J.M. Robertson by Odin Dekkers

Author:Odin Dekkers [Dekkers, Odin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9780429836596
Google: Gy1zDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-26T03:43:28+00:00

ETCM and NETCM: Consistency of Appreciation

If we for the moment follow Robertson in assuming the validity of a scientific form of criticism that takes the subjectivity of judgment into full account, the question remains as to what form such a criticism should take. Robertson's answer first of all seems to depend very much on the individual critic's capacity for logical reasoning:

On the instant, there can be little question, each critic must fight for his own hand, giving his reasons for the faith that is in him; and that faith and these reasons will become part of the stream of tendency, either making or not making an effective eddy, telling on the banks. Here our problem becomes part of the general problem of history, and is no more and no less soluble than that. The science of criticism goes no further; but science in criticism remains to every critic who cares to methodically question his own consistency; and the practical question comes to be whether or not, in a given case, he can not only offer an estimate of a performance which shall be broadly congruous with a considerable body of instructed opinion, but give a persuasive explanation of such differences of instructed opinion as leave many cultured people perplexed. [ETCM 93]

The operative word here is once again 'consistency', the importance of which is relentlessly driven home to the reader:

A man who refuses to accept the test of consistency as a criterion of truth is either confused by words or confused in the very faculty of judgment. In the former case he is a doubtful subject for enlightenment: in the latter, he is impossible. He may keep out of legal trouble; he may even be the most amiable of men; but he is not to be argued with. [NETCM 12]

It is therefore not surprising that Robertson finally sums up his conception of critical science as 'the science of consistency in appreciation'. [NETCM 17]

What he means by this in more practical terms becomes apparent when we look at a number of pages he devotes in ETCM to a symposium which was run in the Fortnightly Review from August to November 1887. Prominent readers were requested by the editor to submit their favourite literary passages to the periodical, and Robertson finds much to quarrel with their choices. When Thomas Hardy selects three stanzas of Byron, Robertson is quick to comment that 'the students of poetry are surely quick to agree that these verses are much too lacking in fluidity of movement to be credited with excellence.' [ETCM 97-98] Similarly, George Meredith is rebuked for choosing a passage from Villette, while in Robertson's view 'there would probably be general agreement in a literary committee that perfection is there missed by reason of stress and spasm of expression.' [ETCM 102] Overall, Robertson displays remarkable confidence in the possibility of reaching a more or less general consensus on which literary works (or even fragments of such works) might survive the test of time, as long as the laws of consistency are meticulously observed.

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