adds to more familiar usages: "A sign or mark by which any- thing is known, recognized, or distinguished; a token." This definition is not going to be wholly satisfactory, but with a little work we may be able by its means to heal partly the "cloven fiction" of a split between content and skill. Let the token be language or symbolic system. Rather than lan- guage being something that points beyond itself, let it be a structure that takes in unformed masses of whatever is out there and shapes this mate- rial into its own form, giving it that form. Let us notice again that the language and symbolic system are always in movement. Language is fi- nite, as a dictionary is finite, but the process of definition leads ever on- ward from word to word. If in a process of defining we discover ourselves returning to the word with which we began, we are unhappy and label our thinking "circular." Knowledge is implicated in this process. Regarded as a substance or content it is something never arrived at and always sought. This leads to a sometimes bitter skepticism. But if we identify it with process itself, we treat it neither as a content nor as a skill but as the contrary to this opposition. Bennett would have us, like the pathetic Urizen in Blake's Four Zoas, declare what the knowledge worth having is-in the sense of content. This knowledge would not be of the Platonic idea that can never be spoken but the idea which when spoken looks like the embodi- ment of an idol. We can name that idol "authoritarianism." We shall have the choice of joining, that is, knuckling under, though this option is de- scribed in terms of being a "shareholder," or of falling into what the Car- negie report calls a "permanent underclass." There may not be so much difference between these states as some would like to think. General education, unfortunately so named because it too easily sug- gests that what we now call the "smorgasbord" approach (I regret this, because true smorgasbords have a definite character) is tossed back and forth by curriculum makers between the two poles of negations, one set of which is content/skills and another practical (professional)/everything else. General education must face the question of how to define knowl- edge anew in a contrary fashion. It must acknowledge that there is no such thing as the simple, direct gift of nontheoretical knowledge, free of perplexing questions. What we so often think free of theoretical implica- GENERAL EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE Is not the splitting of knowledge between skills and content the problem that makes all of these reports seem so arid? This causes me to return to the curious archaic meaning of "knowledge" that the Oxford English Dictionary adds to more familiar usages: "A sign or mark by which any- thing is known, recognized, or distinguished; a token." This definition is not going to be wholly satisfactory, but with a little work we may be able by its means to heal partly the "cloven fiction" of a split between content and skill. Let the token be language or symbolic system. Rather than lan- guage being something that points beyond itself, let it be a structure that takes in unformed masses of whatever is out there and shapes this mate- rial into its own form, giving it that form. Let us notice again that the language and symbolic system are always in movement. Language is fi- nite, as a dictionary is finite, but the process of definition leads ever on- ward from word to word. If in a process of defining we discover ourselves returning to the word with which we began, we are unhappy and label our thinking "circular." Knowledge is implicated in this process. Regarded as a substance or content it is something never arrived at and always sought. This leads to a sometimes bitter skepticism. But if we identify it with process itself, we treat it neither as a content nor as a skill but as the contrary to this opposition. Bennett would have us, like the pathetic Urizen in Blake's Four Zoas, declare what the knowledge worth having is-in the sense of content. This knowledge would not be of the Platonic idea that can never be spoken but the idea which when spoken looks like the embodi- ment of an idol. We can name that idol "authoritarianism." We shall have the choice of joining, that is, knuckling under, though this option is de- scribed in terms of being a "shareholder," or of falling into what the Car- negie report calls a "permanent underclass." There may not be so much difference between these states as some would like to think. General education, unfortunately so named because it too easily sug- gests that what we now call the "smorgasbord" approach (I regret this, because true smorgasbords have a definite character) is tossed back and forth by curriculum makers between the two poles of negations, one set of which is content/skills and another practical (professional)/everything else. General education must face the question of how to define knowl- edge anew in a contrary fashion. It must acknowledge that there is no such thing as the simple, direct gift of nontheoretical knowledge, free of perplexing questions. What we so often think free of theoretical implica- GENERAL EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE Is not the splitting of knowledge between skills and content the problem that makes all of these reports seem so arid? This causes me to return to the curious archaic meaning of "knowledge" that the Oxford English Dictionary adds to more familiar usages: "A sign or mark by which any- thing is known, recognized, or distinguished; a token." This definition is not going to be wholly satisfactory, but with a little work we may be able by its means to heal partly the "cloven fiction" of a split between content and skill. Let the token be language or symbolic system. Rather than lan- guage being something that points beyond itself, let it be a structure that takes in unformed masses of whatever is out there and shapes this mate- rial into its own form, giving it that form. Let us notice again that the language and symbolic system are always in movement. Language is fi- nite, as a dictionary is finite, but the process of definition leads ever on- ward from word to word. If in a process of defining we discover ourselves returning to the word with which we began, we are unhappy and label our thinking "circular." Knowledge is implicated in this process. Regarded as a substance or content it is something never arrived at and always sought. This leads to a sometimes bitter skepticism. But if we identify it with process itself, we treat it neither as a content nor as a skill but as the contrary to this opposition. Bennett would have us, like the pathetic Urizen in Blake's Four Zoas, declare what the knowledge worth having is-in the sense of content. This knowledge would not be of the Platonic idea that can never be spoken but the idea which when spoken looks like the embodi- ment of an idol. We can name that idol "authoritarianism." We shall have the choice of joining, that is, knuckling under, though this option is de- scribed in terms of being a "shareholder," or of falling into what the Car- negie report calls a "permanent underclass." There may not be so much difference between these states as some would like to think. General education, unfortunately so named because it too easily sug- gests that what we now call the "smorgasbord" approach (I regret this, because true smorgasbords have a definite character) is tossed back and forth by curriculum makers between the two poles of negations, one set of which is content/skills and another practical (professional)/everything else. General education must face the question of how to define knowl- edge anew in a contrary fashion. It must acknowledge that there is no such thing as the simple, direct gift of nontheoretical knowledge, free of perplexing questions. What we so often think.free of theoretical implica-  Antithetical Essays 238 Antithetical Essays 238 Antithetical Essays tions is always laden with assumptions. It is frequently the product of what Althusser has called "state apparatuses." Is it ever possible to escape this situation and develop a position "out- side" and free from which to determine truth? Or is one, like Urizen, al- ways already surrounded? Yes, one is, if one thinks of knowledge as only content or only skill or some apparently happy combination of the two. If one could consider knowledge as a process, then it would be possible always to be in it and keep going, and both a past and a future would come into view. It would be a future of questioning and a past consistently queried and reformulated. This would not be the meaning of knowledge merely for intellectuals; it would be practical, for it avoids what Blake called "fixities and definites," which when lodged in people's minds make it impossible to meet the economic competition the Carnegie report wor- ries about or to renew for creative purposes the texts of the past (on which Bennett wishes to center humanities study) in ways not already pre- scribed by those who interpreted them for another time and place. Somehow general education must be built to emphasize knowledge as process. A program that attempts this might begin by fashioning courses of study that: s. Inquire into the underlying rationale of a particular discipline, and into its history and development. z. Make possible an inquiry into the relationship between a particular discipline and the culture at large, including other disciplines and in some cases the local community. 3. Raise questions that are approached in different ways by different disciplines and lead to study of the implications of those differences and of points of contact between the disciplines. In each of these cases, the process includes and emphasizes or at least gets to inquiring into why we proceed as we do. There is wariness of the fixed law. Very puzzling questions are likely to appear from time to time in the process, but in a context where embarrassment is less likely to sup- press their discussion: What is the authority behind the rule or way of proceeding? How did the situation come about? Why does the discipline have the boundaries it has? Many people fear this kind of process. I regard it as necessary to the alleged aim of both Carnegie and Bennett, though it is contrary in means and attitude to both. It is based on an ethic that refuses to accept tyranny, particularly intellectual tyranny. As Yeats remarked, an "intellectual ha- tred" is the worst of all kinds. In any case, I believe that until the sort of process I suggest is seriously attempted, general education, which should be called liberating education, will be subject to the negations that have been my concern here. tions is always laden with assumptions. It is frequently the product of what Althusser has called "state apparatuses." Is it ever possible to escape this situation and develop a position "out- side" and free from which to determine truth? Or is one, like Urizen, al- ways already surrounded? Yes, one is, if one thinks of knowledge as only content or only skill or some apparently happy combination of the two. If one could consider knowledge as a process, then it would be possible always to be in it and keep going, and both a past and a future would come into view. It would be a future of questioning and a past consistently queried and reformulated. This would not be the meaning of knowledge merely for intellectuals; it would be practical, for it avoids what Blake called "fixities and definites," which when lodged in people's minds make it impossible to meet the economic competition the Carnegie report wor- ries about or to renew for creative purposes the texts of the past (on which Bennett wishes to center humanities study) in ways not already pre- scribed by those who interpreted them for another time and place. Somehow general education must be built to emphasize knowledge as process. A program that attempts this might begin by fashioning courses of study that: s. Inquire into the underlying rationale of a particular discipline, and into its history and development. z. Make possible an inquiry into the relationship between a particular discipline and the culture at large, including other disciplines and in some cases the local community. 3. Raise questions that are approached in different ways by different disciplines and lead to study of the implications of those differences and of points of contact between the disciplines. In each of these cases, the process includes and emphasizes or at least gets to inquiring into why we proceed as we do. There is wariness of the fixed law. Very puzzling questions are likely to appear from time to time in the process, but in a context where embarrassment is less likely to sup- press their discussion: What is the authority behind the rule or way of proceeding? How did the situation come about? Why does the discipline have the boundaries it has? Many people fear this kind of process. I regard it as necessary to the alleged aim of both Carnegie and Bennett, though it is contrary in means and attitude to both. It is based on an ethic that refuses to accept tyranny, particularly intellectual tyranny. As Yeats remarked, an "intellectual ha- tred" is the worst of all kinds. In any case, I believe that until the sort of process I suggest is seriously attempted, general education, which should be called liberating education, will be subject to the negations that have been my concern here. tions is always laden with assumptions. It is frequently the product of what Althusser has called "state apparatuses." Is it ever possible to escape this situation and develop a position "out- side" and free from which to determine truth? Or is one, like Urizen, al- ways already surrounded? Yes, one is, if one thinks of knowledge as only content or only skill or some apparently happy combination of the two. If one could consider knowledge as a process, then it would be possible always to be in it and keep going, and both a past and a future would come into view. It would be a future of questioning and a past consistently queried and reformulated. This would not be the meaning of knowledge merely for intellectuals; it would be practical, for it avoids what Blake called "fixities and definites," which when lodged in people's minds make it impossible to meet the economic competition the Carnegie report wor- ries about or to renew for creative purposes the texts of the past (on which Bennett wishes to center humanities study) in ways not already pre- scribed by those who interpreted them for another time and place. Somehow general education must be built to emphasize knowledge as process. A program that attempts this might begin by fashioning courses of study that: s. Inquire into the underlying rationale of a particular discipline, and into its history and development. u. Make possible an inquiry into the relationship between a particular discipline and the culture at large, including other disciplines and in some cases the local community. 3. Raise questions that are approached in different ways by different disciplines and lead to study of the implications of those differences and of points of contact between the disciplines. In each of these cases, the process includes and emphasizes or at least gets to inquiring into why we proceed as we do. There is wariness of the fixed law. Very puzzling questions are likely to appear from time to time in the process, but in a context where embarrassment is less likely to sup- press their discussion: What is the authority behind the rule or way of proceeding? How did the situation come about? Why does the discipline have the boundaries it has? Many people fear this kind of process. I regard it as necessary to the alleged aim of both Carnegie and Bennett, though it is contrary in means and attitude to both. It is based on an ethic that refuses to accept tyranny, particularly intellectual tyranny. As Yeats remarked, an "intellectual ha- tred" is the worst of all kinds. In any case, I believe that until the sort of process I suggest is seriously attempted, general education, which should be called liberating education, will be subject to the negations that have been my concern here.  The Fate of Knowledge 239 A panel of deans of colleges of education has recently complained that "most Americans think nothing of requiring teachers to carry out a late twentieth-century assignment while locked into a mid-nineteenth cen- tury job description."" It is worse even than this. The intellectual world- picture on which so much general education is based remains that of the age of epistemology with a residue from the age of Being. General educa- tion must acknowledge the existence of the age of the hegemony of lan- guage, preferably before it, too, passes into something else, as it is soon likely to do. Perhaps, then, students, who may sense change better than others, will discover their general education courses more pertinent to knowledge and will not regard them merely as things to "get out of the way." 15. bmorrow's Teachers: A Report of the Holmes Group (East Lansing, MI: Holmes Group, 1986). The Fate of Knowledge 239 A panel of deans of colleges of education has recently complained that "most Americans think nothing of requiring teachers to carry out a late twentieth-century assignment while locked into a mid-nineteenth cen- tury job description."" It is worse even than this. The intellectual world- picture on which so much general education is based remains that of the age of epistemology with a residue from the age of Being. General educa- tion must acknowledge the existence of the age of the hegemony of lan- guage, preferably before it, too, passes into something else, as it is soon likely to do. Perhaps, then, students, who may sense change better than others, will discover their general education courses more pertinent to knowledge and will not regard them merely as things to "get out of the way." 15. bocrrous Teachers: A Report of the Holmes Group (East Lansing, MI: Holmes Group, 1986). The Fate of Knowledge 239 A panel of deans of colleges of education has recently complained that "most Americans think nothing of requiring teachers to carry out a late twentieth-century assignment while locked into a mid-nineteenth cen- tury job description."" It is worse even than this. The intellectual world- picture on which so much general education is based remains that of the age of epistemology with a residue from the age of Being. General educa- tion must acknowledge the existence of the age of the hegemony of lan- guage, preferably before it, too, passes into something else, as it is soon likely to do. Perhaps, then, students, who may sense change better than others, will discover their general education courses more pertinent to knowledge and will not regard them merely as things to "get out of the way." 1s Tomorrow's Teachers: A Report of the Holmes Group (East Lansing, MI: Holmes Group, 1986).  Biographia Educationis Humanae In the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge writes about his own early literary education: At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensi- ble, though at the same time a very severe master. . . . I learnt from him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fu- gitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the posi- tion of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the synonimes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us at- tempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not have answered the same purpose; and wherein consisted the pecu- liar fitness of the word in the original text. In our own English compositions, (at least for the last three years of our school education,) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed, with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre, muse, muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene were all abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh ayel The cloister-pump, I suppose!"' There are three things I particularly admire about this: first, the notion that literary education is (or can be) an education in rigorous thinking, therefore connected with other disciplines, perhaps basic to them; sec- ond, the pervading sense of standards in the teacher clearly ascertainable by the student; third, the premium put on language and its control as the ground of interpreting the world and the texts in it. These are notions of which we have reason to lament the absence in many places, and not 1. Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross, (Oxford: Oxford Uiversity Press, 19o7), 4-5. Biographia Educationis Humanae In the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge writes about his own early literary education: At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensi- ble, though at the same time a very severe master. . . . I learnt fcom him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fu- gitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the posi- tion of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the synonimes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us at- tempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not have answered the same purpose; and wherein consisted the pecu- liar fitness of the word in the original text. In our own English compositions, (at least for the last three years of our school education,) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed, with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre, muse, muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene were all abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! The cloister-pump, I suppose!"' There are three things I particularly admire about this: first, the notion that literary education is (or can be) an education in rigorous thinking, therefore connected with other disciplines, perhaps basic to them; sec- ond, the pervading sense of standards in the teacher clearly ascertainable by the student; third, the premium put on language and its control as the ground of interpreting the world and the texts in it. These are notions of which we have reason to lament the absence in many places, and not 1. Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross, (Oxford: Oxford Uiversity Press, 1907), 4-5. 240 Biographia Educationis Humanae In the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge writes about his own early literary education: At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensi- ble, though at the same time a very severe master. . . . I learnt from him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fu- gitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the posi- tion of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the synonimes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us at- tempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not have answered the same purpose; and wherein consisted the pecu- liar fitness of the word in the original text. In our own English compositions, (at least for the last three years of our school education,) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed, with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre, muse, muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene were all abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! The cloister-pump, I suppose!"' There are three things I particularly admire about this: first, the notion that literary education is (or can be) an education in rigorous thinking, therefore connected with other disciplines, perhaps basic to them; sec- ond, the pervading sense of standards in the teacher clearly ascertainable by the student; third, the premium put on language and its control as the ground of interpreting the world and the texts in it. These are notions of which we have reason to lament the absence in many places, and not 1. Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907),4 -5.  Biographia Educations Humane 241 Biographia Educationis Humnae 241 Biographia Educationis Humane just in the nooks and crannies of the educational establishment. Indeed, such insistence on rigor has been rare at any moment in the history of organized education. At the same time, it is clear enough that the specific materials em- ployed by Coleridge's teacher-the materials of the day, indeed, a very long day-won't work now except in the most extraordinary of circum- stances. When we consider how few received formal education early in the nineteenth century and how narrow and dull it was, we realize that Coleridge's situation was extraordinary for any time. And, of course, Coleridge was extraordinary. (However, we had better not refuse to learn from extraordinary minds on this matter.) The three things I like about Coleridge's remembrance are of immense value and must be retained in any liberal, by which I mean intellectually liberating, teaching. One nec- essary element in literary teaching can be roughly described as attention to the active involvement of the student-reader (at whatever stage of life or sophistication) in the enterprise. Today the problem seems to be how the elements of rigor, thinking, and attention can be foremost in a situa- tion where nothing is looked on proscriptively and where so much of value that is written seems to the student simply overwhelming. Most primary- and secondary-school teachers are acquainted with more educational theory and have been exposed to more consideration of pedagogical methodology than I have. In examining what an educatio human might be, I intend to query my personal experience as a student. From the point of view of theory this is, I admit, a little like what James Thurber described as falling backwards on a set of garden tools. I have only certain experiences to recite for what they are worth, and, after that, certain anxieties to express about the enterprise of liberal and specifically literary education. I hope they will not come out sounding like a Jere- miad. To illustrate the role of theory and practice I offer an old story told about Henry Ford. The story goes that Ford was irritated at having to re- place the wooden railroad ties on a small plant line and suggested that the track be placed in concrete. His engineers told him that if this were done, at a certain speed and rounding a certain turn, the locomotive would jump the track. Ford inquired as to whether or not anyone had ever seen this sort of thing happen. The answer was "no," but his advisers insisted that sound engineering theory made the result inevitable. Ford ordered the stretch of track built in concrete. The locomotive rumbled down the track, hit the curve, and was promptly derailed. Ford observed, "You were right, build the track with wooden ties." You will note that this is a vindication of both theory and practice. But in practice educational theory doesn't work as well as physical theory. My distrust of what educa- just in the nooks and crannies of the educational establishment. Indeed, such insistence on rigor has been rare at any moment in the history of organized education. At the same time, it is clear enough that the specific materials em- ployed by Coleridge's teacher-the materials of the day, indeed, a very long day-won't work now except in the most extraordinary of circum- stances. When we consider how few received formal education early in the nineteenth century and how narrow and dull it was, we realize that Coleridge's situation was extraordinary for any time. And, of course, Coleridge was extraordinary. (However, we had better not refuse to learn from extraordinary minds on this matter.) The three things I like about Coleridge's remembrance are of immense value and must be retained in any liberal, by which I mean intellectually liberating, teaching. One nec- essary element in literary teaching can be roughly described as attention to the active involvement of the student-reader (at whatever stage of life or sophistication) in the enterprise. Today the problem seems to be how the elements of rigor, thinking, and attention can be foremost in a situa- tion where nothing is looked on proscriptively and where so much of value that is written seems to the student simply overwhelming. Most primary- and secondary-school teachers are acquainted with more educational theory and have been exposed to more consideration of pedagogical methodology than I have. In examining what an educatio humana might be, I intend to query my personal experience as a student. From the point of view of theory this is, I admit, a little like what James Thurber described as falling backwards on a set of garden tools. I have only certain experiences to recite for what they are worth, and, after that, certain anxieties to express about the enterprise of liberal and specifically literary education. I hope they will not come out sounding like a Jere- miad. To illustrate the role of theory and practice I offer an old story told about Henry Ford. The story goes that Ford was irritated at having to re- place the wooden railroad ties on a small plant line and suggested that the track be placed in concrete. His engineers told him that if this were done, at a certain speed and rounding a certain turn, the locomotive would jump the track. Ford inquired as to whether or not anyone had ever seen this sort of thing happen. The answer was "no," but his advisers insisted that sound engineering theory made the result inevitable. Ford ordered the stretch of track built in concrete. The locomotive rumbled down the track, hit the curve, and was promptly derailed. Ford observed, "You were right, build the track with wooden ties." You will note that this is a vindication of both theory and practice. But in practice educational theory doesn't work as well as physical theory. My distrust of what educa- just in the nooks and crannies of the educational establishment. Indeed, such insistence on rigor has been rare at any moment in the history of organized education. At the same time, it is clear enough that the specific materials em- ployed by Coleridge's teacher-the materials of the day, indeed, a very long day-won't work now except in the most extraordinary of circum- stances. When we consider how few received formal education early in the nineteenth century and how narrow and dull it was, we realize that Coleridge's situation was extraordinary for any time. And, of course, Coleridge was extraordinary. (However, we had better not refuse to learn from extraordinary minds on this matter.) The three things I like about Coleridge's remembrance are of immense value and must be retained in any liberal, by which I mean intellectually liberating, teaching. One nec- essary element in literary teaching can be roughly described as attention to the active involvement of the student-reader (at whatever stage of life or sophistication) in the enterprise. Today the problem seems to be how the elements of rigor, thinking, and attention can be foremost in a situa- tion where nothing is looked on proscriptively and where so much of value that is written seems to the student simply overwhelming. Most primary- and secondary-school teachers are acquainted with more educational theory and have been exposed to more consideration of pedagogical methodology than I have. In examining what an educatio humana might be, I intend to query my personal experience as a student. From the point of view of theory this is, I admit, a little like what James Thurber described as falling backwards on a set of garden tools. I have only certain experiences to recite for what they are worth, and, after that, certain anxieties to express about the enterprise of liberal and specifically literary education. I hope they will not come out sounding like a Jere- miad. To illustrate the role of theory and practice I offer an old story told about Henry Ford. The story goes that Ford was irritated at having to re- place the wooden railroad ties on a small plant line and suggested that the track be placed in concrete. His engineers told him that if this were done, at a certain speed and rounding a certain turn, the locomotive would jump the track. Ford inquired as to whether or not anyone had ever seen this sort of thing happen. The answer was "no," but his advisers insisted that sound engineering theory made the result inevitable. Ford ordered the stretch of track built in concrete. The locomotive rumbled down the track, hit the curve, and was promptly derailed. Ford observed, "You were right, build the track with wooden ties." You will note that this is a vindication of both theory and practice. But in practice educational theory doesn't work as well as physical theory. My distrust of what educa-  Antithetical Essays 242 Antithetical Essays 242 Antithetical Essays tional theory has done to education in our century comes through my pa- ternal line, my father being a preparatory school headmaster who by state law had periodically to attend a university class in secondary-school ad- ministration and invariably was the only one in it who had ever run a school, including the professor. Being by nature and necessity inventive (it was the middle of the depression years), he eventually found a solution in a philosophy professor who would sign him up for a conference course in the philosophy of education, during which they would drink tea and discuss Immanuel Kant and Duke Ellington. I want to go back in my own experience to something prior to what Coleridge alludes to in his account. I realize that this may seem egocentric and that my own education was no doubt unusual, at least by today's com- mon experience. However, it is the parts of it that were unusual that I want to recall, because those were the best parts. The rest can remain buried in family myth. To go back to something prior to formal schooling is to go back to where educatio literaria and educatio humana really begin. The Latin word for "education" is doctrina, and for obvious reasons I am avoiding it. I am interested in the true meaning of educatio, which is usually translated into English as "rearing" or "bringing up." Educatio humana clearly begins or ought to begin at home. That in so many cases it cannot is a fact that the schools are constantly having to address. My first literary remembrances are those of my mother reading to me before putting the light out from Walter de la Mare's anthology Come Hither. I still have the copy we read from with checks beside the poems I liked best. They were mainly poems of sound, humor, adventure, or combinations of these things. I look now at the ones checked and some- times double-checked, and I find this one by Thomas Hardy: This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, and nestlings fly: And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at "The Traveller's Rest," And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, and so do I' The curious thing about this poem (or perhaps the not so curious thing about a young listener) is that I really didn't know what it was about, at least in its details. And this did not matter at that stage, because what something is about is not all that it means. Meaning lies in a variety of relations established by a poem. Culture is made of acts of verbal and tional theory has done to education in our century comes through my pa- ternal line, my father being a preparatory school headmaster who by state law had periodically to attend a university class in secondary-school ad- ministration and invariably was the only one in it who had ever run a school, including the professor. Being by nature and necessity inventive (it was the middle of the depression years), he eventually found a solution in a philosophy professor who would sign him up for a conference course in the philosophy of education, during which they would drink tea and discuss Immanuel Kant and Duke Ellington. I want to go back in my own experience to something prior to what Coleridge alludes to in his account. I realize that this may seem egocentric and that my own education was no doubt unusual, at least by today's com- mon experience. However, it is the parts of it that were unusual that I want to recall, because those were the best parts. The rest can remain buried in family myth. To go back to something prior to formal schooling is to go back to where educatio literaria and educatio humana really begin. The Latin word for "education" is doctrina, and for obvious reasons I am avoiding it. I am interested in the true meaning of educatio, which is usually translated into English as "rearing" or "bringing up." Educatio humana clearly begins or ought to begin at home. That in so many cases it cannot is a fact that the schools are constantly having to address. My first literary remembrances are those of my mother reading to me before putting the light out from Walter de la Mare's anthology Come Hither. I still have the copy we read from with checks beside the poems I liked best. They were mainly poems of sound, humor, adventure, or combinations of these things. I look now at the ones checked and some- times double-checked, and I find this one by Thomas Hardy: This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, and nestlings fly: And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at "The Traveller's Rest," And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, and so do I The curious thing about this poem (or perhaps the not so curious thing about a young listener) is that I really didn't know what it was about, at least in its details. And this did not matter at that stage, because what something is about is not all that it means. Meaning lies in a variety of relations established by a poem. Culture is made of acts of verbal and 2. "Weathers." There is a second stanza not printed here. tional theory has done to education in our century comes through my pa- ternal line, my father being a preparatory school headmaster who by state law had periodically to attend a university class in secondary-school ad- ministration and invariably was the only one in it who had ever run a school, including the professor. Being by nature and necessity inventive (it was the middle of the depression years), he eventually found a solution in a philosophy professor who would sign him up for a conference course in the philosophy of education, during which they would drink tea and discuss Immanuel Kant and Duke Ellington. I want to go back in my own experience to something prior to what Coleridge alludes to in his account. I realize that this may seem egocentric and that my own education was no doubt unusual, at least by today's com- mon experience. However, it is the parts of it that were unusual that I want to recall, because those were the best parts. The rest can remain buried in family myth. To go back to something prior to formal schooling is to go back to where educatio literaria and educatio humana really begin. The Latin word for "education" is doctrina, and for obvious reasons I am avoiding it. I am interested in the true meaning of educatio, which is usually translated into English as "rearing" or "bringing up." Educatio humana clearly begins or ought to begin at home. That in so many cases it cannot is a fact that the schools are constantly having to address. My first literary remembrances are those of my mother reading to me before putting the light out from Walter de la Mare's anthology Come Hither. I still have the copy we read from with checks beside the poems I liked best. They were mainly poems of sound, humor, adventure, or combinations of these things. I look now at the ones checked and some- times double-checked, and I find this one by Thomas Hardy: This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I; When showers betumble the chestnut spikes, and nestlings fly: And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at "The Traveller's Rest," And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, and so do I' The curious thing about this poem (or perhaps the not so curious thing about a young listener) is that I really didn't know what it was about, at least in its details. And this did not matter at that stage, because what something is about is not all that it means. Meaning lies in a variety of relations established by a poem. Culture is made of acts of verbal and 2. "Weathers." There is a second stanza not printed here.  Biographia Educationis Humane 243 Biographia Educationis Humanae 243 Biographia Educationis Humane 243 symbolic relation, and poems are primitive, though also sophisticated, forms of this. I had no idea what kind of a bird a cuckoo was, except that I believed it was an odd and comical and, in some way through the poem, amusing and friendly bird. I had no idea what was meant by "showers betumble the chestnut spikes," though repeated readings, or in this case listenings, made it part of my memory. "Sprig-muslin" was, and is, a mystery to me. The line about dreams of the south and west appealed strongly to me. I am not going to try to analyze why Shakespeare's songs rated checks or double checks: "To whit tu-who!" A merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon. Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes. There were the rhythms of John Masefield's "Sea Fever" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," which I always remember in relation to the en- gravings in the text. It was for me what W. J. T. Mitchell calls a "compos- ite" work. I was fascinated with what "mome raths outgrabe" might be. The following poem was read to me when I was four to eight years old, always to my inexpressible enjoyment: This face you got, This here phizzog you carry around, You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all-did you? This here phizzog-somebody handed it to you-am I right? Somebody said, "here's yours, now go see what you can do with it." Somebody slipped it to you and it was like a package marked: "No goods exchanged after being taken away"-This face you got.' This is Carl Sandburg's "Phizzog." It is a poem which I believe I then may fully have understood. Indeed, when I was about five, Sandburg was my favorite poet, standing in my pantheon of heroes alongside Earl Averill, Monte Pearson, and a series of marginal Cleveland shortstops who came and went more rapidly than managers of the New York Yankees 3. See his William Blake's Composite Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 4. From Carl Sandburg's Early Moon (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1930), 4. symbolic relation, and poems are primitive, though also sophisticated, forms of this. I had no idea what kind of a bird a cuckoo was, except that I believed it was an odd and comical and, in some way through the poem, amusing and friendly bird. I had no idea what was meant by "showers betumble the chestnut spikes," though repeated readings, or in this case listenings, made it part of my memory. "Sprig-muslin" was, and is, a mystery to me. The line about dreams of the south and west appealed strongly to me. I am not going to try to analyze why Shakespeare's songs rated checks or double checks: "To whit tu-who!" A merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon. Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes. There were the rhythms of John Masefield's "Sea Fever" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," which I always remember in relation to the en- gravings in the text. It was for me what W. J. T. Mitchell calls a "compos- ite" work? I was fascinated with what "mome raths outgrabe" might be. The following poem was read to me when I was four to eight years old, always to my inexpressible enjoyment: This face you got, This here phizzog you carry around, You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all-did you? This here phizzog-somebody handed it to you-am I right? Somebody said, "here's yours, now go see what you can do with it." Somebody slipped it to you and it was like a package marked: "No goods exchanged after being taken away"-This face you got.' This is Carl Sandburg's "Phizzog." It is a poem which I believe I then may fully have understood. Indeed, when I was about five, Sandburg was my favorite poet, standing in my pantheon of heroes alongside Earl Averill, Monte Pearson, and a series of marginal Cleveland shortstops who came and went more rapidly than managers of the New York Yankees 3. See his William Blake's Composite Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 4. From Carl Sandburg's Early Moon (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1930), 41. symbolic relation, and poems are primitive, though also sophisticated, forms of this. I had no idea what kind of a bird a cuckoo was, except that I believed it was an odd and comical and, in some way through the poem, amusing and friendly bird. I had no idea what was meant by "showers betumble the chestnut spikes," though repeated readings, or in this case listenings, made it part of my memory. "Sprig-muslin" was, and is, a mystery to me. The line about dreams of the south and west appealed strongly to me. I am not going to try to analyze why Shakespeare's songs rated checks or double checks: 'To whit tn-who!" A merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon. Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes. There were the rhythms of John Masefield's "Sea Fever" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," which I always remember in relation to the en- gravings in the text. It was for me what W. J. T. Mitchell calls a "compos- ite" work. I was fascinated with what "mome raths outgrabe" might be. The following poem was read to me when I was four to eight years old, always to my inexpressible enjoyment: This face you got, This here phizzog you carry around, You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all-did you? This here phizzog-somebody handed it to you-am I right? Somebody said, "here's yours, now go see what you can do with it." Somebody slipped it to you and it was like a package marked: "No goods exchanged after being taken away"-This face you got' This is Carl Sandburg's "Phizzog." It is a poem which I believe I then may fully have understood. Indeed, when I was about five, Sandburg was my favorite poet, standing in my pantheon of heroes alongside Earl Averill, Monte Pearson, and a series of marginal Cleveland shortstops who came and went more rapidly than managers of the New York Yankees 3. See his William Blake's Composite Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 4. From Carl Sandburg's Early Moon (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1930), 4.  244 Antithetical Essays 244 Antithetical Essays 244 Antithetical Essays do today. One of these was a man named Billy Knickerbocker, whose name I connected, through what Giambattista Vico called "poetic logic," with a propensity for kicking double-play balls. Knickerbocker was re- placed by a man named Lyn Lary. I regarded him as an improvement. The reason must have been that his name alliterated fluidly, which is right for a shortstop; but, as I recall, he could not hit. I am trying to make a rather simple point. I wonder whether under the circumstances many of us face in the classroom and in the culture today literature can be taught.' More precisely I wonder whether it can be taught without its prior presence. By "presence" I mean something like what Martin Bober tried to get into the term "thou," an involvement that makes literature more than an "it," in the way that when a poem like "Phizzog" is spoken, the child is involved in its speaking.' I know that at age five I had a very satisfying, secret, sly brotherhood with "Phizzog." I believe that this sort of thing best comes very early in life, that it is much more difficult in coming (though not impossible) as we delay it, that it has considerable staying power when it does come early, and that liter- ary education in the sense of bringing into presence is a subject princi- pally for the home and primary grades. If it doesn't come there, well, most of us know the difficulties that arise. Some of them we make by shut- ting literary education into compartments that separate it off from Mother Goose on the one hand and from other kinds of study-art and history- on the other. Teachers at every level ought to be supplying a presence of literature against the huge difficulty that it has been present in most homes, where there are homes, only ectoplasmically in the form of television. Now, we all know that it is fashionable to put down television, and the vast prepon- derance of it is just awful, but there is no doubt that the role of television could be immense. Indeed, it is: its awfulness plays a powerful educa- tional role. In academic life there are those who have a strong interest in television as educational. They often speak in the form of Wesleyan enthusiasm (with some Benthamism) about it. Those of us who believe in restraint in all things contemplate the problems of the primary teacher having to compete daily with the spectacular aspects of performances like 5. There is, of course, a sense in which literature cannot be taught any more than nature can be taught. It can only be taught about. But teaching in this sense is not all that I am concerned with here. For Northrop Frye's argument that literature cannot be taught, only the criticism of it, see his Anatomy of Criticism, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 00. 6. Buber, I and Thou, trans. R.. Smith, 2d ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958). do today. One of these was a man named Billy Knickerbocker, whose name I connected, through what Giambattista Vica called "poetic logic," with a propensity for kicking double-play balls. Knickerbocker was re- placed by a man named Lyn Lary. I regarded him as an improvement. The reason must have been that his name alliterated fluidly, which is right for a shortstop; but, as I recall, he could not hit. I am trying to make a rather simple point. I wonder whether under the circumstances many of us face in the classroom and in the culture today literature can be taught.' More precisely I wonder whether it can be taught without its prior presence. By "presence" I mean something like what Martin Bober tried to get into the term "thou," an involvement that makes literature more than an "it," in the way that when a poem like "Phizzog" is spoken, the child is involved in its speaking.' I know that at age five I had a very satisfying, secret, sly brotherhood with "Phizzog." I believe that this sort of thing best comes very early in life, that it is much more difficult in coming (though not impossible) as we delay it, that it has considerable staying power when it does come early, and that lter- ary education in the sense of bringing into presence is a subject princi- pally for the home and primary grades. If it doesn't come there, well, most of us know the difficulties that arise. Some of them we make by shut- ting literary education into compartments that separate it off from Mother Goose on the one hand and from other kinds of study-art and history- on the other. Teachers at every level ought to be supplying a presence of literature against the huge difficulty that it has been present in most homes, where there are homes, only ectoplasmically in the form of television. Now, we all know that it is fashionable to put down television, and the vast prepon- derance of it is just awful, but there is no doubt that the role of television could be immense. Indeed, it is: its awfulness plays a powerful educa- tional role. In academic life there are those who have a strong interest in television as educational. They often speak in the form of Wesleyan enthusiasm (with some Benthamism) about it. Those of us who believe in restraint in all things contemplate the problems of the primary teacher having to compete daily with the spectacular aspects of performances like 5. There is, of course, a sense in which literature cannot be taught any more than nature can be taught. It can only be taught about. But teaching in this sense is not all that I am concerned with here. For Northrop Frye's argument that literature cannot be taught, only the criticism of it, see his Anatomy of Criticism, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 11. 