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LITERARY CRITICISM

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 2, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 14.

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LITERARY CRITICISM

By L. A. Reed

The study of literature, as it is generally taught, fosters a spirit of criticism. Some teachers do not know anything else in the study and teaching of literature except to study and teach criticisms. They judge everything they read, and when at last, perchance, the word of God comes in their way, they regard it as only so much literature, and therefore judge and criticise it.
It is men setting themselves up as competent of themselves to know and find truth; and this spirit of criticising they carry into every branch of learning.
But there are some, even of the world’s educators, who are beginning to tire of this. They long for a better way of doing things. But only at the great fountain of God can they ever be satisfied, and only here can they lose their judging, doubting, criticising spirit.
I have within my reach a little book, called “Literary Art,” which is an attempt to avoid criticisms as much as possible in the study of literature. A number of reasons for this course are given.
For instance, literary criticisms “are marked by most surprising and contradictory opinions.” It is the old proverb over again, The blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. The misjudgments of Shakespeare would fill volumes. There are many opinions in Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” that are wholly prejudicial. Andrew Lang censures the pathos of Dickens. Howells discounts Scott’s romances. And so men judge, and are judged in turn; for where only a human standard exists, each man thinks himself capable of erecting his own.
Again: this author says another thing which shows that the valuelessness of much of our literary criticism lies in the fact that “criticisms, after being accepted as a guide to one age, become the ’laughing stock of another.’”
Are not these statements true also of the criticisms of the Word?—They certainly are. Men criticise the writings of men because there is much to criticise, for one man may out measure another. And having taken on the habit, men therefore criticise the word of God simply because it is beyond their comprehension.
As to the effect of the criticising spirit on men’s minds, this same author says: “The attitude of judge tends to make one unsympathetic and unfair. A work of art does not ask for justice [judgment] but for understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment; and these come only through clear-eyed interpretation. We should rarely say, ‘I like,’ or ‘I don’t like,’ or ‘I think;’ but, ‘I find.’ After careful consideration in this spirit, the apparently obscure and the commonplace often disclose a wealth of luminous truth and beauty.”
If this be so for the study of general literature,how much more necessary is it for the study of Biblical literature? We are not asked to judge the Word, for we know too little about it: and to judge what we do not know is to be unsympathetic and unfair. The Bible does not ask for judgment, “but for understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment; and these come only through clear-eyed interpretation:” “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” Eph. 1:18. It is not to think of what you like or do not like, but what do you find in it—“How readest thou?” Remember the rule laid down in the Word for the study of all sacred literature: Consider what is said, and the Lord gives the understanding. 2 Tim. 2:7. L. A. REED.