The Humanistic Heritage Revisited: Rejoinder

31:4 Book Reviews is built on dogshit, then perhaps we can still dance in the palace. But we will want to keep our shoes on. Joel Weinsheimer University of Minnesota THE HUMANISTIC HERITAGE REVISITED: REJOINDER To Thaïs Morgan's Review of The Humanistic Heritage: Critical Theories of the English Novel From James to Hillis Miller I appreciate the opportunity to respond to Thais Morgan's provocative review in 31:1. Since readers of Morgan's review would not leam what the arguments and narrative principles of The Humanistic Heritage are, let me recall them: I shall be discussing the theory and method of Anglo-American novel criticism in order to understand the way that the novel has been read, taught, and written about since 1900 in England and America. Implicitly and explicitly, I shall be arguing for the importance of an ideology of reading which I call the Humanistic Heritage. My hope is to contribute to a dialogue between traditional formal criticism that has dominated Anglo-American criticism and recent criticism, including structuralism, deconstruction , and Marxism. . . . Each critical work will be examined as an instance of a particular critical approach and for its critical significance to us. Critical texts, like novels, enact in their form and technique their values. ... I examine each book according to its own aesthetic and intellectual assumptions before stepping back to consider its limitations and contribution. I am interested in how the various approaches of these critics create and reflect the aesthetic, moral, and intellectual concepts of the culture which produced them. (The Humanistic Heritage , 1, 2) Iwishtosynthesize,define,andintegratetheaesthetictheoryofhumanistic novel criticism, and identify recuning strands in that criticism, strands which I identify: A. The form of the novel—style, structure, nanative technique —expresses its value system. Put another way: form discovers the meaning of content. B. A work of literature is both a creative gesture of the author and the result of historical context. Understanding the process of imitating the external world gives us an insight into the artistry and meaning of the work. 515 31:4 Book Reviews C. The work of fiction imitates a world that precedes the text, and the critic should recapture that world primarily by formal analysis of the text, although knowledge of the historical context and author is often important. Humanistic criticism believes that there is an original meaning, a centre, which can be approached, and often almost reached, by perceptive reading. The goal is to discover what authors said to their intended audience then, as well as what they say to us now. Acts of interpretation at their best—subtle, lucid, inclusive, perceptive—can bring that goal into sight. D. Human behavior is central to most works, and should be the major concem of analysis. In particular, these critics are, with the exception of Northrop Frye, interested in how people behave—what they fear, desire, doubt, and need. Although modes of characterization differ, the psychology and morality of characters must be understood as if they were real people; for understanding others like ourselves helps us to understand ourselves. E. The inclusiveness of the novel's vision in terms of depth and range is a measure of the work's quality. My book is not about cunent theory but a chronological, diacritical study of traditional theory and how it may enter into a dialogue with recent theory. Dialogue means to speak not simply to but with the other party of a debate. But what if, as Morgan enacts in her review, the other party will not respond, will not entertain the possibility of one's assumptions, will not test them? In trying to create a dialogue, I did not wish to imply that I could fully represent the position of every strand of structuralism and deconstraction, but rather that the act of diacritically examining fourteen diverse critics would implicitly be part of such an exchange. While I did write with my understanding of recent theory in mind, my expertise and focus were clearly on the books and critical approaches that I addressed. Although Morgan praises my chapter on Marxism as "fair" and writes that "[Hillis ] Miller's position is so much like [Schwarz's] own," she concludes...