Critics, Criticism & World's End
To the Editor:
I was immensely interested in Alfred Kazin’s “The Function of Criticism Today” [November]. I agree, of course, with a very large part of it, and I have no doubt that Kazin is one of the best critics we have. (In fact, if I were picking a Western team of fifteen critics to play the Eastern world, at least twelve would be Americans.) The only major difference between me and Kazin is that I don’t have the same eschatological sense. The American intellectuals I most admire seem simultaneously to feel (a) that the world is going to end tomorrow, and (b) that it is going on forever, exactly as in New York, November the 12th, 1960. I can’t believe in either of these propositions, and this affects the tone of my feeling to literature and criticism, present and to come. I don’t believe we have reached an end state. . . .
C. P. Snow
London, England
_____________
To the Editor:
Alfred Kazin’s article is the most penetrating discussion of the subject I’ve read in many years. I’m going to see that many read this piece.
Jerome Cushman
Librarian
Salina Public Library
Salina, Kansas
_____________
To the Editor:
. . . Kazin quotes Tynan’s rule, “Rouse tempers, goad, lacerate, raise whirlwinds. . . .” We have completed some research with students to find out whether authority and criticism would change their acceptance or rejection of great works of art. The result was that the more recent authority of the teacher determined aesthetic judgments much less than did “sets” acquired in childhood or adolescence. . . .
W. G. Eliasberg (M.D.)
I. R. Stuart (Professor
of Psychology, Hunter College)
New York City
_____________