6. Buber, I and Then, trans. R. G. Smith, 2d ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958). do today. One of these was a man named Billy Knickerbocker, whose name I connected, through what Giambattista Vice called "poetic logic," with a propensity for kicking double-play balls. Knickerbocker was re- placed by a man named Lyn Lary. I regarded him as an improvement. The reason must have been that his name alliterated fluidly, which is right for a shortstop; but, as I recall, he could not hit. I am trying to make a rather simple point. I wonder whether under the circumstances many of us face in the classroom and in the culture today literature can be taught.' More precisely I wonder whether it can be taught without its prior presence. By "presence" I mean something like what Martin Buber tried to get into the term "thou," an involvement that makes literature more than an "it," in the way that when a poem like "Phizzog" is spoken, the child is involved in its speaking.' I know that at age five I had a very satisfying, secret, sly brotherhood with "Phizzog." I believe that this sort of thing best comes very early in life, that it is much more difficult in coming (though not impossible) as we delay it, that it has considerable staying power when it does come early, and that liter- ary education in the sense of bringing into presence is a subject princi- pally for the home and primary grades. If it doesn't come there, well, most of us know the difficulties that arise. Some of them we make by shut- ting literary education into compartments that separate it off from Mother Goose on the one hand and from other kinds of study-art and history- on the other. Teachers at every level ought to be supplying a presence of literature against the huge difficulty that it has been present in most homes, where there are homes, only ectoplasmically in the form of television. Now, we all know that it is fashionable to put down television, and the vast prepon- derance of it is just awful, but there is no doubt that the role of television could be immense. Indeed, it is: its awfulness plays a powerful educa- tional role. In academic life there are those who have a strong interest in television as educational. They often speak in the form of Wesleyan enthusiasm (with some Benthamism) about it. Those of us who believe in restraint in all things contemplate the problems of the primary teacher having to compete daily with the spectacular aspects of performances like 5. There is, of course, a sense in which literature cannot he taught any more than nature can be taught. It can only be taught about. But teaching in this sense is not all that I am concerned with here. For Northrop Frye's argument that literature cannot be taught, only the criticism of it, see his Anatomy of Criticism, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 11- 6. Bber, I and Thou, trans. R. G. Smith, ad ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958).  Biographia Educations Humane 245 "Sesame Street." There is a limit somewhere to the marriage of entertain- ment and primary education. It comes at the point where passivity over- whelms active involvement. Liberal education is verbal and ought to be active. Aristotle rated the importance of the elements of tragic drama in descending order as follows: action, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle. When we examine television drama, and television in general we see that the order of these is very nearly reversed. Spectacle carries the day; action is debased; character is simplified. By action Aristotle meant specifically plot. Shakespeare's plots are often hard to follow be- cause there are often two of them interwoven; television plots range from clich6 to a series of separate spectacular actions bound together by no thought, only the principle of duration. The point here is that to follow a true plot or double plot is itself active; it is to think. I quote now from a famous writer: ". . . a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."' This is Wordsworth writing in 1800. Today we wonder what possibly could have so exercised him. He had not experienced the modern popular song, the radio commercial, TV adver- tising, the game show, the talk show, the detective show, the police show, the situation comedy, the disaster movie, "Hotel," Merv Griffin, rock videos, Howard Cosell, and Dr. Ruth. (I have listed these in no par- ticular order of repugnance.) The first bringing into presence of literature, history, or any writing involving thought has become, by default and advent of the universal baby-sitter, the teacher's responsibility. That responsibility carries with it extraordinary difficulty and is an unfair burden. Competition with Big Bird has required the teacher's whole personality, immense dedication, imagination, and stealth in the face of academic bureaucracy. One might declare that the cause is lost and only a weak imitation of presence is pos- sible if the child reaches, say, six without it in his or her home life. But this is pessimistic. Teachers have to proceed believing in the possibility of presence at any time, and they see it often enough to renew their faith. To achieve this they must offer texts that have the power to "rouse the faculties to act," as William Blake remarked. He said: The wisest of the Ancients considered what was not too Ex- plicit as the fittest for instruction, because it rouses the facul- ties to act. I name Moses, Solomon, Aesop, Homer, Plato.' 7. Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (18o). 8. Letter to Dr. Truster, 23 August 1799. Biographia Educationi Humane 245 "Sesame Street." There is a limit somewhere to the marriage of entertain- ment and primary education. It comes at the point where passivity over- whelms active involvement. Liberal education is verbal and ought to be active. Aristotle rated the importance of the elements of tragic drama in descending order as follows: action, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle. When we examine television drama, and television in general we see that the order of these is very nearly reversed. Spectacle carries the day; action is debased; character is simplified. By action Aristotle meant specifically plot. Shakespeare's plots are often hard to follow be- cause there are often two of them interwoven; television plots range from cliche to a series of separate spectacular actions bound together by no thought, only the principle of duration. The point here is that to follow a true plot or double plot is itself active; it is to think. I quote now from a famous writer: ". . a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."' This is Wordsworth writing in 180o. Today we wonder what possibly could have so exercised him. He had not experienced the modem popular song, the radio commercial, TV adver- tising, the game show, the talk show, the detective show, the police show, the situation comedy, the disaster movie, "Hotel," Merv Griffin, rock videos, Howard Cosell, and Dr. Ruth. (I have listed these in no par- ticular order of repugnance.) The first bringing into presence of literature, history, or any writing involving thought has become, by default and advent of the universal baby-sitter, the teacher's responsibility. That responsibility carries with it extraordinary difficulty and is an unfair burden. Competition with Big Bird has required the teacher's whole personality, immense dedication, imagination, and stealth in the face of academic bureaucracy. One might declare that the cause is lost and only a weak imitation of presence is pos- sible if the child reaches, say, six without it in his or her home life. But this is pessimistic. Teachers have to proceed believing in the possibility of presence at any time, and they see it often enough to renew their faith. To achieve this they must offer texts that have the power to "rouse the faculties to act," as William Blake remarked. He said: The wisest of the Ancients considered what was not too Ex- plicit as the fittest for instruction, because it rouses the facul- ties to act. I name Moses, Solomon, Aesop, Homer, Plato.' 7. Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (s80o). 8. Letter to Dr. Trusher, 23 August 17gg. Biographia Educationis Humanae 245 "Sesame Street." There is a limit somewhere to the marriage of entertain- ment and primary education. It comes at the point where passivity over- whelms active involvement. Liberal education is verbal and ought to be active. Aristotle rated the importance of the elements of tragic drama in descending order as follows: action, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle. When we examine television drama, and television in general we see that the order of these is very nearly reversed. Spectacle carries the day; action is debased; character is simplified. By action Aristotle meant specifically plot. Shakespeare's plots are often hard to follow be- cause there are often two of them interwoven; television plots range from cliche to a series of separate spectacular actions bound together by no thought, only the principle of duration. The point here is that to follow a true plot or double plot is itself active; it is to think. I quote now from a famous writer: ". . . a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."' This is Wordsworth writing in 18o. Today we wonder what possibly could have so exercised him. He had not experienced the modern popular song, the radio commercial, TV adver- tising, the game show, the talk show, the detective show, the police show, the situation comedy, the disaster movie, "Hotel," Merv Griffin, rock videos, Howard Cosell, and Dr. Ruth. (I have listed these in no par- ticular order of repugnance.) The first bringing into presence of literature, history, or any writing involving thought has become, by default and advent of the universal baby-sitter, the teacher's responsibility. That responsibility carries with it extraordinary difficulty and is an unfair burden. Competition with Big Bird has required the teacher's whole personality, immense dedication, imagination, and stealth in the face of academic bureaucracy. One might declare that the cause is lost and only a weak imitation of presence is pos- sible if the child reaches, say, six without it in his or her home life. But this is pessimistic. Teachers have to proceed believing in the possibility of presence at any time, and they see it often enough to renew their faith. To achieve this they must offer texts that have the power to "rouse the faculties to act," as William Blake remarked. He said: The wisest of the Ancients considered what was not too Ex- plicit as the fittest for instruction, because it rouses the facul- ties to act. I name Moses, Solomon, Aesop, Homer, Plato.' 7. Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (s80o). 8. Letter to Dr. Trusler, 23 August 1799.  Antithetical Essays 246 Antithetical Essays 246 Antithetical Essays The earliest forms of presence are oral. Indeed, reading itself was al- most entirely an oral activity and often a communal activity well into medieval times. Mine included, in addition to many poems in Come Hither, versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, Sandburg's Early Moon and Rootabaga Stories. One text that I read when very young exerted its strong influence on me once again a few years ago when I wrote a novel called The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance.' It was The Funny Thing by Wanda Ga'g, a fine comic fable that included spirited illustra- tions.'o For the most part what seems to have appealed to me in these texts was rhythm and strangeness-the Cyclops, the winds in a bag, Achilles' shield, the snook and the gringo. We often seem, for some reason, deter- mined to keep great works of literature out of the hands of youth and sub- stitute so-called teachable or readable texts-or, texts with "appeal," whatever that might be. This, rather than the occasionally alleged pruri- ence of the average high school teacher's mind, must be the reason that periodically somewhere J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is proposed as a text and then promptly banned by a school board under pressure. There is something terribly sad about this. First, there is the poverty of imagination that brings this text around so often as a means of tormenting the school board. Second, there is the implicit notion that readability, or something that the student can "relate," to is not just the fundamental but the only criterion for inclusion in the literary curriculum. Third, there is the time that would be spent on this text at the expense of arguably more important and deeper works that are regarded as too hard or are also taboo." Everyone ought to know that the fundamental texts for under- standing the symbolic language of western culture are Homer and the Bible. But public schools, of course, have to avoid the Bible, and in many places where it is taught it is a text for doctrine and the inculcation of primitive belief rather than what it ought to be in liberal education-a rich encyclopedic work of cultural myths. As such, it belongs early in edu- cation along with Homer and the myths and legends of other cultures. Some of my most important early experiences were of plays. The first was probably an adaptation of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, of which I remember nothing but the spectacle and the little redheaded girl I went with. I was probably about five, when spectacle is very important. I was 9. The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 197-). 1o. The Funny Thing (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 192g). ss. I don't mean this as a criticism of Catcher in the Rye. It is a good book, maybe a great book and I'd defend its use, but I'd rather be defending certain other texts. The earliest forms of presence are oral. Indeed, reading itself was al- most entirely an oral activity and often a communal activity well into medieval times. Mine included, in addition to many poems in Come Hither, versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, Sandburg's Early Moon and Rootabaga Stories. One text that I read when very young exerted its strong influence on me once again a few years ago when I wrote a novel called The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance.' It was The Funny Thing by Wanda Ga'g, a fine comic fable that included spirited illustra- tions.'t For the most part what seems to have appealed to me in these texts was rhythm and strangeness-the Cyclops, the winds in a bag, Achilles' shield, the snook and the gringo. We often seem, for some reason, deter- mined to keep great works of literature out of the hands of youth and sub- stitute so-called teachable or readable texts-or, texts with "appeal," whatever that might be. This, rather than the occasionally alleged pruri- ence of the average high school teacher's mind, must be the reason that periodically somewhere J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is proposed as a text and then promptly banned by a school board under pressure. There is something terribly sad about this. First, there is the poverty of imagination that brings this text around so often as a means of tormenting the school board. Second, there is the implicit notion that readability, or something that the student can "relate," to is not just the fundamental but the only criterion for inclusion in the literary curriculum. Third, there is the time that would be spent on this text at the expense of arguably more important and deeper works that are regarded as too hard or are also taboo. " Everyone ought to know that the fundamental texts for under- standing the symbolic language of western culture are Homer and the Bible. But public schools, of course, have to avoid the Bible, and in many places where it is taught it is a text for doctrine and the inculcation of primitive belief rather than what it ought to be in liberal education-a rich encyclopedic work of cultural myths. As such, it belongs early in edu- cation along with Homer and the myths and legends of other cultures. Some of my most important early experiences were of plays. The first was probably an adaptation of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, of which I remember nothing but the spectacle and the little redheaded girl I went with. I was probably about five, when spectacle is very important. I was g. The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). 1o. The Funny Thing (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 19s9). n. I don't mean this as a criticism of Catcher in the Rye. It is a good book, maybe a great book and I'd defend its use, but I'd rather be defending certain other texts. The earliest forms of presence are oral. Indeed, reading itself was al- most entirely an oral activity and often a communal activity well into medieval times. Mine included, in addition to many poems in Come Hither, versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, Sandburg's Early Moon and Rootabaga Stories. One text that I read when very young exerted its strong influence on me once again a few years ago when I wrote a novel called The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance.* It was The Funny Thing by Wanda Ga'g, a fine comic fable that included spirited illustra- tions." For the most part what seems to have appealed to me in these texts was rhythm and strangeness-the Cyclops, the winds in a bag, Achilles' shield, the snook and the gringo. We often seem, for some reason, deter- mined to keep great works of literature out of the hands of youth and sub- stitute so-called teachable or readable texts-or, texts with "appeal," whatever that might be. This, rather than the occasionally alleged pruri- ence of the average high school teacher's mind, must be the reason that periodically somewhere J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is proposed as a text and then promptly banned by a school board under pressure. There is something terribly sad about this. First, there is the poverty of imagination that brings this text around so often as a means of tormenting the school board. Second, there is the implicit notion that readability, or something that the student can "relate," to is not just the fundamental but the only criterion for inclusion in the literary curriculum. Third, there is the time that would be spent on this text at the expense of arguably more important and deeper works that are regarded as too hard or are also taboo." Everyone ought to know that the fundamental texts for under- standing the symbolic language of western culture are Homer and the Bible. But public schools, of course, have to avoid the Bible, and in many places where it is taught it is a text for doctrine and the inculcation of primitive belief rather than what it ought to be in liberal education-a rich encyclopedic work of cultural myths. As such, it belongs early in edu- cation along with Homer and the myths and legends of other cultures. Some of my most important early experiences were of plays. The first was probably an adaptation of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, of which I remember nothing but the spectacle and the little redheaded girl I went with. I was probably about five, when spectacle is very important. I was 9. The Truth About Dragons: An Anti-Romance (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). at. The Funny Thing (New York: Coward McCann, Inc., 1929). u. I don't mean this as a criticism of Catcher in the Rye. It is a good book, maybe a great book and I'd defend its use, but I'd rather be defending certain other texts.  Biographia Educations Humanae 247 Biographia Educations Humanae i47 Biographia Educationis Humanae 247 too young to attend a high-school production of Hamlet, much talked of in my family because my father directed it. It remains famous among a generation of graduates from the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, along with productions of Treasure Island, Dunsany's The Gods of the Mountain and his A Night at an Inn. These plays may be thought by some inappropriate for children. Naturally children love them, because they are strange and terrifying. My mother remembers the first night of Hamlet because of an event on stage that threatened the stability of the whole performance. Early in the play, Queen Gertrude was to speak the following words: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eyes look like a friend on Denmark. However, under the pressure of the situation, the Queen uttered: Good Hamlet, cast thy colored nightie off. The subsequent appearance of an actual ghost could not have gener- ated the hysteria that followed. Obviously there are dangers in having adolescents do Hamlet; but the real ones go far beyond such slip-ups. The student who played the title-role remained in it for many years; Polonius ended up a college professor. Well, we don't blame the football coach for the perpetual adolescence that occasionally characterizes one of his charges; there are dangers in everything. Now, Hamlet or any serious play participated in is the presence of liter- ature in a radical way-to the performers, the students who watch their classmates, and those participating in some technical capacity. In my grade school, the production of the so-called Christmas play occurred every year. My first participation I recall very clearly because it was my first experience of stage fright. It was in the third grade, and I was cast in the role of a silent court page in a pageant play called The Siege Christ- mas, which concerned the court of King Arthur, with the Lancelot- Guinevere relationship bowdlerized to the point of complete disappear- ance, as I learned to my great astonishment several years later. I also performed subsequently in a more important role in the same play and then enacted what was my masterpiece, the role of Friar Tuck in a drama having to do with the Robin Hood legend, after which I retired from act- ing. I might say that I was well padded out, and the lead was played by someone who until recently owned a well-known automobile agency and extended his career in later life by appearing occasionally in his own ad- vertisements on television. I mention this because there are obvious dan- too young to attend a high-school production of Hamlet, much talked of in my family because my father directed it. It remains famous among a generation of graduates from the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, along with productions of Treasure Island, Dunsany's The Gods of the Mountain and his A Night at an Inn. These plays may be thought by some inappropriate for children. Naturally children love them, because they are strange and terrifying. My mother remembers the first night of Hamlet because of an event on stage that threatened the stability of the whole performance. Early in the play, Queen Gertrude was to speak the following words: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eyes look like a friend on Denmark. However, under the pressure of the situation, the Queen uttered: Good Hamlet, cast thy colored nightie off. The subsequent appearance of an actual ghost could not have gener- ated the hysteria that followed. Obviously there are dangers in having adolescents do Hamlet; but the real ones go far beyond such slip-ups. The student who played the title-role remained in it for many years; Polonius ended up a college professor. Well, we don't blame the football coach for the perpetual adolescence that occasionally characterizes one of his charges; there are dangers in everything. Now, Hamlet or any serious play participated in is the presence of liter- ature in a radical way-to the performers, the students who watch their classmates, and those participating in some technical capacity. In my grade school, the production of the so-called Christmas play occurred every year. My first participation I recall very clearly because it was my first experience of stage fright. It was in the third grade, and I was cast in the role of a silent court page in a pageant play called The Siege Christ- mas, which concerned the court of King Arthur, with the Lancelot- Guinevere relationship bowdlerized to the point of complete disappear- ance, as I learned to my great astonishment several years later. I also performed subsequently in a more important role in the same play and then enacted what was my masterpiece, the role of Friar Tuck in a drama having to do with the Robin Hood legend, after which I retired from act- ing. I might say that I was well padded out, and the lead was played by someone who until recently owned a well-known automobile agency and extended his career in later life by appearing occasionally in his own ad- vertisements on television. I mention this because there are obvious dan- too young to attend a high-school production of Hamlet, much talked of in my family because my father directed it. It remains famous among a generation of graduates from the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, along with productions of Treasure Island, Dunsany's The Gods of the Mountain and his A Night at an Inn. These plays may be thought by some inappropriate for children. Naturally children love them, because they are strange and terrifying. My mother remembers the first night of Hamlet because of an event on stage that threatened the stability of the whole performance. Early in the play, Queen Gertrude was to speak the following words: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eyes look like a friend on Denmark. However, under the pressure of the situation, the Queen uttered: Good Hamlet, cast thy colored nightie off The subsequent appearance of an actual ghost could not have gener- ated the hysteria that followed. Obviously there are dangers in having adolescents do Hamlet; but the real ones go far beyond such slip-ups. The student who played the title-role remained in it for many years; Polonius ended up a college professor. Well, we don't blame the football coach for the perpetual adolescence that occasionally characterizes one of his charges; there are dangers in everything. Now, Hamlet or any serious play participated in is the presence of liter- ature in a radical way-to the performers, the students who watch their classmates, and those participating in some technical capacity. In my grade school, the production of the so-called Christmas play occurred every year. My first participation I recall very clearly because it was my first experience of stage fright. It was in the third grade, and I was cast in the role of a silent court page in a pageant play called The Siege Christ- mas, which concerned the court of King Arthur, with the Lancelot- Guinevere relationship bowdlerized to the point of complete disappear- ance, as I learned to my great astonishment several years later. I also performed subsequently in a more important role in the same play and then enacted what was my masterpiece, the role of Friar Tuck in a drama having to do with the Robin Hood legend, after which I retired from act- ing. I might say that I was well padded out, and the lead was played by someone who until recently owned a well-known automobile agency and extended his career in later life by appearing occasionally in his own ad- vertisements on television. I mention this because there are obvious dan-  Antithetical Essays 248 Antithetical Essays 248 Antithetical Essays gers here, though I absolve the play's director from responsibility. Did this Robin Hood steal from the rich? I hold out hope that he has given to the poor. These plays, though written expressly for children to perform, had some modicum of artistic qualities, spectacle, and swords wherever possi- ble. (The author and director of The Siege Christmas, Hiram Haydn, be- came a well-known scholar, novelist, and editor of The American Scholar. Years later, perhaps in fear that a copy of the play still existed, he denied remembering it.) The Siege Christmas was a postromantic syncretic addi- tion to Arthurian legend; Robin Hood belongs to folklore. Such plays can be part of a broad literary education for children. Those plays became parts of our lives; the words are in some cases still with me. The other day I met an old classmate who had been in the Robin Hood play. We had not seen each other for twenty years, and he greeted me by declaim- ing a line from the play, a bad line, I might add: I see a flock of field fares flying over the hill. It turned out that this line was virtually impossible to speak under stress of performance, at least for a twelve-year-old. His utterance brought back to me the incredible tension mounting during each rehearsal to the point at which my friend would attack the delivery of these daunting words: "I fee a sock of flield flares," whereupon the whole cast would collapse with laughter, rolling about the stage. At the dress rehearsal, our desper- ate director cut the line, but my friend was secretly undaunted. On open- ing night he included the line, speaking it perfectly. Facing him on the stage, I trembled under the dual onslaught of sublime panic and sup- pressed hilarity. The point of all this is that we lived very closely with these plays. They had the potential to teach us in a practical way about literary conventions and performance. The fact that our director was W. A. Reaper, the Grim Reaper, himself an actual literary archetype, kept our minds for the most part on our work. I notice today that I can astonish almost any college class by reciting by heart three or four lines of verse. My memory for this sort of thing is not very good, and it ceased to be trained almost entirely after age sev- enteen, except when under the dominance of true vocational education I committed to memory my Marine Corps serial number, the names of all the parts of the M-1 rifle, and such other life-support information as was necessary at the time. As far as I can tell from my students, instrue- tion in the art of memory has completely dropped out of modern educa- tion, under domination of the shibboleth that facts are useless and only method need be known. I suspect that up to a couple of decades ago al- gers here, though I absolve the play's director from responsibility. Did this Robin Hood steal from the rich? I hold out hope that he has given to the poor. These plays, though written expressly for children to perform, had some modicum of artistic qualities, spectacle, and swords wherever possi- ble. (The author and director of The Siege Christmas, Hiram Haydn, be- came a well-known scholar, novelist, and editor of The American Scholar. Years later, perhaps in fear that a copy of the play still existed, he denied remembering it.) The Siege Christmas was a postromantic syncretic addi- tion to Arthurian legend; Robin Hood belongs to folklore. Such plays can be part of a broad literary education for children. Those plays became parts of our lives; the words are in some cases still with me. The other day I met an old classmate who had been in the Robin Hood play. We had not seen each other for twenty years, and he greeted me by declaim- ing a line from the play, a bad line, I might add: I see a flock of field fares flying over the hill. It turned out that this line was virtually impossible to speak under stress of performance, at least for a twelve-year-old. His utterance brought back to me the incredible tension mounting during each rehearsal to the point at which my friend would attack the delivery of these daunting words: "I fee a sock of flield flares," whereupon the whole cast would collapse with laughter, rolling about the stage. At the dress rehearsal, our desper- ate director cut the line, but my friend was secretly undaunted. On open- ing night he included the line, speaking it perfectly. Facing him on the stage, I trembled under the dual onslaught of sublime panic and sup- pressed hilarity. The point of all this is that we lived very closely with these plays. They had the potential to teach us in a practical way about literary conventions and performance. The fact that our director was W. A. Reaper, the Grim Reaper, himself an actual literary archetype, kept our minds for the most part on our work. I notice today that I can astonish almost any college class by reciting by heart three or four lines of verse. My memory for this sort of thing is not very good, and it ceased to be trained almost entirely after age sev- enteen, except when under the dominance of true vocational education I committed to memory my Marine Corps serial number, the names of all the parts of the M-s rifle, and such other life-support information as was necessary at the time. As far as I can tell from my students, instruc- tion in the art of memory has completely dropped out of modern educa- tion, under domination of the shibboleth that facts are useless and only method need be known. I suspect that up to a couple of decades ago al- gers here, though I absolve the play's director from responsibility. Did this Robin Hood steal from the rich? I hold out hope that he has given to the poor. These plays, though written expressly for children to perform, had some modicum of artistic qualities, spectacle, and swords wherever possi- ble. (The author and director of The Siege Christmas, Hiram Haydn, be- came a well-known scholar, novelist, and editor of The American Scholar. Years later, perhaps in fear that a copy of the play still existed, he denied remembering it.) The Siege Christmas was a postromantic syncretic addi- tion to Arthurian legend; Robin Hood belongs to folklore. Such plays can be part of a broad literary education for children. Those plays became parts of our lives; the words are in some cases still with me. The other day I met an old classmate who had been in the Robin Hood play. We had not seen each other for twenty years, and he greeted me by declaim- ing a line from the play, a bad line, I might add: I see a flock of field fares flying over the hill. It turned out that this line was virtually impossible to speak under stress of performance, at least for a twelve-year-old. His utterance brought back to me the incredible tension mounting during each rehearsal to the point at which my friend would attack the delivery of these daunting words: "I fee a sock of flield flares," whereupon the whole cast would collapse with laughter, rolling about the stage. At the dress rehearsal, our desper- ate director cut the line, but my friend was secretly undaunted. On open- ing night he included the line, speaking it perfectly. Facing him on the stage, I trembled under the dual onslaught of sublime panic and sup- pressed hilarity. The point of all this is that we lived very closely with these plays. They had the potential to teach us in a practical way about literary conventions and performance. The fact that our director was W. A. Reaper, the Grim Reaper, himself an actual literary archetype, kept our minds for the most part on our work. I notice today that I can astonish almost any college class by reciting by heart three or four lines of verse. My memory for this sort of thing is not very good, and it ceased to be trained almost entirely after age sev- enteen, except when under the dominance of true vocational education I committed to memory my Marine Corps serial number, the names of all the parts of the M-s rifle, and such other life-support information as was necessary at the time. As far as I can tell from my students, instruc- tion in the art of memory has completely dropped out of modern educa- tion, under domination of the shibboleth that facts are useless and only method need be known. I suspect that up to a couple of decades ago al-  Biographia Educationis Humanae 24g Biographia Educations Humane 249 Biographia Educationis Humanae 24g most any Dublin cab driver knew more poetry by heart than the present American English teacher, and he probably knew some of it in Latin. Memorization got a bad name when it was virtually all that a student was compelled to learn, but I think it has its place in education. Not long ago I was having dinner with an Irishman who had lived as a youth in Dublin. We got on the subject of limericks, and I innocently asked whether or not he knew of the form known as the clerihew, invented by a man named Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). I was then sub- jected to a barrage of clerihews, punctuated by his wife's recitals, pre- sented in impeccable bombast. The first of these was the famous: Sir Christopher Wren Said, "I'm going to dine with some men. If anybody calls Say I'm designing St. Pauls. This was followed by a learned discourse comparing the aesthetics of the clerihew to that of the limerick. Perhaps in their performance there was a lingering vestige of the ancient Irish tradition of the filedh and their vast oral learning, accumulated under duress of the most appalling ritual trials; also the virtues of verbal dexterity, the power not be be at a loss- an exceptionally useful, to say nothing of vocational, gift. My father knew certain passages from Edmund Burke by heart, because in Richwood, Ohio, circa 1912, Burke was apparently one of the models for oration. I was tormented into memorization of certain of Hamlet's soliloquys in high school along with such lesser works as William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"-for the purpose of moral uplift, I believe: Out of the dark that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole I thank whatever God may be For my unconquerable soul. I never understood what I was saying. The poem sounds rather agnostic as I recite it now. Perhaps the ACLU would have something to say about this being taught in high schools today. Or perhaps the born-again Chris- tians. Well, everyone knows that literature is subversive. It's either reli- gious, agnostic, or atheistic. Its subject matter is either sex or asceticism. And so is history. I recall a lecture in Renaissance history in which my teacher Gordon Craig was clearly trying to stick to the subject of politics. He declared with an unfortunate twist of the tongue that the Spanish throne was "in a state of fucks," and subsequently mused that he had not been entirely wrong. Perhaps a tendency toward subversion among hu- most any Dublin cab driver knew more poetry by heart than the present American English teacher, and he probably knew some of it in Latin. Memorization got a bad name when it was virtually all that a student was compelled to learn, but I think it has its place in education. Not long ago I was having dinner with an Irishman who had lived as a youth in Dublin. We got on the subject of limericks, and I innocently asked whether or not he knew of the form known as the clerihew, invented by a man named Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). I was then sub- jected to a barrage of clerihews, punctuated by his wife's recitals, pre- sented in impeccable bombast. The first of these was the famous: Sir Christopher Wren Said, "I'm going to dine with some men. If anybody calls Say I'm designing St. Pauls. This was followed by a learned discourse comparing the aesthetics of the clerihew to that of the limerick. Perhaps in their performance there was a lingering vestige of the ancient Irish tradition of the filedh and their vast oral learning, accumulated under duress of the most appalling ritual trials; also the virtues of verbal dexterity, the power not be be at a loss- an exceptionally useful, to say nothing of vocational, gift. My father knew certain passages from Edmund Burke by heart, because in Richwood, Ohio, circa 1912, Burke was apparently one of the models for oration. I was tormented into memorization of certain of Hamlet's soliloquys in high school along with such lesser works as William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"-for the purpose of moral uplift, I believe: Out of the dark that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole I thank whatever God may be For my unconquerable soul. I never understood what I was saying. The poem sounds rather agnostic as I recite it now. Perhaps the ACLU would have something to say about this being taught in high schools today. Or perhaps the born-again Chris- tians. Well, everyone knows that literature is subversive. It's either reli- gious, agnostic, or atheistic. Its subject matter is either sex or asceticism. And so is history. I recall a lecture in Renaissance history in which my teacher Gordon Craig was clearly trying to stick to the subject of politics. He declared with an unfortunate twist of the tongue that the Spanish throne was "in a state of fucks," and subsequently mused that he had not been entirely wrong. Perhaps a tendency toward subversion among hu- most any Dublin cab driver knew more poetry by heart than the present American English teacher, and he probably knew some of it in Latin. Memorization got a bad name when it was virtually all that a student was compelled to learn, but I think it has its place in education. Not long ago I was having dinner with an Irishman who had lived as a youth in Dublin. We got on the subject of limericks, and I innocently asked whether or not he knew of the form known as the clerihew, invented by a man named Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). I was then sub- jected to a barrage of clerihews, punctuated by his wife's recitals, pre- sented in impeccable bombast. The first of these was the famous: Sir Christopher Wren Said, "I'm going to dine with some men. If anybody calls Say I'm designing St. Pauls. This was followed by a learned discourse comparing the aesthetics of the clerihew to that of the limerick. Perhaps in their performance there was a lingering vestige of the ancient Irish tradition of the filedh and their vast oral learning, accumulated under duress of the most appalling ritual trials; also the virtues of verbal dexterity, the power not be be at a loss- an exceptionally useful, to say nothing of vocational, gift. My father knew certain passages from Edmund Burke by heart, because in Richwood, Ohio, circa 1912, Burke was apparently one of the models for oration. I was tormented into memorization of certain of Hamlet's soliloquys in high school along with such lesser works as William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"-for the purpose of moral uplift, I believe: Out of the dark that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole I thank whatever God may be For my unconquerable soul. I never understood what I was saying. The poem sounds rather agnostic as I recite it now. Perhaps the ACLU would have something to say about this being taught in high schools today. Or perhaps the born-again Chris- tians. Well, everyone knows that literature is subversive. It's either reli- gious, agnostic, or atheistic. Its subject matter is either sex or asceticism. And so is history. I recall a lecture in Renaissance history in which my teacher Gordon Craig was clearly trying to stick to the subject of politics. He declared with an unfortunate twist of the tongue that the Spanish throne was "in a state of fucks," and subsequently mused that he had not been entirely wrong. Perhaps a tendency toward subversion among hu-  Antithetical Essays 250 Antithetical Essays 250 Antithetical Essays manists, embedded so deeply as sometimes to have to rise subcon- sciously, is why so few of them are in academic administration these days. My point about this tradition of the art of memory is that it is still use- ful, and poetry is its obvious ground, since poetry is relatively easy to memorize and a pleasure to know. Further, memorization is social. There has to be a considerable degree of empathy with someone who knows a number of clerihews by heart. A myth has developed that since we can store information outside of ourselves, training in memorization is trivial, and what we should be doing is sharpening our analytical powers. Cer- tainly analytical powers are very important, as Coleridge's teacher knew, and as I wish some of my teachers had better known; but we ought to note that the cliche is to "know by heart," not "know by mind," and this implies a truth about literary memory-that it is a mode of spiritual pres- ence, where something is felt, to quote Yeats, in the "deep heart's core." The value of learning to memorize depends on the context in which it occurs. The person who taught me to memorize was an heroical figure named William Henry Eller, who was my teacher in social studies in grades five through eight at the Lakeside School in Seattle. Eller had no truck with the idea of social science; his game, or space, as we now say, was unashamedly high culture. Always Doctor Eller to us, because he had a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, he was a mythological figure of the wizard class. He was: a painter, who believed that his painting was directly inspired by William Blake, but whose subject matter was limited to figures of indeterminate sex in filmy dress; a poet, whose absorption in nineteenth-century German poetry had hobbled his muse with a jog- ging doggerel; a weaver who made his own looms; a director of living pic- tures; an expert rose gardener; a lecturer on any of the arts and some prac- tical sciences; a hypnotist, and, in short, as I have said, a wizard, who knew the secret of Stonehenge and the pyramids. He taught me and oth- ers a discipline of memorization that enabled a pre-adolescent mind clut- tered by baseball statistics to memorize all of the notes for a whole year of the social studies course. Four years in his class meant that you studied the history of the world, including its arts and myths up through the Ren- aissance. He required one to take notes as one would do in college; he required recitations by question and answer, which I now realize were more like inquisitions. By his universally known clairvoyance he knew precisely who had outraged decorum during his absence from the room. His method was to teach us not merely dates and places but mythology, geography, and the theory of the weather in a synthesis of his own mak- ing, mixed with forays into archeology, horticulture, and various practical arts. He was a slight, prissy man who had absolutely nothing to do with athletics and yet held us in rapt attention. There was never a disciplinary manists, embedded so deeply as sometimes to have to rise subcon- sciously, is why so few of them are in academic administration these days. My point about this tradition of the art of memory is that it is still use- ful, and poetry is its obvious ground, since poetry is relatively easy to memorize and a pleasure to know. Further, memorization is social. There has to be a considerable degree of empathy with someone who knows a number of clerihews by heart. A myth has developed that since we can store information outside of ourselves, training in memorization is trivial, and what we should be doing is sharpening our analytical powers. Cer- tainly analytical powers are very important, as Coleridge's teacher knew, and as I wish some of my teachers had better known; but we ought to note that the clich6 is to "know by heart," not "know by mind," and this implies a truth about literary memory-that it is a mode of spiritual pres- ence, where something is felt, to quote Yeats, in the "deep heart's core." The value of learning to memorize depends on the context in which it occurs. The person who taught me to memorize was an heroical figure named William Henry Eller, who was my teacher in social studies in grades five through eight at the Lakeside School in Seattle. Eller had no truck with the idea of social science; his game, or space, as we now say, was unashamedly high culture. Always Doctor Eller to us, because he had a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, he was a mythological figure of the wizard class. He was: a painter, who believed that his painting was directly inspired by William Blake, but whose subject matter was limited to figures of indeterminate sex in filmy dress; a poet, whose absorption in nineteenth-century German poetry had hobbled his muse with a jog- ging doggerel; a weaver who made his own looms; a director of living pie- tures; an expert rose gardener; a lecturer on any of the arts and some prac- tical sciences; a hypnotist, and, in short, as I have said, a wizard, who knew the secret of Stonehenge and the pyramids. He taught me and oth- ers a discipline of memorization that enabled a pre-adolescent mind clut- tered by baseball statistics to memorize all of the notes for a whole year of the social studies course. Four years in his class meant that you studied the history of the world, including its arts and myths up through the Ren- aissance. He required one to take notes as one would do in college; he required recitations by question and answer, which I now realize were more like inquisitions. By his universally known clairvoyance he knew precisely who had outraged decorum during his absence from the room. His method was to teach us not merely dates and places but mythology, geography, and the theory of the weather in a synthesis of his own mak- ing, mixed with forays into archeology, horticulture, and various practical arts. He was a slight, prissy man who had absolutely nothing to do with athletics and yet held us in rapt attention. There was never a disciplinary manists, embedded so deeply as sometimes to have to rise subcon- sciously, is why so few of them are in academic administration these days. My point about this tradition of the art of memory is that it is still use- ful, and poetry is its obvious ground, since poetry is relatively easy to memorize and a pleasure to know. Further, memorization is social. There has to be a considerable degree of empathy with someone who knows a number of clerihews by heart. A myth has developed that since we can store information outside of ourselves, training in memorization is trivial, and what we should be doing is sharpening our analytical powers. Cer- tainly analytical powers are very important, as Coleridge's teacher knew, and as I wish some of my teachers had better known; but we ought to note that the cliche is to "know by heart," not "know by mind," and this implies a truth about literary memory-that it is a mode of spiritual pres- ence, where something is felt, to quote Yeats, in the "deep heart's core." The value of learning to memorize depends on the context in which it occurs. The person who taught me to memorize was an heroical figure named William Henry Eller, who was my teacher in social studies in grades five through eight at the Lakeside School in Seattle. Eller had no truck with the idea of social science; his game, or space, as we now say, was unashamedly high culture. Always Doctor Eller to us, because he bad a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, he was a mythological figure of the wizard class. He was: a painter, who believed that his painting was directly inspired by William Blake, but whose subject matter was limited to figures of indeterminate sex in filmy dress; a poet, whose absorption in nineteenth-century German poetry had hobbled his muse with a jog- ging doggerel; a weaver who made his own looms; a director of living pic- tures; an expert rose gardener; a lecturer on any of the arts and some prac- tical sciences; a hypnotist, and, in short, as I have said, a wizard, who knew the secret of Stonehenge and the pyramids. He taught me and oth- ers a discipline of memorization that enabled a pre-adolescent mind clut- tered by baseball statistics to memorize all of the notes for a whole year of the social studies course. Four years in his class meant that you studied the history of the world, including its arts and myths up through the Ren- aissance. He required one to take notes as one would do in college; he required recitations by question and answer, which I now realize were more like inquisitions. By his universally known clairvoyance he knew precisely who had outraged decorum during his absence from the room. His method was to teach us not merely dates and places but mythology, geography, and the theory of the weather in a synthesis of his own mak- ing, mixed with forays into archeology, horticulture, and various practical arts. He was a slight, prissy man who had absolutely nothing to do with athletics and yet held us in rapt attention. There was never a disciplinary  Biographia Educationis Humane 251 Biographia Educations Humaneo 251 Biographia Educations Humane problem in his classes; it was simply unthinkable; no one dared test the limits of William Henry Eller's occult powers. Years later I read Eller's published doctoral dissertation on Ibsen. It made no mark in Ibsen stud- ies. It had nothing of the power that he displayed as a teacher. Some of that power was histrionic, like the presence of a great actor; much of it was total commitment to a personal but catholic enough version of Old High Culture. He never thought of separating the various academic sub- jects into compartments; rather, he brought them together and us with them. A few years ago, while watching Robert Graves's I, Claudius on television I again understood how much Dr. Eller had made familiar to me, for my mind went back to those spots of time in my memory when he spoke to us of Ancient Rome and mixed in the study of its daily life and arts. I now realize that final examinations for Dr. Eller over four years meant to write from memory Eller's history of the world, which we thought of to a great extent at the time as a history of its myths and arts. This was, I believe, a very good way to introduce literary study to young people. Another thing I recall as particularly influential was a society I be- longed to even earlier-in the third grade in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the Hawken School Author's Club. Entrance was by election of the member- ship on the basis of published, that is to say clearly legible, written-out work of putative artistic quality. I was admitted as a poet. The president, a fifth-grader, was a novelist, with the clearly appropriate name for the early thirties of Teddy Stanley-Brown. His chapters were exceedingly short but pithy. As I recall, he invented the sort of novel that Richard Brautigan later made his reputation on. This was serious stuff, made even more serious by the fact that our faculty advisor was also one of our ath- letic coaches and seemed to take both activities as equally important. When