Bearing this in mind, I’m going to ask our would-be critic four questions in rapid succession: - Can you say you love literature independently from your professional connection with it? Are you able to read it like a ‘normal’ reader would? Bearing in mind what you’ve just read, a straight yes or no will suffice. Be honest. Because if you don’t answer in the affirmative, you need help. And you’ll give disappointing answers to the next two questions, of which the first is Question 4 . . . - Do You Believe in the Cock-Up Theory of Literature or the Conspiracy Theory of Literature? This question is designed to flush out those critics who will go to preposterous lengths to find meaning wherever they can. Some suffer from a kind of ‘Meaning Paranoia’, where everything, no matter how small or inconsequential, has a part to play. No superfluity or redundancy is permitted because EVERYTHING MEANS SOMETHING. It’s all a Conspiracy. Take this brief interlude from Pete McCarthy’s excellent travelogue, ‘McCarthy’s Bar’, in which he’s attending a public Q & A session with Frank McCourt, author of ‘Angela’s Ashes’: Someone asks [Frank McCourt] about the title. What does it mean? “Angela was my mother and when she died we cremated her, so - ‘Angela’s Ashes’.” “But critics are saying the ashes are the fire she stared into, the cigarettes she smoked, or the sons from whom she rises like a phoenix . . . “ “These days, they’re giving exams on my book that I would fail myself.” Now a writer can react in one of two ways to this kind of interpretation, as we saw earlier in Big Theme #4, Accidental or Intentional? He can either slap his forehead and say, “Well, I never knew that, Mr Critic, thanks for pointing it out,” or he can condemn it as too ingenious by half, as Frank McCourt does here. Yes, these inferences can be made, but is it appropriate to do so? Often it’s completely inappropriate, as the critic, in his desperate search for ‘original’ meaning, places greater and greater weight on smaller and smaller load-bearing surfaces, a practice which buckles and distorts the structure of the actual meaning. There’s no real need for me to give specific examples when there’s John Sutherland’s excellent critical pastiches readily available on the market; I’d rather you had some fun reading these than the real thing which is guaranteed to make your heart sink. Remember the example I quoted earlier that there’s incontrovertible proof Hamlet’s gay because there’s a lot of doors mentioned in Shakespeare’s text? Well, Sutherland’s taken this critical approach and turned it into an intentionally hilarious art form. In one such cod investigation into meaning, he notes that Lady Macbeth claims to have “given suck” to (presumably her own) children, who appear nowhere in the play. So Sutherland sets off in search of them, in the manner of an earnest critic/journalist eager to reveal the truth. If Lady M’s remark was inconsequential, why did Shakespeare include ity? It must be there for a reason. And some critics solemnly see it as their solemn duty to flush the Bard out, even though the quest may be speculative and ultimately illusory (or chimerical - that’s a good critical word); in fact, Macduff denies that the Macbeths have spawned any children at all. Weird, eh? I feel a PhD coming on . . . At best, this is the academic equivalent of pub chat or perhaps a parlour game, something Sutherland clearly implies by planting his tongued firmly in his cheek, where it remains in such articles as ‘Cleopatra - Deadbeat Mum?, “Is Heathcliff a Murderer?” and “Can Jane Eyre Ever Be Happy?”. But there is a serious point to be made here, concerning the ‘organic’ approach to literary meaning, which can lead to some of the grossest misrepresentations in the critical canon. Of course, if the work in question originates with a single writer, that work can be called ‘organic’, because it arises out of an individual consciousness. So it’s more than likely there will be connections there of which the author may be unaware, and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with pointing them out. However, there’s another wrinkle to the term, which insists on the routine interconnectedness of everything in the text. And finally, there’s the assumption that if everything in the text is linked to everything else, the critic can extrapolate outwards from the available data as long as what he finds has a consistency with its point of origin. That’s an organic approach to criticism - it’s all in there, let’s tease it out. But for this approach to be successful, you have to know when to stop, which brings us to Question 5: - Do You Have a Sense of Proportion? Earlier in this book, we looked at the phenomenon of “under-reading”, when the reader doesn’t fully engage with textual meaning; we’re now about to examine the opposite tendency, which, you’ll not be surprised, I’m going to call “over-reading”, where too much meaning is assumed to exist between the lines. