Old-School Literary Criticism Restores The Wonder Of Literature

Clifton Fadiman Van Doren supported a more straightforward and genuine approach to engaging with works of art, rejecting critical analysis, technical language, excessive footnotes, and complex theories. He believed that these elements could hinder the true pleasure and significance of an artwork, which ultimately serves as a means of exploring reality. In his book “A Liberal Education,” Van Doren succinctly stated that literature serves as a gateway to a bigger purpose, providing access to the world in a way that chance and personal preferences cannot.

In contrast, modern literary critics often view literature as an isolated and academic field, detached from the real world and the mysteries of human existence. They become lost in terminology, theories, and deconstructions of texts, limiting literature to the realm of specialists with limited connection to lived experiences.

During the mid-20th century, the New Criticism movement aimed to bring a new level of rigor to the study of literature, treating it with the same sophistication and structure as fields like biology or physics. They sought to approach literature as a science.

However, Van Doren understood that the scientific and poetic mindsets are fundamentally different ways of thinking, each valuable in their respective domains. Just as a poem cannot be reduced solely to a scientific analysis, the complexities of the human heart cannot be fully understood through scientific means alone. The scientific and poetic mindsets require distinct approaches to comprehension.

In the preface of “The Private Reader,” Van Doren outlined principles for sound literary criticism. He posited that there are two types of effective critics: those who appreciate the act of reading and the wisdom gained from it without feeling the need to write extensively about it, and those who do write about their readings but provide brief and weightless analyses.

Such critics avoid excessive elaboration and instead convey simple yet thoughtful evaluations of their reading experiences. Van Doren emphasized that critics should maintain some detachment from their subjects, engaging in free and swift circles of examination, and offering judgments only when they naturally present themselves.