I discover a student in one of my college classes who writes well, curiosity about the unusual prompts me to ask questions. I discover that there is inevitably one or a combination of the following ingredients: (s) the student has studied Latin (very rare anymore); (a) the student was read to and developed the habit of reading from an early age (rare); (3) the student was subjected to an English teacher who assigned papers of some complexity and graded them with the aim of improving their quality through revision, which was then undertaken. Most important, I think, is the experience of reading, by means of which the student develops a sense of style. In order to write well, students must have acquired a sense of rhythm of some sort, an inner ear; they must know something to write about; and they must have some sense of logic. What I'll loosely collect under the term "logic" I learned in the three great humanistic subjects for youngsters: English grammar, Latin, and plane geometry. Though the problem in his classes; it was simply unthinkable; no one dared test the limits of William Henry Eller's occult powers. Years later I read Eller's published doctoral dissertation on Ibsen. It made no mark in Ibsen stud- ies. It had nothing of the power that he displayed as a teacher. Some of that power was histrionic, like the presence of a great actor; much of it was total commitment to a personal but catholic enough version of Old High Culture. He never thought of separating the various academic sub- jects into compartments; rather, he brought them together and us with them. A few years ago, while watching Robert Graves's I, Claudius on television I again understood how much Dr. Eller had made familiar to me, for my mind went back to those spots of time in my memory when he spoke to us of Ancient Rome and mixed in the study of its daily life and arts. I now realize that final examinations for Dr. Eller over four years meant to write from memory Eller's history of the world, which we thought of to a great extent at the time as a history of its myths and arts. This was, I believe, a very good way to introduce literary study to young people. Another thing I recall as particularly influential was a society I be- longed to even earlier-in the third grade in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the Hawken School Author's Club. Entrance was by election of the member- ship on the basis of published, that is to say clearly legible, written-out work of putative artistic quality. I was admitted as a poet. The president, a fifth-grader, was a novelist, with the clearly appropriate name for the early thirties of Teddy Stanley-Brown. His chapters were exceedingly short but pithy. As I recall, he invented the sort of novel that Richard Brautigan later made his reputation on. This was serious stuff, made even more serious by the fact that our faculty advisor was also one of our ath- letic coaches and seemed to take both activities as equally important. When I discover a student in one of my college classes who writes well, curiosity about the unusual prompts me to ask questions. I discover that there is inevitably one or a combination of the following ingredients: (s) the student has studied Latin (very rare anymore); (a) the student was read to and developed the habit of reading from an early age (rare); (3) the student was subjected to an English teacher who assigned papers of some complexity and graded them with the aim of improving their quality through revision, which was then undertaken. Most important, I think, is the experience of reading, by means of which the student develops a sense of style. In order to write well, students must have acquired a sense of rhythm of some sort, an inner ear; they must know something to write about; and they must have some sense of logic. What I'll loosely collect under the term "logic" I learned in the three great humanistic subjects for youngsters: English grammar, Latin, and plane geometry. Though the problem in his classes; it was simply unthinkable; no one dared test the limits of William Henry Eller's occult powers. Years later I read Eller's published doctoral dissertation on Ibsen. It made no mark in Ibsen stud- ies. It had nothing of the power that he displayed as a teacher. Some of that power was histrionic, like the presence of a great actor; much of it was total commitment to a personal but catholic enough version of Old High Culture. He never thought of separating the various academic sub- jects into compartments; rather, he brought them together and us with them. A few years ago, while watching Robert Graves's I, Claudius on television I again understood how much Dr. Eller had made familiar to me, for my mind went back to those spots of time in my memory when he spoke to us of Ancient Rome and mixed in the study of its daily life and arts. I now realize that final examinations for Dr. Eller over four years meant to write from memory Eller's history of the world, which we thought of to a great extent at the time as a history of its myths and arts. This was, I believe, a very good way to introduce literary study to young people. Another thing I recall as particularly influential was a society I be- longed to even earlier-in the third grade in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the Hawken School Author's Club. Entrance was by election of the member- ship on the basis of published, that is to say clearly legible, written-out work of putative artistic quality. I was admitted as a poet. The president, a fifth-grader, was a novelist, with the clearly appropriate name for the early thirties of Teddy Stanley-Brown. His chapters were exceedingly short but pithy. As I recall, he invented the sort of novel that Richard Brautigan later made his reputation on. This was serious stuff, made even more serious by the fact that our faculty advisor was also one of our ath- letic coaches and seemed to take both activities as equally important. When I discover a student in one of my college classes who writes well, curiosity about the unusual prompts me to ask questions. I discover that there is inevitably one or a combination of the following ingredients: (a) the student has studied Latin (very rare anymore); (a) the student was read to and developed the habit of reading from an early age (rare); (3) the student was subjected to an English teacher who assigned papers of some complexity and graded them with the aim of improving their quality through revision, which was then undertaken. Most important, I think, is the experience of reading, by means of which the student develops a sense of style. In order to write well, students must have acquired a sense of rhythm of some sort, an inner ear; they must know something to write about; and they must have some sense of logic. What I'll loosely collect under the term "logic" I learned in the three great humanistic subjects for youngsters: English grammar, Latin, and plane geometry. Though the  Antithetical Essays 252 Antithetical Essays 252 Antithetical Essays notion of teaching English grammar as if its rules were those of Latin and causing students to diagram sentences and learn terms like "predicate nominative" and "infinitive" is frowned on now by many, it served those I knew who studied it that way very well. In addition to providing consid- erable vocabulary, the study of Latin made me think hard in an orderly fashion on material that has historical importance. It introduced me to literary styles, to the structure of the sentence, and to a string of eccentric teachers. In plane geometry I "enjoyed the inestimable advantage" and unparalleled terror of instruction by Mr. Jean A. Lambert, who insisted on step-by-step demonstrations of every theorem in clear, unambiguous language and on our understanding precisely what was implied at every point along the way. The value of his painfully painstaking approach was negatively demonstrated to me when, in 1942-43, my senior year and my first experience with the calculus, Mr. Lambert departed for the navy, and my grade in mathematics never recovered. My new teacher was not a bad one, I suppose, but I needed an excellent one who insisted on my understanding what I was doing, not just on my doing it. The three subjects I have mentioned and my early experience of them were the most important things in my formal education. However, I can- not pass beyond this matter without mentioning the English classes of Mr. F. W. Bleakney, a small jittery man who routinely kicked the football farther than anyone in a school noted for its powerful football teams and could whip anyone in tennis, badminton, or foul-shooting. He contrived to get high-school nonreaders to read by the simple device of encouraging them to read anything at all that might catch their fancy short of comic books. He would go to any length, any subterfuge to begin and sustain the process. His success was astonishing. Years of this strategy, which was merely an extension of his own enormous range of interests, had made him an expert on everything from water-witching to how to construct a ham radio transmitter. He was a missionary for reading; like an intelligent missionary who is aware that the mysteries of the Trinity ought not to be the medium by which religion is introduced in primitive regions, he had the capacity to see the opportunities in primitive forms of communion and presence. I do not know the means by which presence can be established and maintained among adolescents from the diverse backgrounds and training with which almost every teacher is confronted today. I suspect some of it will always have to do with the maintenance of wonder and romance. It would be arrogant and probably ignorant to offer specific advice to any- body from where I now sit. However, I think there are some general prin- ciples that it is safe to say are forgotten at the expense of humane educa- tion, and I think most teachers would agree about them in a general way, notion of teaching English grammar as if its rules were those of Latin and causing students to diagram sentences and learn terms like "predicate nominative" and "infinitive" is frowned on now by many, it served those I knew who studied it that way very well. In addition to providing consid- erable vocabulary, the study of Latin made me think hard in an orderly fashion on material that has historical importance. It introduced me to literary styles, to the structure of the sentence, and to a string of eccentric teachers. In plane geometry I "enjoyed the inestimable advantage" and unparalleled terror of instruction by Mr. Jean A. Lambert, who insisted on step-by-step demonstrations of every theorem in clear, unambiguous language and on our understanding precisely what was implied at every point along the way. The value of his painfully painstaking approach was negatively demonstrated to me when, in 1942-43, my senior year and my first experience with the calculus, Mr. Lambert departed for the navy, and my grade in mathematics never recovered. My new teacher was not a bad one, I suppose, but I needed an excellent one who insisted on my understanding what I was doing, not just on my doing it. The three subjects I have mentioned and my early experience of them were the most important things in my formal education. However, I can- not pass beyond this matter without mentioning the English classes of Mr. F. W. Bleakney, a small jittery man who routinely kicked the football farther than anyone in a school noted for its powerful football teams and could whip anyone in tennis, badminton, or foul-shooting. He contrived to get high-school nonreaders to read by the simple device of encouraging them to read anything at all that might catch their fancy short of comic books. He would go to any length, any subterfuge to begin and sustain the process. His success was astonishing. Years of this strategy, which was merely an extension of his own enormous range of interests, had made him an expert on everything from water-witching to how to construct a ham radio transmitter. He was a missionary for reading; like an intelligent missionary who is aware that the mysteries of the Trinity ought not to be the medium by which religion is introduced in primitive regions, he had the capacity to see the opportunities in primitive forms of communion and presence. I do not know the means by which presence can be established and maintained among adolescents from the diverse backgrounds and training with which almost every teacher is confronted today. I suspect some of it will always have to do with the maintenance of wonder and romance. It would be arrogant and probably ignorant to offer specific advice to any- body from where I now sit. However, I think there are some general prin- ciples that it is safe to say are forgotten at the expense of humane educa- tion, and I think most teachers would agree about them in a general way, notion of teaching English grammar as if its rules were those of Latin and causing students to diagram sentences and learn terms like "predicate nominative" and "infinitive" is frowned on now by many, it served those I knew who studied it that way very well. In addition to providing consid- erable vocabulary, the study of Latin made me think hard in an orderly fashion on material that has historical importance. It introduced me to literary styles, to the structure of the sentence, and to a string of eccentric teachers. In plane geometry I "enjoyed the inestimable advantage" and unparalleled terror of instruction by Mr. Jean A. Lambert, who insisted on step-by-step demonstrations of every theorem in clear, unambiguous language and on our understanding precisely what was implied at every point along the way. The value of his painfully painstaking approach was negatively demonstrated to me when, in 1942-43, my senior year and my first experience with the calculus, Mr. Lambert departed for the navy, and my grade in mathematics never recovered. My new teacher was not a bad one, I suppose, but I needed an excellent one who insisted on my understanding what I was doing, not just on my doing it. The three subjects I have mentioned and my early experience of them were the most important things in my formal education. However, I can- not pass beyond this matter without mentioning the English classes of Mr. F. W. Bleakney, a small jittery man who routinely kicked the football farther than anyone in a school noted for its powerful football teams and could whip anyone in tennis, badminton, or foul-shooting. He contrived to get high-school nonreaders to read by the simple device of encouraging them to read anything at all that might catch their fancy short of comic books. He would go to any length, any subterfuge to begin and sustain the process. His success was astonishing. Years of this strategy, which was merely an extension of his own enormous range of interests, had made him an expert on everything from water-witching to how to construct a ham radio transmitter. He was a missionary for reading; like an intelligent missionary who is aware that the mysteries of the Trinity ought not to be the medium by which religion is introduced in primitive regions, he had the capacity to see the opportunities in primitive forms of communion and presence. I do not know the means by which presence can be established and maintained among adolescents from the diverse backgrounds and training with which almost every teacher is confronted today. I suspect some of it will always have to do with the maintenance of wonder and romance. It would be arrogant and probably ignorant to offer specific advice to any- body from where I now sit. However, I think there are some general prin- ciples that it is safe to say are forgotten at the expense of humane educa- tion, and I think most teachers would agree about them in a general way,  Biographia Educationis Humane 253 Biographia Educations Humane g53 Biographia Educationis Humanae z53 though perhaps not with respect to some of the specific remarks that fol- low: 1. Literary education ought to begin early and seriously and be carried back into the home through the influence of the school and of teachers. Probably it should center on myths and be part of a larger effort to bring the past to life. The most important thing about literature for education is not that it is contemporary and "relevant" but that it expresses the past. Every present is characterized by the way it writes its history. 2. Literary education should be integrated with other education. The academic divisions among social studies, art, literature, and history make less sense the farther backward toward the first grade we move. 3. Students need to be pressed to the heights, rousing their faculties to act. However, reading anything is better than reading nothing if it comes to that. To use any subterfuge to get students to read is a pardona- ble sin in a teacher. 4. The oral dimension of books is fundamental in the education of the young and ought to remain so into the education of the not-so-young. 5. The sense of wonder at life threatens to die out at times and re- quires perpetual rebirth. Literature begins as a vehicle of wonder and becomes a means of wondering. If it is not wonderful to teachers it is un- likely to be so to students. This means that teachers need to keep reedu- cating themselves in literature and cultural history, and, since time is al- ways at a premium, they might as well do this at the expense of studying educational methodology. Educatio humana does not stop at the borders of what the academic bureaucracy calls the Division of Humanities. In remarks that I suppose are regarded as primitive by many experts today, Plato connected mathe- matics with music, and about thirty years ago Northrop Frye located mathematics between music and architecture among the human arts." If literature begins in myths and legends, then clearly it has a connection to anthropology that academic organization tends to obfuscate. 7. Literary study as a form of liberal education connected with all other forms ought to have the appearance of being a continuum from Mother Goose and the songs a parent sings to a child through to the Shakespeare course in college and beyond. I would like now to address a few remarks to the problem of articula- tion between high school and college. In the present situation, those who teach at one level are not sufficiently familiar with or consulted about what goes on at other levels. Part of the reason for this is the gulf in teach- though perhaps not with respect to some of the specific remarks that fol- low: 1. Literary education ought to begin early and seriously and be carried back into the home through the influence of the school and of teachers. Probably it should center on myths and be part of a larger effort to bring the past to life. The most important thing about literature for education is not that it is contemporary and "relevant" but that it expresses the past. Every present is characterized by the way it writes its history. 2. Literary education should be integrated with other education. The academic divisions among social studies, art, literature, and history make less sense the farther backward toward the first grade we move. 3. Students need to be pressed to the heights, rousing their faculties to act. However, reading anything is better than reading nothing if it comes to that. To use any subterfuge to get students to read is a pardona- ble sin in a teacher. 4. The oral dimension of books is fundamental in the education of the young and ought to remain so into the education of the not-so-young. 5. The sense of wonder at life threatens to die out at times and re- quires perpetual rebirth. Literature begins as a vehicle of wonder and becomes a means of wondering. If it is not wonderful to teachers it is un- likely to be so to students. This means that teachers need to keep reedu- cating themselves in literature and cultural history, and, since time is al- ways at a premium, they might as well do this at the expense of studying educational methodology. Educatio humana does not stop at the borders of what the academic bureaucracy calls the Division of Humanities. In remarks that I suppose are regarded as primitive by many experts today, Plato connected mathe- matics with music, and about thirty years ago Northrop Frye located mathematics between music and architecture among the human arts.1 If literature begins in myths and legends, then clearly it has a connection to anthropology that academic organization tends to obfuscate. 7. Literary study as a form of liberal education connected with all other forms ought to have the appearance of being a continuum from Mother Goose and the songs a parent sings to a child through to the Shakespeare course in college and beyond. I would like now to address a few remarks to the problem of articula- tion between high school and college. In the present situation, those who teach at one level are not sufficiently familiar with or consulted about what goes on at other levels. Part of the reason for this is the gulf in teach- though perhaps not with respect to some of the specific remarks that fol- low: 1. Literary education ought to begin early and seriously and be carried back into the home through the influence of the school and of teachers. Probably it should center on myths and be part of a larger effort to bring the past to life. The most important thing about literature for education is not that it is contemporary and "relevant" but that it expresses the past. Every present is characterized by the way it writes its history. 2. Literary education should be integrated with other education. The academic divisions among social studies, art, literature, and history make less sense the farther backward toward the first grade we move. 3. Students need to be pressed to the heights, rousing their faculties to act. However, reading anything is better than reading nothing if it comes to that. To use any subterfuge to get students to read is a pardona- ble sin in a teacher. 4. The oral dimension of books is fundamental in the education of the young and ought to remain so into the education of the not-so-young. 5. The sense of wonder at life threatens to die out at times and re- quires perpetual rebirth. Literature begins as a vehicle of wonder and becomes a means of wondering. If it is not wonderful to teachers it is un- likely to be so to students. This means that teachers need to keep reedu- cating themselves in literature and cultural history, and, since time is al- ways at a premium, they might as well do this at the expense of studying educational methodology. Educatio humana does not stop at the borders of what the academic bureaucracy calls the Division of Humanities. In remarks that I suppose are regarded as primitive by many experts today, Plato connected mathe- matics with music, and about thirty years ago Northrop Frye located mathematics between music and architecture among the human arts." If literature begins in myths and legends, then clearly it has a connection to anthropology that academic organization tends to obfuscate. 7. Literary study as a form of liberal education connected with all other forms ought to have the appearance of being a continuum from Mother Goose and the songs a parent sings to a child through to the Shakespeare course in college and beyond. I would like now to address a few remarks to the problem of articula- tion between high school and college. In the present situation, those who teach at one level are not sufficiently familiar with or consulted about what goes on at other levels. Part of the reason for this is the gulf in teach- 12. Anatomy of Criticism, 364n. 12. Anatomy of Crticism, 364n. 12. Anatomy of Criticism, 364n.  254 Antithetical Essays ers' educations brought about by educationists on the one hand and liter- ary scholars on the other. Teachers at all levels are addressing interrelated problems and could do a better job of communicating with each other about them. Teachers in the so-called humanities need to exert more pressure on those who administer educational institutions, on politicians, and on parents. But before this is really going to be possible, there must be better communication and helpful debate. Some of this would be pain- ful, especially in the early stages; but the pain is unavoidable. Right now communication is limited pretty much to specialists in education hired into departments apparently to salve the common guilt. These specialists, if they do their job (and there is the usual range of quality here), are often held back from promotion, usually for not publishing, and are the nearest things to ritual scapegoats we have within the tribe. I am not talking about the administration of an institution, or a College of Education, or an ad- missions office, or the Office of Student Affairs doing something. Maybe they can be of help, but they have often been part of the problem. Teach- ers themselves must take up the responsibility. I believe that the common exemplary quality of the best teachers I had early in my schooling-no matter what their subjects-was that they were directed by an unspoken ideal of the liberally trained individual. For them, it seems to have been both an aesthetic and ethical ideal. Much has happened since that time to have destroyed the possibility of agree- ment about such matters, and some of these changes in the long run are going to be for the better. This means only that teachers must seek to build anew a vision of liberal education that maintains the value of things we have recently come to learn: that past academic life helped to perpetu- ate a variety of injustices, that there is nothing-including the great clas- sic texts-that is above subjection to searching questions, that unless questioning remains an end we risk cyclical repetition of past errors. Yet at the same time we need the past to have any cultural vision at all. In this constant rebuilding, I would like periodically to go back to contem- plate Coleridge's remembrance of his teacher's insistence on rigorous thought and to my own remembrance of my geometry teacher's insistence that I knew just what I was doing every step of the way. Antithetical Essays 254 Antithetical Essays ers' educations brought about by educationists on the one hand and liter- ary scholars on the other. Teachers at all levels are addressing interrelated problems and could do a better job of communicating with each other about them. Teachers in the so-called humanities need to exert more pressure on those who administer educational institutions, on politicians, and on parents. But before this is really going to be possible, there must be better communication and helpful debate. Some of this would be pain- ful, especially in the early stages; but the pain is unavoidable. Right now communication is limited pretty much to specialists in education hired into departments apparently to salve the common guilt. These specialists, if they do their job (and there is the usual range of quality here), are often held back from promotion, usually for not publishing, and are the nearest things to ritual scapegoats we have within the tribe. I am not talking about the administration of an institution, or a College of Education, or an ad- missions office, or the Office of Student Affairs doing something. Maybe they can be of help, but they have often been part of the problem. Teach- ers themselves must take up the responsibility. I believe that the common exemplary quality of the best teachers I had early in my schooling-no matter what their subjects-was that they were directed by an unspoken ideal of the liberally trained individual. For them, it seems to have been both an aesthetic and ethical ideal. Much has happened since that time to have destroyed the possibility of agree- ment about such matters, and some of these changes in the long run are going to be for the better. This means only that teachers must seek to build anew a vision of liberal education that maintains the value of things we have recently come to learn: that past academic life helped to perpetu- ate a variety of injustices, that there is nothing-including the great clas- sic texts-that is above subjection to searching questions, that unless questioning remains an end we risk cyclical repetition of past errors. Yet at the same time we need the past to have any cultural vision at all. In this constant rebuilding, I would like periodically to go back to contem- plate Coleridge's remembrance of his teacher's insistence on rigorous thought and to my own remembrance of my geometry teacher's insistence that I knew just what I was doing every step of the way. ers' educations brought about by educationists on the one hand and liter- ary scholars on the other. Teachers at all levels are addressing interrelated problems and could do a better job of communicating with each other about them. Teachers in the so-called humanities need to exert more pressure on those who administer educational institutions, on politicians, and on parents. But before this is really going to be possible, there must be better communication and helpful debate. Some of this would be pain- ful, especially in the early stages; but the pain is unavoidable. Right now communication is limited pretty much to specialists in education hired into departments apparently to salve the common guilt. These specialists, if they do their job (and there is the usual range of quality here), are often held back from promotion, usually for not publishing, and are the nearest things to ritual scapegoats we have within the tribe. I am not talking about the administration of an institution, or a College of Education, or an ad- missions office, or the Office of Student Affairs doing something. Maybe they can be of help, but they have often been part of the problem. Teach- ers themselves must take up the responsibility. I believe that the common exemplary quality of the best teachers I had early in my schooling-no matter what their subjects-was that they were directed by an unspoken ideal of the liberally trained individual. For them, it seems to have been both an aesthetic and ethical ideal. Much has happened since that time to have destroyed the possibility of agree- ment about such matters, and some of these changes in the long run are going to be for the better. This means only that teachers must seek to build anew a vision of liberal education that maintains the value of things we have recently come to learn: that past academic life helped to perpetu- ate a variety of injustices, that there is nothing-including the great clas- sic texts-that is above subjection to searching questions, that unless questioning remains an end we risk cyclical repetition of past errors. Yet at the same time we need the past to have any cultural vision at all. In this constant rebuilding, I would like periodically to go back to contem- plate Coleridge's remembrance of his teacher's insistence on rigorous thought and to my own remembrance of my geometry teacher's insistence that I knew just what I was doing every step of the way.  Humanitas and Academic Politics I have never appreciated the phrase, "Oh, that's politics" and the division it implies; and I wish I didn't understand the phrase "Oh, he went into administration." If "politics" and "administration" are meaningful, they are so or should be so by their intimate interrelationship with the life of society as a whole, whether that society be a city or a university. This means that academic politics ought to arise out of educational policy, and that means it should be the instrument of liberal education. If human- itas means anything in academic life, it ought to refer to the unity of the life of the academy and should thus be related to its politics. My discourse is divided into two parts. The first has to do with some aspects of the state of political affairs in academia that I shall approach along the lines of the analysis in my book The Academic Tribes,' that is, anthropologically. The second has to do with the use, or possible aban- donment, of the term humanities in the academic polis, the relation of students to humanitas, the importance of interpretation, and the human- ist's responsibility for the status of language in higher education. The principle I reveal here was undiscovered when in The Academic Tribes I offered my anthropology of academia and the principles of pure administration. The anthropology by which I arrive at this principle is, of course, amateur: my fieldwork employs no computer technology, struc- turalist methodology, poststructuralist antimethodology, psycholinguistic terminology, coresearchers, spades, shovels, cameras, or research assis- tants on NSF grants whose articles I sign. In other words, I have fallen back on personal experience and prejudice. The principle I enunciate is that of the cyclicity of sacred and profane in departmental life; by contrast to the conventional situation among primitive tribes, things sacred and things profane are not held forever sep- arate, like heaven and earth, deity and devil. This phase's sacred is the s. The Academic Tribes, 2d ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987). 255 Humanitas and Academic Politics I have never appreciated the phrase, "Oh, that's politics" and the division it implies; and I wish I didn't understand the phrase "Oh, he went into administration." If "politics" and "administration" are meaningful, they are so or should be so by their intimate interrelationship with the life of society as a whole, whether that society be a city or a university. This means that academic politics ought to arise out of educational policy, and that means it should be the instrument of liberal education. If human- itas means anything in academic life, it ought to refer to the unity of the life of the academy and should thus be related to its politics. My discourse is divided into two parts. The first has to do with some aspects of the state of political affairs in academia that I shall approach along the lines of the analysis in my book The Academic Tribes,' that is, anthropologically. The second has to do with the use, or possible aban- donment, of the term humanities in the academic polis, the relation of students to humanitas, the importance of interpretation, and the human- ist's responsibility for the status of language in higher education. The principle I reveal here was undiscovered when in The Academic Tribes I offered my anthropology of academia and the principles of pure administration. The anthropology by which I arrive at this principle is, of course, amateur: my fieldwork employs no computer technology, struc- turalist methodology, poststructuralist antimethodology, psycholinguistic terminology, coresearchers, spades, shovels, cameras, or research assis- tants on NSF grants whose articles I sign. In other words, I have fallen back on personal experience and prejudice. The principle I enunciate is that of the cyclicity of sacred and profane in departmental life; by contrast to the conventional situation among primitive tribes, things sacred and things profane are not held forever sep- arate, like heaven and earth, deity and devil. This phase's sacred is the 1. The Academic Tribes, 2d ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987). 255 Humanitas and Academic Politics I have never appreciated the phrase, "Oh, that's politics" and the division it implies; and I wish I didn't understand the phrase "Oh, he went into administration." If "politics" and "administration" are meaningful, they are so or should be so by their intimate interrelationship with the life of society as a whole, whether that society be a city or a university. This means that academic politics ought to arise out of educational policy, and that means it should be the instrument of liberal education. If human- itas means anything in academic life, it ought to refer to the unity of the life of the academy and should thus be related to its politics. My discourse is divided into two parts. The first has to do with some aspects of the state of political affairs in academia that I shall approach along the lines of the analysis in my book The Academic Tribes,' that is, anthropologically. The second has to do with the use, or possible aban- donment, of the term humanities in the academic polis, the relation of students to humanitas, the importance of interpretation, and the human- ist's responsibility for the status of language in higher education. The principle I reveal here was undiscovered when in The Academic Tribes I offered my anthropology of academia and the principles of pure administration. The anthropology by which I arrive at this principle is, of course, amateur: my fieldwork employs no computer technology, struc- turalist methodology, poststructuralist antimethodology, psycholinguistic terminology, coresearchers, spades, shovels, cameras, or research assis- tants on NSF grants whose articles I sign. In other words, I have fallen back on personal experience and prejudice. The principle I enunciate is that of the cyclicity of sacred and profane in departmental life; by contrast to the conventional situation among primitive tribes, things sacred and things profane are not held forever sep- arate, like heaven and earth, deity and devil. This phase's sacred is the 1. The Academic Tribes, ad ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987). 255  Antithetical Essays 256 Antithetical Essays 256 Antithetical Essays last phase's profane, and vice versa. That is, in the life of a department sacred is profane, and profane sacred, if you hang around long enough. What is now in was once out (and not so long ago). What is out was in. You may ask, "Well, wasn't there something in the beginning that was orig- inally in, originally sacred?" My response is "Who knows?" The origin of any department and its curriculum is hopelessly enveloped in a miasmal mist. I know this from experience. I was founding chair of a department formed twenty-three years ago, and its beginnings are now purely mythi- cal. As time passed, department members would occasionally evoke the original world of 1964, but it was myth with no leavening of antimythical substance. Indeed, I discovered myself fast becoming a mythical crea- ture, and I am sure some would have had me lose materiality. Let me give you an example of cyclicity in what periodically happens to the curriculum. I remember sharing an office years ago at Michigan State University with a colleague nearing retirement, from whom I learned quite a bit. He observed that the plan going around the depart- ment to throw out the old survey of English literature in favor of a se- quence of genre courses was a repetition of what had happened in the early years of his career. He had experienced a full cycle. In each case the debates were the same. The curriculum that was in was defended as sacred and indispensable; that which was out was regarded by its oppo- nents as subversive and without quality-and vice versa. But note that it made no difference which was currently in or out. The in was sacred, the out profane, or vice versa. In the seventies we saw a comic variation of this cycle. As English de- partments began to panic over falling enrollments, there appeared a num- ber of courses on anything practical or practically anything. Professors met college students in the stratosphere of Star Wars or the lower para- dise of Pooh Corner.t Hardly sacred, except to teachers whose positions were saved by them, hardly profane, because not yet blended into the cycle involving what should or should not be required, these courses were looked on by some with indifference and by others with contempt. The matter of sacred and profane invades every facet of tribal experi- ence: scholarship, teaching, administration, students, and social life. The concept of scholarship, for example, is sacred, so sacred that a large pro- portion of the faculty dare not approach it. Among those who dare, there a. I don't want this remark to be construed as an attack on all courses in children's litera- ture, which I regard as a legitimate object of study, and an interesting one. What I do object to is "kiddy lit" as an introductory course in literary study or as what was called in my college days a "gut" or "snap" course for students fulfilling humanities requirements. last phase's profane, and vice versa. That is, in the life of a department sacred is profane, and profane sacred, if you hang around long enough. What is now in was once out (and not so long ago). What is out was in. You may ask, "Well, wasn't there something in the beginning that was orig- inally in, originally sacred?" My response is "Who knows?" The origin of any department and its curriculum is hopelessly enveloped in a miasmal mist. I know this from experience. I was founding chair of a department formed twenty-three years ago, and its beginnings are now purely mythi- cal. As time passed, department members would occasionally evoke the original world of 1964, but it was myth with no leavening of antimythical substance. Indeed, I discovered myself fast becoming a mythical crea- ture, and I am sure some would have had me lose materiality. Let me give you an example of cyclicity in what periodically happens to the curriculum. I remember sharing an office years ago at Michigan State University with a colleague nearing retirement, from whom I learned quite a bit. He observed that the plan going around the depart- ment to throw out the old survey of English literature in favor of a se- quence of genre courses was a repetition of what had happened in the early years of his career. He had experienced a full cycle. In each case the debates were the same. The curriculum that was in was defended as sacred and indispensable; that which was out was regarded by its oppo- nents as subversive and without quality-and vice versa. But note that it made no difference which was currently in or out. The in was sacred, the out profane, or vice versa. In the seventies we saw a comic variation of this cycle. As English de- partments began to panic over falling enrollments, there appeared a num- ber of courses on anything practical or practically anything. Professors met college students in the stratosphere of Star Wars or the lower para- dise of Pooh Corner. Hardly sacred, except to teachers whose positions were saved by them, hardly profane, because not yet blended into the cycle involving what should or should not be required, these courses were looked on by some with indifference and by others with contempt. The matter of sacred and profane invades every facet of tribal experi- ence: scholarship, teaching, administration, students, and social life. The concept of scholarship, for example, is sacred, so sacred that a large pro- portion of the faculty dare not approach it. Among those who dare, there a. I don't want this remark to be construed as an attack on all courses in children's litera- ture, which I regard as a legitimate object of study, and an interesting one. What I do object to is "kiddy lit" as an introductory course in literary study or as what was called in my college days a "gut" or "snap" course for students fulfilling humanities requirements. last phase's profane, and vice versa. That is, in the life of a department sacred is profane, and profane sacred, if you hang around long enough. What is now in was once out (and not so long ago). What is out was in. You may ask, "Well, wasn't there something in the beginning that was orig- inally in, originally sacred?" My response is "Who knows?" The origin of any department and its curriculum is hopelessly enveloped in a miasmal mist. I know this from experience. I was founding chair of a department formed twenty-three years ago, and its beginnings are now purely mythi- cal. As time passed, department members would occasionally evoke the original world of 1964, but it was myth with no leavening of antimythical substance. Indeed, I discovered myself fast becoming a mythical crea- ture, and I am sure some would have had me lose materiality. Let me give you an example of cyclicity in what periodically happens to the curriculum. I remember sharing an office years ago at Michigan State University with a colleague nearing retirement, from whom I learned quite a bit. He observed that the plan going around the depart- ment to throw out the old survey of English literature in favor of a se- quence of genre courses was a repetition of what had happened in the early years of his career. He had experienced a full cycle. In each case the debates were the same. The curriculum that was in was defended as sacred and indispensable; that which was out was regarded by its oppo- nents as subversive and without quality-and vice versa. But note that it made no difference which was currently in or out. The in was sacred, the out profane, or vice versa. In the seventies we saw a comie variation of this cycle. As English de- partments began to panic over falling enrollments, there appeared a num- ber of courses on anything practical or practically anything. Professors met college students in the stratosphere of Star Wars or the lower para- dise of Pooh Corner. Hardly sacred, except to teachers whose positions were saved by them, hardly profane, because not yet blended into the cycle involving what should or should not be required, these courses were looked on by some with indifference and by others with contempt. The matter of sacred and profane invades every facet of tribal experi- ence: scholarship, teaching, administration, students, and social life. The concept of scholarship, for example, is sacred, so sacred that a large pro- portion of the faculty dare not approach it. Among those who dare, there z. I don't want this remark to be construed as an attack on all courses in children's litera- ture, which I regard as a legitimate object of study, and an interesting one. What I do object to is "kiddy lit" as an introductory course in literary study or as what was called in my college days a "gut" or "snap" course for students fulfilling humanities requirements.  Humanitas and Academic Politics 257 Humanitas and Academic Politics 257 Humanitas and Academic Politics 257 is much ritualization. Important scholarship is, of course, rare enough that it shouldn't be classified as either sacred or profane. Run-of-the-mill scholarship develops, however, its own sacred forms of ritualistic portentousness, predicated on the obligatory quarrel with predecessors and identification with distinguished elders by means of fawning acknowl- edgment. Profanity in scholarship is readily seen in the likelihood that anyone under about forty-five years of age finds all books in his or her field clearly profane. Finally, the sacredness of a well-liked but poor teacher's scholarship is absolute. Teaching is always regarded as a sacred trust-so sacred that the sup- posedly wisest and most venerable of the tribe learn to touch it rarely except on ritual occasions, and then for the most part approaching it through the mediation of teaching assistants. Meanwhile the bulk of teaching becomes more and more the task of young instructors or assist- ant professors not on the tenure track. These neophytes are sacrificed an- nually in what some say are obscene rites. A few are resurrected in the fall to be sacrificed yet again-the principle of selection being random, as befits the ritual of the scapegoat. Tribal members who profess the moral value of the headlong rush into teaching are looked on rather with alarm. Such enthusiasts develop their own rituals and talismans in order to preserve themselves intact while engaged with the sacred object. First, there is the Kiva, where chairs are arranged in a circle, all-even the teacher's-being plunged thereby into the still center of the magic wheel or great world navel.' The dominant intent here is the return to innocence or the ritual of show-and-tell. One of the advantages of this is that every- thing will take longer, magically reducing linear to human time. Audiovi- sual aids, including wands and lanterns, are often adequate devices to protect against the necessity of prolonged intelligible discourse or the opening of a book, an object often thought too sacred for eye contact. Ado- lescent or allegedly proletarian dress and, for men, various displays of fa- cial hair provide ritual masks enabling identification with the hierophants. Teaching is frequently regarded as most sacred where scholarship is most rare. It may-in this sacralized form-be the last refuge of scoun- drels who suffer from pied-piper complexes. Generally, I have associated ritualism with the sacred; but schools of education are clearly ritualistic, and though in some quarters they are regarded as sacred, they certainly seem to generate outbursts of profanity among many who are forced into ritual certification by their means. Yet there is cyclicity even here, for 3. There is actually a building or part of a building called a Kiva at a university at which I taught. is much ritualization. Important scholarship is, of course, rare enough that it shouldn't be classified as either sacred or profane. Run-of-the-mill scholarship develops, however, its own sacred forms of ritualistic portentousness, predicated on the obligatory quarrel with predecessors and identification with distinguished elders by means of fawning acknowl- edgment. Profanity in scholarship is readily seen in the likelihood that anyone under about forty-five years of age finds all books in his or her field clearly profane. Finally, the sacredness of a well-liked but poor teacher's scholarship is absolute. Teaching is always regarded as a sacred trust-so sacred that the sup- posedly wisest and most venerable of the tribe learn to touch it rarely except on ritual occasions, and then for the most part approaching it through the mediation of teaching assistants. Meanwhile the bulk of teaching becomes more and more the task of young instructors or assist- ant professors not on the tenure track. These neophytes are sacrificed an- nually in what some say are obscene rites. A few are resurrected in the fall to be sacrificed yet again-the principle of selection being random, as befits the ritual of the scapegoat. Tribal members who profess the moral value of the headlong rush into teaching are looked on rather with alarm. Such enthusiasts develop their own rituals and talismans in order to preserve themselves intact while engaged with the sacred object. First, there is the Kiva, where chairs are arranged in a circle, all-even the teacher's-being plunged thereby into the still center of the magic wheel or great world navel.' The dominant intent here is the return to innocence or the ritual of show-and-tell. One of the advantages of this is that every- thing will take longer, magically reducing linear to human time. Audiovi- sual aids, including wands and lanterns, are often adequate devices to protect against the necessity of prolonged intelligible discourse or the opening of a book, an object often thought too sacred for eye contact. Ado- lescent or allegedly proletarian dress and, for men, various displays of fa- cial hair provide ritual masks enabling identification with the hierophants. Teaching is frequently regarded as most sacred where scholarship is most rare. It may-in this sacralized form-be the last refuge of scoun- drels who suffer from pied-piper complexes. Generally, I have associated ritualism with the sacred; but schools of education are clearly ritualistic, and though in some quarters they are regarded as sacred, they certainly seem to generate outbursts of profanity among many who are forced into ritual certification by their means. Yet there is cyclicity even here, for 3. There is actually a building or part of a building called a Kiva at a university at which I taught. is much ritualization. Important scholarship is, of course, rare enough that it shouldn't be classified as either sacred or profane. Run-of-the-mill scholarship develops, however, its own sacred forms of ritualistic portentousness, predicated on the obligatory quarrel with predecessors and identification with distinguished elders by means of fawning acknowl- edgment. Profanity in scholarship is readily seen in the likelihood that anyone under about forty-five years of age finds all books in his or her field clearly profane. Finally, the sacredness of a well-liked but poor teacher's scholarship is absolute. Teaching is always regarded as a sacred trust-so sacred that the sup- posedly wisest and most venerable of the tribe learn to touch it rarely except on ritual occasions, and then for the most part approaching it through the mediation of teaching assistants. Meanwhile the bulk of teaching becomes more and more the task of young instructors or assist- ant professors not on the tenure track. These neophytes are sacrificed an- nually in what some say are obscene rites. A few are resurrected in the fall to be sacrificed yet again-the principle of selection being random, as befits the ritual of the scapegoat. Tribal members who profess the moral value of the headlong rush into teaching are looked on rather with alarm. Such enthusiasts develop their own rituals and talismans in order to preserve themselves intact while engaged with the sacred object. First, there is the Kiva, where chairs are arranged in a circle, all-even the teacher's-being plunged thereby into the still center of the magic wheel or great world navel.' The dominant intent here is the return to innocence or the ritual of show-and-tell. One of the advantages of this is that every- thing will take longer, magically reducing linear to human time. Audiovi- sual aids, including wands and lanterns, are often adequate devices to protect against the necessity of prolonged intelligible discourse or the opening of a book, an object often thought too sacred for eye contact. Ado- lescent or allegedly proletarian dress and, for men, various displays of fa- cial hair provide ritual masks enabling identification with the hierophants. Teaching is frequently regarded as most sacred where scholarship is most rare. It may-in this sacralized form-be the last refuge of scoun- drels who suffer from pied-piper complexes. Generally, I have associated ritualism with the sacred; but schools of education are clearly ritualistic, and though in some quarters they are regarded as sacred, they certainly seem to generate outbursts of profanity among many who are forced into ritual certification by their means. Yet there is cyclicity even here, for 3. There is actually a building or part of a building called a Kiva at a university at which I taught.  