Sociology Lit Taste Ils 90 by Levin L. Schucking

Author:Levin L. Schucking [Schucking, Levin L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, General, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781136239014
Google: ETpGAQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-08T04:51:12+00:00

Importance of literary criticism

The control of visas for the travellers to Parnassus is in the hands of the literary critic. He is usually regarded as the main driving force in the history of taste. In the course of the history of literary criticism, as Professor Saintsbury first pointed out, and as in more recent times René Wellek has demonstrated in classical form, critics with discrimination have not seldom exercised a certain influence over development; most of these, it is true, were men who had themselves engaged in some sort of creative activity.1 The judgement, however carefully balanced, of a single critic, however famous, has not usually been of great moment. There are many cases, indeed, in which a consensus of praise of a novel or poem was of no decisive effect if it had not the support of the other forces already mentioned. The inquiry made by the Leipziger Buch-händler-Börsenverein revealed 391 cases in which a book had been bought on the recommendation of a friend, and only 195 purchases due entirely to a review. The most influential critics are still those who regularly write for a particular newspaper or periodical and who have succeeded in gaining the confidence and respect of their readers. In this regard the organs which have a special association with their subscribers have an advantage. In these cases, as under more primitive circumstances, a personal relationship is then set up between critic and reader. The reader ascertains the critic's taste and tendency, and thereafter trusts more or less to his guidance.

This guidance becomes still more important in the case of fine-art periodicals which offer not only criticism but examples, so that the critic is to some extent publisher as well. The publisher of such periodicals—and among them we must reckon certain publishers’ and book societies’ organs—have a good deal of influence over the development of taste. Sometimes in these cases the result is the formation of regular communities, whose members are more or less in agreement with one another not only in their taste but in their political, social, and religious views. These cases are particularly interesting, because they show how easily aesthetic judgements are shared by particular social groups.

It would be worth while to throw closer and more penetrating light on the interesting sociological conditions existing in these cases. Work on the history of such groups of readers or communities, for instance, as gathered in Germany in the past round the ‘Gartenlaube’, and later the ‘Rundschau’, the ‘Neue Rundschau’, the ‘Kunstwart’, ‘Türmer’, ‘Hochland’, ‘Welt und Wort’, and so on, might lead to important conclusions concerning the history of taste, that is to say, concerning the establishment of the contemporary existence of various strata of taste and their influence on each other—conclusions by means of which the ultimate differences in culture in general would finally be grasped. In this way light would simultaneously be thrown on the peculiar tacit constitutional relationship between publisher and public, which to some extent binds the former to a certain extent to the will of the latter.

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