On literary criticism | TheArticle

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On literary criticism | TheArticle"


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AE Housman — the poet and classicist of Trinity College, Cambridge — reputedly believed literary criticism to represent the highest intellectual pursuit. In his Leslie Stephen lecture, The


Name and Nature of Poetry, he says, referring to the time that had elapsed since his inaugural lecture:


“In these twenty-two years I have improved in some respects and deteriorated in others but I have not so much improved as to become a literary critic, nor so much deteriorated as to fancy


that I have become one.”


GH Hardy, a mathematician, the purest ever, and a fellow-Fellow, disagreed. Housman’s admiration for literary criticism “startled and scandalised him”. His views were very different. He made


the point that “statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art critics and physiologists, physicists and mathematicians have usually similar feelings; there is no scorn more profound,


and on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation is work for second-rate minds.”


I happen to disagree with both of them, but that is not really the purpose of this piece. In such matters I would be reluctant to express an opinion. I would though concede that literary


criticism has got ample merits, and I remember that while still in Hungary I greatly admired the many forms it can take. I think one of these pieces, written by the eminent Hungarian author


(who died some eighty years ago) Frigyes Karinthy, might be of interest to a British audience. I think its main attraction is its uniqueness within the genre: it stands alone.


The essay starts in an unusual manner by telling a story. It is about a Mr B, a man who, having reached the ripe old age of three-score and ten, decides to commit suicide. He jumps off one


of the beautiful bridges over the Danube in Budapest right into the river where he duly dies. He promptly arrives in heaven, where in the main hall, recently converted to a cinema, Saint


Peter is just screening the film of Mr B’s life.


At the end of the film when Mr B jumps, he kicks his legs in a manner that appears to be very amusing to a number of saints and angels of lower education, whose sense of humour stopped at


slapstick. They laugh out loud in an irritating manner. Although Peter has the patience of a saint, this is too much for him. In his fury, he makes an unfortunate mistake. He presses the


wrong button; the film breaks. This has never happened before. There is no quick fix. There is only one thing for it — rewind the film. It must be played backwards from the end to the


beginning.


So, Mr B is despatched back to Earth where, with legs upwards, he jumps out of the Danube back up to the bridge. Facing Buda, he returns to Pest. He climbs up three storeys, opens the door


of his apartment, puts on his pyjamas, goes to bed, has a long sleep, pours the coffee from his mouth into a cup. Then he goes out to the street, the cigarette in his mouth keeps on growing.


He lights it and then he puts it into his cigarette case. His hair gets darker, his teeth fall into his mouth, his pension is withdrawn, his salary keeps on decreasing.


His wife loves him more and more and becomes more and more beautiful. He takes her back to his parents and then come three fantastic nights of great happiness, after which she disappears


from his life. At the University he is a good student. Owing to his diligence he knows less and less. As he gets younger, he first recovers from polio, then he is infected, forgets to talk,


regularly provides some milk to his mother, and, finally, he is swallowed violently into a dark hole.


With his second coming, Saint Peter greets him at the pearly gates: “Behold, thou blessed mortal,” he intones, “thou who standeth beyond all other beings. Thou who, through the infinite


wisdom of our gracious Lord, hath travelled life’s journey, not once but twice — once proceeding forwards, the other proceeding backwards — pray thou, teach us, what lessons have been


delivered unto thee?”


Mr B weighs up the question and after a long pause he replies. “Plentiful were the learnings bestowed upon me, but as for conclusions, my heavenly father, there is only one that I can draw


with clear conscience: The poems of Lajos Kassak make no sense whatsoever whether they are read from beginning to end or from the end to the beginning.”


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