Antithetical Essays 258 Antithetical Essays 258 Antithetical Essays I know a well-known educationist who has made a career of attacking schools of education-a phenomenon of self-mutilation not at all rare in academia. One of the principal characteristics of tribal life is hierarchy, and stu- dents are certainly part of it. In all the prophetic books-that is, catalogs-they are sacred, whether statistical or individual, except that from the time of their arrival on campus they are continually assigned an exceedingly low order in the great chain of academic being. Previous to their arrival they are wooed in the tradition of courtly love by the university's publications office, complete with pristinely machine-typed personal letters that appeal to them in that vaguely therapeutic littlespeak peculiar to offices of student affairs. It is no wonder that they suffer disori- entation when they arrive and discover their true hierarchic status. They have plummeted from the rank of holy child to the order of numerical digit. They have no credit and are obliged to present in advance the ter- minal month's rent, a cleaning deposit, and payment of the electricity bill. They must pay a registration fee and such other fees as the university is afraid to call tuition. They must take second choice in classes, compete to obtain lockers, and park at a respectful distance from all temples of learning. Their names and sex are garbled on printouts, and they are mi- raculously enrolled by a computer in exotic courses they have never heard of Their college does or does not assign them to advisers, who may or may not know what is going on and whose advice (particularly if the advis- ers are faculty members) frequently conflicts with holy writ as set down by the registrar, a person who has never been seen by anyone. In the faculty mind students, when sacred, are ritually entertained by courses like The Art of Flash Gordon, Shakespeare at the Movies, The Structure of James Bond, Women in Alaska Eskimo Literature. Therapeu- tic Counseling, and Therapy for Counseling's Sake. In the sacred vision, students are consumers in a heavenly intellectual supermarket, and fac- ulty members are supposed to empathize with them in the same way that John Keats, according to his own testimony, got down with the sparrows and picked around in the gravel. In the profane view, students are a nec- essary hindrance, the perfect version of collegiate life being that at All Souls in Oxford, where there are none. Students in the profane vision might be thought of as the billiard ball that Keats claimed he spent some time trying to get inside. In this version, if Keats had been a professor, he would have given up after fifty minutes, calling it a good try, thereby achieving self-absolution. Perhaps he would have retired defeated had he read the paper once handed to me on "Ode on a Grecian Urn." It began with the electrifying statement "John Keats went up into his attic and found this old shape." For those readers who have dealt with so many I know a well-known educationist who has made a career of attacking schools of education-a phenomenon of self-mutilation not at all rare in academia. One of the principal characteristics of tribal life is hierarchy, and stu- dents are certainly part of it. In all the prophetic books-that is, catalogs-they are sacred, whether statistical or individual, except that from the time of their arrival on campus they are continually assigned an exceedingly low order in the great chain of academic being. Previous to their arrival they are wooed in the tradition of courtly love by the university's publications office, complete with pristinely machine-typed personal letters that appeal to them in that vaguely therapeutic littlespeak peculiar to offices of student affairs. It is no wonder that they suffer disori- entation when they arrive and discover their true hierarchic status. They have plummeted from the rank of holy child to the order of numerical digit. They have no credit and are obliged to present in advance the ter- minal month's rent, a cleaning deposit, and payment of the electricity bill. They must pay a registration fee and such other fees as the university is afraid to call tuition. They must take second choice in classes, compete to obtain lockers, and park at a respectful distance from all temples of learning. Their names and sex are garbled on printouts, and they are mi- raculously enrolled by a computer in exotic courses they have never heard of. Their college does or does not assign them to advisers, who may or may not know what is going on and whose advice (particularly if the advis- ers are faculty members) frequently conflicts with holy writ as set down by the registrar, a person who has never been seen by anyone. In the faculty mind students, when sacred, are ritually entertained by courses like The Art of Flash Gordon, Shakespeare at the Movies, The Structure of James Bond, Women in Alaska Eskimo Literature. Therapeu- tic Counseling, and Therapy for Counseling's Sake. In the sacred vision, students are consumers in a heavenly intellectual supermarket, and fac- ulty members are supposed to empathize with them in the same way that John Keats, according to his own testimony, got down with the sparrows and picked around in the gravel. In the profane view, students are a nec- essary hindrance, the perfect version of collegiate life being that at All Souls in Oxford, where there are none. Students in the profane vision might be thought of as the billiard ball that Keats claimed he spent some time trying to get inside. In this version, if Keats had been a professor, he would have given up after fifty minutes, calling it a good try, thereby achieving self-absolution. Perhaps he would have retired defeated had he read the paper once handed to me on "Ode on a Grecian Urn." It began with the electrifying statement "John Keats went up into his attic and found this old shape." For those readers who have dealt with so many I know a well-known educationist who has made a career of attacking schools of education-a phenomenon of self-mutilation not at all rare in academia. One of the principal characteristics of tribal life is hierarchy, and stu- dents are certainly part of it. In all the prophetic books-that is, catalogs-they are sacred, whether statistical or individual, except that from the time of their arrival on campus they are continually assigned an exceedingly low order in the great chain of academic being. Previous to their arrival they are wooed in the tradition of courtly love by the university's publications office, complete with pristinely machine-typed personal letters that appeal to them in that vaguely therapeutic littlespeak peculiar to offices of student affairs. It is no wonder that they suffer disori- entation when they arrive and discover their true hierarchic status. They have plummeted from the rank of holy child to the order of numerical digit. They have no credit and are obliged to present in advance the ter- minal month's rent, a cleaning deposit, and payment of the electricity bill. They must pay a registration fee and such other fees as the university is afraid to call tuition. They must take second choice in classes, compete to obtain lockers, and park at a respectful distance from all temples of learning. Their names and sex are garbled on printouts, and they are mi- raculously enrolled by a computer in exotic courses they have never heard of. Their college does or does not assign them to advisers, who may or may not know what is going on and whose advice (particularly if the advis- ers are faculty members) frequently conflicts with holy writ as set down by the registrar, a person who has never been seen by anyone. In the faculty mind students, when sacred, are ritually entertained by courses like The Art of Flash Gordon, Shakespeare at the Movies, The Structure of James Bond, Women in Alaska Eskimo Literature. Therapeu- tic Counseling, and Therapy for Counseling's Sake. In the sacred vision, students are consumers in a heavenly intellectual supermarket, and fac- ulty members are supposed to empathize with them in the same way that John Keats, according to his own testimony, got down with the sparrows and picked around in the gravel. In the profane view, students are a nec- essary hindrance, the perfect version of collegiate life being that at All Souls in Oxford, where there are none. Students in the profane vision might be thought of as the billiard ball that Keats claimed he spent some time trying to get inside. In this version, if Keats had been a professor, he would have given up after fifty minutes, calling it a good try, thereby achieving self-absolution. Perhaps he would have retired defeated had he read the paper once handed to me on "Ode on a Grecian Urn." It began with the electrifying statement "John Keats went up into his attic and found this old shape." For those readers who have dealt with so many  Humanitas and Academic Politics 259 Humanitas and Academic Politics 259 Humanitas and Academic Politics 259 freshman themes that Keats has blended into a horizon of dangling modi- fiers and comma splices, I believe the exegesis that the student per- formed was of the first two lines of stanza five: O Attic shape: Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought. By the time the student got to the word "brede," his interpretive powers had apparently been exhausted. A good thing, too, since he was an agri- cultural student, and one of his colleagues once wanted to write for me a paper showing that William Blake's poem "The Sick Rose" was about a specific form of plant disease that he had been studying, but he admitted that he was in a "quarry" as to how to carry out this task. However, I digress from my analysis of the profane, since these are examples of an innocence equivalent to that of the student who wrote that this was a "doggy dog" world. Such innocence is sacred, but the sacred- ness of students is cyclical, since once they become graduates they are again objects of adoration, receiving more mail from their institution than they were ever favored with as undergraduates, though the mail seeks money in a different tone. Although attitudes toward students range from sacred to profane, there is no such ambiguity about the attitude of any given professor to- ward his or her colleagues, seen in the aggregate. I have already observed in The Academic Tribes that literary academics tend to eschew all group activities even when in groups and that their drinking habits are deliber- ate, sometimes stately, and often morose. For the most part, humanities professors-those professors I know best-find one another's work uni- formly profane. It could always have been better-if he or she had worked on it longer, had read and understood such and such, could have understood such and such having read it, could write decently, possessed a finer critical sensibility, knew at least something about history, was up to date on literary theory or linguistics, had employed the right text, or was really competent in French. The apotheosis of the profane in academic tribal life is embodied in the dean. In the tribal imagination a dean is encased in a block of ice at the still center of the world, devouring personnel files; or he is a dragon guarding with seven heads an immense gold hoard; or he is what Blake imagined as a sky god: Old Nobodaddy, a purely abstract, thus mysteri- ous, being without human form, who speaks only through the mediation of a business manager. The myth of the dean generates rituals of estrange- ment and powerlessness in the faculty, though some claim that ritual pre- cedes myth. freshman themes that Keats has blended into a horizon of dangling modi- fiers and comma splices, I believe the exegesis that the student per- formed was of the first two lines of stanza five: O Attic shape: Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought. By the time the student got to the word "brede," his interpretive powers had apparently been exhausted. A good thing, too, since he was an agri- cultural student, and one of his colleagues once wanted to write for me a paper showing that William Blake's poem "The Sick Rose" was about a specific form of plant disease that he had been studying, but he admitted that he was in a "quarry" as to how to carry out this task. However, I digress from my analysis of the profane, since these are examples of an innocence equivalent to that of the student who wrote that this was a "doggy dog" world. Such innocence is sacred, but the sacred- ness of students is cyclical, since once they become graduates they are again objects of adoration, receiving more mail from their institution than they were ever favored with as undergraduates, though the mail seeks money in a different tone. Although attitudes toward students range from sacred to profane, there is no such ambiguity about the attitude of any given professor to- ward his or her colleagues, seen in the aggregate. I have already observed in The Academic Tribes that literary academics tend to eschew all group activities even when in groups and that their drinking habits are deliber- ate, sometimes stately, and often morose. For the most part, humanities professors-those professors I know best-find one another's work uni- formly profane. It could always have been better-if he or she had worked on it longer, had read and understood such and such, could have understood such and such having read it, could write decently, possessed a finer critical sensibility, knew at least something about history, was up to date on literary theory or linguistics, had employed the right text, or was really competent in French. The apotheosis of the profane in academic tribal life is embodied in the dean. In the tribal imagination a dean is encased in a block of ice at the still center of the world, devouring personnel files; or he is a dragon guarding with seven heads an immense gold hoard; or he is what Blake imagined as a sky god: Old Nobodaddy, a purely abstract, thus mysteri- ous, being without human form, who speaks only through the mediation of a business manager. The myth of the dean generates rituals of estrange- ment and powerlessness in the faculty, though some claim that ritual pre- cedes myth. freshman themes that Keats has blended into a horizon of dangling modi- fiers and comma splices, I believe the exegesis that the student per- formed was of the first two lines of stanza five: O Attic shape: Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought. By the time the student got to the word "brede," his interpretive powers had apparently been exhausted. A good thing, too, since he was an agri- cultural student, and one of his colleagues once wanted to write for me a paper showing that William Blake's poem "The Sick Rose" was about a specific form of plant disease that he had been studying, but he admitted that he was in a "quarry" as to how to carry out this task. However, I digress from my analysis of the profane, since these are examples of an innocence equivalent to that of the student who wrote that this was a "doggy dog" world. Such innocence is sacred, but the sacred- ness of students is cyclical, since once they become graduates they are again objects of adoration, receiving more mail from their institution than they were ever favored with as undergraduates, though the mail seeks money in a different tone. Although attitudes toward students range from sacred to profane, there is no such ambiguity about the attitude of any given professor to- ward his or her colleagues, seen in the aggregate. I have already observed in The Academic Tribes that literary academics tend to eschew all group activities even when in groups and that their drinking habits are deliber- ate, sometimes stately, and often morose. For the most part, humanities professors-those professors I know best-find one another's work uni- formly profane. It could always have been better-if he or she had worked on it longer, had read and understood such and such, could have understood such and such having read it, could write decently, possessed a finer critical sensibility, knew at least something about history, was up to date on literary theory or linguistics, had employed the right text, or was really competent in French. The apotheosis of the profane in academic tribal life is embodied in the dean. In the tribal imagination a dean is encased in a block of ice at the still center of the world, devouring personnel files; or he is a dragon guarding with seven heads an immense gold hoard; or he is what Blake imagined as a sky god: Old Nobodaddy, a purely abstract, thus mysteri- ous, being without human form, who speaks only through the mediation of a business manager. The myth of the dean generates rituals of estrange- ment and powerlessness in the faculty, though some claim that ritual pre- cedes myth.  Antithetical Essays 26o Antithetical Essays 26o Antithetical Essays The rituals are actually pernicious, because deans are in so many im- portant ways powerless to improve educational policy in the face of faculty inertia. The dean is "administration," not human, with an electronic rather than a nervous system. Occasionally, of course, a chair, (as we now say under the dominance of both feminism and metonymy), or even an individual faculty member, decides heroically to humanize these crea- tures, since their capacity for violence is regarded as considerable and their ignorance of the brilliant competence and indispensability of the de- partment and its faculty is a matter bruising to the collective ego, even though no individual professor sees his or her colleagues as other than profane. But to the typical professor the profession itself is profane-except when it is attacked from the outside, whereupon it suddenly becomes sa- cred and is made to look as mysterious as possible. The professoriat's idea of holy communion is to eat itself, an act that may be the logical product of a heroic narcissism. The academic profession takes a worse beating from inside itself-as you can see from what I am doing-than from any- one else, and this is perhaps exaggerated in humanities departments. For example, by omission: humanists have frequently reveled morosely in their own powerlessness, or they have failed to understand that if they don't work positively to aggrandize their role in the cultural scheme, no one else will; and worse yet, some other group will preempt it in the good old laissez-faire fashion so highly respected in the competition between colleges in any university. Among humanists-and this is only an example-are those most competent in the teaching of writing. Too often humanists underplay the fact that among them are the ones who have the professional experience in this field. Perhaps this is because writing seems merely habitual to humanists, who too often let it be assumed or even say that the teaching of writing can be done by anyone who can think. This is unfortunately untrue, as so many experiments in spreading this responsibility-including one of my own-have sadly shown. Teachers in other fields can be encouraged to assign and insist on competence in writing, but they cannot be expected to bear responsibility for an aca- demic subject that they have not been trained to profess. If people do not understand this, then humanists must teach them. Humanists today lack spokespersons in high places to do this missionary work; they must cease to disdain deanships and other administrative posts and instead move into them where they can. And they must band together to insist on the establishment of standards of literacy throughout the institution, from the campus newspaper to the medical research paper. It is a scandal-to say nothing of a danger-that distinguished MDs today often cannot convey the results of their research without saying the opposite The rituals are actually pernicious, because deans are in so many im- portant ways powerless to improve educational policy in the face of faculty inertia. The dean is "administration," not human, with an electronic rather than a nervous system. Occasionally, of course, a chair, (as we now say under the dominance of both feminism and metonymy), or even an individual faculty member, decides heroically to humanize these crea- tures, since their capacity for violence is regarded as considerable and their ignorance of the brilliant competence and indispensability of the de- partment and its faculty is a matter bruising to the collective ego, even though no individual professor sees his or her colleagues as other than profane. But to the typical professor the profession itself is profane-except when it is attacked from the outside, whereupon it suddenly becomes sa- cred and is made to look as mysterious as possible. The professoriat's idea of holy communion is to eat itself, an act that may be the logical product of a heroic narcissism. The academic profession takes a worse beating from inside itself-as you can see from what I am doing-than from any- one else, and this is perhaps exaggerated in humanities departments. For example, by omission: humanists have frequently reveled morosely in their own powerlessness, or they have failed to understand that if they don't work positively to aggrandize their role in the cultural scheme, no one else will; and worse yet, some other group will preempt it in the good old laissez-faire fashion so highly respected in the competition between colleges in any university. Among humanists-and this is only an example-are those most competent in the teaching of writing. Too often humanists underplay the fact that among them are the ones who have the professional experience in this field. Perhaps this is because writing seems merely habitual to humanists, who too often let it be assumed or even say that the teaching of writing can be done by anyone who can think. This is unfortunately untrue, as so many experiments in spreading this responsibility-including one of my own-have sadly shown. Teachers in other fields can be encouraged to assign and insist on competence in writing, but they cannot be expected to bear responsibility for an aca- demic subject that they have not been trained to profess. If people do not understand this, then humanists must teach them. Humanists today lack spokespersons in high places to do this missionary work; they must cease to disdain deanships and other administrative posts and instead move into them where they can. And they must band together to insist on the establishment of standards of literacy throughout the institution, from the campus newspaper to the medical research paper. It is a scandal-to say nothing of a danger-that distinguished MDs today often cannot convey the results of their research without saying the opposite The rituals are actually pernicious, because deans are in so many im- portant ways powerless to improve educational policy in the face of faculty inertia. The dean is "administration," not human, with an electronic rather than a nervous system. Occasionally, of course, a chair, (as we now say under the dominance of both feminism and metonymy), or even an individual faculty member, decides heroically to humanize these crea- tures, since their capacity for violence is regarded as considerable and their ignorance of the brilliant competence and indispensability of the de- partment and its faculty is a matter bruising to the collective ego, even though no individual professor sees his or her colleagues as other than profane. But to the typical professor the profession itself is profane-except when it is attacked from the outside, whereupon it suddenly becomes sa- cred and is made to look as mysterious as possible. The professoriat's idea of holy communion is to eat itself, an act that may be the logical product of a heroic narcissism. The academic profession takes a worse beating from inside itself-as you can see from what I am doing-than from any- one else, and this is perhaps exaggerated in humanities departments. For example, by omission: humanists have frequently reveled morosely in their own powerlessness, or they have failed to understand that if they don't work positively to aggrandize their role in the cultural scheme, no one else will; and worse yet, some other group will preempt it in the good old laissez-faire fashion so highly respected in the competition between colleges in any university. Among humanists-and this is only an example-are those most competent in the teaching of writing. Too often humanists underplay the fact that among them are the ones who have the professional experience in this field. Perhaps this is because writing seems merely habitual to humanists, who too often let it be assumed or even say that the teaching of writing can be done by anyone who can think. This is unfortunately untrue, as so many experiments in spreading this responsibility-including one of my own-have sadly shown. Teachers in other fields can be encouraged to assign and insist on competence in writing, but they cannot be expected to bear responsibility for an aca- demic subject that they have not been trained to profess. If people do not understand this, then humanists must teach them. Humanists today lack spokespersons in high places to do this missionary work; they must cease to disdain deanships and other administrative posts and instead move into them where they can. And they must band together to insist on the establishment of standards of literacy throughout the institution, from the campus newspaper to the medical research paper. It is a scandal-to say nothing of a danger-that distinguished MDs today often cannot convey the results of their research without saying the opposite  Humanitas and Academic Politics 261 Humanitas and Academic Politics 261 Humanitas and Academic Politics of what they intend. Of course they can and do hire out-of-work human- ists to "English" their papers, but much thinking is closely tied up with expression. As for the student newspaper, the less said the better. This state of affairs has to be attributed in part to the way higher educa- tion is carried on, and it should be corrected in any self-respecting institu- tion. Change for the better can happen only with the reappearance in strength of what used to be called the liberal arts, not just the teaching of a course in communication skills, which would be equivalent in engi- neering to sending a little Dutch boy to dam up the Columbia River. Nor can a program in writing divorced from serious and extended reading of great stylists hope to accomplish anything lasting. Obviously a clear con- nection between college and secondary work, with the same principles applied at both levels, would be essential to any progress here. Though humanistic academics profane their profession, they also treat it on important occasions and in important company as sacred. One pro- fessor I know believes that we must treat it as a mystery because if the public really knew what we do, that would be the end to it-humanistic teaching being in many ways, when well done, subversive of the idols of the external tribe. In academic life there is a working myth of the pro- fession as a sacred society complete with initiation rites and trials by or- deal. This myth of the sacred-and secret-society is maintained even as we subject it to strong criticism from within. In the end, it may not be a bad thing, but note that we complain about it mightily when we ob- serve it in other professions such as medicine and law, the main differ- ence being that we don't seem to know how to hold up our price by its means. It seems to me that humanists might try to regard and advertise their job, which is principally interpretation, as neither sacred nor profane but simply humane. The humanists belong among the liberal arts on the table of academic organization. The liberal arts are not liberal" in the political sense, despite recent attacks on "secular humanism." They conserve the human liberating verbal power, which is also one of the forms of imagina- tive power-the most powerful of such forms for effecting good or ill. Hu- manists should charge themselves with liberating human beings from inarticulateness. It is a desperately important role because it is fundamental. This is not so because publications like U. S. News and World Report cyclically announce-every twenty-five years or so-that some corporation is suddenly seeking liberal arts graduates because they seem able to express themselves well (i.e., think), and this is, lo and be- hold, needed, because so many other kinds of graduates can't. Why haven't the corporations learned this news once and for all, or at least again and again, so that the revelation doesn't have to come in twenty- of what they intend. Of course they can and do hire out-of-work human- ists to "English" their papers, but much thinking is closely tied up with expression. As for the student newspaper, the less said the better. This state of affairs has to be attributed in part to the way higher educa- tion is carried on, and it should be corrected in any self-respecting institu- tion. Change for the better can happen only with the reappearance in strength of what used to be called the liberal arts, not just the teaching of a course in communication skills, which would be equivalent in engi- neering to sending a little Dutch boy to dam up the Columbia River. Nor can a program in writing divorced from serious and extended reading of great stylists hope to accomplish anything lasting. Obviously a clear con- nection between college and secondary work, with the same principles applied at both levels, would be essential to any progress here. Though humanistic academics profane their profession, they also treat it on important occasions and in important company as sacred. One pro- fessor I know believes that we must treat it as a mystery because if the public really knew what we do, that would be the end to it-humanistic teaching being in many ways, when well done, subversive of the idols of the external tribe. In academic life there is a working myth of the pro- fession as a sacred society complete with initiation rites and trials by or- deal. This myth of the sacred-and secret-society is maintained even as we subject it to strong criticism from within. In the end, it may not be a bad thing, but note that we complain about it mightily when we ob- serve it in other professions such as medicine and law, the main differ- ence being that we don't seem to know how to hold up our price by its means. It seems to me that humanists might try to regard and advertise their job, which is principally interpretation, as neither sacred nor profane but simply humane. The humanists belong among the liberal arts on the table of academic organization. The liberal arts are not "liberal" in the political sense, despite recent attacks on "secular humanism." They conserve the human liberating verbal power, which is also one of the forms of imagina- tive power-the most powerful of such forms for effecting good or ill. Hu- manists should charge themselves with liberating human beings from inarticulateness. It is a desperately important role because it is fundamental. This is not so because publications like U. S. News and World Report cyclically announce-every twenty-five years or so-that some corporation is suddenly seeking liberal arts graduates because they seem able to express themselves well (i.e., think), and this is, Io and be- hold, needed, because so many other kinds of graduates can't. Why haven't the corporations learned this news once and for all, or at least again and again, so that the revelation doesn't have to come in twenty- of what they intend. Of course they can and do hire out-of-work human- ists to "English" their papers, but much thinking is closely tied up with expression. As for the student newspaper, the less said the better. This state of affairs has to be attributed in part to the way higher educa- tion is carried on, and it should be corrected in any self-respecting institu- tion. Change for the better can happen only with the reappearance in strength of what used to be called the liberal arts, not just the teaching of a course in communication skills, which would be equivalent in engi- neering to sending a little Dutch boy to dam up the Columbia River. Nor can a program in writing divorced from serious and extended reading of great stylists hope to accomplish anything lasting. Obviously a clear con- nection between college and secondary work, with the same principles applied at both levels, would be essential to any progress here. Though humanistic academics profane their profession, they also treat it on important occasions and in important company as sacred. One pro- fessor I know believes that we must treat it as a mystery because if the public really knew what we do, that would be the end to it-humanistic teaching being in many ways, when well done, subversive of the idols of the external tribe. In academic life there is a working myth of the pro- fession as a sacred society complete with initiation rites and trials by or- deal. This myth of the sacred-and secret-society is maintained even as we subject it to strong criticism from within. In the end, it may not be a bad thing, but note that we complain about it mightily when we ob- serve it in other professions such as medicine and law, the main differ- ence being that we don't seem to know how to hold up our price by its means. It seems to me that humanists might try to regard and advertise their job, which is principally interpretation, as neither sacred nor profane but simply humane. The humanists belong among the liberal arts on the table of academic organization. The liberal arts are not "liberal" in the political sense, despite recent attacks on "secular humanism." They conserve the human liberating verbal power, which is also one of the forms of imagina- tive power-the most powerful of such forms for effecting good or ill. Hu- manists should charge themselves with liberating human beings from inarticulateness. It is a desperately important role because it is fundamental. This is not so because publications like U. S. News and World Report cyclically announce-every twenty-five years or so-that some corporation is suddenly seeking liberal arts graduates because they seem able to express themselves well (i.e., think), and this is, Io and be- hold, needed, because so many other kinds of graduates can't. Why haven't the corporations learned this news once and for all, or at least again and again, so that the revelation doesn't have to come in twenty-  Antithetical Essays 262 Antithetical Essays 262 Antithetical Essays five-year cycles of sacred and profane? It is partly our own fault. We must face, and face continually, the tremendous pressure to generalize individ- ual imaginative power into the abstract notion of "mass man," who, once so defined, is beheld as a pawn of historical forces and soon becomes what he beholds in himself. Artists have traditionally stood against this terrify- ing and demeaning notion. But artists need help in their struggle, and it is humanists who ought to provide it. We can choose to make an image of humanity from the flotsam and jetsam of culture-advertising, junk mail, pop records, popular ro- mances, the magazines, comics, and commercial television. This alterna- tive would call into question many traditional notions of value and in the end, I believe, embrace a certain politics in a self-trivializing and ulti- mately dangerous way. A second alternative would be to clean out our curriculum, address questions of literary value, establish a coherent pro- gram in literate studies university-wide, put the best teachers in it, and make a concerted effort to influence the curriculum of secondary and pri- mary education along compatible lines. Our profession ought not to be pawn to the cycle of sacred and profane. II But at this point one wonders whether humanities has any value as a term denoting a division of the academic structure. My thesis is going to be that the idea of the humanities in the public mind and its expression in academic organization have actually become dangerous to humanists, whatever they have become, and to sensible notions of liberal education. Further, the expression of the idea today in most academic organizations affects the public idea for the worse. First, the public view. This may be ascertained without recourse to polls, statistical studies, or fieldwork. It is expressed frequently for all to see in letters to editors identifying "secular humanism," whatever that may be, with what we do. It is also readily ascertainable if one allows enough students to discourse on the attitudes of their parents toward studying French or the romantic poets. The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look and it need not detain us long. It is too depressing to discuss further here. The second matter, however, ought to be addressed, because it is partly responsible for the public view and because something might con- ceivably be done about it, though I am not holding my breath. During as much of this century as I can remember, academic attitudes and modes five-year cycles of sacred and profane? It is partly our own fault. We must face, and face continually, the tremendous pressure to generalize individ- ual imaginative power into the abstract notion of "mass man," who, once so defined, is beheld as a pawn of historical forces and soon becomes what he beholds in himself. Artists have traditionally stood against this terrify- ing and demeaning notion. But artists need help in their struggle, and it is humanists who ought to provide it. We can choose to make an image of humanity from the flotsam and jetsam of culture-advertising, junk mail, pop records, popular ro- mances, the magazines, comics, and commercial television. This alterna- tive would call into question many traditional notions of value and in the end, I believe, embrace a certain politics in a self-trivializing and ulti- mately dangerous way. A second alternative would be to clean out our curriculum, address questions of literary value, establish a coherent pro- gram in literate studies university-wide, put the best teachers in it, and make a concerted effort to influence the curriculum of secondary and pri- mary education along compatible lines. Our profession ought not to be pawn to the cycle of sacred and profane. II But at this point one wonders whether humanities has any value as a term denoting a division of the academic structure. My thesis is going to be that the idea of the humanities in the public mind and its expression in academic organization have actually become dangerous to humanists, whatever they have become, and to sensible notions of liberal education. Further, the expression of the idea today in most academic organizations affects the public idea for the worse. First, the public view. This may be ascertained without recourse to polls, statistical studies, or fieldwork. It is expressed frequently for all to see in letters to editors identifying "secular humanism," whatever that may be, with what we do. It is also readily ascertainable if one allows enough students to discourse on the attitudes of their parents toward studying French or the romantic poets. The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look and it need not detain us long. It is too depressing to discuss further here. The second matter, however, ought to be addressed, because it is partly responsible for the public view and because something might con- ceivably be done about it, though I am not holding my breath. During as much of this century as I can remember, academic attitudes and modes five-year cycles of sacred and profane? It is partly our own fault. We must face, and face continually, the tremendous pressure to generalize individ- ual imaginative power into the abstract notion of "mass man," who, once so defined, is beheld as a pawn of historical forces and soon becomes what he beholds in himself. Artists have traditionally stood against this terrify- ing and demeaning notion. But artists need help in their struggle, and it is humanists who ought to provide it. We can choose to make an image of humanity from the flotsam and jetsam of culture-advertising, junk mail, pop records, popular ro- mances, the magazines, comics, and commercial television. This alterna- tive would call into question many traditional notions of value and in the end, I believe, embrace a certain politics in a self-trivializing and ulti- mately dangerous way. A second alternative would be to clean out our curriculum, address questions of literary value, establish a coherent pro- gram in literate studies university-wide, put the best teachers in it, and make a concerted effort to influence the curriculum of secondary and pri- mary education along compatible lines. Our profession ought not to be pawn to the cycle of sacred and profane. II But at this point one wonders whether humanities has any value as a term denoting a division of the academic structure. My thesis is going to be that the idea of the humanities in the public mind and its expression in academic organization have actually become dangerous to humanists, whatever they have become, and to sensible notions of liberal education. Further, the expression of the idea today in most academic organizations affects the public idea for the worse. First, the public view. This may be ascertained without recourse to polls, statistical studies, or fieldwork. It is expressed frequently for all to see in letters to editors identifying "secular humanism," whatever that may be, with what we do. It is also readily ascertainable if one allows enough students to discourse on the attitudes of their parents toward studying French or the romantic poets. The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look and it need not detain us long. It is too depressing to discuss further here. The second matter, however, ought to be addressed, because it is partly responsible for the public view and because something might con- ceivably be done about it, though I am not holding my breath. During as much of this century as I can remember, academic attitudes and modes  Humanitas and Academic Politics 263 Humanitas and Academic Politics 263 Humanitas and Academic Politics 263 of organization have tended more and more to isolate and to diminish what we now call the humanities. I suspect that it was academic adminis- trative convenience that created the current notion of the humanities; the word might as well have been coined in the fifties. True, there is an old tradition of humanitas that is vaguely revered and piously connected in our minds. with Erasmus, much as we connect Benjamin Franklin with thrift. But this notion has almost nothing to do with the humanities as we view them today in academia. The appearance of "humanities" in the table of organization of universi- ties was already a source of annoyance to some in 1938, when the Harvard professor Ralph Barton Perry wrote about the divisions within the tradi- tional college as "extraordinary": "In an institution which professes to exist for the purpose of inculcating it, liberal culture is only one quarter of the whole; and a nondescript quarter, occupying the place of a sort of rearguard appointed to pick up the stragglers and misfits. ." But the major proliferation of divisions, colleges, and schools occurred in the dec- ade after I completed my formal schooling-a time that I have recently had more trouble regarding as not so long ago. In my own days as a stu- dent I can't remember anyone using the term to represent a formal collec- tion of academic disciplines, though clearly it was employed in some places. It began to appear more frequently when, in the postwar period, administrations, under the pressure of increasing size and specialization, broke up or subdivided the colleges of arts and sciences. They had to give some name to what was left after the scientizing of social studies and the appearance of the "fine" and "performing" arts as university specializa- tions. When all that occurred, the first administrative definition of the humanities was adopted. But like all really important bureaucratic defini- tions of behavior, it remained unuttered. I shall utter it: the humanities comprise all those academic disciplines that have not declared themselves to be fine arts or sciences, either pure or dismal. This has been no more a division according to what was or was not ars and scientia than it has been one according to what is or is not humanitas. Ars has gradually nar- rowed its meaning to include only the "fine" or "performing" arts. Criti- cism, interpretation, the writing of essays, the study of ethics-these are no longer called arts on most campuses. Not long ago, before the speciali- zation of "art," the term simply meant skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge or practice, especially as opposed to nature. An art was any- thing in which skill might be obtained. This included the subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It also meant skill in analyzing the princi- ples of a science, and it was practical in the sense in which practical means involving practice. Therefore, it involved ethics. Science became a vastly more specialized term in the nineteenth cen- of organization have tended more and more to isolate and to diminish what we now call the humanities. I suspect that it was academic adminis- trative convenience that created the current notion of the humanities; the word might as well have been coined in the fifties. True, there is an old tradition of humanitas that is vaguely revered and piously connected in our minds with Erasmus, much as we connect Benjamin Franklin with thrift. But this notion has almost nothing to do with the humanities as we view them today in academia. The appearance of"humanities" in the table of organization of universi- ties was already a source of annoyance to some in 1938, when the Harvard professor Ralph Barton Perry wrote about the divisions within the tradi- tional college as "extraordinary": "In an institution which professes to exist for the purpose of inculcating it, liberal culture is only one quarter of the whole; and a nondescript quarter, occupying the place of a sort of rearguard appointed to pick up the stragglers and misfits. ." But the major proliferation of divisions, colleges, and schools occurred in the dec- ade after I completed my formal schooling-a time that I have recently had more trouble regarding as not so long ago. In my own days as a stu- dent I can't remember anyone using the term to represent a formal collec- tion of academic disciplines, though clearly it was employed in some places. It began to appear more frequently when, in the postwar period, administrations, under the pressure of increasing size and specialization, broke up or subdivided the colleges of arts and sciences. They had to give some name to what was left after the scientizing of social studies and the appearance of the "fine" and "performing" arts as university specializa- tions. When all that occurred, the first administrative definition of the humanities was adopted. But like all really important bureaucratic defini- tions of behavior, it remained unuttered. I shall utter it: the humanities comprise all those academic disciplines that have not declared themselves to be fine arts or sciences, either pure or dismal. This has been no more a division according to what was or was not ars and scientia than it has been one according to what is or is not humanitas. Ars has gradually nar- rowed its meaning to include only the "fine" or "performing" arts. Criti- cism, interpretation, the writing of essays, the study of ethics-these are no longer called arts on most campuses. Not long ago, before the speciali- zation of "art," the term simply meant skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge or practice, especially as opposed to nature. An art was any- thing in which skill might be obtained. This included the subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It also meant skill in analyzing the princi- ples of a science, and it was practical in the sense in which practical means involving practice. Therefore, it involved ethics. Science became a vastly more specialized term in the nineteenth cen- of organization have tended more and more to isolate and to diminish what we now call the humanities. I suspect that it was academic adminis- trative convenience that created the current notion of the humanities; the word might as well have been coined in the fifties. True, there is an old tradition of humanitas that is vaguely revered and piously connected in our minds. with Erasmus, much as we connect Benjamin Franklin with thrift. But this notion has almost nothing to do with the humanities as we view them today in academia. The appearance of "humanities" in the table of organization of universi- ties was already a source of annoyance to some in 1938, when the Harvard professor Ralph Barton Perry wrote about the divisions within the tradi- tional college as "extraordinary": "In an institution which professes to exist for the purpose of inculcating it, liberal culture is only one quarter of the whole; and a nondescript quarter, occupying the place of a sort of rearguard appointed to pick up the stragglers and misfits. ." But the major proliferation of divisions, colleges, and schools occurred in the dec- ade after I completed my formal schooling-a time that I have recently had more trouble regarding as not so long ago. In my own days as a stu- dent I can't remember anyone using the term to represent a formal collec- tion of academic disciplines, though clearly it was employed in some places. It began to appear more frequently when, in the postwar period, administrations, under the pressure of increasing size and specialization, broke up or subdivided the colleges of arts and sciences. They had to give some name to what was left after the scientizing of social studies and the appearance of the "fine" and "performing" arts as university specializa- tions. When all that occurred, the first administrative definition of the humanities was adopted. But like all really important bureaucratic defini- tions of behavior, it remained unuttered. I shall utter it: the humanities comprise all those academic disciplines that have not declared themselves to be fine arts or sciences, either pure or dismal. This has been no more a division according to what was or was not ars and scientia than it has been one according to what is or is not humanitas. Ars has gradually nar- rowed its meaning to include only the "fine" or "performing" arts. Criti- cism, interpretation, the writing of essays, the study of ethics-these are no longer called arts on most campuses. Not long ago, before the speciali- zation of "art," the term simply meant skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge or practice, especially as opposed to nature. An art was any- thing in which skill might be obtained. This included the subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It also meant skill in analyzing the princi- ples of a science, and it was practical in the sense in which practical means involving practice. Therefore, it involved ethics. Science became a vastly more specialized term in the nineteenth cen-  Antithetical Essays 264 Antithetical Essays 264 Antithetical Essays tury. It had meant simply knowledge acquired by study that mastered some part of learning. In contrast to art, which was practical, science was theoretical. But the meaning and force of science changed in the nine- teenth century when the divisions inside universities rapidly proliferated and positivistic assumptions gained full control over the term. These as- sumptions remain anachronistically embedded in our organizational ter- minology and structures. The decision to collect all those disciplines that did not declare them- selves to have pretensions to science (in the modern specialized and im- poverished sense I have just