Cobwebs Of Criticism

Author : T. Caine
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781516975877
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (758 download)

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Download or read book Cobwebs of Criticism written by T. Caine and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-08-19 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To review, within short compass, a review of a generation of reviewers is a perplexing task. One can, of course, touch only upon a few of the thousand-and-one disputable questions- literary, ethical, historical, and psychological -- raised by Mr. Hall Caine in the course of his criticism of the critics. And before losing ourselves in details it may he well, in order to do Mr. Caine justice, to acknowledge that he has produced a very interesting and suggestive book, rendered all the more so by his free and discursive treatment of the subject. Reading it is like enjoying a talk with a man thoroughly familiar with poetry and critical theories, with a living interest in poets and critics, boiling over with views of his own about them and their works, eager and indefatigable in discussion. This book of Mr. Caine's, in fact, is just the sort of book that two Professors of English Literature might choose if they were condemned to be left alone with one book on a desert island; economically used, it might keep them in argument for several years. They would not agree with everything that Mr. Caine says; what critic would agree with everything that another critic says. There would be no joy in the art if it led to fixed and unalterable conclusions. But they would find Mr. Caine's opinions worth discussing in themselves, and suggestive of excellent questions for free intellectual play. The worst part of the book is the author's apology for writing it, and for reviving the half-forgotten slanders and stupidities of some of the first reviewers of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Byron, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley. Mr. Caine should have frankly confessed that he took an interest in them, without assigning any reasons, and that the statement of them furnished an interesting introduction and background to the presentation of his own opinions. If he had done this he would have been on safe and unassailable ground. But when he claims high moral objects for the resurrection, and sets forth the benefits to be derived from it by poets and critics- consolations for the one class and awful examples for the other-his justification of himself is overstrained and artificial. The passages reproduced from old reviews form, in truth, a comparatively small part of the book; Mr. Caine's own comments and counter-criticisms occupy more space and are at least equally interesting. -The Academy and Literature, Volume 24 [1883]