discussed) created various curiosities in aca- demic organization and even occasional crises. In some places where positivistic and behavioristic fashions dominated a discipline, the option was for the prestige and security of "science." Anyone who has dealt with departmental behavior is tempted to imagine that the division between natural and social sciences arose as a result of either the physicists' horri- fled tribal defense against impurity or the psychologists' desire to claim rigor for their work. The recent fashion of "human sciences" emanating from France may be the outcome of a desire to have one's humanities and eat them too. Some disciplines have not been entirely comfortable with the new ar- rangements. History falls here or there, sometimes by administrative fiat, sometimes by popular vote, which is a little like telling a mule it must decide whether it would like to be a horse or a donkey. In the university at which I teach, the philosophy department found itself, or put itself, with the social sciences in the subgrouping within the college. This is a situation that I would find a little comical if it weren't for what the philoso- phers in their flight seemed to be saying about being identified with the fine arts, languages, and literatures. Of course, putting philosophy any- where in an academic structure is like pretending Archimedes had found a place to stand; yet philosophy now has its own branches so specialized as not to belong everywhere. A step not yet taken in some places, but finally isolating what is left of the humanities, is the professionalization of the fine and performing arts and their separation-sometimes carrying off a lamenting and protesting art history department. What are the results of this gradual isolation of a few departments under the rubric of "humanities"? Many faculty and administrators don't even recognize that there is a serious problem here, mainly because what educational policy they allow themselves to contemplate doesn't find more than a specialized and tangential role for humanistic subjects. I offer three solutions, the first frivolous, the second not really a solu- tion because part of the problem, and the third serious but insufficiently developed here: tury. It had meant simply knowledge acquired by study that mastered some part of learning. In contrast to art, which was practical, science was theoretical. But the meaning and force of science changed in the nine- teenth century when the divisions inside universities rapidly proliferated and positivistic assumptions gained full control over the term. These as- sumptions remain anachronistically embedded in our organizational ter- minology and structures. The decision to collect all those disciplines that did not declare them- selves to have pretensions to science (in the modern specialized and im- poverished sense I have just discussed) created various curiosities in aca- demic organization and even occasional crises. In some places where positivistic and behavioristic fashions dominated a discipline, the option was for the prestige and security of "science." Anyone who has dealt with departmental behavior is tempted to imagine that the division between natural and social sciences arose as a result of either the physicists' horri- fied tribal defense against impurity or the psychologists' desire to claim rigor for their work. The recent fashion of "human sciences" emanating from France may be the outcome of a desire to have one's humanities and eat them too. Some disciplines have not been entirely comfortable with the new ar- rangements. History falls here or there, sometimes by administrative fiat, sometimes by popular vote, which is a little like telling a mule it must decide whether it would like to be a horse or a donkey. In the university at which I teach, the philosophy department found itself, or put itself, with the social sciences in the subgrouping within the college. This is a situation that I would find a little comical if it weren't for what the philoso- phers in their flight seemed to be saying about being identified with the fine arts, languages, and literatures. Of course, putting philosophy any- where in an academic structure is like pretending Archimedes had found a place to stand; yet philosophy now has its own branches so specialized as not to belong everywhere. A step not yet taken in some places, but finally isolating what is left of the humanities, is the professionalization of the fine and performing arts and their separation-sometimes carrying off a lamenting and protesting art history department. What are the results of this gradual isolation of a few departments under the rubric of "humanities"? Many faculty and administrators don't even recognize that there is a serious problem here, mainly because what educational policy they allow themselves to contemplate doesn't find more than a specialized and tangential role for humanistic subjects. I offer three solutions, the first frivolous, the second not really a solu- tion because part of the problem, and the third serious but insufficiently developed here: tury. It had meant simply knowledge acquired by study that mastered some part of learning. In contrast to art, which was practical, science was theoretical. But the meaning and force of science changed in the nine- teenth century when the divisions inside universities rapidly proliferated and positivistic assumptions gained full control over the term. These as- sumptions remain anachronistically embedded in our organizational ter- minology and structures. The decision to collect all those disciplines that did not declare them- selves to have pretensions to science (in the modem specialized and im- poverished sense I have just discussed) created various curiosities in aca- demic organization and even occasional crises. In some places where positivistic and behavioristic fashions dominated a discipline, the option was for the prestige and security of "science. " Anyone who has dealt with departmental behavior is tempted to imagine that the division between natural and social sciences arose as a result of either the physicists' horri- fied tribal defense against impurity or the psychologists' desire to claim rigor for their work. The recent fashion of "human sciences" emanating from France may be the outcome of a desire to have one's humanities and eat them too. Some disciplines have not been entirely comfortable with the new ar- rangements. History falls here or there, sometimes by administrative fiat, sometimes by popular vote, which is a little like telling a mule it must decide whether it would like to be a horse or a donkey. In the university at which I teach, the philosophy department found itself, or put itself, with the social sciences in the subgrouping within the college. This is a situation that I would find a little comical if it weren't for what the philoso- phers in their flight seemed to be saying about being identified with the fine arts, languages, and literatures. Of course, putting philosophy any- where in an academic structure is like pretending Archimedes had found a place to stand; yet philosophy now has its own branches so specialized as not to belong everywhere. A step not yet taken in some places, but finally isolating what is left of the humanities, is the professionalization of the fine and performing arts and their separation-sometimes carrying off a lamenting and protesting art history department. What are the results of this gradual isolation of a few departments under the rubric of "humanities"? Many faculty and administrators don't even recognize that there is a serious problem here, mainly because what educational policy they allow themselves to contemplate doesn't find more than a specialized and tangential role for humanistic subjects. I offer three solutions, the first frivolous, the second not really a solu- tion because part of the problem, and the third serious but insufficiently developed here:  Humanitas and Academic Politics 265 Humanitas and Academic Politics 265 Humanitas and Academic Politics 265 Solution a. The remaining departments labeled "humanities" should declare themselves to be sciences. This is easier than you might suppose. Look at the disciplines that have done it with no greater resources than a sufficient measure of desire. It is a supremely romantic notion, but it is possible. It was proposed for the study of myth in the eighteenth cen- tury by Vico, for literary criticism and even creative writing in the nine- teenth by Taine and Zola, respectively, and for literary theory in the twentieth by the structuralists. Indeed, the recent shift from "criticism" to "theory" can be seen as an attempt to step in this direction. However, I do not recommend this move, principally for psychological reasons. In The Academic Tribes I noted that in my experience (and I have been much berated for saying it) the social scientists, who have suc- ceeded in appropriating the term scientist, labor under the onus of never being hard enough. Theirs is a soft science-their role one of constant humiliation in the face of chemistry. Further, their movements toward science have frequently ended in defections expressed by lemminglike masses of social scientists cyclically drowning their behaviorism in either autobiography or primitive forms of art. No, though I like the impertinence and antibureaucratic gesture of all of us declaring ourselves scientists, the move smacks of resistance move- ments, deliberate disruptions, and neurotic regressions. Solution 2. It has already happened in certain ways and is the cause of some of our problems: Declare outright professionalism. In The Aca- demic Tribes I discuss the mimicry of the scientific community that such a stance generates. Some outgrowths are the National Endowment for the Humanities and the appearance among humanists of the grantsperson and world traveler. Much could be written about the difficulties created when government agencies begin to affect research and educational policy, par- ticularly when they fall into the hands of crass ideologues. These are mat- ters on which if a humanist speaks out he or she is frequently accused of the academic sin of sour grapes. Unless one can find a physicist who is still feeling guilty, one is isolated, and one's views called subjective. We might ponder what the educational significance of a large, prosperous medical school on a campus is when the overwhelming monetary support for it comes from the federal government. I shall not consider this matter but shall limit myself to the relatively mild observation that universities in this situation are not governed by people so much as by the federal rules applicable to overhead. Successful administrators in this environ- ment are those who know how to keep no ceiling over their overhead- without getting wet. (One ironic argument for keeping the humanists poor, dispossessed, and reprobate is that they become the only group likely to speak out against the academic trends caused by the relation be- Solution a. The remaining departments labeled "humanities" should declare themselves to be sciences. This is easier than you might suppose. Look at the disciplines that have done it with no greater resources than a sufficient measure of desire. It is a supremely romantic notion, but it is possible. It was proposed for the study of myth in the eighteenth cen- tury by Vico, for literary criticism and even creative writing in the nine- teenth by Taine and Zola, respectively, and for literary theory in the twentieth by the structuralists. Indeed, the recent shift from "criticism" to "theory" can be seen as an attempt to step in this direction. However, I do not recommend this move, principally for psychological reasons. In The Academic Tribes I noted that in my experience (and I have been much berated for saying it) the social scientists, who have suc- ceeded in appropriating the term scientist, labor under the onus of never being hard enough. Theirs is a soft science-their role one of constant humiliation in the face of chemistry. Further, their movements toward science have frequently ended in defections expressed by lemminglike masses of social scientists cyclically drowning their behaviorism in either autobiography or primitive forms of art. No, though I like the impertinence and antibureaucratic gesture of all of us declaring ourselves scientists, the move smacks of resistance move- ments, deliberate disruptions, and neurotic regressions. Solution 2. It has already happened in certain ways and is the cause of some of our problems: Declare outright professionalism. In The Aca- demic Tribes I discuss the mimicry of the scientific community that such a stance generates. Some outgrowths are the National Endowment for the Humanities and the appearance among humanists of the grantsperson and world traveler. Much could be written about the difficulties created when government agencies begin to affect research and educational policy, par- ticularly when they fall into the hands of crass ideologues. These are mat- ters on which if a humanist speaks out he or she is frequently accused of the academic sin of sour grapes. Unless one can find a physicist who is still feeling guilty, one is isolated, and one's views called subjective. We might ponder what the educational significance of a large, prosperous medical school on a campus is when the overwhelming monetary support for it comes from the federal government. I shall not consider this matter but shall limit myself to the relatively mild observation that universities in this situation are not governed by people so much as by the federal rules applicable to overhead. Successful administrators in this environ- ment are those who know how to keep no ceiling over their overhead- without getting wet. (One ironic argument for keeping the humanists poor, dispossessed, and reprobate is that they become the only group likely to speak out against the academic trends caused by the relation be- Solution a. The remaining departments labeled "humanities" should declare themselves to be sciences. This is easier than you might suppose. Look at the disciplines that have done it with no greater resources than a sufficient measure of desire. It is a supremely romantic notion, but it is possible. It was proposed for the study of myth in the eighteenth cen- tury by Vico, for literary criticism and even creative writing in the nine- teenth by Taine and Zola, respectively, and for literary theory in the twentieth by the structuralists. Indeed, the recent shift from "criticism" to "theory" can be seen as an attempt to step in this direction. However, I do not recommend this move, principally for psychological reasons. In The Academic Tribes I noted that in my experience (and I have been much berated for saying it) the social scientists, who have suc- ceeded in appropriating the term scientist, labor under the onus of never being hard enough. Theirs is a soft science-their role one of constant humiliation in the face of chemistry. Further, their movements toward science have frequently ended in defections expressed by lemminglike masses of social scientists cyclically drowning their behaviorism in either autobiography or primitive forms of art. No, though I like the impertinence and antibureaucratic gesture of all of us declaring ourselves scientists, the move smacks of resistance move- ments, deliberate disruptions, and neurotic regressions. Solution 2. It has already happened in certain ways and is the cause of some of our problems: Declare outright professionalism. In The Aca- demic Tribes I discuss the mimicry of the scientific community that such a stance generates. Some outgrowths are the National Endowment for the Humanities and the appearance among humanists of the grantsperson and world traveler. Much could be written about the difficulties created when government agencies begin to affect research and educational policy, par- ticularly when they fall into the hands of crass ideologues. These are mat- ters on which if a humanist speaks out he or she is frequently accused of the academic sin of sour grapes. Unless one can find a physicist who is still feeling guilty, one is isolated, and one's views called subjective. We might ponder what the educational significance of a large, prosperous medical school on a campus is when the overwhelming monetary support for it comes from the federal government. I shall not consider this matter but shall limit myself to the relatively mild observation that universities in this situation are not governed by people so much as by the federal rules applicable to overhead. Successful administrators in this environ- ment are those who know how to keep no ceiling over their overhead- without getting wet. (One ironic argument for keeping the humanists poor, dispossessed, and reprobate is that they become the only group likely to speak out against the academic trends caused by the relation be-  Antithetical Essays 266 Antithetical Essays 266 Antithetical Essays tween the academic sciences and the federal authority over research funds, i.e., over what is left of university academic policies. The reason this argument is ironic is that the rich seldom listen to the poor.) Professionalism-under which in this discourse is included (1) the en- trepreneurial researcher and (2) vocationally driven curriculum in any subject-is part of the problem, not the solution. Professionalism in the humanities narrows the humanistic role, either to performing a "service" for other professionalisms or to turning out teachers of its various sub- jects. (I am reminded at this point of being told about a professor at Ohio State, which has an agricultural college, who remarked at a meeting many years ago that whenever he heard "service" courses mentioned he knew that someone was about to be screwed.) Another side of professionalism makes the professor not a priest teaching the word to a flock but a monk preparing other monks to teach still other monks in the private adoration of a writ no one any longer regards as holy. The Celts maintained the holy flame at the shrine of Saint Bridget, and one of the English kings took the trouble to extinguish it; many university administrators would have to be reminded that our flame is being kept and, being told, might advocate putting it out as a measure for the conservation of fuel. Solution 3. This one is serious. It involves our deliberate refusal to be categorized and tucked away as the "humanities" in proportionally ever smaller numbers. Academic organization ought to have some perceivable connection with a sensible notion of the nature of educational process, as the institution publicly or tacitly defines it. I take it that a university worthy of the name ought to be concerned fundamentally with develop- ing the intellectual powers of its students. At every step of the way faculty members and students should compel themselves to examine the pro- cesses of disciplinary thought and subject them to intelligent critique. Most academic organization is the result of chance, suitable to historical marveling, and a source of bewilderment to students, faculty, administra- tion, the public, and the government, all of whom tend to compound the bewilderment by trying to read into it a highly abstract order. Imposed on this chaos in the name of "general education" has been the abominable model of the supermarket, which some people have tried to make a virtu- ous defense of student freedom, whereas it is mostly an outgrowth on the one hand of the proliferation of faculty research interests over time and on the other of budgetary policies that require departments to behave like political entities competing for students and therefore funds. No disciplines suffer more from this situation than do the humanities, which are forced to play improper roles, to the detriment of the whole educational process. Inside every discipline the result is isolation, frag- tween the academic sciences and the federal authority over research funds, i.e., over what is left of university academic policies. The reason this argument is ironic is that the rich seldom listen to the poor.) Professionalism-under which in this discourse is included (a) the en- trepreneurial researcher and (2) vocationally driven curriculum in any subject-is part of the problem, not the solution. Professionalism in the humanities narrows the humanistic role, either to performing a "service" for other professionalisms or to turning out teachers of its various sub- jects. (I am reminded at this point of being told about a professor at Ohio State, which has an agricultural college, who remarked at a meeting many years ago that whenever he heard "service" courses mentioned he knew that someone was about to be screwed.) Another side of professionalism makes the professor not a priest teaching the word to a flock but a monk preparing other monks to teach still other monks in the private adoration of a writ no one any longer regards as holy. The Celts maintained the holy flame at the shrine of Saint Bridget, and one of the English kings took the trouble to extinguish it; many university administrators would have to be reminded that our flame is being kept and, being told, might advocate putting it out as a measure for the conservation of fuel. Solution 3. This one is serious. It involves our deliberate refusal to be categorized and tucked away as the "humanities" in proportionally ever smaller numbers. Academic organization ought to have some perceivable connection with a sensible notion of the nature of educational process, as the institution publicly or tacitly defines it. I take it that a university worthy of the name ought to be concerned fundamentally with develop- ing the intellectual powers of its students. At every step of the way faculty members and students should compel themselves to examine the pro- cesses of disciplinary thought and subject them to intelligent critique. Most academic organization is the result of chance, suitable to historical marveling, and a source ofbewilderment to students, faculty, administra- tion, the public, and the government, all of whom tend to compound the bewilderment by trying to read into it a highly abstract order. Imposed on this chaos in the name of"general education" has been the abominable model of the supermarket, which some people have tried to make a virtu- ous defense of student freedom, whereas it is mostly an outgrowth on the one hand of the proliferation of faculty research interests over time and on the other of budgetary policies that require departments to behave like political entities competing for students and therefore funds. No disciplines suffer more from this situation than do the humanities, which are forced to play improper roles, to the detriment of the whole educational process. Inside every discipline the result is isolation, frag- tween the academic sciences and the federal authority over research funds, i.e., over what is left of university academic policies. The reason this argument is ironic is that the rich seldom listen to the poor.) Professionalism-under which in this discourse is included (1) the en- trepreneurial researcher and (2) vocationally driven curriculum in any subject-is part of the problem, not the solution. Professionalism in the humanities narrows the humanistic role, either to performing a "service" for other professionalisms or to turning out teachers of its various sub- jects. (I am reminded at this point of being told about a professor at Ohio State, which has an agricultural college, who remarked at a meeting many years ago that whenever he heard "service" courses mentioned he knew that someone was about to be screwed.) Another side of professionalism makes the professor not a priest teaching the word to a flock but a monk preparing other monks to teach still other monks in the private adoration of a writ no one any longer regards as holy. The Celts maintained the holy flame at the shrine of Saint Bridget, and one of the English kings took the trouble to extinguish it; many university administrators would have to be reminded that our flame is being kept and, being told, might advocate putting it out as a measure for the conservation of fuel. Solution 3. This one is serious. It involves our deliberate refusal to be categorized and tucked away as the "humanities" in proportionally ever smaller numbers. Academic organization ought to have some perceivable connection with a sensible notion of the nature of educational process, as the institution publicly or tacitly defines it. I take it that a university worthy of the name ought to be concerned fundamentally with develop- ing the intellectual powers of its students. At every step of the way faculty members and students should compel themselves to examine the pro- cesses of disciplinary thought and subject them to intelligent critique. Most academic organization is the result of chance, suitable to historical marveling, and a source of bewilderment to students, faculty, administra- tion, the public, and the government, all of whom tend to compound the bewilderment by trying to read into it a highly abstract order. Imposed on this chaos in the name of "general education" has been the abominable model of the supermarket, which some people have tried to make a virtu- ous defense of student freedom, whereas it is mostly an outgrowth on the one hand of the proliferation of faculty research interests over time and on the other of budgetary policies that require departments to behave like political entities competing for students and therefore funds. No disciplines suffer more from this situation than do the humanities, which are forced to play improper roles, to the detriment of the whole educational process. Inside every discipline the result is isolation, frag-  Humanitas and Academic Politics 267 Humanitas and Academic Politicso 267 Humanitas and Academic Politics mentation, and timidity. In the humanities the parody of the sciences takes the form of often absurd specialization. No one doubts that speciali- zation in contemporary life is a necessity, but it is patently absurd to think that professional specialization in some aspect of humanistic research is appropriate for the vast majority of our students, and to encourage it is to make students in other fields assume that the "humanities" are but one other specialization that need not become part of their own educations. Much educational policy in the institution seems to be based on just such an assumption. Humanists soon learn that they had better speak the jar- gon of getting ahead that is familiar to the scientists if the powers that be are to pay attention to them at all. The tendency I have mentioned has led to hierarchy in courses and teaching. The practice in the university I attended in the forties and the one in which I began my career in the early fifties was that everyone in the English department taught the freshman course, whatever it might be, and everyone in the college took it. Academic administrations now economize on these courses by turning them over to graduate students, part-time teachers, and, more recently, specialists in writing "skills." Often these people do excellent work. Sometimes they do not. And in almost every situation they do whatever they do under inappropriate working conditions. They are cheap labor, and the institution makes but minimal commitments to them. The fiction that such courses are "skill" courses suggests the idea of having specialists to teach them and often separates them from the traditional sources of literacy, the interpretation of significant and challenging texts, and thus the very literacy that the courses ought to instill. In the end, though professors have conspired in this, administration has not cared enough about the fundamentals of undergraduate education to fight for resources and put them where they belong. That effort would involve such a radical rethinking of priorities that it would take immense courage even to begin. It would require universities to make new argu- ments for funds and to provide leadership in expressing to the public a particular educational vision. But present faculties have been brought up in the system as it is, and the notion of the administrator as educational leader seems nearly dead. This means that the administrator often affects educational practice unintentionally, or does so covertly by pretending to leave the whole matter to the faculty. The reason for this is clear enough. Almost any administrative act-the acceptance of external fund- ing, the decision to put a building in a certain place, the response to legis- lative pressure-all of these can influence educational practice in pro- found ways. No administrator can pretend, without self-delusion or trying mentation, and timidity. In the humanities the parody of the sciences takes the form of often absurd specialization. No one doubts that speciali- zation in contemporary life is a necessity, but it is patently absurd to think that professional specialization in some aspect of humanistic research is appropriate for the vast majority of our students, and to encourage it is to make students in other fields assume that the "humanities" are but one other specialization that need not become part of their own educations. Much educational policy in the institution seems to be based on just such an assumption. Humanists soon learn that they had better speak the jar- gon of getting ahead that is familiar to the scientists if the powers that be are to pay attention to them at all. The tendency I have mentioned has led to hierarchy in courses and teaching. The practice in the university I attended in the forties and the one in which I began my career in the early fifties was that everyone in the English department taught the freshman course, whatever it might be, and everyone in the college took it. Academic administrations now economize on these courses by turning them over to graduate students, part-time teachers, and, more recently, specialists in writing "skills." Often these people do excellent work. Sometimes they do not. And in almost every situation they do whatever they do under inappropriate working conditions. They are cheap labor, and the institution makes but minimal commitments to them. The fiction that such courses are "skill" courses suggests the idea of having specialists to teach them and often separates them from the traditional sources of literacy, the interpretation of significant and challenging texts, and thus the very literacy that the courses ought to instill. In the end, though professors have conspired in this, administration has not cared enough about the fundamentals of undergraduate education to fight for resources and put them where they belong. That effort would involve such a radical rethinking of priorities that it would take immense courage even to begin. It would require universities to make new argu- ments for funds and to provide leadership in expressing to the public a particular educational vision. But present faculties have been brought up in the system as it is, and the notion of the administrator as educational leader seems nearly dead. This means that the administrator often affects educational practice unintentionally, or does so covertly by pretending to leave the whole matter to the faculty. The reason for this is clear enough. Almost any administrative act-the acceptance of external fund- ing, the decision to put a building in a certain place, the response to legis- lative pressure-all of these can influence educational practice in pro- found ways. No administrator can pretend, without self-delusion or trying mentation, and timidity. In the humanities the parody of the sciences takes the form of often absurd specialization. No one doubts that speciali- zation in contemporary life is a necessity, but it is patently absurd to think that professional specialization in some aspect of humanistic research is appropriate for the vast majority of our students, and to encourage it is to make students in other fields assume that the "humanities" are but one other specialization that need not become part of their own educations. Much educational policy in the institution seems to be based on just such an assumption. Humanists soon learn that they had better speak the jar- gon of getting ahead that is familiar to the scientists if the powers that be are to pay attention to them at all. The tendency I have mentioned has led to hierarchy in courses and teaching. The practice in the university I attended in the forties and the one in which I began my career in the early fifties was that everyone in the English department taught the freshman course, whatever it might be, and everyone in the college took it. Academic administrations now economize on these courses by turning them over to graduate students, part-time teachers, and, more recently, specialists in writing "skills." Often these people do excellent work. Sometimes they do not. And in almost every situation they do whatever they do under inappropriate working conditions. They are cheap labor, and the institution makes but minimal commitments to them. The fiction that such courses are "skill" courses suggests the idea of having specialists to teach them and often separates them from the traditional sources of literacy, the interpretation of significant and challenging texts, and thus the very literacy that the courses ought to instill. In the end, though professors have conspired in this, administration has not cared enough about the fundamentals of undergraduate education to fight for resources and put them where they belong. That effort would involve such a radical rethinking of priorities that it would take immense courage even to begin. It would require universities to make new argu- ments for funds and to provide leadership in expressing to the public a particular educational vision. But present faculties have been brought up in the system as it is, and the notion of the administrator as educational leader seems nearly dead. This means that the administrator often affects educational practice unintentionally, or does so covertly by pretending to leave the whole matter to the faculty. The reason for this is clear enough. Almost any administrative act-the acceptance of external fund- ing, the decision to put a building in a certain place, the response to legis- lative pressure-all of these can influence educational practice in pro- found ways. No administrator can pretend, without self-delusion or trying  Antithetical Essays 268 Antithetical Essays 268 Antithetical Essays to delude the faculty, that these matters are not part and parcel of educa- tional policy, are not the means by which powerful currents are set in motion in the institution. This suggests that the division between faculty and administrators with respect to educational policy is a delusion and that administrators ought to be educational leaders, if only because they cannot escape this role. Indeed the institution is strengthened when they accept a role and seek out a direction. However, the role of leadership is not merely internal; it is external. Great educational leadership means teaching the public. Most universities seem to do this by saying they have created a new square tomato, that is, by trumpeting their research contri- butions to technology. These are important matters, but they are not what is fundamentally important to the public, whether the public knows it or not. The university ought to be an ethical force in the sense that it should be seeking to interpret and to make a critique of all aspects of our culture to ourselves. At the same time, an administrator is helpless in these matters without a strong system of faculty governance that is not endlessly bogged down in bureaucratic detail. Most faculty senates spend their time revising by- laws, and some administrators are quite content to let them do this end- lessly. The faculty must have an effective involvement in, and create an arena of debate on, matters of educational policy. This debate is best seen as a mediation between classroom and administration, which must give leadership of a nontyrannical sort. Colleges of various kinds grouped around a central administration like horses on a merry-go-round offer no view of education at all, though the nonview becomes a view and dictates a policy that can be devoted only to keeping the peace and dividing resources among competing pressure groups. Learning is capricious, of course, but that fact should not be made an excuse for intellectual chaos. Actually, academic organization ought to have a vertical dimension that signifies not levels of power or prestige but the process of education itself. At the bottom of that vertical strue- ture, holding things up, should be those disciplines concerned with the fundamental symbolic forms or languages of human culture. These are the study of our own language and that of others, the languages of aural and visual forms that we classify as fine arts, and the language of number. These languages are all basic to human culture, to all science, to symbolic intercourse among people, and to professional competence in the highest sense. All of these forms are forms of expression as well as of intuition, and one educational principle ought to be that learning in these forms involves expression in them as well as learning about them. It is out of these disciplines that further learning should occur. to delude the faculty, that these matters are not part and parcel of educa- tional policy, are not the means by which powerful currents are set in motion in the institution. This suggests that the division between faculty and administrators with respect to educational policy is a delusion and that administrators ought to be educational leaders, if only because they cannot escape this role. Indeed the institution is strengthened when they accept a role and seek out a direction. However, the role of leadership is not merely internal; it is external. Great educational leadership means teaching the public. Most universities seem to do this by saying they have created a new square tomato, that is, by trumpeting their research contri- butions to technology. These are important matters, but they are not what is fundamentally important to the public, whether the public knows it or not. The university ought to be an ethical force in the sense that it should be seeking to interpret and to make a critique of all aspects of our culture to ourselves. At the same time, an administrator is helpless in these matters without a strong system of faculty governance that is not endlessly bogged down in bureaucratic detail. Most faculty senates spend their time revising by- laws, and some administrators are quite content to let them do this end- lessly. The faculty must have an effective involvement in, and create an arena of debate on, matters of educational policy. This debate is best seen as a mediation between classroom and administration, which must give leadership of a nontyrannical sort. Colleges of various kinds grouped around a central administration like horses on a merry-go-round offer no view of education at all, though the nonview becomes a view and dictates a policy that can be devoted only to keeping the peace and dividing resources among competing pressure groups. Learning is capricious, of course, but that fact should not be made an excuse for intellectual chaos. Actually, academic organization ought to have a vertical dimension that signifies not levels of power or prestige but the process of education itself. At the bottom of that vertical struc- ture, holding things up, should be those disciplines concerned with the fundamental symbolic forms or languages of human culture. These are the study of our own language and that of others, the languages of aural and visual forms that we classify as fine arts, and the language of number. These languages are all basic to human culture, to all science, to symbolic intercourse among people, and to professional competence in the highest sense. All of these forms are forms of expression as well as of intuition, and one educational principle ought to be that learning in these forms involves expression in them as well as learning about them. It is out of these disciplines that further learning should occur. to delude the faculty, that these matters are not part and parcel of educa- tional policy, are not the means by which powerful currents are set in motion in the institution. This suggests that the division between faculty and administrators with respect to educational policy is a delusion and that administrators ought to be educational leaders, if only because they cannot escape this role. Indeed the institution is strengthened when they accept a role and seek out a direction. However, the role of leadership is not merely internal; it is external. Great educational leadership means teaching the public. Most universities seem to do this by saying they have created a new square tomato, that is, by trumpeting their research contri- butions to technology. These are important matters, but they are not what is fundamentally important to the public, whether the public knows it or not. The university ought to be an ethical force in the sense that it should be seeking to interpret and to make a critique of all aspects of our culture to ourselves. At the same time, an administrator is helpless in these matters without a strong system of faculty governance that is not endlessly bogged down in bureaucratic detail. Most faculty senates spend their time revising by- laws, and some administrators are quite content to let them do this end- lessly. The faculty must have an efective involvement in, and create an arena of debate on, matters of educational policy. This debate is best seen as a mediation between classroom and administration, which must give leadership of a nontyrannical sort. Colleges of various kinds grouped around a central administration like horses on a merry-go-round offer no view of education at all, though the nonview becomes a view and dictates a policy that can be devoted only to keeping the peace and dividing resources among competing pressure groups. Learning is capricious, of course, but that fact should not be made an excuse for intellectual chaos. Actually, academic organization ought to have a vertical dimension that signifies not levels of power or prestige but the process of education itself. At the bottom of that vertical struec- ture, holding things up, should be those disciplines concerned with the fundamental symbolic forms or languages of human culture. These are the study of our own language and that of others, the languages of aural and visual forms that we classify as fine arts, and the language of number. These languages are all basic to human culture, to all science, to symbolic intercourse among people, and to professional competence in the highest sense. All of these forms are forms of expression as well as of intuition, and one educational principle ought to be that learning in these forms involves expression in them as well as learning about them. It is out of these disciplines that further learning should occur.  Humanitas and Academic Politics 26g Humanitas and Academic Politics 26g Humanitas and Academic Politics 26g Included in the first of my trivium, our own language and that of oth- ers, is the study of the earliest known surviving forms of verbal expres- sion, myths and legends, the study of stories, songs, plays, and poems. Beyond this is argumentative discourse, and if we travel this road long enough we are impelled to ask philosophical questions about what we are doing, and we come to literary theory, rhetoric, and logic. If we travel through the disciplines of aural and visual arts, we come to the philosophy of art. If we travel through the language of number, we come to logic again, and the philosophy of science. Every discipline creates the need for theoretical and philosophical discourse about it. Our usual academic structure collects such discourses in such a way as to have two results: (a) philosophical and theoretical discourses about the subject are sepa- rated off in the philosophy department, seldom to be heard from again; and (2) a few brave souls in departments of English, history, mathematics, and the foreign languages theorize about their subjects, only to be re- garded with suspicion, amusement, or fear; frequently there are rituals to render them gradually ectoplasmie. The usual response to this problem is to seek an interdisciplinary an- swer. What we usually call "interdisciplinary" are things that somehow don't belong in or are not allowed into a single department by a never actually taken popular vote. Too often interdisciplinary efforts are limited to a disparate collection of texts hung together by some device invented by the professor. Actually, the fundamental interdisciplinary courses in the humanities are already being taught, but they are being taught in fragmented and isolated ways in the present departments. So what is needed is not so much new subjects and courses as an inter- departmentalization of certain courses already offered, and this inter- departmentalization would have to go beyond departments currently classified as the humanities today. The fundamental interdisciplinary sub- jects are the history and theory of literary criticism, historiography, and certain courses in philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology. The reasons these courses are not successfully taught under present conditions are that (a) they are often overwhelming to the teachers, who are usually self- trained in large areas of them because the teachers' formal training was as provincial as its counterpart today; (2) departmental territorialism maintains provincialism-as in the teaching of critical theory in most uni- versities, each language department emphasizing theory in its own lan- guage at the expense of a coherent and broader view of the subject; (3) there is a lot of prejudice against any philosophical approach to a subject, which is conveniently regarded as a specialized sidelight if it is admitted at all to the main business of a department; part of this tendency may Included in the first of my trivium, our own language and that of oth- ers, is the study of the earliest known surviving forms of verbal expres- sion, myths and legends, the study of stories, songs, plays, and poems. Beyond this is argumentative discourse, and if we travel this road long enough we are impelled to ask philosophical questions about what we are doing, and we come to literary theory, rhetoric, and logic. If we travel through the disciplines of aural and visual arts, we come to the philosophy of art. If we travel through the language of number, we come to logic again, and the philosophy of science. Every discipline creates the need for theoretical and philosophical discourse about it. Our usual academic structure collects such discourses in such a way as to have two results: (a) philosophical and theoretical discourses about the subject are sepa- rated off in the philosophy department, seldom to be heard from again; and (2) a few brave souls in departments of English, history, mathematics, and the foreign languages theorize about their subjects, only to be re- garded with suspicion, amusement, or fear; frequently there are rituals to render them gradually ectoplasmic. The usual response to this problem is to seek an interdisciplinary an- swer. What we usually call "interdisciplinary" are things that somehow don't belong in or are not allowed into a single department by a never actually taken popular vote. Too often interdisciplinary efforts are limited to a disparate collection of texts hung together by some device invented by the professor. Actually, the fundamental interdisciplinary courses in the humanities are already being taught, but they are being taught in fragmented and isolated ways in the present departments. So what is needed is not so much new subjects and courses as an inter- departmentalization of certain courses already offered, and this inter- departmentalization would have to go beyond departments currently classified as the humanities today. The fundamental interdisciplinary sub- jects are the history and theory of literary criticism, historiography, and certain courses in philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology. The reasons these courses are not successfully taught under present conditions are that (a) they are often overwhelming to the teachers, who are usually self- trained in large areas of them because the teachers' formal training was as provincial as its counterpart today; (2) departmental territorialism maintains provincialism-as in the teaching of critical theory in most uni- versities, each language department emphasizing theory in its own lan- guage at the expense of a coherent and broader view of the subject; (3) there is a lot of prejudice against any philosophical approach to a subject, which is conveniently regarded as a specialized sidelight if it is admitted at all to the main business of a department; part of this tendency may Included in the first of my trivium, our own language and that of oth- ers, is the study of the earliest known surviving forms of verbal expres- sion, myths and legends, the study of stories, songs, plays, and poems. Beyond this is argumentative discourse, and if we travel this road long enough we are impelled to ask philosophical questions about what we are doing, and we come to literary theory, rhetoric, and logic. If we travel through the disciplines of aural and visual arts, we come to the philosophy of art. If we travel through the language of number, we come to logic again, and the philosophy of science. Every discipline creates the need for theoretical and philosophical discourse about it. Our usual academic structure collects such discourses in such a way as to have two results: (s) philosophical and theoretical discourses about the subject are sepa- rated off in the philosophy department, seldom to be heard from again; and (2) a few brave souls in departments of English, history, mathematics, and the foreign languages theorize about their subjects, only to be re- garded with suspicion, amusement, or fear; frequently there are rituals to render them gradually ectoplasmic. The usual response to this problem is to seek an interdisciplinary an- swer. What we usually call "interdisciplinary" are things that somehow don't belong in or are not allowed into a single department by a never actually taken popular vote. Too often interdisciplinary efforts are limited to a disparate collection of texts hung together by some device invented by the professor. Actually, the fundamental interdisciplinary courses in the humanities are already being taught, but they are being taught in fragmented and isolated ways in the present departments. So what is needed is not so much new subjects and courses as an inter- departmentalization of certain courses already offered, and this inter- departmentalization would have to go beyond departments currently classified as the humanities today. The fundamental interdisciplinary sub- jects are the history and theory of literary criticism, historiography, and certain courses in philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology. The reasons these courses are not successfully taught under present conditions are that (1) they are often overwhelming to the teachers, who are usually self- trained in large areas of them because the teachers' formal training was as provincial as its counterpart today; (2) departmental territorialism maintains provincialism-as in the teaching of critical theory in most uni- versities, each language department emphasizing theory in its own lan- guage at the expense of a coherent and broader view of the subject; (3) there is a lot of prejudice against any philosophical approach to a subject, which is conveniently regarded as a specialized sidelight if it is admitted at all to the main business of a department; part of this tendency may  Antithetical Essays 270 Antithetical Essays 270 Antithetical Essays be attributed to an organizational structure that keeps an anachronistic positivism alive enough to be mischievous; (4) there is considerable fear of orderly thought and sometimes even an ideological opposition as well, though this tendency has diminished somewhat since the sixties; (5) ad- ministrations seem to find interdepartmental efforts at teamwork expen- sive; at least methods of funding and establishing faculty work loads frus- trate such efforts; (6) finally, departmental competition, unintentionally encouraged by administrative policy, prevents many important coopera- tive efforts. I have spoken of what I shall now call a humane trivium: study of verbal languages, study of aural and visual forms, study of the language of num- ber. Now briefly, some principles. 1. Professional schools should be built on top of the humane trivium and ought to depend on it, drawing from it rather than constructing their own narrow versions of it or mini- mizing its importance in student eyes. 2. The social and natural sciences should be located some- where beneath professional education and above the triv- ium, depending on it. This does not necessarily imply that their study should be delayed, but it does mean that most professional education should be delayed. 3. Philosophy and history should be present at all levels as fundamental forms of our attempt to understand human in- tellectual activity. Every discipline has its own history, de- pends on history in a larger sense, and raises philosophical questions of which anyone studying the discipline should be aware. 4. Higher education should be committed at all levels to un- derstanding the powers of symbolic expression and to fos- tering these powers in students. 5. Such activity is fundamental but not a set of experiences to pass through as if they were preparatory skills. It is a process that ought to be continuous in a four-year curricu- lum and integrated with higher levels of specialization. One ought to begin with it but not abandon it. One merely picks up specialized outgrowths of it along the way. 6. The trivium represents education in its fundamentals as one of interpretation, in the larger sense that the term gen- erally has in modern hermeneutics. Interpretation is the ef- fort not just to find but to make meaning. Without the be attributed to an organizational structure that keeps an anachronistic positivism alive enough to be mischievous; (4) there is considerable fear of orderly thought and sometimes even an ideological opposition as well, though this tendency has diminished somewhat since the sixties; (5) ad- ministrations seem to find interdepartmental efforts at teamwork expen- sive; at least methods of funding and establishing faculty work loads frus- trate such efforts; (6) finally, departmental competition, unintentionally encouraged by administrative policy, prevents many important coopera- tive efforts. I have spoken of what I shall now call a humane trivium: study of verbal languages, study of aural and visual forms, study of the language of num- ber. Now briefly, some principles. s. Professional schools should be built on top of the humane trivium and ought to depend on it, drawing from it rather than constructing their own narrow versions of it or mini- mizing its importance in student eyes. 2. The social and natural sciences should be located some- where beneath professional education and above the triv- ium, depending on it. This does not necessarily imply that their study should be delayed, but it does mean that most professional education should be delayed. 3. Philosophy and history should be present at all levels as fundamental forms of our attempt to understand human in- tellectual activity. Every discipline has its own history, de- pends on history in a larger sense, and raises philosophical questions of which anyone studying the discipline should be aware. 4. Higher education should be committed at all levels to un- derstanding the powers of symbolic expression and to fos- tering these powers in students. 5. Such activity is fundamental but not a set of experiences to pass through as if they were preparatory skills. It is a process that ought to be continuous in a four-year curricu- lum and integrated with higher levels of specialization. One ought to begin with it but not abandon it. One merely picks up specialized outgrowths of it along the way. 6. The trivium represents education in its fundamentals as one of interpretation, in the larger sense that the term gen- erally has in modern hermeneutics. Interpretation is the ef- fort not just to find but to make meaning. Without the be attributed to an organizational structure that keeps an anachronistic positivism alive enough to be mischievous; (4) there is considerable fear of orderly thought and sometimes even an ideological opposition as well, though this tendency has diminished somewhat since the sixties; (5) ad- ministrations seem to find interdepartmental efforts at teamwork expen- sive; at least methods of funding and establishing faculty work loads frus- trate such efforts; (6) finally, departmental competition, unintentionally encouraged by administrative policy, prevents many important coopera- tive efforts. I have spoken of what I shall now call a humane trivium: study of verbal languages, study of aural and visual forms, study of the language of num- ber. Now briefly, some principles. 1. Professional schools should be built on top of the humane trivium and ought to depend on it, drawing from it rather than constructing their own narrow versions of it or mini- mizing its importance in student eyes. 2. The social and natural sciences should be located some- where beneath professional education and above the triv- ium, depending on it. This does not necessarily imply that their study should be delayed, but it does mean that most professional education should be delayed. 3. Philosophy and history should be present at all levels as fundamental forms of our attempt to understand human in- tellectual activity. Every discipline has its own history, de- pends on history in a larger sense, and raises philosophical questions of which anyone studying the discipline should be aware. 4. Higher education should be committed at all levels to un- derstanding the powers of symbolic expression and to fos- tering these powers in students. 5. Such activity is fundamental but not a set of experiences to pass through as if they were preparatory skills. It is a process that ought to be continuous in a four-year curricu- lum and integrated with higher levels of specialization. One ought to begin with it but not abandon it. One merely picks up specialized outgrowths of it along the way. 6. The trivium represents education in its fundamentals as one of interpretation, in the larger sense that the term gen- erally has in modern hermeneutics. Interpretation is the ef- fort not just to find but to make meaning. Without the  Humanitas and Academic Politics 271 Humanitas and Academic Politics 271 Humaitas and Academic Politics sharpened power of interpretation the "shill" of writing cannot be adequately learned. Interpretation is learned through the study of complex texts. I see no particularly useful place in this scheme for the term humani- ties, unless that term were to include the whole search for meaning. But we have a term for that-liberal education-worth rescuing from the dis- repute into which it has fallen by restoring its literal meaning of "libera- tion." If we can do that, then we might next be able to restore the old meaning of the Latin humanitas and apply it to all learning. sharpened power of interpretation the "skill" of writing cannot be adequately learned. Interpretation is learned through the study of complex texts. I see no particularly useful place in this scheme for the term humani- ties, unless that term were to include the whole search for meaning. But we have a term for that-liberal education-worth rescuing from the dis- repute into which it has fallen by restoring its literal meaning of "libera- tion." If we can do that, then we might next be able to restore the old meaning of the Latin humanitas and apply it to all learning. sharpened power of interpretation the "sdll" of writing cannot be adequately learned. Interpretation is learned through the study of complex texts. I see no particularly useful place in this scheme for the term humani- ties, unless that term were to include the whole search for meaning. But we have a term for that-liberal education-worth rescuing from the dis- repute into which it has fallen by restoring its literal meaning of "libera- tion." If we can do that, then we might next be able to restore the old meaning of the Latin humanitas and apply it to all learning.  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure Might one establish a neo-Blakean vision of the liberal arts in academic life? One would need a principle for the appropriate intellectual relation- ships among the disciplines in the university. My effort to do this will be sketchy; if I can provide a symbol for reflection I shall be satisfied with the prolegomena that follow. At the beginning I am going to make a distinction between what I call "myth" and "antimyth," stolen from my Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic.' As I did there, I adopt four ideas appropriated from William Blake. These ideas I have already dealt with briefly in the first essay of this book but they need concise repetition here for what follows. s. The passage from Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell quoted in that essay (p. 14) expresses his idea that the poetic imagination is the source of language, that the proper model of language is trope, not sym- bolic logic, that abstracted forms of thought arise from a poetic source and in turn generate interpreters or what Blake calls priests. 2. Blake believed that poetic imagination can be a social force, provid- ing intellectual food that will be devoured by an interpreting, using soci- ety. His terms "prolific" and "devourer" symbolize these activities. 3. Blake distinguished between centers and circumferences in the fol- lowing way: If you are at a center, everything else is outside you in the form of nature, matter, or the objective, while you are the isolated subject. When you study yourself analytically you project yourself outside yourself as an object. If you are at a circumference your experiences are inside you and part of yourself. You contain the world in the form that your imag- ination can give to it, and it does not have to be an object alien from you. You are like what Blake called the "ancient poets." On the other hand, at a center you are a "priest" or alien interpreter of an outer world. 4. Blake distinguished between negations and contraries. A negation is a situation of oppositions in which one side is privileged over the other, negating the right of the other to equal existence. In the opposition body/ 1. Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). 272 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure Might one establish a neo-Blakean vision of the liberal arts in academic life? One would need a principle for the appropriate intellectual relation- ships among the disciplines in the university. My effort to do this will be sketchy; if I can provide a symbol for reflection I shall be satisfied with the prolegomena that follow. At the beginning I am going to make a distinction between what I call "myth" and "antimyth," stolen from my Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic.' As I did there, I adopt four ideas appropriated from William Blake. These ideas I have already dealt with briefly in the first essay of this book but they need concise repetition here for what follows. 1. The passage from Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell quoted in that essay (p. 14) expresses his idea that the poetic imagination is the source of language, that the proper model of language is trope, not sym- bolic logic, that abstracted forms of thought arise from a poetic source and in turn generate interpreters or what Blake calls priests. a. Blake believed that poetic imagination can be a social force, provid- ing intellectual food that will be devoured by an interpreting, using soci- ety. His terms "prolific" and "devourer" symbolize these activities. 3. Blake distinguished between centers and circumferences in the fol- lowing way: If you are at a center, everything else is outside you in the form of nature, matter, or the objective, while you are the isolated subject. When you study yourself analytically you project yourself outside yourself as an object. If you are at a circumference your experiences are inside you and part of yourself. You contain the world in the form that your imag- ination can give to it, and it does not have to be an object alien from you. You are like what Blake called the "ancient poets." On the other hand, at a center you are a "priest" or alien interpreter of an outer world. 4. Blake distinguished between negations and contraries. A negation is a situation of oppositions in which one side is privileged over the other, negating the right of the other to equal existence. In the opposition body/ . Philosophy of the Literarn Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1983). 272 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure Might one establish a neo-Blakean vision of the liberal arts in academic life? One would need a principle for the appropriate intellectual relation- ships among the disciplines in the university. My effort to do this will be sketchy; if I can provide a symbol for reflection I shall be satisfied with the prolegomena that follow. At the beginning I am going to make a distinction between what I call "myth" and "antimyth," stolen from my Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic.' As I did there, I adopt four ideas appropriated from William Blake. These ideas I have already dealt with briefly in the first essay of this book but they need concise repetition here for what follows. a. The passage from Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell quoted in that essay (p. 14) expresses his idea that the poetic imagination is the source of language, that the proper model of language is trope, not sym- bolic logic, that abstracted forms of thought arise from a poetic source and in turn generate interpreters or what Blake calls priests. 2. Blake believed that poetic imagination can be a social force, provid- ing intellectual food that will be devoured by an interpreting, using soci- ety. His terms "prolific" and "devourer" symbolize these activities. 3. Blake distinguished between centers and circumferences in the fol- lowing way: If you are at a center, everything else is outside you in the form ofnature, matter, or the objective, while you are the isolated subject. When you study yourself analytically you project yourself outside yourself as an object. If you are at a circumference your experiences are inside you and part of yourself. You contain the world in the form that your imag- ination can give to it, and it does not have to be an object alien from you. You are like what Blake called the "ancient poets." On the other hand, at a center you are a "priest" or alien interpreter of an outer world. 4. Blake distinguished between negations and contraries. A negation is a situation of oppositions in which one side is privileged over the other, negating the right of the other to equal existence. In the opposition body/ . Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, -983).  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 273 soul, the soul has (at least in Western history) negated the body. One side is declared good, the other evil. A true contrary would be one in which the distinction itself is one side of an opposition of equality. Its proper opposite would be the declaration of the identity of the two things on the model of the tropological structure of language, specifically the metaphor. A metaphorical utterance is both true and untrue at once. It opposes the negation truth/untruth. The fundamental negation of his time that Blake opposed (in addition to soul/body) was that of object/subject. As I have indicated, Blake's no- tion of a center implies a subject to a surrounding object. His notion of a circumference is a contrary to that negation in that it proposes an imagi- native identity. In such a situation perceivers are actively engaged with what they perceive. I now want to introduce my distinction between myth and antimyth, keeping Blake's notions in mind. Myth and antimyth are two poles mark- ing a continuum of cultural forms and the academic disciplines related to them. At the antimythical pole (the next several paragraphs digest re- marks made in the concluding chapter of Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic) we have a vision of the world as external to us, the world of nature and her mathematical laws as object to our subject.' Our own bodies are outside us, objectified like the world and treatable quantifiably. This is, of course, a myth itself in the popular sense of the word, but I shall call it a cultural "fiction," by which I mean a making and not a truth or un- truth. Part of this fiction is that the individual is determined in and by the world as if at Blake's center. Extended into religion, it is the fiction of the human being in relation to an alien god or moral code above or surrounding him. As a pole or limit, antimyth represents the fiction of all existence as divided into primary or objective externality and secondary or subjective internality and the consequent privileging of the external objective and negating of the internal subjective. Gerald Holton, a historian of science, considers this distinction to have been, at its outset at least, part of a wor- thy effort to expand human horizons and better understand the universe.' This is, no doubt, correct; but over time it became a dehumanization in that it externalized human beings by making them simply parts of nature to be treated accordingly. We might call this notion of the antimythical the pure or ideal form of scientific thought. It is not the actual process of scientific thought. It is the model of "normal science" in Thomas Kuhn's z. Ibid., 330-47. 3. The Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 440. Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure soul, the soul has (at least in Western history) negated the body. One is declared good, the other evil. A true contrary would be one in wl the distinction itself is one side of an opposition of equality. Its prc opposite would be the declaration of the identity of the two things on model of the tropological structure of language, specifically the metap A metaphorical utterance is both true and untrue at once. It opposes negation truth/untruth. The fundamental negation of his time that Blake opposed (in addi to soul/body) was that of object/subject. As I have indicated, Blake's tion of a center implies a subject to a surrounding object. His notio a circumference is a contrary to that negation in that it proposes an im native identity. In such a situation perceivers are actively engaged what they perceive. I now want to introduce my distinction between myth and antim keeping Blake's notions in mind. Myth and antimyth are two poles m ing a continuum of cultural forms and the academic disciplines re to them. At the antimythical pole (the next several paragraphs digest marks made in the concluding chapter of Philosophy of the Literary S bolic) we have a vision of the world as external to us, the world of na and her mathematical laws as object to our subject. Our own bodies outside us, objectified like the world and treatable quantifiably. Thi of course, a myth itself in the popular sense of the word, but I shall it a cultural "fiction," by which I mean a making and not a truth or truth. Part of this fiction is that the individual is determined in an< the world as if at Blake's center. Extended into religion, it is the fiu of the human being in relation to an alien god or moral code abov surrounding him. As a pole or limit, antimyth represents the fiction of all existenc divided into primary or objective externality and secondary or subje< internality and the consequent privileging of the external objective negating of the internal subjective. Gerald Holton, a historian of scie considers this distinction to have been, at its outset at least, part of a thy effort to expand human horizons and better understand the unive This is, no doubt, correct; but over time it became a dehumanizatio that it externalized human beings by making them simply parts of na to be treated accordingly. We might call this notion of the antimytl the pure or ideal form of scientific thought. It is not the actual pro of scientific thought. It is the model of "normal science" in Thomas Ku . Ibid., 330-47. 3. The Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge: Ha University Press, 1973), 440. 073 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 273 soul, the soul has (at least in Western history) negated the body. One side is declared good, the other evil. A true contrary would be one in which the distinction itself is one side of an opposition of equality. Its proper opposite would be the declaration of the identity of the two things on the model of the tropological structure of language, specifically the metaphor. A metaphorical utterance is both true and untrue at once. It opposes the negation truth/untruth. The fundamental negation of his time that Blake opposed (in addition to soul/body) was that of object/subject. As I have indicated, Blake's no- tion of a center implies a subject to a surrounding object. His notion of a circumference is a contrary to that negation in that it proposes an imagi- native identity. In such a situation perceivers are actively engaged with what they perceive. I now want to introduce my distinction between myth and antimyth, keeping Blake's notions in mind. Myth and antimyth are two poles mark- ing a continuum of cultural forms and the academic disciplines related to them. At the antimythical pole (the next several paragraphs digest re- marks made in the concluding chapter of Philosophy of the Literary Sym- bolic) we have a vision of the world as external to us, the world of nature and her mathematical laws as object to our subject.' Our own bodies are outside us, objectified like the world and treatable quantifiably. This is, of course, a myth itself in the popular sense of the word, but I shall call it a cultural "fiction," by which I mean a making and not a truth or un- truth. Part of this fiction is that the individual is determined in and by the world as if at Blake's center. Extended into religion, it is the fiction of the human being in relation to an alien god or moral code above or surrounding him. As a pole or limit, antimyth represents the fiction of all existence as divided into primary or objective externality and secondary or subjective internality and the consequent privileging of the external objective and negating of the internal subjective. Gerald Holton, a historian of science, considers this distinction to have been, at its outset at least, part of a wor- thy effort to expand human horizons and better understand the universe.' This is, no doubt, correct; but over time it became a dehumanization in that it externalized human beings by making them simply parts of nature to be treated accordingly. We might call this notion of the antimythical the pure or ideal form of scientific thought. It is not the actual process of scientific thought. It is the model of "normal science" in Thomas Kuhn's 2. Ibid., 330-47, 3. The Thematic Osigins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 440.  Antithetical Essays 274 Antithetical Essays 274 Antithetical Essays sense or "public science" in Holton's.' What is lacking in "public science" is the early part of the process deeper than antimyth, where what Holton calls "themata" verge on mythical activity. This part of the process seems to belong to the region of "tacit knowing," to adopt a phrase of Michael Polanyi.' It is interesting to see how the notion of necessary objectivity or externality appears as Holton speaks of . . . the process of removing the discourse from the personal level . . . to a second level, that of public science, where the discourse is more unambiguously understandable, being pre- dominantly about phenomena and analytical schemes. . . . This is a process which every scientist unquestionably accepts, a process that may be termed externalization or projection." In my terms, the process described here is the movement from myth into antimyth. It is most interesting that Kuhn goes so far as to propose that we may have to give up the idea that scientific developments "carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth.' He refuses to ". . . compare theories as representations of nature, as statements about 'what is really out there'."' He rejects the possibility of a neutral observation language. He considers abandoning the notion that sensory experience is fixed and neutral. A similar direction is noticeable in Holton's rejection of". . . the idea of a perfect entity . . . easily recog- nizable in scientific thought from the beginning to this day, as the conception-a haunting and apparently irresistible one despite all evi- dence to the contrary-of the final simple, perfect object of knowledge to which the current state of scientific knowledge is widely thought to lead us."' Yet a positing of such an external limit is so pervasive in public science and the public eye that one must entertain the notion of it as a necessary fiction. I now turn to the opposite end of my continuum. At the mythic pole 4. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutons, 2d ed. rev. (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1970), 10-42; Holton, Thematic Origins, p. 57. 5. See Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958h also Polanyi, Meaning, coauthored with Harry Prosch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). 6. Thematic Ocigins, 101. 7. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 170. 8. "Reflections on My Critics," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. . Laka- tos and A. Musgrave (1g7o) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 265. 9. Thematic Origins, 104. sense or "public science" in Holton's.4 What is lacking in "public science" is the early part of the process deeper than antimyth, where what Holton calls "themata" verge on mythical activity. This part of the process seems to belong to the region of "tacit knowing," to adopt a phrase of Michael Polanyi.' It is interesting to see how the notion of necessary objectivity or externality appears as Holton speaks of . . . the process of removing the discourse from the personal level . . . to a second level, that of public science, where the discourse is more unambiguously understandable, being pre- dominantly about phenomena and analytical schemes. . . . This is a process which every scientist unquestionably accepts, a process that may be termed externalization or projection.' In my terms, the process described here is the movement from myth into antimyth. It is most interesting that Kuhn goes so far as to propose that we may have to give up the idea that scientific developments "carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth." He refuses to ". . . compare theories as representations of nature, as statements about 'what is really out there'."' He rejects the possibility of a neutral observation language. He considers abandoning the notion that sensory experience is fixed and neutral. A similar direction is noticeable in Holton's rejection of ". . . the idea of a perfect entity . . . easily recog- nizable in scientific thought from the beginning to this day, as the conception-a haunting and apparently irresistible one despite all evi- dence to the contrary-of the final simple, perfect object of knowledge to which the current state of scientific knowledge is widely thought to lead us."' Yet a positing of such an external limit is so pervasive in public science and the public eye that one must entertain the notion of it as a necessary fiction. I now turn to the opposite end of my continuum. At the mythic pole 4. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientic Revolutions, ad ed. rev. (Chicago: University of Chi- ago Press, 1970), 10-42; Holton, Thematic Origins, p- 57- 5. See Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958h also Polanyi, Meaning, coauthored with Harry Prosch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1975). 6. Thematic Origins, 101. 7. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 170. 8. "Reflections on My Critics," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. . [aka- tos and A. Musgrave (1970) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 265. 9. Thematic Origins, 104. sense or "public science" in Holton's.' What is lacking in "public science" is the early part of the process deeper than antimyth, where what Holton calls "themata" verge on mythical activity. This part of the process seems to belong to the region of "tacit knowing," to adopt a phrase of Michael Polanyi.' It is interesting to see how the notion of necessary objectivity or externality appears as Holton speaks of . . . the process of removing the discourse from the personal level . . . to a second level, that of public science, where the discourse is more unambiguously understandable, being pre- dominantly about phenomena and analytical schemes. . . . This is a process which every scientist unquestionably accepts, a process that may be termed externalization or projection." In my terms, the process described here is the movement from myth into antimyth. It is most interesting that Kuhn goes so far as to propose that we may have to give up the idea that scientific developments "carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth.' He refuses to ". . . compare theories as representations of nature, as statements about 'what is really out there'."' He rejects the possibility of a neutral observation language. He considers abandoning the notion that sensory experience is fixed and neutral. A similar direction is noticeable in Holton's rejection of ". . . the idea of a perfect entity . . . easily recog- nizable in scientific thought from the beginning to this day, as the conception-a haunting and apparently irresistible one despite all evi- dence to the contrary-of the final simple, perfect object of knowledge to which the current state of scientific knowledge is widely thought to lead us."' Yet a positing of such an external limit is so pervasive in public science and the public eye that one must entertain the notion of it as a necessary fiction. I now turn to the opposite end of my continuum. At the mythic pole 4. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientfic Reeolutions, od ed. rev. (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1970), 10-42; Holton, Thematic Origins, p. 57. 5. See Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958h also POlanyi, Meaning, coauthored with Harry Prosch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). 6. Thematic Origins, 101. 7. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 170. S. "Reflections on My Critics," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. t. Iaka- tos and A. Musgrave (1970) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 265. g. Thematic Origins, 104.  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 275 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 275 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure z75 we have opposition to the duality of subject/object. The world is part of us (or can be), and we are extended into the world (or can be). The funda- mental quality of mythical thought, as I think of it, is the drive toward identity and sympathy. The condition of pure myth would be the success- ful taking of everything into one's own imagination in metaphorical form and the identification of all the elements once inside synecdochically with the whole. The condition of pure antimyth would be the externalization and objectification of everything except, at the central unmoving point, an isolated, purely subjective and passive consciousness. No art in practice succeeds in the total identity of pure myth; no science in practice suc- ceeds in discovery of Holton's "perfect entity." In science there is, in fact, a drift back to myth, a yearning for some sort of identity. The drift of art toward science is also not unknown. I have said that if we look long enough antimyth begins to reveal itself as a fiction, in the sense of being a human creation. It need not be re- garded as either true or false; it is something emanating from human im- agination, the home of myth. In this light my continuum appears to be more like a fountain the source of which is myth and whose jet reaches toward externalizing power but returns cyclically to its source for replen- ishment, much as Finnegans Wake returns to its beginning. It seems that the intellectual life feeds on myth much as Blake's "devourer" feeds on his "prolific." If that is the case, then the proper organization of the liberal arts and sciences is vertical, mythical practices at the base, science in its "public" sense at the top, with the various so-called humanistic disciplines and social sciences in between, the center occupied by literary criticism, history, and philosophy, which constantly should be attempting to achieve some vision of the whole of the structure. This middle ground I call the "ironic" because it must look both ways at the same time. Myths, in the popular sense of the word, have been thought for some time to be one of the objects of study of the social scientist and of the literary scholar. To objectify myths is to submit them to an opposing antimythical point of view. That quite naturally turns myths into abstract ideas, pure relations, or allegories. There is a long tradition of allegorical reading of myths, of scripture, and of literature generally. It is inevitable that interpretation should have this element, but liberal study of mythic, literary, or artistic texts must refuse to grant such allegorization full sway. That would be to collapse the continuum by trying to collect all knowl- edge and human expression at the antimythical pole. Discourse about such texts must ironically oppose allegorical interpretation even as it inev- itably employs it in order to say anything at all. A biography that externa- lizes its subject into an object determined by the Oedipus or some other complex or to some economic or other law has done a thing parallel to we have opposition to the duality of subject/object. The world is part of us (or can be), and we are extended into the world (or can be). The funda- mental quality of mythical thought, as I think of it, is the drive toward identity and sympathy. The condition of pure myth would be the success- ful taking of everything into one's own imagination in metaphorical form and the identification of all the elements once inside synecdochically with the whole. The condition of pure antimyth would be the externalization and objectification of everything except, at the central unmoving point, an isolated, purely subjective and passive consciousness. No art in practice succeeds in the total identity of pure myth; no science in practice suc- ceeds in discovery of Holton's "perfect entity." In science there is, in fact, a drift back to myth, a yearning for some sort of identity. The drift of art toward science is also not unknown. I have said that if we look long enough antimyth begins to reveal itself as a fiction, in the sense of being a human creation. It need not be re- garded as either true or false; it is something emanating from human im- agination, the home of myth. In this light my continuum appears to be more like a fountain the source of which is myth and whose jet reaches toward externalizing power but returns cyclically to its source for replen- ishment, much as Finnegans Wake returns to its beginning. It seems that the intellectual life feeds on myth much as Blake's "devourer" feeds on his "prolific." If that is the case, then the proper organization of the liberal arts and sciences is vertical, mythical practices at the base, science in its "public" sense at the top, with the various so-called humanistic disciplines and social sciences in between, the center occupied by literary criticism, history, and philosophy, which constantly should be attempting to achieve some vision of the whole of the structure. This middle ground I call the "ironic" because it must look both ways at the same time. Myths, in the popular sense of the word, have been thought for some time to be one of the objects of study of the social scientist and of the literary scholar. To objectify myths is to submit them to an opposing antimythical point of view. That quite naturally turns myths into abstract ideas, pure relations, or allegories. There is a long tradition of allegorical reading of myths, of scripture, and of literature generally. It is inevitable that interpretation should have this element, but liberal study of mythic, literary, or artistic texts must refuse to grant such allegorization full sway. That would be to collapse the continuum by trying to collect all knowl- edge and human expression at the antimythical pole. Discourse about such texts must ironically oppose allegorical interpretation even as it inev- itably employs it in order to say anything at all. A biography that externa- lizes its subject into an object determined by the Oedipus or some other complex or to some economic or other law has done a thing parallel to we have opposition to the duality of subject/object. The world is part of us (or can be), and we are extended into the world (or can be). The funda- mental quality of mythical thought, as I think of it, is the drive toward identity and sympathy. The condition of pure myth would be the success- ful taking of everything into one's own imagination in metaphorical form and the identification of all the elements once inside synecdochically with the whole. The condition of pure antimyth would be the externalization and objectification of everything except, at the central unmoving point, an isolated, purely subjective and passive consciousness. No art in practice succeeds in the total identity of pure myth; no science in practice suc- ceeds in discovery of Holton's "perfect entity." In science there is, in fact, a drift back to myth, a yearning for some sort of identity. The drift of art toward science is also not unknown. I have said that if we look long enough antimyth begins to reveal itself as a fiction, in the sense of being a human creation. It need not be re- garded as either true or false; it is something emanating from human im- agination, the home of myth. In this light my continuum appears to be more like a fountain the source of which is myth and whose jet reaches toward externalizing power but returns cyclically to its source for replen- ishment, much as Finnegans Wake returns to its beginning. It seems that the intellectual life feeds on myth much as Blake's "devourer" feeds on his "prolific." If that is the case, then the proper organization of the liberal arts and sciences is vertical, mythical practices at the base, science in its "public" sense at the top, with the various so-called humanistic disciplines and social sciences in between, the center occupied by literary criticism, history, and philosophy, which constantly should be attempting to achieve some vision of the whole of the structure. This middle ground I call the "ironic" because it must look both ways at the same time. Myths, in the popular sense of the word, have been thought for some time to be one of the objects of study of the social scientist and of the literary scholar. To objectify myths is to submit them to an opposing antimythical point of view. That quite naturally turns myths into abstract ideas, pure relations, or allegories. There is a long tradition of allegorical reading of myths, of scripture, and of literature generally. It is inevitable that interpretation should have this element, but liberal study of mythic, literary, or artistic texts must refuse to grant such allegorization full sway. That would be to collapse the continuum by trying to collect all knowl- edge and human expression at the antimythical pole. Discourse about such texts must ironically oppose allegorical interpretation even as it inev- itably employs it in order to say anything at all. A biography that externa- lizes its subject into an object determined by the Oedipus or some other complex or to some economic or other law has done a thing parallel to  Antithetical Essays 276 Antithetical Essays 276 Antithetical Essays allegoric reduction, as does a history that subjects individual life to a mon- olithic social law said to govern change. Our age is one of the dangerous domination of antimyth. In response myth rears up in dangerous ways. Civilization, as an honorific term, ought to be that condition in which the opposite poles are in balance. The "ironic" is one of the means of balance. In an age dominated by antimyth, the grave danger is the generalization of individual imagination into the abstract notion of mass man, a passive recipient of external force. The art- ist's role in such a culture is to stand against this terrifying notion. Some- times the posture leads to madness as a refuge from unbelief, as Blake has Cowper describe him. The modern state has little, if any, confidence in the poet. The situation was quite different in mythically oriented cul- tures like that of the Irish chieftains, but no poet can seriously undertake the role of the modem political chieftain's laureate any longer. If he does, he is reduced to uttering dithering couplets about the Queen's birthday, or worse, the sycophantic championing of varieties of oppression. The pa- tron of the poet, in any case, is now the university, whose administration does not call on him for ceremonial verse and indeed rarely listens to him, but whose traditions of academic freedom allow the poet, as Northrop Frye has remarked, to bite the hand the feeds him, but (I add) not bite it off. II Support of the mythical in art is important in a primarily antimythical culture. Literary criticism's mediatory role is all the more needed in such a culture because the language of identity tends to be denigrated, even to become a sort of foreign language. In an earlier essay I quoted Words- worth fulminating against the decline of the "discriminating powers of the mind,"" and I wondered what could possibly have exercised him so in 18o. When the medium becomes the message, the active role of the viewer is blunted; reading itself becomes just too difficult and time- consuming. The celebrity commentator, or Blakean priest, is an example of this, whether it be the local sports guru or the anchorman of the nightly news. Mediation is a difficult task in the age of the self, where even the humanities have been defined antimythically in terms of subjective self- fulfillment, for in mediation there must be to some extent the reticence so. The quotation is from the preface to the second edition of Lyical Ballads (s8oo). See previous page 245. allegoric reduction, as does a history that subjects individual life to a mon- olithic social law said to govern change. Our age is one of the dangerous domination of antimyth. In response myth rears up in dangerous ways. Civilization, as an honorific term, ought to be that condition in which the opposite poles are in balance. The "ironic" is one of the means of balance. In an age dominated by antimyth, the grave danger is the generalization of individual imagination into the abstract notion of mass man, a passive recipient of external force. The art- ist's role in such a culture is to stand against this terrifying notion. Some- times the posture leads to madness as a refuge from unbelief, as Blake has Cowper describe him. The modem state has little, if any, confidence in the poet. The situation was quite different in mythically oriented cul- tures like that of the Irish chieftains, but no poet can seriously undertake the role of the modern political chieftain's laureate any longer. If he does, he is reduced to uttering dithering couplets about the Queen's birthday, or worse, the sycophantic championing of varieties of oppression. The pa- tron of the poet, in any case, is now the university, whose administration does not call on him for ceremonial verse and indeed rarely listens to him, but whose traditions of academic freedom allow the poet, as Northrop Frye has remarked, to bite the hand the feeds him, but (I add) not bite it off. II Support of the mythical in art is important in a primarily antimythical culture. Literary criticism's mediatory role is all the more needed in such a culture because the language of identity tends to be denigrated, even to become a sort of foreign language. In an earlier essay I quoted Words- worth fulminating against the decline of the "discriminating powers of the mind,"0 and I wondered what could possibly have exercised him so in 18o. When the medium becomes the message, the active role of the viewer is blunted; reading itself becomes just too difficult and time- consuming. The celebrity commentator, or Blakean priest, is an example of this, whether it be the local sports guru or the anchorman of the nightly news. Mediation is a difficult task in the age of the self, where even the humanities have been defined antimythically in terms of subjective self- fulfillment, for in mediation there must be to some extent the reticence so. The quotation is from the prece to the second edition of Lyical Ballads (18oo). See previous page 245. allegoric reduction, as does a history that subjects individual life to a mon- olithic social law said to govern change. Our age is one of the dangerous domination of antimyth. In response myth rears up in dangerous ways. Civilization, as an honorific term, ought to be that condition in which the opposite poles are in balance. The "ironic" is one of the means of balance. In an age dominated by antimyth, the grave danger is the generalization of individual imagination into the abstract notion of mass man, a passive recipient of external force. The art- ist's role in such a culture is to stand against this terrifying notion. Some- times the posture leads to madness as a refuge from unbelief, as Blake has Cowper describe him. The modern state has little, if any, confidence in the poet. The situation was quite different in mythically oriented cul- tures like that of the Irish chieftains, but no poet can seriously undertake the role of the modern political chieftain's laureate any longer. If he does, he is reduced to uttering dithering couplets about the Queen's birthday, or worse, the sycophantic championing of varieties of oppression. The pa- tron of the poet, in any case, is now the university, whose administration does not call on him for ceremonial verse and indeed rarely listens to him, but whose traditions of academic freedom allow the poet, as Northrop Frye has remarked, to bite the hand the feeds him, but (I add) not bite it off. II Support of the mythical in art is important in a primarily antimythical culture. Literary criticism's mediatory role is all the more needed in such a culture because the language of identity tends to be denigrated, even to become a sort of foreign language. In an earlier essay I quoted Words- worth fulminating against the decline of the "discriminating powers of the mind,"0 and I wondered what could possibly have exercised him so in 18oo. When the medium becomes the message, the active role of the viewer is blunted; reading itself becomes just too difficult and time- consuming. The celebrity commentator, or Blakean priest, is an example of this, whether it be the local sports guru or the anchorman of the nightly news. Mediation is a difficult task in the age of the self, where even the humanities have been defined antimythically in terms of subjective self- fulfillment, for in mediation there must be to some extent the reticence so. The quotation is from the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (s8oo). See previous page 245  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 277 of the mediator. This quality is one that ought to be present as a goal in literary criticism, which is, or ought to be, a mediatory activity be- tween work and reader. This does not mean that the critic need extin- guish the personality, but the critic should know what ought to be put first, and it is not himself, which will always be there to some extent in any case. Literary criticism should educate by guiding readers to worthwhile texts. This is particularly urgent in the light (or darkness) of the tremen- dous proliferation of texts in modern life and the savage slaughter of lan- guage that goes on daily in the various media and among politicians. Gen- erally speaking, humanists seem to have lost interest in asserting judgment. This is a process that has gone on for a long time; it was cer- tainly well advanced when in about 1970 I was informed by an arrogant, sloppy, perpetually excited student that I should not mention taste be- cause it was a pass6, bourgeois concept. In those days some humanists took such ideas to heart. (I shall not record what I said in reply, but will report that this student thought one aspect of the brave new world would be the complete absence of Mozart.) Since that time, the passing ofwhich I do not lament now and never did lament, humanists and other faculty, for that matter, have not apparently regained much faith in their ability to find ways to bring students to making judgments or even in the moral- ity of doing so. Many tended then to confuse all artistic judgments, no matter how provisional, with political elitism, to rush too rapidly to what was au courant without reflecting on the fact that the au courant was cre- ated by an economy with a design on the adolescent or barely postadolescent mind. It was a mind in the majority at the time, and it ought not in a rational society (by which I mean a society in balance) to have been dictating judgments of taste to the rest of humankind. Today, of course, the economy is directed to the younger brothers and sisters of these people, who are now into their forties. This has all been compli- cated, with respect to liberal education, by our apparent willingness to keep great literary works out of the hands of youth and substitute so-called readable texts, which implies texts that adolescents are already supposed to be competent to judge even though the power of judgment is as yet unformed. The most popular courses in my department for a while were children's literature and popular fiction. One didn't know whom to be most angry at-the students who chose these courses, the educational system that produced them, the university faculty that made the choice easy, or the administration that encouraged the whole thing by its way of allocating funds. We passed through that particular folly, but there is always the danger of cyclical recurrence. Indeed, I'll bet on it. This leads me to my point that critics ought to be celebrative. Part of Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 077 of the mediator. This quality is one that ought to be present as a goal in literary criticism, which is, or ought to be, a mediatory activity be- tween work and reader. This does not mean that the critic need extin- guish the personality, but the critic should know what ought to be put first, and it is not himself, which will always be there to some extent in any case. Literary criticism should educate by guiding readers to worthwhile texts. This is particularly urgent in the light (or darkness) of the tremen- dous proliferation of texts in modern life and the savage slaughter of lan- guage that goes on daily in the various media and among politicians. Gen- erally speaking, humanists seem to have lost interest in asserting judgment. This is a process that has gone on for a long time; it was cer- tainly well advanced when in about 1970 I was informed by an arrogant, sloppy, perpetually excited student that I should not mention taste be- cause it was a passe, bourgeois concept. In those days some humanists took such ideas to heart. (I shall not record what I said in reply, but will report that this student thought one aspect of the brave new world would be the complete absence of Mozart.) Since that time, the passing ofwhich I do not lament now and never did lament, humanists and other faculty, for that matter, have not apparently regained much faith in their ability to find ways to bring students to making judgments or even in the moral- ity of doing so. Many tended then to confuse all artistic judgments, no matter how provisional, with political elitism, to rush too rapidly to what was an courant without reflecting on the fact that the au courant was cre- ated by an economy with a design on the adolescent or barely postadolescent mind. It was a mind in the majority at the time, and it ought not in a rational society (by which I mean a society in balance) to have been dictating judgments of taste to the rest of humankind. Today, of course, the economy is directed to the younger brothers and sisters of these people, who are now into their forties. This has all been compli- cated, with respect to liberal education, by our apparent willingness to keep great literary works out of the hands of youth and substitute so-called readable texts, which implies texts that adolescents are already supposed to be competent to judge even though the power of judgment is as yet unformed. The most popular courses in my department for a while were children's literature and popular fiction. One didn't know whom to be most angry at-the students who chose these courses, the educational system that produced them, the university faculty that made the choice easy, or the administration that encouraged the whole thing by its way of allocating funds. We passed through that particular folly, but there is always the danger of cyclical recurrence. Indeed, I'll bet on it. This leads me to my point that critics ought to be celebrative. Part of Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 277 of the mediator. This quality is one that ought to be present as a goal in literary criticism, which is, or ought to be, a mediatory activity be- tween work and reader. This does not mean that the critic need extin- guish the personality, but the critic should know what ought to be put first, and it is not himself, which will always be there to some extent in any case. Literary criticism should educate by guiding readers to worthwhile texts. This is particularly urgent in the light (or darkness) of the tremen- dous proliferation of texts in modern life and the savage slaughter of lan- guage that goes on daily in the various media and among politicians. Gen- erally speaking, humanists seem to have lost interest in asserting judgment. This is a process that has gone on for a long time; it was cer- tainly well advanced when in about 1970 I was informed by an arrogant, sloppy, perpetually excited student that I should not mention taste be- cause it was a pass6, bourgeois concept. In those days some humanists took such ideas to heart. (I shall not record what I said in reply, but will report that this student thought one aspect of the brave new world would be the complete absence of Mozart.) Since that time, the passing of which I do not lament now and never did lament, humanists and other faculty, for that matter, have not apparently regained much faith in their ability to find ways to bring students to making judgments or even in the moral- ity of doing so. Many tended then to confuse all artistic judgments, no matter how provisional, with political elitism, to rush too rapidly to what was au courant without reflecting on the fact that the au courant was cre- ated by an economy with a design on the adolescent or barely postadolescent mind. It was a mind in the majority at the time, and it ought not in a rational society (by which I mean a society in balance) to have been dictating judgments of taste to the rest of humankind. Today, of course, the economy is directed to the younger brothers and sisters of these people, who are now into their forties. This has all been compli- cated, with respect to liberal education, by our apparent willingness to keep great literary works out of the hands of youth and substitute so-called readable texts, which implies texts that adolescents are already supposed to be competent to judge even though the power of judgment is as yet unformed. The most popular courses in my department for a while were children's literature and popular fiction. One didn't know whom to be most angry at-the students who chose these courses, the educational system that produced them, the university faculty that made the choice easy, or the administration that encouraged the whole thing by its way of allocating funds. We passed through that particular folly, but there is always the danger of cyclical recurrence. Indeed, I'll bet on it. This leads me to my point that critics ought to be celebrative. Part of  Antithetical Essays 278 Antithetical Essays 278 Antithetical Essays their duty-if I may use so old-fashioned a word-is to perform a sort of advertising function in a time when history is regarded as either of no consequence previous to about 1967 or a litany of social error, or pure fiction in the pay of power, serious work can sometimes get no hearimg, and normal reviewing is so often devoted to the trivial or ephemeral. Mass distribution, new marketing techniques, the takeover of publishing houses by nonliterary interests, and the chain bookstore make the means of distribution of books itself a major problem. Finally, like all disciplines, criticism should observe itself constantly, ask questions about its own methods and processes, and bring to light those things it takes for granted. Traditionally, which in this case means no more than about fifty years, the study of literary criticism or the theory of it has not fit conveniently into either the academic structure or the cur- riculum. Before that, it didn't fit at all. Today, it has become so fashion- able that it is difficult to find a large English faculty that hasn't at least grudgingly given in to the establishment of courses in the history of criti- cism, critical practice, and critical theory, pretty much in that order of acceptability. Still, from perusal of most departmental curricula one would have to conclude that the study of criticism is viewed as a quaint, occult, or belle lettristic sidelight to the main concerns. Theory is some- times regarded as something that too shall pass. In the past a few people bravely introduced a current critical fashion into their graduate classes. This happened with the New Humanism and then the New Criticism in America, phenomenologies, structuralisms, and deconstruction on the continent and, much later, here; though by the time these movements had made substantial headway in academia their real work had been done and there was fairly rapid descent to the level of buzzwords and doctrinal husks. Movements of those sorts come sporadically and generate as many opponents as acolytes. In most times, most literary academics, even today, dislike the study of criticism either by inclination, by principle, or by both. Often, whether liking it or not, they regard it as a subject that deserves, perhaps, a course in the undergraduate curriculum, proba- bly not required. Usually, in this view, the desirable course is a standard history hitting the high spots, with a minimum of philosophy after the obligatory Plato and Aristotle. After all, one is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. Didn't Coleridge say that? And, of course, Coleridge must be mentioned, and between Aristotle and him there are Horace, Longi- nus, Sidney, and Johnson. Toss in Wordsworth's Preface and Arnold, and we are up to Eliot and the New Criticism. Those who dislike the study of criticism on principle tend to hold that only one mode of critical practice is worth anything-as anyone who re- ally loves literature can see-and this mode involves a virtuous, because their duty-if I may use so old-fashioned a word-is to perform a sort of advertising function in a time when history is regarded as either of no consequence previous to about 1967 or a litany of social error, or pure fiction in the pay of power, serious work can sometimes get no hearing, and normal reviewing is so often devoted to the trivial or ephemeral. Mass distribution, new marketing techniques, the takeover of publishing houses by nonliterary interests, and the chain bookstore make the means of distribution of books itself a major problem. Finally, like all disciplines, criticism should observe itself constantly, ask questions about its own methods and processes, and bring to light those things it takes for granted. Traditionally, which in this case means no more than about fifty years, the study of literary criticism or the theory of it has not fit conveniently into either the academic structure or the cur- riculum. Before that, it didn't fit at all. Today, it has become so fashion- able that it is difficult to find a large English faculty that hasn't at least grudgingly given in to the establishment of courses in the history of criti- cism, critical practice, and critical theory, pretty much in that order of acceptability. Still, from perusal of most departmental curricula one would have to conclude that the study of criticism is viewed as a quaint, occult, or belle lettristic sidelight to the main concerns. Theory is some- times regarded as something that too shall pass. In the past a few people bravely introduced a current critical fashion into their graduate classes. This happened with the New Humanism and then the New Criticism in America, phenomenologies, structuralisms, and deconstruction on the continent and, much later, here; though by the time these movements had made substantial headway in academia their real work had been done and there was fairly rapid descent to the level of buzzwords and doctrinal husks. Movements of those sorts come sporadically and generate as many opponents as acolytes. In most times, most literary academics, even today, dislike the study of criticism either by inclination, by principle, or by both. Often, whether liking it or not, they regard it as a subject that deserves, perhaps, a course in the undergraduate curriculum, proba- bly not required. Usually, in this view, the desirable course is a standard history hitting the high spots, with a minimum of philosophy after the obligatory Plato and Aristotle. After all, one is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. Didn't Coleridge say that? And, of course, Coleridge must be mentioned, and between Aristotle and him there are Horace, Longi- nus, Sidney, and Johnson. Toss in Wordsworth's Preface and Arnold, and we are up to Eliot and the New Criticism. Those who dislike the study of criticism on principle tend to hold that only one mode of critical practice is worth anything-as anyone who re- ally loves literature can see-and this mode involves a virtuous, because their duty-if I may use so old-fashioned a word-is to perform a sort of advertising function in a time when history is regarded as either of no consequence previous to about 1967 or a litany of social error, or pure fiction in the pay of power, serious work can sometimes get no hearing, and normal reviewing is so often devoted to the trivial or ephemeral. Mass distribution, new marketing techniques, the takeover of publishing houses by nonliterary interests, and the chain bookstore make the means of distribution of books itself a major problem. Finally, like all disciplines, criticism should observe itself constantly, ask questions about its own methods and processes, and bring to light those things it takes for granted. Traditionally, which in this case means no more than about fifty years, the study of literary criticism or the theory of it has not fit conveniently into either the academic structure or the cur- riculum. Before that, it didn't fit at all. Today, it has become so fashion- able that it is difficult to find a large English faculty that hasn't at least grudgingly given in to the establishment of courses in the history of criti- cism, critical practice, and critical theory, pretty much in that order of acceptability. Still, from perusal of most departmental curricula one would have to conclude that the study of criticism is viewed as a quaint, occult, or belle lettristic sidelight to the main concerns. Theory is some- times regarded as something that too shall pass. In the past a few people bravely introduced a current critical fashion into their graduate classes. This happened with the New Humanism and then the New Criticism in America, phenomenologies, structuralisms, and deconstruction on the continent and, much later, here; though by the time these movements had made substantial headway in academia their real work had been done and there was fairly rapid descent to the level of buzzwords and doctrinal husks. Movements of those sorts come sporadically and generate as many opponents as acolytes. In most times, most literary academics, even today, dislike the study of criticism either by inclination, by principle, or by both. Often, whether liking it or not, they regard it as a subject that deserves, perhaps, a course in the undergraduate curriculum, proba- bly not required. Usually, in this view, the desirable course is a standard history hitting the high spots, with a minimum of philosophy after the obligatory Plato and Aristotle. After all, one is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. Didn't Coleridge say that? And, of course, Coleridge must be mentioned, and between Aristotle and him there are Horace, Longi- nus, Sidney, and Johnson. Toss in Wordsworth's Preface and Arnold, and we are up to Eliot and the New Criticism. Those who dislike the study of criticism on principle tend to hold that only one mode of critical practice is worth anything-as anyone who re- ally loves literature can see-and this mode involves a virtuous, because  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 279 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 27g Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 27g naive, confrontation of the text, a kind of provincial amateurism. For these people, the course in criticism is more appropriately one of critical practice, since naive criticism can't have a history. Still, even to these people, critical practice has itself been suspect since I. A. Richards' fa- mous book, and doubtless the person teaching it is pushing a doctrinal method, which is an insult to the rest of the department. Sometimes it actually is; too often the courses become exercises in rote methodology. All of this is depressing enough. The situation isn't a lot better at the graduate level, where the same attitudes persist, complete with a schizo- phrenic feeling that (1) at this level there are occult mysteries that the student can finally be allowed to know, and (2) colleagues' critical meth- ods are dangerous and must be regarded with suspicion or contempt. I have five fundamental points to make about this, and I shall put them into one sentence: The study of criticism should be historical, interdisci- plinary, first theoretical, second practical, and there should be no effort in the curriculum to produce a single theory or practice. Rather, the study of criticism should proceed by contrariety. The first point seems perfectly clear to me, but not to everyone. A few years ago, I heard a colleague declare at a meeting that there was no need to study criticism written before about 1950. This is an extreme view, and I imagine the person to have recanted; by now perhaps 1965 is his cut-off date. It is easy to believe that revelation comes with each powerful new movement. It is perhaps natural to desire liberation from the past. But liberation, as the old saw goes, comes with knowledge of it. This is partic- ularly an issue with critical theory. Its history is a perfect example of what Kenneth Burke called the "stealing back and forth of symbols." The sym- bols keep being reinvented, carrying past arguments into the present in new forms with new twists. No discipline seems to need the past more. Few disciplines in practice seem so anxious to ignore it. Coleridge was wrong to say that everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. He himself was either neither or both. His language, in any case, is a creative stealing from both, and the arguments he was making are subject to seri- ous misreading outside the tradition in which he worked. Thus, we must be acquainted with that tradition even to know why he thought people were one or the other or to know him at all. But, of course, Coleridge was long ago. Yet how do we understand Richards without him? But Richards is dead. At this point I must utter the word some of you have been waiting for-Derrida. But his work is profoundly connected with certain philosophical predecessors. Further, in its early stages his work and that of some of his followers lack acquaint- ance with Anglo-American critical theory, many poststructuralists having innocently invented problems known to their predecessors, creating a naive, confrontation of the text, a kind of provincial amateurism. For these people, the course in criticism is more appropriately one of critical practice, since naive criticism can't have a history. Still, even to these people, critical practice has itself been suspect since I. A. Richards' fa- mous book, and doubtless the person teaching it is pushing a doctrinal method, which is an insult to the rest of the department. Sometimes it actually is; too often the courses become exercises in rote methodology. All of this is depressing enough. The situation isn't a lot better at the graduate level, where the same attitudes persist, complete with a schizo- phrenic feeling that (1) at this level there are occult mysteries that the student can finally be allowed to know, and (2) colleagues' critical meth- ods are dangerous and must be regarded with suspicion or contempt. I have five fundamental points to make about this, and I shall put them into one sentence: The study of criticism should be historical, interdisci- plinary, first theoretical, second practical, and there should be no effort in the curriculum to produce a single theory or practice. Rather, the study of criticism should proceed by contrariety. The first point seems perfectly clear to me, but not to everyone. A few years ago, I heard a colleague declare at a meeting that there was no need to study criticism written before about 1950. This is an extreme view, and I imagine the person to have recanted; by now perhaps 1965 is his cut-off date. It is easy to believe that revelation comes with each powerful new movement. It is perhaps natural to desire liberation from the past. But liberation, as the old saw goes, comes with knowledge of it. This is partic- ularly an issue with critical theory. Its history is a perfect example of what Kenneth Burke called the "stealing back and forth of symbols." The sym- bols keep being reinvented, carrying past arguments into the present in new forms with new twists. No discipline seems to need the past more. Few disciplines in practice seem so anxious to ignore it. Coleridge was wrong to say that everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. He himself was either neither or both. His language, in any case, is a creative stealing from both, and the arguments he was making are subject to seri- ous misreading outside the tradition in which he worked. Thus, we must be acquainted with that tradition even to know why he thought people were one or the other or to know him at all. But, of course, Coleridge was long ago. Yet how do we understand Richards without him? But Richards is dead. At this point I must utter the word some of you have been waiting for-Derrida. But his work is profoundly connected with certain philosophical predecessors. Further, in its early stages his work and that of some of his followers lack acquaint- ance with Anglo-American critical theory, many poststructuralists having innocently invented problems known to their predecessors, creating a naive, confrontation of the text, a kind of provincial amateurism. For these people, the course in criticism is more appropriately one of critical practice, since naive criticism can't have a history. Still, even to these people, critical practice has itself been suspect since I. A. Richards' fa- mous book, and doubtless the person teaching it is pushing a doctrinal method, which is an insult to the rest of the department. Sometimes it actually is; too often the courses become exercises in rote methodology. All of this is depressing enough. The situation isn't a lot better at the graduate level, where the same attitudes persist, complete with a schizo- phrenic feeling that (1) at this level there are occult mysteries that the student can finally be allowed to know, and (o) colleagues' critical meth- ods are dangerous and must be regarded with suspicion or contempt. I have five fundamental points to make about this, and I shall put them into one sentence: The study of criticism should be historical, interdisci- plinary, first theoretical, second practical, and there should be no effort in the curriculum to produce a single theory or practice. Rather, the study of criticism should proceed by contrariety. The first point seems perfectly clear to me, but not to everyone. A few years ago, I heard a colleague declare at a meeting that there was no need to study criticism written before about 195o. This is an extreme view, and I imagine the person to have recanted; by now perhaps 1965 is his cut-off date. It is easy to believe that revelation comes with each powerful new movement. It is perhaps natural to desire liberation from the past. But liberation, as the old saw goes, comes with knowledge of it. This is partic- ularly an issue with critical theory. Its history is a perfect example of what Kenneth Burke called the "stealing back and forth of symbols." The sym- bols keep being reinvented, carrying past arguments into the present in new forms with new twists. No discipline seems to need the past more. Few disciplines in practice seem so anxious to ignore it. Coleridge was wrong to say that everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. He himself was either neither or both. His language, in any case, is a creative stealing from both, and the arguments he was making are subject to seri- ous misreading outside the tradition in which he worked. Thus, we must be acquainted with that tradition even to know why he thought people were one or the other or to know him at all. But, of course, Coleridge was long ago. Yet how do we understand Richards without him? But Richards is dead. At this point I must utter the word some of you have been waiting for-Derrida. But his work is profoundly connected with certain philosophical predecessors. Further, in its early stages his work and that of some of his followers lack acquaint- ance with Anglo-American critical theory, many poststructuralists having innocently invented problems known to their predecessors, creating a  Antithetical Essays 280o Antithetical Essays 280 Antithetical Essays tangle no one has as yet worked out. Well, all this ought not to require saying, but when one looks at actual curricular practice one's mind must change. What I have said may suggest erroneously a rather narrow purpose for the teaching of criticism. It may suggest that we teach the history of criti- cism in order to produce a better theory. This is not at all the reason we should teach it. Few students need a better theory; practically none will every try to make one. The culture may not need a better critical theory very badly-at least not for use. We ought to be teaching the history of criticism because it is part of the history of ideas and culture and because it helps us to think about literary works in interesting ways. Criticism is one of the most powerful ways that human beings express themselves to themselves-through trying to say what their arts mean to them. I have heard physicists say that there is no need for them to know any physics before Einstein, or perhaps now some later date. This may be true in the sense of use, but it is untrue in another sense, that is, the sense in which human beings need to express to themselves the nature of their own scientific activity. This self-knowledge, as the ferment in the study of the history and philosophy of science amply demonstrates today, comes only from reflection on a much longer span of the history of phys- ics. The ahistorical notion is also a thought one can have only if one ac- cepts that education comes in packages indicated by the academic disci- plines and that creativity can be channeled according to the prevailing system of university organization, something else that hides its meaning except to historical interpretation." One of the important things about the study of criticism is that it is so obviously uncontainable by current academic nomenclature. It is really an interdisciplinary subject; or, rather, it ought to be so regarded. It isn't, of course, because of the mixture of economic and intellectual pressures in the usual academic structure. The study of criticism belongs to no sin- gle department, since important theory has been written in many lan- guages and a study of criticism in any one language is exceedingly restric- tive. This suggests that the history of criticism, if it is to be taught with adequate breadth, is going to have to be a cooperative venture. Teachers involved have to expand their concerns in order to work with texts from different languages, from philosophy, from history, and especially re- cently the social sciences. (The converse is happening here, too; social scientists have begun to find models in the history of criticism of interest. Thus we now have books with titles like A Poetics for Sociology, a phe- u. In this regard see Gerald Graff, Professing Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). tangle no one has as yet worked out. Well, all this ought not to require saying, but when one looks at actual curricular practice one's mind must change. What I have said may suggest erroneously a rather narrow purpose for the teaching of criticism. It may suggest that we teach the history of criti- cism in order to produce a better theory. This is not at all the reason we should teach it. Few students need a better theory; practically none will every try to make one. The culture may not need a better critical theory very badly-at least not for use. We ought to be teaching the history of criticism because it is part of the history of ideas and culture and because it helps us to think about literary works in interesting ways. Criticism is one of the most powerful ways that human beings express themselves to themselves-through trying to say what their arts mean to them. I have heard physicists say that there is no need for them to know any physics before Einstein, or perhaps now some later date. This may be true in the sense of use, but it is untrue in another sense, that is, the sense in which human beings need to express to themselves the nature of their own scientific activity. This self-knowledge, as the ferment in the study of the history and philosophy of science amply demonstrates today, comes only from reflection on a much longer span of the history of phys- ics. The ahistorical notion is also a thought one can have only if one ac- cepts that education comes in packages indicated by the academic disci- plines and that creativity can be channeled according to the prevailing system of university organization, something else that hides its meaning except to historical interpretation." One of the important things about the study of criticism is that it is so obviously uncontainable by current academic nomenclature. It is really an interdisciplinary subject; or, rather, it ought to be so regarded. It isn't, of course, because of the mixture of economic and intellectual pressures in the usual academic structure. The study of criticism belongs to no sin- gle department, since important theory has been written in many lan- guages and a study of criticism in any one language is exceedingly restric- tive. This suggests that the history of criticism, if it is to be taught with adequate breadth, is going to have to be a cooperative venture. Teachers involved have to expand their concerns in order to work with texts from different languages, from philosophy, from history, and especially re- cently the social sciences. (The converse is happening here, too; social scientists have begun to find models in the history of criticism of interest. Thus we now have books with titles like A Poetics for Sociology, a phe- 11. In this regard see Gerald Graff, Professing Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). tangle no one has as yet worked out. Well, all this ought not to require saying, but when one looks at actual curricular practice one's mind must change. What I have said may suggest erroneously a rather narrow purpose for the teaching of criticism. It may suggest that we teach the history of criti- cism in order to produce a better theory. This is not at all the reason we should teach it. Few students need a better theory; practically none will every try to make one. The culture may not need a better critical theory very badly-at least not for use. We ought to be teaching the history of criticism because it is part of the history of ideas and culture and because it helps us to think about literary works in interesting ways. Criticism is one of the most powerful ways that human beings express themselves to themselves-through trying to say what their arts mean to them. I have heard physicists say that there is no need for them to know any physics before Einstein, or perhaps now some later date. This may be true in the sense of use, but it is untrue in another sense, that is, the sense in which human beings need to express to themselves the nature of their own scientific activity. This self-knowledge, as the ferment in the study of the history and philosophy of science amply demonstrates today, comes only from reflection on a much longer span of the history of phys- ics. The ahistorical notion is also a thought one can have only if one ac- cepts that education comes in packages indicated by the academic disci- plines and that creativity can be channeled according to the prevailing system of university organization, something else that hides its meaning except to historical interpretation." One of the important things about the study of criticism is that it is so obviously uncontainable by current academic nomenclature. It is really an interdisciplinary subject; or, rather, it ought to be so regarded. It isn't, of course, because of the mixture of economic and intellectual pressures in the usual academic structure. The study of criticism belongs to no sin- gle department, since important theory has been written in many lan- guages and a study of criticism in any one language is exceedingly restrie- tive. This suggests that the history of criticism, if it is to be taught with adequate breadth, is going to have to be a cooperative venture. Teachers involved have to expand their concerns in order to work with texts from different languages, from philosophy, from history, and especially re- cently the social sciences. (The converse is happening here, too; social scientists have begun to find models in the history of criticism of interest. Thus we now have books with titles like A Poetics for Sociology, a phe- ss. In this regard see Gerald Graff, Professing Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 281 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 281 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure nomenon that demonstrates the interdisciplinary importance of critical theory itself.) Clearly the breadth required is far more than most of us can manage. Departmental provincialism is a protection for us from the immensity of our subject. Though we work in an interdisciplinary way within our de- partments, we are restrained from interdepartmental cooperation and teaming up with those in other departments whose interests are similar but whose competences may be rather different, though perhaps comple- mentary. Why? 1. The tradition of departmental organization and autonomy, which is supported by the way funds are allocated (or thought to be allocated), is the major problem. In recent years, administrations have spoken well of interdisciplinary studies, but they have not often done much to support interdisciplinary work unless there has been something gimmicky about it. As far as I can see, the shallower the interdisciplinary program has been and the more "experimental," the more chance it has had to get ini- tial funding. Interdisciplinary work, like criticism or interpretation in the larger sense, doesn't look new or different enough. It is also so fundamen- tal a subject that one is tempted to declare that it gets about the same treatment as other fundamental subjects in the university, except for the fact that it can't possibly be turned over to teaching assistants. 2. The economy requires that departments compete for students. If departments can have them all to their own, why share them, given the way funds are allocated? This is terribly destructive behavior, encouraged by administrations that thoughtlessly train their leaders to play the enroll- ment game with the next higher echelon, all the while mouthing New- speak against it, but rarely relaxing the practice. It is a sad example of lack of imagination, educational philosophy, touch, or what you will. From the faculties we might expect better ruses than have been devised to combat the prevailing economic game. 3. Departments do not like to endorse or require courses that are not taught by their own people. In spite of the fact that professors in one de- partment can rarely agree on an agenda for a course in criticism, they become negatively unanimous in the face of a threat from without. 4. Almost anything without is regarded as a threat. 5. Faculty members often dislike and frequently are frightened by co- operative or team teaching. I have written elsewhere about the limits of team teaching in the humanities.?1 But this is different. For one thing, fac- 12. "The Importance of Individual Vision," Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 May 1977, nomenon that demonstrates the interdisciplinary importance of critical theory itself.) Clearly the breadth required is far more than most of us can manage. Departmental provincialism is a protection for us from the immensity of our subject. Though we work in an interdisciplinary way within our de- partments, we are restrained from interdepartmental cooperation and teaming up with those in other departments whose interests are similar but whose competences may be rather different, though perhaps comple- mentary. Why? 1. The tradition of departmental organization and autonomy, which is supported by the way funds are allocated (or thought to be allocated), is the major problem. In recent years, administrations have spoken well of interdisciplinary studies, but they have not often done much to support interdisciplinary work unless there has been something gimmicky about it. As far as I can see, the shallower the interdisciplinary program has been and the more "experimental," the more chance it has had to get ini- tial funding. Interdisciplinary work, like criticism or interpretation in the larger sense, doesn't look new or different enough. It is also so fundamen- tal a subject that one is tempted to declare that it gets about the same treatment as other fundamental subjects in the university, except for the fact that it can't possibly be turned over to teaching assistants. 2. The economy requires that departments compete for students. If departments can have them all to their own, why share them, given the way funds are allocated? This is terribly destructive behavior, encouraged by administrations that thoughtlessly train their leaders to play the enroll- ment game with the next higher echelon, all the while mouthing New- speak against it, but rarely relaxing the practice. It is a sad example of lack of imagination, educational philosophy, touch, or what you will. From the faculties we might expect better ruses than have been devised to combat the prevailing economic game. 3. Departments do not like to endorse or require courses that are not taught by their own people. In spite of the fact that professors in one de- partment can rarely agree on an agenda for a course in criticism, they become negatively unanimous in the face of a threat from without. 4. Almost anything without is regarded as a threat. 5. Faculty members often dislike and frequently are frightened by co- operative or team teaching. I have written elsewhere about the limits of team teaching in the humanities.0 But this is different. For one thing, fac- 12. "The Importance of Individual Vision," Chronicle of Higher Education, g May 1977, 40. nomenon that demonstrates the interdisciplinary importance of critical theory itself) Clearly the breadth required is far more than most of us can manage. Departmental provincialism is a protection for us from the immensity of our subject. Though we work in an interdisciplinary way within our de- partments, we are restrained from interdepartmental cooperation and teaming up with those in other departments whose interests are similar but whose competences may be rather different, though perhaps comple- mentary. Why? 1. The tradition of departmental organization and autonomy, which is supported by the way funds are allocated (or thought to be allocated), is the major problem. In recent years, administrations have spoken well of interdisciplinary studies, but they have not often done much to support interdisciplinary work unless there has been something gimmicky about it. As far as I can see, the shallower the interdisciplinary program has been and the more "experimental," the more chance it has had to get ini- tial funding. Interdisciplinary work, like criticism or interpretation in the larger sense, doesn't look new or different enough. It is also so fundamen- tal a subject that one is tempted to declare that it gets about the same treatment as other fundamental subjects in the university, except for the fact that it can't possibly be turned over to teaching assistants. 2. The economy requires that departments compete for students. If departments can have them all to their own, why share them, given the way funds are allocated? This is terribly destructive behavior, encouraged by administrations that thoughtlessly train their leaders to play the enroll- ment game with the next higher echelon, all the while mouthing New- speak against it, but rarely relaxing the practice. It is a sad example of lack of imagination, educational philosophy, touch, or what you will. From the faculties we might expect better ruses than have been devised to combat the prevailing economic game. 3. Departments do not like to endorse or require courses that are not taught by their own people. In spite of the fact that professors in one de- partment can rarely agree on an agenda for a course in criticism, they become negatively unanimous in the face of a threat from without. 4. Almost anything without is regarded as a threat. 5. Faculty members often dislike and frequently are frightened by co- operative or team teaching. I have written elsewhere about the limits of team teaching in the humanities." But this is different. For one thing, fac- 12. The Importance of Individual Vision," Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 May 1977, 40.  282 Antithetical Essays ulty members fear implied competition, i.e., being shown up. (This is not surprising: teaching is difficult, and most teachers feel that they ought to be doing better; it's in the nature of things.) Team teaching is very hard work. It can be a monumental failure. It is difficult to sustain, and it re- quires compromises and openness. Still, some form of intellectual cooperation among the units is the only thing that makes sense for this naturally interdisciplinary subject. In order to bring this about, three things are necessary. s. Some few people in key departments must be willing to band to- gether for purposes of making courses available, visible, and apparently important. These courses, if jointly taught, will be more work, more stressful, and in some quarters viewed with suspicion. a. The administration will have to support this effort by acts that limit the increase of individual workload and the loss of budget and positions in participating departments. Probably faculty shouldn't wait for this to happen. It may have to come as the result of pressure brought by inter- ested faculty. 3. Interdepartmental study groups will have to be formed on critical theory and related subjects in order to prepare faculty for teaching a broader range of material and to create a larger group of people who can be involved in courses. If these things were to occur, a real step might be taken toward estab- lishment of some coherence in liberal studies, because I am convinced that such courses are not just interdisciplinary linkages but fundamental to thinking about why we do things as we do. This brings me to the next point, which is that the study of criticism should be first theoretical, principally because students might as well learn at the outset that every academic study has or ought to have a funda- mental philosophical dimension and raises philosophical questions at every step. (By the same token I should want students to know that this is also true in science, through early and continued attention to the his- tory and philosophy of science.) Also, students should quickly learn that it is possible to think rigorously about literary art, that in the past intelli- gent people have found themselves compelled to do so. For too many, literary study, particularly with relaxation of the curricu- lum and of requirements, is an escape from thought. Theoretical work helps to change that. The lack of it may help the weak student through to graduation and keep up the enrollment of majors, but in the end it will be harmful to students, because no systematic approach to the mate- rial has been made manifest. The student's alternative is a naive form of induction that mistakes the materials themselves for the structure of the 282 Antithetical Essays ulty members fear implied competition, i.e., being shown up. (This is not surprising: teaching is difficult, and most teachers feel that they ought to be doing better; it's in the nature of things.) Team teaching is very hard work. It can be a monumental failure. It is difficult to sustain, and it re- quires compromises and openness. Still, some form of intellectual cooperation among the units is the only thing that makes sense for this naturally interdisciplinary subject. In order to bring this about, three things are necessary. a. Some few people in key departments must be willing to band to- gether for purposes of making courses available, visible, and apparently important. These courses, if jointly taught, will be more work, more stressful, and in some quarters viewed with suspicion. a. The administration will have to support this effort by acts that limit the increase of individual workload and the loss of budget and positions in participating departments. Probably faculty shouldn't wait for this to happen. It may have to come as the result of pressure brought by inter- ested faculty. 3. Interdepartmental study groups will have to be formed on critical theory and related subjects in order to prepare faculty for teaching a broader range of material and to create a larger group of people who can be involved in courses. If these things were to occur, a real step might be taken toward estab- lishment of some coherence in liberal studies, because I am convinced that such courses are not just interdisciplinary linkages but fundamental to thinking about why we do things as we do. This brings me to the next point, which is that the study of criticism should be first theoretical, principally because students might as well learn at the outset that every academic study has or ought to have a funda- mental philosophical dimension and raises philosophical questions at every step. (By the same token I should want students to know that this is also true in science, through early and continued attention to the his- tory and philosophy of science.) Also, students should quickly learn that it is possible to think rigorously about literary art, that in the past intelli- gent people have found themselves compelled to do so. For too many, literary study, particularly with relaxation of the curricu- lum and of requirements, is an escape from thought. Theoretical work helps to change that. The lack of it may help the weak student through to graduation and keep up the enrollment of majors, but in the end it will be harmful to students, because no systematic approach to the mate- rial has been made manifest. The student's alternative is a naive form of induction that mistakes the materials themselves for the structure of the z82 Antithetical Essays ulty members fear implied competition, i.e., being shown up. (This is not surprising: teaching is difficult, and most teachers feel that they ought to be doing better; it's in the nature of things.) Team teaching is very hard work. It can be a monumental failure. It is difficult to sustain, and it re- quires compromises and openness. Still, some form of intellectual cooperation among the units is the only thing that makes sense for this naturally interdisciplinary subject. In order to bring this about, three things are necessary. a. Some few people in key departments must be willing to band to- gether for purposes of making courses available, visible, and apparently important. These courses, if jointly taught, will be more work, more stressful, and in some quarters viewed with suspicion. a. The administration will have to support this effort by acts that limit the increase of individual workload and the loss of budget and positions in participating departments. Probably faculty shouldn't wait for this to happen. It may have to come as the result of pressure brought by inter- ested faculty. 3. Interdepartmental study groups will have to be formed on critical theory and related subjects in order to prepare faculty for teaching a broader range of material and to create a larger group of people who can be involved in courses. If these things were to occur, a real step might be taken toward estab- lishment of some coherence in liberal studies, because I am convinced that such courses are not just interdisciplinary linkages but fundamental to thinking about why we do things as we do. This brings me to the next point, which is that the study of criticism should be first theoretical, principally because students might as well learn at the outset that every academic study has or ought to have a funda- mental philosophical dimension and raises philosophical questions at every step. (By the same token I should want students to know that this is also true in science, through early and continued attention to the his- tory and philosophy of science.) Also, students should quickly learn that it is possible to think rigorously about literary art, that in the past intelli- gent people have found themselves compelled to do so. For too many, literary study, particularly with relaxation of the curricu- lum and of requirements, is an escape from thought. Theoretical work helps to change that. The lack of it may help the weak student through to graduation and keep up the enrollment of majors, but in the end it will be harmful to students, because no systematic approach to the mate- rial has been made manifest. The student's alternative is a naive form of induction that mistakes the materials themselves for the structure of the  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 283 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 283 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Sttocture 83 subject. I have never taught a course in criticism for undergraduates in which at some point students have not come forth to ask why all this had been kept from them. Many teachers object to theoretical study as too abstract and destructive of immediate experience of the concretely unique literary work. But of course that attitude expresses a version of a theory that by now has its own history. Its adherents would do well to know about it. Like all theor- ies that have had power it deserves to be subjected to respectful but searching critique. The study of critical practice should follow out of the historical study of critical theory. Here also an historical dimension is important, because most of interpretive tradition and its languages come out of the early in- terpreters of Homer and Scripture. Thus critical practice is early involved with mythography and theology. The taboo against the Bible in public education (and frequently the abuse of it in private education) has re- sulted in a modern tradition of ignorance about the sources and forms of literary interpretation. How many anthologies of critical practice include Philo, Origen, Irenaeus, Augustine, and Aquinas, or for that matter Lowth and Herder? Interpreters of Greek myth are likewise excluded, yet practically all of hermeneutic theory-even that of positivists like Hirsch-stems from these early practices. Teaching of critical practice with no attention to these traditions and their history is as perverse as are some of the interpretations that go to constitute that history. One can- not read without an actively present past. Liberal education is always concerned-in all its endeavors-with building that past, out of which critical interpretations become possible. Anything else is only methodol- ogy, which is the humanistic parallel to technology in the scientific realm, usually disastrous when separated from critique. There is a theory which begins with the invention of the term "aes- thetics" in the eighteenth century that says that the experience of art is atemporal and naked. The persistence of this notion is due in part to a quite natural distrust of a reductive positivistic approach to language and art or what Blake called the "corporeal understanding." But it leaves the field of intellect to the opponent. Blake called that a negation, where both sides adopt opposite versions of the same story, surviving by deploring the sins of each other. Reading, itself, has its own history, which comes to presence in contemporary acts. Such acts are subject to critique, which brings us back in a circle to theory itself. In the end, of course, it can be said that art is a critique of theory, but we must first travel the circle to earn the right to grant art that important cultural role. Perhaps I can now say something about the graduate study of criticism. subject. I have never taught a course in criticism for undergraduates in which at some point students have not come forth to ask why all this had been kept from them. Many teachers object to theoretical study as too abstract and destructive of immediate experience of the concretely unique literary work. But of course that attitude expresses a version of a theory that by now has its own history. Its adherents would do well to know about it. Like all theor- ies that have had power it deserves to be subjected to respectful but searching critique. The study of critical practice should follow out of the historical study of critical theory. Here also an historical dimension is important, because most of interpretive tradition and its languages come out of the early in- terpreters of Homer and Scripture. Thus critical practice is early involved with mythography and theology. The taboo against the Bible in public education (and frequently the abuse of it in private education) has re- sulted in a modern tradition of ignorance about the sources and forms of literary interpretation. How many anthologies of critical practice include Philo, Origen, Irenaeus, Augustine, and Aquinas, or for that matter Lowth and Herder? Interpreters of Greek myth are likewise excluded, yet practically all of hermeneutic theory-even that of positivists like Hirsch-stems from these early practices. Teaching of critical practice with no attention to these traditions and their history is as perverse as are some of the interpretations that go to constitute that history. One can- not read without an actively present past. Liberal education is always concerned-in all its endeavors-with building that past, out of which critical interpretations become possible. Anything else is only methodol- ogy, which is the humanistic parallel to technology in the scientific realm, usually disastrous when separated from critique. There is a theory which begins with the invention of the term "aes- thetics" in the eighteenth century that says that the experience of art is atemporal and naked. The persistence of this notion is due in part to a quite natural distrust of a reductive positivistic approach to language and art or what Blake called the "corporeal understanding." But it leaves the field of intellect to the opponent. Blake called that a negation, where both sides adopt opposite versions of the same story, surviving by deploring the sins of each other. Reading, itself, has its own history, which comes to presence in contemporary acts. Such acts are subject to critique, which brings us back in a circle to theory itself. In the end, of course, it can be said that art is a critique of theory, but we must first travel the circle to earn the right to grant art that important cultural role. Perhaps I can now say something about the graduate study of criticism. subject. I have never taught a course in criticism for undergraduates in which at some point students have not come forth to ask why all this had been kept from them. Many teachers object to theoretical study as too abstract and destructive of immediate experience of the concretely unique literary work. But of course that attitude expresses a version of a theory that by now has its own history. Its adherents would do well to know about it. Like all theor- ies that have had power it deserves to be subjected to respectful but searching critique. The study of critical practice should follow out of the historical study of critical theory. Here also an historical dimension is important, because most of interpretive tradition and its languages come out of the early in- terpreters of Homer and Scripture. Thus critical practice is early involved with mythography and theology. The taboo against the Bible in public education (and frequently the abuse of it in private education) has re- sulted in a modern tradition of ignorance about the sources and forms of literary interpretation. How many anthologies of critical practice include Philo, Origen, Irenaeus, Augustine, and Aquinas, or for that matter Lowth and Herder? Interpreters of Greek myth are likewise excluded, yet practically all of hermeneutic theory-even that of positivists like Hirsch-stems from these early practices. Teaching of critical practice with no attention to these traditions and their history is as perverse as are some of the interpretations that go to constitute that history. One can- not read without an actively present past. Liberal education is always concerned-in all its endeavors-with building that past, out of which critical interpretations become possible. Anything else is only methodol- ogy, which is the humanistic parallel to technology in the scientific realm, usually disastrous when separated from critique. There is a theory which begins with the invention of the term "aes- thetics" in the eighteenth century that says that the experience of art is atemporal and naked. The persistence of this notion is due in part to a quite natural distrust of a reductive positivistic approach to language and art or what Blake called the "corporeal understanding." But it leaves the field of intellect to the opponent. Blake called that a negation, where both sides adopt opposite versions of the same story, surviving by deploring the sins of each other. Reading, itself, has its own history, which comes to presence in contemporary acts. Such acts are subject to critique, which brings us back in a circle to theory itself. In the end, of course, it can be said that art is a critique of theory, but we must first travel the circle to earn the right to grant art that important cultural role. Perhaps I can now say something about the graduate study of criticism.  Antithetical Essays 284 Antithetical Essays 284 Antithetical Essays One needs a sequence in the history of critical theory, presuming that one has not already had a good undergraduate sequence. The sooner the graduate student takes this the better. This includes candidates for only the master's degree and students taking graduate work as preparation for secondary-level teaching. There is no reason whatever to assume that anything so fundamental should be reserved for Ph.D. candidates. This sequence of courses needs a classical philosopher or philosophical classi- cist to help the general historian of criticism through the early stages. Later on there is needed someone who knows the biblical interpreters and especially the typological tradition. An aesthetician with background in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy should come aboard, followed by someone who has thought about theorists of myth since the Enlightenment. I could go on, but you get the point. The final need is that each of these experts learn the scope of the whole subject to some extent. This best comes about through faculty members teaching each other in the process of teaching the course. Beyond this basic sequence, a program should offer the possibility of studying periods, schools, movements, and individual critical theorists and their practice-either by seminar, conference, or guided indepen- dent study. At this point I hear the cry, "Too much! There will be no time for studying literature." A better undergraduate curriculum, by which I mean generally a smaller, more selective one, will help here. So will the requirement of real competence in a foreign language at the undergradu- ate level for admission to graduate school. Beyond that, I fall back on ex- perience: I have not found that students who have devoted themselves seriously to study of criticism and theory know less literature. Often they don't know as much in a given period, but they usually know more in breadth, and what they know they have thought about in more sophisti- cated ways. I am not prepared to say that this is bad. Further, they have maintained some connection to philosophy, which gives them a definite advantage as teachers who may be asked to teach beyond their historical specializations. Who has not had to meet that challenge? Finally, and perhaps most important for success, the teaching of criti- cism should not be monolithically committed to a specific position or ide- ological program. Now some people will say that every action implies po- sition or ideology and that may be true at some level of abstraction for every individual. But a program should have many voices, and the effort should be everywhere to practice a healthy form of skepticism and debate-what Blake called contrariety-rather than the practice of exclu- sion. It is only this that will ensure that the discipline will ask questions about its own methods and processes. One needs a sequence in the history of critical theory, presuming that one has not already had a good undergraduate sequence. The sooner the graduate student takes this the better. This includes candidates for only the master's degree and students taking graduate work as preparation for secondary-level teaching. There is no reason whatever to assume that anything so fundamental should be reserved for Ph.D. candidates. This sequence of courses needs a classical philosopher or philosophical classi- cist to help the general historian of criticism through the early stages. Later on there is needed someone who knows the biblical interpreters and especially the typological tradition. An aesthetician with background in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy should come aboard, followed by someone who has thought about theorists of myth since the Enlightenment. I could go on, but you get the point. The final need is that each of these experts learn the scope of the whole subject to some extent. This best comes about through faculty members teaching each other in the process of teaching the course. Beyond this basic sequence, a program should offer the possibility of studying periods, schools, movements, and individual critical theorists and their practice-either by seminar, conference, or guided indepen- dent study. At this point I hear the cry, "Too much! There will be no time for studying literature." A better undergraduate curriculum, by which I mean generally a smaller, more selective one, will help here. So will the requirement of real competence in a foreign language at the undergradu- ate level for admission to graduate school. Beyond that, I fall back on ex- perience: I have not found that students who have devoted themselves seriously to study of criticism and theory know less literature. Often they don't know as much in a given period, but they usually know more in breadth, and what they know they have thought about in more sophisti- cated ways. I am not prepared to say that this is bad. Further, they have maintained some connection to philosophy, which gives them a definite advantage as teachers who may be asked to teach beyond their historical specializations. Who has not had to meet that challenge? Finally, and perhaps most important for success, the teaching of criti- cism should not be monolithically committed to a specific position or ide- ological program. Now some people will say that every action implies po- sition or ideology and that may be true at some level of abstraction for every individual. But a program should have many voices, and the effort should be everywhere to practice a healthy form of skepticism and debate-what Blake called contrariety-rather than the practice of exclu- sion. It is only this that will ensure that the discipline will ask questions about its own methods and processes. One needs a sequence in the history of critical theory, presuming that one has not already had a good undergraduate sequence. The sooner the graduate student takes this the better. This includes candidates for only the master's degree and students taking graduate work as preparation for secondary-level teaching. There is no reason whatever to assume that anything so fundamental should be reserved for Ph.D. candidates. This sequence of courses needs a classical philosopher or philosophical classi- cist to help the general historian of criticism through the early stages. Later on there is needed someone who knows the biblical interpreters and especially the typological tradition. An aesthetician with background in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy should come aboard, followed by someone who has thought about theorists of myth since the Enlightenment. I could go on, but you get the point. The final need is that each of these experts learn the scope of the whole subject to some extent. This best comes about through faculty members teaching each other in the process of teaching the course. Beyond this basic sequence, a program should offer the possibility of studying periods, schools, movements, and individual critical theorists and their practice-either by seminar, conference, or guided indepen- dent study. At this point I hear the cry, "Too much! There will be no time for studying literature." A better undergraduate curriculum, by which I mean generally a smaller, more selective one, will help here. So will the requirement of real competence in a foreign language at the undergradu- ate level for admission to graduate school. Beyond that, I fall back on ex- perience: I have not found that students who have devoted themselves seriously to study of criticism and theory know less literature. Often they don't know as much in a given period, but they usually know more in breadth, and what they know they have thought about in more sophisti- cated ways. I am not prepared to say that this is bad. Further, they have maintained some connection to philosophy, which gives them a definite advantage as teachers who may be asked to teach beyond their historical specializations. Who has not had to meet that challenge? Finally, and perhaps most important for success, the teaching of criti- cism should not be monolithically committed to a specific position or ide- ological program. Now some people will say that every action implies po- sition or ideology and that may be true at some level of abstraction for every individual. But a program should have many voices, and the effort should be everywhere to practice a healthy form of skepticism and debate-what Blake called contrariety-rather than the practice of exclu- sion. It is only this that will ensure that the discipline will ask questions about its own methods and processes.  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 285 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 285 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 285 III I have dwelt at some length on literary criticism in the academy because it is the discipline I know most about. However, I must mention here, at least briefly, history and philosophy, other occupants of the "ironic" ground. The liberal side of the discipline of historical study, it seems to me, is the force in the discipline that ought to be continually rescuing histori- cal discourse from hardening into closed system. Historical discourse is the creation of a symbolic past, absolutely necessary to us, but imprison- ing when fixed. The drift to grand schemes or the dominance of some pattern requires always a counter-movement returning us to the sense of variety and the role of individuals in events. Yet, in its flight from fixity and system, history cannot interest us if it becomes pure chronicle like the little child's story endlessly punctuated by "and then." That would be externality as chaos. What we seek in history is the contrary to the negating opposition of a concept of causality beyond human control versus one in which individual beings are claimed to exercise absolute control. Too often the discipline of history, like that of literary criticism, is a battlefield on which opposing sides make efforts to drag the discipline to- ward the extreme either of myth or antimyth. If pulled too far in either direction these disciplines lose their reason for being. The purely empiri- cal or antimythical historian tends to make no distinction between the writing of history (history as a symbolic discipline) and the flow of events. I have actually known historians who were unable to distinguish the two or recognize that there is some sort of problem in their naively empiricist notion. This breed ought to be on the decline, given the recent invasion of historical study by analysts of language; but the solution to the problem of the placement of history is not to flee to the opposite and identify it as an "art," which is only to loosen it from the antimythical qualities that historical writing must have. Philosophy ought to be the arena of the criticism of fictions and fiction- making in all its forms from the mythical to the antimythical. In one sense the task of philosophy is to demythologize, but in another it is to bring all its powers to bear upon a critique of our myths as they generate antimythical forms. Demythologizing, so popular today, is not enough, for demythologizing efforts pursued to their limits reveal the antimythical stance of the demythologizer, and that itself creates a fiction-often one connected with a religious or quasi-religious ideology. The ultimate phi- losophy would then have to demythologize itself, which is an impossibil- ity. Nevertheless the critical process, unending as it must be, is necessary III I have dwelt at some length on literary criticism in the academy because it is the discipline I know most about. However, I must mention here, at least briefly, history and philosophy, other occupants of the "ironic" ground. The liberal side of the discipline of historical study, it seems to me, is the force in the discipline that ought to be continually rescuing histori- cal discourse from hardening into closed system. Historical discourse is the creation of a symbolic past, absolutely necessary to us, but imprison- ing when fixed. The drift to grand schemes or the dominance of some pattern requires always a counter-movement returning us to the sense of variety and the role of individuals in events. Yet, in its flight from fixity and system, history cannot interest us if it becomes pure chronicle like the little child's story endlessly punctuated by "and then." That would be externality as chaos. What we seek in history is the contrary to the negating opposition of a concept of causality beyond human control versus one in which individual beings are claimed to exercise absolute control. Too often the discipline of history, like that of literary criticism, is a battlefield on which opposing sides make efforts to drag the discipline to- ward the extreme either of myth or antimyth. If pulled too far in either direction these disciplines lose their reason for being. The purely empiri- cal or antimythical historian tends to make no distinction between the writing of history (history as a symbolic discipline) and the flow of events. I have actually known historians who were unable to distinguish the two or recognize that there is some sort of problem in their naively empiricist notion. This breed ought to be on the decline, given the recent invasion of historical study by analysts of language; but the solution to the problem of the placement of history is not to flee to the opposite and identify it as an "art," which is only to loosen it from the antimythical qualities that historical writing must have. Philosophy ought to be the arena of the criticism of fictions and fiction- making in all its forms from the mythical to the antimythical. In one sense the task of philosophy is to demythologize, but in another it is to bring all its powers to bear upon a critique of our myths as they generate antimythical forms. Demythologizing, so popular today, is not enough, for demythologizing efforts pursued to their limits reveal the antimythical stance of the demythologizer, and that itself creates a fiction-often one connected with a religious or quasi-religious ideology. The ultimate phi- losophy would then have to demythologize itself, which is an impossibil- ity. Nevertheless the critical process, unending as it must be, is necessary III I have dwelt at some length on literary criticism in the academy because it is the discipline I know most about. However, I must mention here, at least briefly, history and philosophy, other occupants of the "ironic" ground. The liberal side of the discipline of historical study, it seems to me, is the force in the discipline that ought to be continually rescuing histori- cal discourse from hardening into closed system. Historical discourse is the creation of a symbolic past, absolutely necessary to us, but imprison- ing when fixed. The drift to grand schemes or the dominance of some pattern requires always a counter-movement returning us to the sense of variety and the role of individuals in events. Yet, in its flight from fixity and system, history cannot interest us if it becomes pure chronicle like the little child's story endlessly punctuated by "and then." That would be externality as chaos. What we seek in history is the contrary to the negating opposition of a concept of causality beyond human control versus one in which individual beings are claimed to exercise absolute control. Too often the discipline of history, like that of literary criticism, is a battlefield on which opposing sides make efforts to drag the discipline to- ward the extreme either of myth or antimyth. If pulled too far in either direction these disciplines lose their reason for being. The purely empiri- cal or antimythical historian tends to make no distinction between the writing of history (history as a symbolic discipline) and the flow of events. I have actually known historians who were unable to distinguish the two or recognize that there is some sort of problem in their naively empiricist notion. This breed ought to be on the decline, given the recent invasion of historical study by analysts of language; but the solution to the problem of the placement of history is not to flee to the opposite and identify it as an "art," which is only to loosen it from the antimythical qualities that historical writing must have. Philosophy ought to be the arena of the criticism of fictions and fiction- making in all its forms from the mythical to the antimythical. In one sense the task of philosophy is to demythologize, but in another it is to bring all its powers to bear upon a critique of our myths as they generate antimythical forms. Demythologizing, so popular today, is not enough, for demythologizing efforts pursued to their limits reveal the antimythical stance of the demythologizer, and that itself creates a fiction-often one connected with a religious or quasi-religious ideology. The ultimate phi- losophy would then have to demythologize itself, which is an impossibil- ity. Nevertheless the critical process, unending as it must be, is necessary  Antithetical Essays z86 Antithetical Essays 286 Antithetical Essays as part of the means by which we escape fixed, dead fictions that have little more to offer us, reject others, renew valuable ones, and invent new ones. It was said by Hans Meyerhoff in a little book called Time in Litera- ture that there are two types of philosophy-literary and scientific-and that they have different concepts of time and truth." In practice for about three centuries this seems to have been the case. Philosophy, if it at- tempts to include the whole continuum I have proposed, would seem nat- urally to have to face up to the traditional bifurcation in itself of which Meyerhoff spoke. Philosophy is properly the liberal discipline par excel- lence, which is supposed to strive to see the whole, though it can never allow itself to be certain of where it should be standing. Myths are created by human beings, and these creations threaten to engulf them at times. As we create them for our use, so must we evade the nets they cast. I have said that myths are the objects of study of some social sciences. In recent times, some social scientists of myths have sensed a limit in their perspective and have concluded that they them- selves are mythmakers or antimythmakers. When this has happened there has been a crisis in their study. To pass to this level of consciousness has two possible results. One is the appearance of an appropriate sense of irony-if it does not turn into cynicism. The other is the desire to phi- losophize. The danger here is bad philosophy. The source of this danger will be an education that has specialized the particular discipline away from philosophy in the first place. To quote and distort Yeats, but also to bring him up to date: "Social science [he said "science"] separated from philosophy is the opium of the suburbs." " Specialization in itself is not the problem. It is absolutely necessary to contemporary life, and an education without it is a defective one. Our problem is the separation of philosophy from the specializations and con- sequently no attention to the critique of premises, the process of critiqu- ing the fictions by which certain disciplines live and die and by which forms of human symbolic activity are connected to or separated from one another. I think we can now introduce the term "knowledge" here and can connect it with the process of critique and search. Liberal discourse should always be trying to sustain the creative con- flict of myth and antimyth rather than some ultimate truth. Its task is to prevent on the one hand stultification into fixed external law and on the other the tyranny of alienated self-gratification over social life. Liberal ed- 13. Time in Literature, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955). 14. "Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty," Explorations (Lon- don: The Macmillan Co., 1962), 340. as part of the means by which we escape fixed, dead fictions that have little more to offer us, reject others, renew valuable ones, and invent new ones. It was said by Hans Meyerhoff in a little book called Time in Litera- ture that there are two types of philosophy-literary and scientific-and that they have different concepts of time and truth." In practice for about three centuries this seems to have been the case. Philosophy, if it at- tempts to include the whole continuum I have proposed, would seem nat- urally to have to face up to the traditional bifurcation in itself of which Meyerhoff spoke. Philosophy is properly the liberal discipline par excel- lence, which is supposed to strive to see the whole, though it can never allow itself to be certain of where it should be standing. Myths are created by human beings, and these creations threaten to engulf them at times. As we create them for our use, so must we evade the nets they cast. I have said that myths are the objects of study of some social sciences. In recent times, some social scientists of myths have sensed a limit in their perspective and have concluded that they them- selves are mythmakers or antimythmakers. When this has happened there has been a crisis in their study. To pass to this level of consciousness has two possible results. One is the appearance of an appropriate sense of irony-if it does not turn into cynicism. The other is the desire to phi- losophize. The danger here is bad philosophy. The source of this danger will be an education that has specialized the particular discipline away from philosophy in the first place. To quote and distort Yeats, but also to bring him up to date: "Social science [he said "science"] separated from philosophy is the opium of the suburbs."" Specialization in itself is not the problem. It is absolutely necessary to contemporary life, and an education without it is a defective one. Our problem is the separation of philosophy from the specializations and con- sequently no attention to the critique of premises, the process of critiqu- ing the fictions by which certain disciplines live and die and by which forms of human symbolic activity are connected to or separated from one another. I think we can now introduce the term "knowledge" here and can connect it with the process of critique and search. Liberal discourse should always be trying to sustain the creative con- flict of myth and antimyth rather than some ultimate truth. Its task is to prevent on the one hand stultification into fixed external law and on the other the tyranny of alienated self-gratification over social life. Liberal ed- 13. Time in Literature, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955)-. 14. "Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty," Explorations (Lon- don: The Macmillan Co., 1962), 340. as part of the means by which we escape fixed, dead fictions that have little more to offer us, reject others, renew valuable ones, and invent new ones. It was said by Hans Meyerhoff in a little book called Time in Litera- ture that there are two types of philosophy-literary and scientific-and that they have different concepts of time and truth." In practice for about three centuries this seems to have been the case. Philosophy, if it at- tempts to include the whole continuum I have proposed, would seem nat- urally to have to face up to the traditional bifurcation in itself of which Meyerhoff spoke. Philosophy is properly the liberal discipline par excel- lence, which is supposed to strive to see the whole, though it can never allow itself to be certain of where it should be standing. Myths are created by human beings, and these creations threaten to engulf them at times. As we create them for our use, so must we evade the nets they cast. I have said that myths are the objects of study of some social sciences. In recent times, some social scientists of myths have sensed a limit in their perspective and have concluded that they them- selves are mythmakers or antimythmakers. When this has happened there has been a crisis in their study. To pass to this level of consciousness has two possible results. One is the appearance of an appropriate sense of irony-if it does not turn into cynicism. The other is the desire to phi- losophize. The danger here is bad philosophy. The source of this danger will be an education that has specialized the particular discipline away from philosophy in the first place. To quote and distort Yeats, but also to bring him up to date: "Social science [he said "science"] separated from philosophy is the opium of the suburbs."" Specialization in itself is not the problem. It is absolutely necessary to contemporary life, and an education without it is a defective one. Our problem is the separation of philosophy from the specializations and con- sequently no attention to the critique of premises, the process of critiqu- ing the fictions by which certain disciplines live and die and by which forms of human symbolic activity are connected to or separated from one another. I think we can now introduce the term "knowledge" here and can connect it with the process of critique and search. Liberal discourse should always be trying to sustain the creative con- flict of myth and antimyth rather than some ultimate truth. Its task is to prevent on the one hand stultification into fixed external law and on the other the tyranny of alienated self-gratification over social life. Liberal ed- 13. Time in Literature, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955. 14. "Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty," Explorations (Lon- don: The Macmillan Co., 1962), 340.  Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 287 ucation should cultivate and critique fictions, which are "continually building and decaying" (I quote from Blake) like the great city that is also a human body in Blake's poetry. "A human awful wonder," Blake called it-a body of culture in which we can live but which also can live in us-a prophecy of individual and communal life. Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure ucation should cultivate and critique fictions, which are "contim building and decaying" (I quote from Blake) like the great city that is a human body in Blake's poetry. "A human awful wonder," Blake ca it-a body of culture in which we can live but which also can live in u'. prophecy of individual and communal life. 287 Neo-Blakean Prolegomena to an Unlikely Academic Structure 287 ucation should cultivate and critique fictions, which are "continually building and decaying" (I quote from Blake) like the great city that is also a human body in Blake's poetry. "A human awful wonder," Blake called it-a body of culture in which we can live but which also can live in us-a prophecy of individual and communal life.   Index Index Index Aesop, 245 414144444. Lois 438 Aquinas, 844in4 Thomas,, 283 Archimedes4, r2, 464 Aristotle4, 47, 48, 52, 56, 164, 171, 488, 224, 249, 478, 279 Arnold1, Matthewn, 487, 171, 278 Ather4on, James4 S., 484 Auen W. H., 73 Au4gustine, 9ain4, 283 Austen, Jane,4173 AveriB, Earl, 24 Bac44n, Sir5Franci, 45, 48-50, 485 Bakhtin, M. 59., 456 B14lach, Er4444, 131 Barry,4James,4x29 Baudela4ire, 0Chale4, 217 Beethoven, Ludwig von, 129 Benjamin4, Walter, 214, 217 Bennet4, Will44am 4., 435-38 Benstock1, Benad 83 Benstock, Shari, 83 Bentham4,, 4444em5, 44 Be4tle5, Edmund44 Cle414hew, 249 Berkeley, 044454, 478, 484, 449 Bigg, 0Ch44444, 494 B1ake, William4, 4i, 3-47, 44-54, 52-99, 71, 81,88, 97, 124,12,43,43,3, 438, 148, 448, 494, 454, 458-64, 484, 485, 474, 475, 476, 483, 484-98, 199-5, 447, 444. 447, 449, 445, 237, 438. 249. 454. 459, 474. 473, 475. 478, 483, 484, 487 Blav4tsky, Helen, 88, 69 Bleakney, Frederick1 W., 252 Bloom4, 114444d, 34, 84, 474, 477, 478, 484 84414444, 5Samuel, 38 64444444, 94anl14u4 84v44444s, 171 Bonten George, 84 Brautigan, 1Ri414a4d, 494 Br14dget, 84144, 488 Br4dgman4, L4444, 448 Brook4, 044444th, 484 Browning, 848-r4, 57 84444, 044441a44, 458 Bru44, 04r841 L., 488, 487, 489 Br4a44, 4Jib4, 35, 38-44 84144r, Mari4, 44 844444,34oh4, 437 Burgess, 44nth445, 498 84u144, Edmun4d, 48, 449, 484, 489, 489, 844144, Kenth, 8, 484, 4o6, z79 By5444, 0444ge Gordon4Lord, 76-89, 9o, 92-94, 98, 98, 448, 447, 448, z44 Calvi4, J484, 8 0Camp1444, Joseph, 446 0441544, Th44444, 39. 88 0arr411, L4884, 444, 458, 443 0444, J4744, 3, 46, g93 88., 41143, 432, 433, 436-44, 474 Cassire, Ernst, 446-44, 448, 447 0.444444444, Lodovi,44, 94 Cast4glione, 84141444444, 83 Chatte44on, Thomas4, 39 01444444, 044ff445, 494 C4,444, H54544, 474 Clough4, Wils44 0., 493 044144445, 5i4444, 84 041444, H444444, 446 0414er41ge, 9444441 T., 21 44, 34, 475, 200, 445, 446, 44, 44, 454, 494, 478 0444ad,4444e14, 86 044444814, 44h14449 04445, Howa44d, 445 04owp44, W4i4ia, 478 Craig, Gordon4, 449 Crc Beeeto 87, 209 D4am44, S. Foster, 443 Dan44 4Igh4444, 37, 38, 54 044444, Edwa444d, 38, 44-44 de4,Almeida1, Hermione, 81 4141459444, Walter, 44 D4144.4, 01544s, 4834 de 59an. Paul, 25, 26, 92, 150, 211 0448414, 4449444, 47, 48, 98. 448, 449, Descartes, 8446, 474, 446, 2a7 04414444, 0Cha4144, 111-13, 445 04144re4, K. K., 35 04444, J484, 4, 475 Douglas, 594444, 73 Aesop, 445 Althusser, Louis4, 438 Aquinas, 84444 Thomas4, 483 Archimedes14, 44, 464 Ar1stot1e, 47, 48, 54, 56, 464, 474, 486, 444, 445, 478, 479 Arnold1, Matthew, 487, 474, 478 Atherton4, 4Jam44 9., 464 Auden, W. H., 73 Augustine4, 54444, 483 Austen, 4444. 473 4,44414, Ea441, 443 84444, 514 Francis, 45, 48-54, 485 8B141464, 59. 59., 456 8Ba14414, 84444, 434 844r4, 444444, 449 8444444444, 01444144, 447 Betovn L441ig9444, 129 Be4jami4, Wal444, 444, 217 84en44t, Wi1lliam 4., 435-38 Benstock, 8444444, 93 84en4444k, 814441, 93 Be4ntham, 4444445. 44 BentIey, Edmu4444414441444, 2.49 844144445, 0444rg4, 478, 484, 449, Bigg, 01444144, 494 B1ake, Wiliam, xi, 3-17, 21-51, 54-59, 74, 84, 88, 97 444, 445, 434, 434, 435, 436, 446, 448, 454, 494, 498-64, 464, 469, 474, 475, 478, 483, 484-98, 438, 445, 454, 459, 474, 473, 475, 478, 483, 284, 287 Blavatsky, Heen 88, 89 Bl4eak445, Freder41ck4W., 454 81loo4, Har4444, 34, 84, 474, 477, 478, 484 11441444, 5444441, 38 844e44444, 59441444544444444, 474 Bo444444,044494.,84 84448944n, Ric14ard, 454 84441ge4, 944nt, 466 Brid1gman, L-444, 448 8rooks, 0144441, 484 Browning, 8414444, 57 84444, 04444444, 456 64444, GeraldL., 488,4867,4869 Br4444, Jacob, 35, 38-44 64844, 5944444, 44 1144y44,44144, 437 84ur444.,4A41444y, 456 8414e,1Ed4444,8,4425,48,4185,4189, 844rk4, Kenneth, 8, 181, 246, 279 115444, 0George84 Goro441r, 76-89, 9o, 94-94, 98, 98. 448, 447, 448, 200 Calvi4, 44144. 6 044458444. 3444514, 446 0444544. Th44m44, 39, 93 04rr444, Lewi4, 444, 456, 443 0445, 44544, 3, 46, 94, 93, 446, 443. 434, 433. 436-4, 474 04444444, 114444, 206-44, 446, 447 04444444444, 1.4444414, 94 Castiglione, Ba141444444, 83 01444444444, Th44444, 39 Cha4ce4, 044ff445, 494 044444, 59664, 474 logh4, Wilson 0., 493 0441444414, 9441445, 84 041444, Herman44, 446 Coler8dge, 8444444 T., 2r 44, 34, 475, 444, 445, 426, 44, 44. 454, 244 479 044444, 59444rd, 49 Cowper4, William, 476 04448, 044444, 249 04444, 844441444, 87, 449 048844s, 414444, 199 Daon8. Foster, z43 04444 A14gh4ier4, 37, 38. 54 04vi44, Edad 38, 40-42 414 Almeida, 5944444444 84 Deleuze, 044444, 4634 044r1414, 4449444, 47. 48, 94, 448, 449, 04scar444, 8446, 474, 446, 447 01414444, 01444444, 111-13, 445 Doberer, K. K., 35 Donne, 44144, 4, 475 ouglas, Major, 73 Aesop, 445 444144444. 8-444, 438 Aquinas, 84444 Thomas4, 483 4Archi444414, 44, 464 444444444. 47, 48. 54. 56, 464. 474. 486, 244 445, 478, 479 Arn4441, 59atthew, 467 474. 478 Ather4on,4James S., 464 Auden,4. 944., 43 Austen4, 4444.. 473 4444111, 11444, 443 844444, 844 Francis, 45. 48-54, 485 84141464, 59. 59., 456 84444414, 114444, 434 Barry, 4Jam44. 449 84441444444, 014a4444, 447 Betovn Ludwi4g 444. 129 Bejmn Walter, 444. 217 8444444, W4ili4a, 4.. 439-38 84444444k, 84ernr, 93 844444414, 81448, 88 844ntham, 4444444. 44 844tl45, 114144444101441444, 449 844144145, Gor4ge, 478. 484, 449 84g, 01444444, 29n 84ak4, 94411444, xi. 3-17, 21-51, 54-59, 74. 84, 88, 97 444, 445, 434. 434, 435, 436, 446, 448 454, 494, 458-64, 464, 465, 474, 475, 478. 483 484-98 438 445. 454, 459, 474, 473, 475, 478. 483, 484, 487 8444444k, 594444, 88, 89 Bleakne, Frederick W., 454 844444, 5944414, 34. 84, 474, 477. 478. 484 84414444, S4amu4l, 38 844414444, 59444444944444444, 474 Bornstei, Gere 84 Brau46gan, 84414444. 454 Br4dget, 84444, 466 8Br41gm4444 Laura, 448 844o144, 04e4441, 484 Browning, 848444, 57 84444, 044441444, 496 84444, Gerald1L., 488,4867.489 844444, 4444b. 35 38-44 114144, 59r44, 44 844544.44144, 437 Burgess, Anthony, 456 84414e, 11414444, 48,4425,4184,485,4189, 844144, Kenneth4, 8, 480, 446, 279 115444, 04449404441448-44, 76-89, 94, 92-94, 98, 98. 448, 447, 448, 444 Calvi11n451, 446, 0441514, Thomas4, 39, 93 04-441l, Lewis, 444, 456, 443 0445, 44544, 3, r6, 90, 93 446, 443 434. 433. 438-44. 474 Cassirer, Ernst, 206-20,4226.27 04444444444, 8-4144444, 94 044t5g1io44, 84441444444, 83 01444444444, Thom444, 39 01444444, 04411445, 494 044444, 59441n4, 474 Clough1, 94414440., 43 0441444444, 8441445, 84 041444, 594444444, 446 ColIr4dge, 9444441 T., 2r 44. 34. 475. 444.44z5,44z6. 424144.4 54,4278 044444, 4444514. 86 0444441414, 44144 449 044444, 59ow.a44, 445 04owp44, William4, 478 Craig, 044144, 449 04444, 844441444, 87, 449 0444444, 114444, 494 04444 Aighie44, 37, 38, 54 044444, Ed4144r4, 38, 40-42 0444444, 044444, 4634 de5~ 54an, 4al 5, 46, 92, 454,4441 0er48da Jacque4, 27, 28, 92, 14 149, 04438, 1144 z9, 474.469 4 04414444, 014414, 4447, 44920 0414444, K. K., 35 04444, John, 4, 475 Douglas, 594j44, 73 289 489 428948 289  290 Inde 29 Inea9ne Dryden, J, 3417 5 Dunsay, Edwa9 Lord6, 447 Eitin,491 Albert, 207, 280 El1ia94, Mircea,zo Eliot, T. S., 64, 174-76, 223, 478 89ller, William~ Henr4y, 250, 251 Ein4gton4, Duke4, 4z Ellma44n, R444ha6d, 91-92, 145n4, 151-52, 164 894494494446, 447 Erdman,41 David V., 45 Feidelson, Chares, 2o46 Fel9dma4, Burton, 38, 4o 94414, Stanley, 477, 478 Fi14er, Jon 119-z3 Ford8, Henr4y, 44 Forste, E. M., 108 Frege, 0444tl14, 448 Freud9, Sigmund, 22-24, 47, 30, 154, 163, 464 Fry, 64oger, 486 Frye4, Nor4thro4p, 4, 3844, 35, 41-43, 46, 53, 115, 162, 465, 478, 445, 44644, 453 Fuseli, Hery 130 0Gadamer, 1144s-Georg, 31 0a'g, Wa44da, 246 Genette, 0444444, 153 0George4411, 7, 45 04oethe4, Joha4n Wolfgang von, 191, 447 04444144c1, 89rnst4, 445 0Goodenough1, E. R. , 29 0449ma, Nelson4, 445 04444, Lucientes44, 444 0444ve4,6Robert, 44,454 04444g4r4, Au4gusta Lady, 444 0riffi, 54446, 245 Gua44a49, Fel19, 4634 Hardy, Thomas4, 604, 244 11444, 01l444, 464 Hartle4y, Willim, 488 11ar34man, Geoffrey, 449 114449, Hiram4, 448 H14yley, Wili34, 6, 43 Hayman4, Dav4id, 944 Hazlitt, William, 475 11ef9ernan,3James4A. W., 434 11449el, 0G444g Wilhelm14 994494ich, 24 Heid9egger44, Mar44in, 207, 217-44, 447 114443444, Will3am £Er4444, 68, 449 Heracl4444, 44, 468, 469. 474, 474 Hedr Joha34n4Gottfr44ed von, 244 Hermes4 79444eg94844, 37 114444, Heinrich, 443 11eyl414d, Jo4hn, 434 Hi94444, Nelson, 48 Hipple4, Water 3., 493 1141444444, 341440444, 76 Hock1444y, 114449, 447 11413a4944r, John, 449, 448, 46 1143444, 0Gerald, 449, 273-75 114m444, 52-59, 84, 98, 102 446, 433, 434, 456, 44, 445, 446. 483 11444e, 478 Humboldt9, Wilhelm414von, 464, 444, 46 11444944fo44, E9dwa4d B., 38, 39, 44, 42 Hu44444l, Edmun4d, 227 9444444444, 99444, 483 14444, Wolfgang, 454 34k414444, 64m44, 22, 47 James4, Henr4y, 86 344444014944, 6, 7, 9, 34, 35 38 69 8, Jo1h4444, Samuel44, 67, iio, 484, 226, 478 341444ton, 114444, 444, 444. 14 34444, 11444, 34 Joes Jame 449n, 84 344444, 344444, 3, 44, 46, 77, 84-89, 944-410, 443, 445-48, 444, 444, 133-36, 144, 144, 144-51, 45359, 4644-65, 499, 3444444, 5t444s1444, 454 34144, 8944t, 49, 34, 14 341441th44Bap9ist, 5941t, 14 34449, Cail 0., 35 Ka44t, Imma444uel, 26, 28, 30, 63. 87, 110, 469-74, 476, 4446, 447, 2449, 443, 444, 447,4419,446,447, 44 894494444, Fritz, 448 Keats4,34oh4, 64, 84, 84, 445, 171, 458, 459 Kell1er4, He44144, 4208,49, 444. 444 89444444, 114gh, 95, 96, 443, 454, 4544 89444444449444, 9444444, 4 8944414444rbock1444, Billy, 244 8999144, 5Sau1, 448 8944p43, 444419, 467 Kuhn14, Thms 229-34, 473, 474 La,44J4,3qu444, 44, 177 Lamber444,34ea4 A., 494 La4494444 9444444448., 4446 L4444, Lyn44, 44 Dr49444, 34,14475 114444444, Edw99 Lord, 447 Ein4434i4, 4114449, 447, 484 £3iade, Mics 4444 Eliot,, T. S., 64, 474-76, 443, 478 £33er, William He4444, 454, 454 Ellington4, Duke44, 444 899444444 63441444, 94-92, 4454, 454-52, 464 894p44d44I44, 447 Ermn Davi9 V., 45 Feidelson4, 01449444, 446 944394444, 949444, 38, 40 94414, 9444144y, 477, 478 93414444, 344hn4, 449-23 9449. 114444, 244 Forster, E. M., 107 944444433ch, 5414445417, 477, 479, 446, 94444444, Antoe 478 94444g4, 0419414, 448 944444, 919444444, 22-24, 47, 34, 454, 493, 14 Fr4, 649444, 486 9444, Nor14hrop, 4, 384, 39, 41-43, 46, 53, 445, 464, 465, 478, 445, 4464, 453 F444433, 114444, 434 0Gadamer, 1144s-0eorg, 34 049g, Wa494, 446 0444441444, 04444rd, 453 044444494411, 7, 49 04441144,3414444 Wolfgang 4444, 494, 447 0444149441, Ernst, 445 0444944444h, E. 6., 49 04494444, 9441444, 445 04444, Lucientes344, 444 0444444, 6441444, 444, 454 04444944, 44ugu4441La44, 444 Gr9ff4, Mer, 245 04944444, F4439, 4634 Hardy, Thom444, 64, 4 1168, 031444, 464 114r3444, Wil33144, 488 11ar44a4, 0eoffrey, 149 1144494, 111444, 448 11443444, Wi433944, 6, 43 11444444, 114vi4, 94n4 11443314, 53il41344, 475 Hefferna444,3James4. W., 434 1144944, 044444 W1ilhelm 9449994414, 24 He4ide4gger4, Mart44, 4447, 447-44, 447 He441444, Willia 89444444, 68, 249 114444li1414, 44, 468, 469, 474. 474 1144d44,341444404otfr4ed644, 244 1144me44 Trismegistus, 37 114494, 1144149441, 443 1144441nd, 34414, 434 1143344, 9443444, 48 1139934, Wal44444., 493 114bh444se,34John4Ca4, 76 1144144444, Da4443, 447 Hol1lander4,34John, 445, 448, 446 1143444, 044499, 449, 273-75 1144444, 54-9. 84, 98, 444. 446. 433. 434, 496, 40. 445, 446. 483 1144944, 478 11444old19, Wilhelm 44on, 464, 444, 226 11449449444, Edward B., 38, 39, 44, 44 144444444, 5944, 483 34444, Wolfgng, 454 344414444, 644444, 44, 27 3James4,1Henr, 86 344444014941, 6, 7,9 34, 35, 38, 49, 68, 34144444, 54am444, 67, 4444, 484, 426, 478 3414444144, 114443, 444, 144, 14 344444, 11444, 34 344444,3444444La49, 84 34oyce,34James, 3, 14, A6 77, 84-89, 9o-410, 443, 445-48, 444 4444, 133-36, 144, 44, 444-54, 453-59, 460-65, 499, 3444444 1544434,44 34144, 5944, 49. 34, 14 34ohn4the44ap9943, 54443, 14 3449, 0930 ., 35 89443. 3444444444, 46, 28, 344, 93, 87, 4444. 469-74, 476. 446, 447, 209, 443, 444, 4 47. 449, 446, 227, 42 894484444, Fr9tz, 448 89444s, 3ohn, 62, 81., 84, 445. 471, 458. 459 Keller, 1144444, 448, 209, 211. 212 Kenr 11459, 95, 96, 443, 454, 45444 8944441444a44d, S0oren4,4 Kncebokr Billy, 244 89991444S, 941248 89444944 A444o443, 467 Kuhn, Thomas4, 229-31, 473. 474 Lacan,4 3Jac944444 44. 177 Lang9444, 9444444448., 446 Lar, L444, 44 1149444,34144, 475 114444444, Ed9ard914r9, 447 £1444344344 43144444, 4447, 480 E9144944 5434444, 444 £5444. T. S., 64, 174-76 443 4479 £11er, William 114444, 454, 454 993491344, 114144, 44 89944444, 1Ri14a49, 94-92, 4454. 151-52, 464 Em4494944344, 447 Erdman, 11449 V.,45 94439443444, 01444344, 446 94439444, Bu4944, 38, 44 93414, 944443444, 477. 478 9341444, 34144, 119-23 9Ford, 11644, 44 Fostr E. M4., 107 944444413, Mi341444, 45-47, 477, 478, 446, 94444444, 44444434, 478 9444494, 04433441, 448 944444, 93944444, 24-44, 47, 34, 454, 463, 464 Fr4, 649444, 486 9444, North4449, 4, 3844. 39, 44-43, 48, 53, 449.4162,465,4178,.445,4o64,453 Fuei 114444, 434 04ad44444, 11444-Ge44rg, 34 04,4Wanda,4246 044444445, 044444d, 454 04444444313 7, 45 0443144, 341444494499449444n, 494, 447 0444149441, 8944444, 445 0449644459, 89. R9., z9 0Goo4444, Nelson44, 445 0Goy, Lu44ientes44, 444 044644, Ro41444, 44. 494 044944y, 44944444 Lady, 121 0491144, 54446, 445 049843r, 94419, 4634 114494, Thomas4, 64, 44 11r9, 013444, 464 Har93444, 94335444, 488 11494444, 0444944444, 449 114449, 114444, 246 11443444, 94411444, 6, 43 114444444vd,1144944 11443334, 94333944, 479 1144944444, 34444444. W., 434 1144644 044499434414 994494434414ric, 24 1144194gg444, Ma4934, 447, 217-20, 447 114441444, William4 Er44444, 68, z4 114444441434, 44, 468, 469. 474, 474 11444944,34hann440468968444o, 244 1144444444494444493444, 37 114444, 1144449441, 443 1144446d,34ohn, 434 119344, Nel1son, 46 1139934, Walter J., 493 1141444444, J4144 Cam4, 76 114c14444, 114444, 447 11433449444,34144, 445. 448, 446 1143344, 0444499, 229 273-75 1144444, 52-59, 84, 98, 444, 446, 433 434. 456, 44, 445, 446, 483 11444444, 476 Humboldt1, 943lhe4414464, 4644, 4444, 4426 114444444646, £dward B., 38, 39, 44, 44 34444444444 8943t, 483 344444 Wo~lfgang, 452 3Jak41444, 644444, 24, 27 3Jesus1C1494t, 6, 7, 9, 34. 39. 38. 498.8,9 34144444, Samuel4, 67, 444, 484, 446, 476 3Jo443444, 11eni4, 144, 444, 14 34444,11444, 34 Jones4,34James Land, 84 Joyce,4.3James, 3. 44, 46. 77 84-89 90-11, 443, 115-18, 444, 144, 133-36, 144, 144, 144-51, 454-59, 46o4-65 499, 344444, 927434.5 5 34144, 9943, 49, 34, 14 341443th44Ba94344. 5ain4, 14 3449, Cail30., 35 Ka4t. 14444444444 46, z8, 34, 63 87, 4144, 469-74, 476, 446, 447, 209, 443, 444, 447,4419,426,4427, 44 894ufma4n, 993tz, 448 Keats3,34144, 64, 84, 84, 445, 474. 458, 459 89441444, 1144444, 2048, 209, 444, 212 Kenr 11459, 95, 96, 443, 454, 45444 89144414444444, 9444444, 4 Knic4414444bo441444, Billy, 44 Kri9144, 9443, 448 8944943, 444419, 467 Kun Thms 449-34, 473 474 1.4444, 34494444, z4, 177 L44b849, 344444., 454 Lang9444, 9444444489., 2o6 Lary, Lyn4, 44 Larne 11. 11., 174  Leach, Edmu,4422 Leibniz,, Gottfred Wilhm, 4o6, 207 Lessing, Gotthold, 125 Levinson4, Jerd 118 119, 123, 124, 128 L~iSrus Clau'de, 24, 27, 154, 155, Lewisohn, Lu4dwig, 182 Lock, Jon 46, 49, 72, 17 185 188, Longinus44 (ped) 475, 278 Loeae Maph M491bank6 Lord, 8. Lovelac4, Richard, 139 Mcan Jeom 9., '9' Marchand, L4464, 88 Mak, 9aint, 11 Maximus of 4Tyre, 46 54el6or, Anne K., 36 Meyerhoff, Han, 286 Mic4helangelo, 54, 55, 184, 185 198 Mic4helet, Jules, 464 54911, Jo6n Stuar, 128 M4ilton, Jon 6, 13, 33 66, 175. 476, 183 Mitchell, W. 9. T., 58, 124, 125, 243 M4s4,9433.4,4.50, 116, 45 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus4, 277 Natorp, P641, 4446 Newton,Isaac, 46, 48 N1ichol4444, Ben, 130 Norr3s, Margot, 153 163 0'Casey, 94ea4, 1 Ohma444n, Richard, 167, 236 O'Lary, Jon 75 04ig44, 493 Orwe1l, Gorge,~ 474 O'Shea, Katherin, 15 Own VA.4L., 444 Parnel, Charle, St76, t 13 8 Pau1, 94int, 198 Perry, Maph Bar44on, 263 Peter, 94344, 9, 37 Philo 9444444, 283 Picaso Pl, 1 20 Leach6, Edmun,, Pike, Burton '99-"'r Leibniz4, Gottfre Wilhelm4, 206 207 Pirandel, Luigi, 11 L444'ng, Gotthold, 12 Pitt, William (the younge), 13, 45 Levihnson, Jerrold, 448, 1149, 123, 124, 446 Plato, 25 26, 29, 36-39. 44. 47n, 55, 104, L93'i-Strauss, Claude, 22, 47, 154, 155, 153, 171. 172, 18-9, '97. '99, '44. 215 4,423-45, zz8, 436, 245, 476, 279 Lewisohn, Ludwig, 484 Polanyi3, Michael, 229, 234, 474 Lipking, Larne 174, 185 Pollock4, Jacso , Loke Jhn, 46, 48, 74, 174, 185, 188, Po~pe, Alexande, 175 497, 249, 234 Porphyry, 36 Lovelace, Maph Milbanke Lord, 82 Fes, Hendrik J., 249, 219 Lovelace, Richard, 139 Poule9, Georges, 92 Luke, Saint, 11 Pughe,, William Owen, 4, 42 Mcan Jerome' J., 19' Punter, Dvid, zoo42034Ma , ho 99s, 166 Q464 446,4,Ma 5 handh~, Lele,8 Raine, Kathleen, 36 54499h44, 94int, 144 Raligh, Jon 46 Maximus 46 Tyre, 46 R94,ke, Leopold, 463 54el9or, Anne K., 36 Ra4phael, 13, 185, 187 Mercier, Vivia, 60 Reaper, Wilford9A., 248 Meyerho4ff. Ha4,s, 286 Reni, Guido, 12, 12 5464h49a44el4, 54, 55, 4, 185 98 Richards,, I. A., '44, z79 Mill, John 9tuar, 129 Richa444444, Robert 0., 38 Milton, Jon 6, 139, 33, 66, 175, 476, 183 1644444, Paul, 44, 26 Mitchell, 94. J. T., 58, 444, 1z5, 443 Rivkin, Ellis, 466, 172 544,,,, T. 9944g4, 744 Robinson,, David, 459 More,, Henry, 72 Robinson, Henry Motn 446 Mose,,, 33, 34, 47, 50,4 116, 245 Rosti Christina, 494 Mozar4, Wolfga4,g44Amad4us, 277 Ruski, Jhn9444, 7 4Ntop47u, 0 Russeh, Berrad,128Neto, 1649, 4646 Nichhlson Ben, 434 9644, Edward, 94., 21, 220orri, Margot, 493, 463 Sahoniathon, 47 004447y, 944,1 S9ndburg, Ca34l, z4 Ohm44n, Richard, 467, 4436 Saussure,, Ferdina44 4e, 45, 449, 449, 449 04444n, 483 Schelling, Fr9edrch Wilhelm Joseph 444, 0rwe19, George, 474 444, 449, 445 O'Shea, Katherine, 15 9ch696er, Fr4edr,6 v44, 87, 474, 476 Own A. L.,44 Scofield, 43 Searle, Jon 128 Parnell, Chales Stwat 158 94e9i44444, Kur4, 35 Passmore4, Vic4or, 4344 5,rvi44, 47 Pater, 944194,, 479, 432 Shkspae William, 116, 4443, 444, 434, Pa49, 96449, 198 476, 44, 443, 445, 447, 449, 4453 16444444, 544449, 443 Shaw4, George Bernar4, 69 Perry, Maph Ba,944, 463 9649947, Perry B74464, 47, 84, 94, 475, Peter, 96449, 8, 37 444 Philo 4444444, 463 Picasso4, Pa6lo, 1,, Leach, 6444444,z Pike, 6444444, 199-444 Le9hn, 0ottfried Wilhel, 446, 207 Pirandello4, Luigi, 119 Less4ing, Gtthol, 445 Pitt, William(he younge), 43, 45 Leinson, J44r994, 118, 449, 4443, 4444, 448 Plato, 45, 26, 49, 36-39, 44, 47n, 55, 444, Uvi9-St,4u44, Clue 22 47, 454, 4455, 4453, 471, 174, 486-94, 497, 499, 44,, 245 4444, 223-25, 449, 436, 445, 478, 479 1,44444446, Ludwig, 19z Pol4479, Michael, 449, 434, 474 LipUing, Lawrenc'4, 474, 185 Pollock, J446444, 9344 Locke, 99644, 46, 46, 74, 474. 185. 499, Pop, Alexander, 475 497, 449, 434 Popper, Kal, 434 Longinus' (pseu.), 475, 479 Porphyr7, 36 Lovelace,, Maph Milbanke Lord, 84 Pos1,, 04444944, 8, 21 Lovela964e, 444ad,3 P44464, William Owen4, 404, 44 Mc404,4, 94r4me49., 4494 Punter4, Davi4, 444, 4,3 54an4, Thomas, 466 Marchand4, Lesli, 88 Quinn, Arthur, 224ar, 964nt, 14 Masefield, John, 443 Raine, Kathleen, 36 Matthew4, 964n9, 14 Ralegh.,Joh, 96 Maximus of4Tyr, 446 R6nh,, Le4pold, 16 5449l94, An44 K., 36 Ra4phael, 43, 185 487 Mercier, 79vian, 60 Reaper, WilfordA., 48 54,7446446, Hans, 496 6e,9, Guido, 445. 12 549c64lange94, 54, 55, 484. 185 198 64744944, Sir9Joshua, 447429, 184-98. 22 Michelet9, 94944, 16 Richards, 1. A., 444, 4479 54911, Joh 9tuar, 449 16,64414444, 6o6er4 0., 39 549ton, John, 6, 43, 33, 66, 175, 176, 183 69444444, Pa41, 44, zo6 544,6e99, 49. 9. T., 58, 444, 4445, 443 Rjvkin, 6999s, 466, 474 54ooe, T. Sturg, 74 Robins44, David, 15 M4,e, Hery 74 Roisn Henr75M4rt94, 946 54,ses, 33, 34, 47, 544, 16 445 6osset49, Chr4stin, 484 Mozar4, 49496444444444444. 477 R44444444,94ean-acq444, 207 Rukn 9464, 74 54449p, Pau9, 4446 Ru44441 erad,6 ,, 128 Newt44,4.9944,.46,.48 N9464l,44, 664, 434 S644, Edar W. z1 , oNorr4s, 54444ot, 453, 4463 Salinge,J. D., 446 9,n4h44644h44, 47 0'Cas47, 544,1 94446444, Ca4l, 443 06444,', Richard, 467, 4436 944449, Denis, 43 O'L.,ary, John, 75 94aussure, Ferdina4d4de, 45, -9, 449, 449 04444n, 283 94641644, PFriedr4ich 4 Wihem osph von, Orwell, Gere 474 444, 445, 445 O'She, Kather4ne, 15 Schi99er, Friedrich von 87, 4474, 976 Owen4, A. L., 44 9446494d, 43 Sere John, 1z8 Parnell, Charles Stwat 15 9,994444,4, Kur4, 35 Passomm4, V94444, 434 94rvi44, 47 Paer Walter, 4478, 434 96ak4449a44, William, 116 443. 444, 4344. 1641, 944444, 498 476, 444, 443, 445, 447, 449. 453 16ar44n, Mote 443 964aw, 0Geo44e Berna4d, 69 Perr7, Ralph 664ton, 263 SheIley, Percy Bysshe, 47, 84, 94, 475. Pe94r, 96449, 8, 37 zoo ~Philo Juaes 483 291 Picass, 1669,, 444 Pike, Bur4on, 499-444 Pirande11, Luigi, 118 Pitt, William4(the younge), 43, 49 Plat, 25, 26, 49, 36-38, 44, 47n, 55, 104, 453, 474, 474, r8-- 497, 499, 4444, zo4. 223-25, 448, 436, 445 4478. 479 Primp9, Michael9, 449, 234, 474 16p4. Alexander, 475 Poppe, Karl, 434 164967,7, 36 Pound44Ezra, 474 Pughe, William4 Ow44, 49, 44 Quinn, Arthu,,,2 Raine, Kathlee, 36 Raleigh John, 96 Bunke, Le4po1d, 463 Raph6449. 43. 485. 487 Repr W9ifor A., 48 Reyold ,9irJoshua,447429. 484-98, 226 Richards, 1. A., 444. 4479 Richardson, Robert D., 38 Ri4kin, 69914, 166, 474 Roisn 04494, 454 6,ssetti, C64499444, 484 644444444, 9ean-9acque, 447 Ruskin, John, 744 6444499, Ber4ra4, 448 9644, Edward 94., 4444, 44, 949inge,, 9. 0.. 446 9S,464444, C441, 443 9444,4, 0446, 43 Saussure, Ferdina4d4de, 25, 209, 448, 449 Schelling, Priedrih Wilhelm4 Joseph vn Sciller, Fr4edr4ch4von, 87. 4744. 476 9446494d, 43 9499444444, Kur4, 39 94449444. 47 Shakespea4, William4, 116 443, 444, 4344, 476. 44, 443. 445. 447. 449 4453 Sha,George4Berna4d, 69 9641147. P44,7 674464, 47, 81, 94, 475,  Indexa 292 3,Idex 292 Sidney5, Sir Philip, 278 Smith1, Barba,2a H2,22,ei2, 167-69, 171. Smith, 32212, 232 Solomon,, z45 So1lomon, Ma29222t, 246, 162, 163 522uthe5, Rober22, 78 Spndr 82te122n, 73 Sta22ley-Brown2, Teddy, 251 Stukeley, W6il1iam, 38, 40-42, 45-47 Sulliva22, Edwar2d, 147 Swifft, J222a1ha2. 256 Taine, Hipplyte, 232, 265 Tay122, Th2omas, 36 Tenn25s2n, A1l,221 Lord, 275 Thesing, Will,2,2, 202 Thomas2 Aquinas, Sai2t, 283 Thomson2, James2, 2m Thurbe, 3J2222, 66, 68 Todd, Ruthven, 38, 42, 42 Tola22d, Jo12n,42 Twin Ma2k, 224, 225, 232, 232 Urba2,,, Wil111iam M., 226, 222, 212 Usener2, Herma22n, 225 Vaihinger, Has, 223 Veistquez, Diego, 123, 124 5i22, Giov222i 2226222a, 24, 25, 42, 254-57, 262-62, 264, 282, 224216, 222, 228, z44 265 Wii,27,2120-, 283 Wesley, 322222, 244 We2theime, 6242, 245 Wheelwright, Philip, 226 White, Ha25dn, 24, 25, 32, 262, 262 Whitma2, Wa21t, 225 Wilde, Oscar, 69, 88, 272 Wilford1, Fra2cis, 42 Will, Frederick, 2842 6622212, Anthony D., 232, 232 Wordsworth, William2, 78. 92, 92. 94, ,26. 299, 222, 245, 276, 278 5ea2s, C,21212, 263 Yea22,32122 But3er, 65, 75 52222, William, B2112r, xi, 3, 22, 28, 26, 39, 43-45, 6-,,- 77, 82-84. 93. 227, 245, 246, 248, 242, 252-54, r56 259, 263, 266, 169, 272, 275, 282, 222, 238, Zeuxis, 185 Zola, Emile, 232, z65 Zwer2dling, Ale2, 81 Sidney, Sir Philip, 278 Smith2, B2arba2aHermstei2, 167-69, 272, 82232 3 Solomon,, 245 Solomon,, Ma2garet, 246, 161, 263 82221225, 2212,22, 78 5Sp221e, Stephen, 73 Stanley-Br22w, 52445, 252 812122125, W6illiam, 38, 4u-42, 45-47 Sulliva2, 221w224, 247 8wift, Jonatha2, 15 Taine, Hippolyte, 232, 265 Taylor, Thomas2, 36 T2225222, Alf22210Lo21, 275 Th22i,,g, Willi22,, 222 Thomas2 Aquinas, 52in2, 283 Thomson2,3James, 202 Thurber2, 3222e2, 66, 68 72212, 2242222, 38, 42, 42 Tol224, 32122, 42 Twai2, Ma221, 224, 225, 232, 232 Urban,, William 54., 226, 222, 212 Use222, Hermann2, 209 Vaihing22, 11222, 223 Vehisquez, Diego, 223, 224 Vi,2, Gi2222222Ba66222, 24, 25, 42, 254-57. 262-62, 264, 292, 224-26, 222, 228, 244, 265 66,21, R2ber2, 293 6622l25, 322222, 244 We,242e22e,, 2242, 245 Whelwright, Phil2p, 226 White,, 112521, 24, 25, 32, 161, 162 661222222, Walt, 225 Wilde, 02ca,, 69, 88, 272 Wilford, Prancis, 42 Will, Freder92ck, 2842 6622212, Anthon2y D., 230, 231 299, 222, 245, 276, 278 5,222, Georgie, 263 52212, John2Bu212, 65, 7s 5,222, Wi25iam 2223,,, xi, 3, 22, 25, 28, 39, 43-45, 622-75, 77, 82-84, 83 227, 245, 246, .48, 248, 252-54, 156, 259, 163, 166, 269, 272, 275, 282, 222, 238, Zeuxis2, 285 Zo32, 62221,, 232, 265 Zwerd211ng, Alex, 82 Sidney, Si, Philip, 278 822212, Ba21bara1Herms22in, 267-69, 272, 822322 3 Solomon2, 245 Solomon2, Ma22gare, 246, 161 263 92221225, Rober,2, 78 Sta2ley-B222wn, Tedd2y, 252 822122325, 6612622,, 38. 42-42, 45-47 Sul26va2, Edwa222, 247 5229t, 32224222, 156 Ta22, Hi1ppolyte, 232, 265 Taylor,, Thomas2, 36 52en25222, Alfred Lo24, 275 Thesing, William2, 222 Th22222 Aquinas,, Saint, 283 Thomson2,, 3Jame,22o Thurber,3Jame, 66, 68 Todd, Ruthven,, 38, 41, 42 Toland1, John,42 Twain, Ma22k, 224, 225, 232, 232 Urba2, William22M., 226, 222, 22 Use2er, 11222222, 229 524iig22, 11222, 223 5,1992,2, Diego, 223, 224 5V22, Giova2ni Bat22st, 24, 25, 42, 254-57 262-62, 269, 292, 224-26, 222, 228, 244,265 51rgi1. 37. 52, 56, 57 W622k, 22692, 293 Wesley5, James2, 244 66,242,222,, 2242, 245 W6heelwigh, Philip, 206 White2, Haydn1, 24, 25, 32, 262, 162 Whit2ma2, 6621t, 225 661121, Osar 69, 88, 171 Wilford1, Fra2cis, 42 Will, Freder9,c, 2842 6622212, Anthony2 D., 230. 231 662,212222,2 66111ia,, 78, 92, 92, 94, 226, 199, 222, 245, 276, 278 52222, Georgie, 263 5,222, 32122 Butle, 65. 75 5,212, William, But3,, 21, 3, 22, 25, 28, 39 43-45, 62-75, 77, 82-84, 93. 227 245. 246 248, 249, 252-54 r56, 259 163, 166, 269, 272, 275 182, 222, 238, 2232, Emile, 232, 265 Zwedling, A12x, 81