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon, and one which, when you’ve suppressed the urge to bang these peoples’ heads together, can actually be quite amusing. Eighteenth-century critics were always banging on about proportion and appropriateness in their definitions of what makes for great literature, an ambition Doctor Johnson extended to those who write about it: Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed ; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; a close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer. So, the Good Doctor recommends, before you hire in the heavy earth-moving equipment to dig down into meaning, see if a trowel might be the more suitable implement first, otherwise you’ll be left with a big hole which might cause the rest of the work’s meaning to cave in. And TS Eliot states much the same thing in his essay on ‘Hamlet’. Particularly in areas of complex psychology (the fundamental issue “Is Hamlet Mad?”, for example) critics should bear in mind that in posing that question, they are trying to evaluate something “which is by hypothesis unknowable.” Or, in other words, we don’t have enough information to answer it. Or, at least, not enough relevant information provided by the text. In the absence of this prima facie evidence, we can speculate till the cows come home, but that doesn’t usually make for useful criticism, since “we should have to understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself.” So these suppositions can have no empirical status as meaning. You can, of course, argue the toss that it doesn’t actually matter what Shakespeare did or didn’t know, it’s what we know now about mental illness that could help answer that particular puzzle. And the jury’s out on that one. But what should be borne in mind when throwing this subsequent knowledge into the pot, is that you’re effectively telling Shakespeare to go take a hike, we don’t need you any more, we can manage on our own quite nicely thank you. And that’s always going to be dangerous in a study of meaning because you are wilfully abandoning a crucial steadying influence. And it’s only the routine use of checks and balances, of which authorial intention is but one, that keeps criticism grounded and within plausible parameters.If the critic works, knowingly or unknowingly, outside these parameters, it’s a relatively small step to the point where he’ll think he’s cleverer than the writer, because he can probe the depths of meaning far more thoroughly than its creator. Which on one level may be true, but begs the question whether the cart is now in front of the horse. And is that the most suitable place for it. As you’ll no doubt have gathered by now, I’m rather conservative on this issue. But by way of compromise, I think it’s both possible and desirable that critics should have the self-awareness to acknowledge that in a particular article or review they’re going out on a limb, but a limb that will hopefully prove illuminating or at least interesting (or even entertaining) for the rest of us. Too often, the stridency of tone in critical articles makes speculative forays into meaning sound even more ridiculous than they actually are. So a little humility would help, mixed in with a sense of proportion and appropriateness. A text is a text, not a vehicle for demonstrating how well read you are. It’s a beloved family pet with a name, not a specimen in a jar with a label. End of lecture. And I have, of course, saved the killer question for last, which really sorts out good critics from the dilettantes; it’s Number Six: How do you react to ambiguity? This is actually the most important bit of the ‘Critic, Know Thyself’ game we’re playing at the moment. Because, if I were the Great Critic, how a neophyte answered this question would decide whether or not he got the job. The way he approaches the issue of ambiguity speaks volumes about the candidate, and in large measure will determine what sort of critic he turns out to be and the sort of meaning his work will unearth. So let’s take our apprentice back to basics. What sorts of meaning can ambiguity encompass? We’ll take him through William Empson’s model for ambiguity, simply because it’s the best-known, and famously contains 7 types: 1) “. . . when a detail is effective in several ways at once”: so when something suggests something else - likenesses, differences and even irony is included in this, which is by far the most embracing type, since most forms of metaphor can be included here. It’s the ‘node’ of meaning reaching for something outside itself and blurring its outlines. 2) “. . . two or more meanings are fully resolved into one”: of which “he’s both devil and angel” would be a good example, because good and bad are opposing qualities simultaneously co-existing in the same person, neither one of which has the upper hand. 3) “. . . two apparently unconnected meanings are given simultaneously”. So a startling juxtaposition which is then resolved, as in John Donne’s likening of love to a pair of compasses. 4) “. . . alternative meanings combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the author”. Keats’s “negative capability” falls into this category, as does Arnold’s “tension” between form and meaning. 5) “. . . a fortunate confusion, as when the author is discovering his idea in the act of writing . . . or not holding it all in his mind at once”. This is meaning that isn’t necessarily pre-planned, or gives the impression that the writer’s making it up as he goes along. Meaning that’s not imposed but grows out of the text, as if the writer’s sorting out his meaning at the same time we, as readers, are doing the same thing. 6) “. . . what is said is contradictory or irrelevant, and the reader is forced to invent interpretations”. This is where the writer starts playing fast and loose with meaning, and where a lot of critics start growing impatient with him. I suppose you might say ‘Ulysses’ fits the bill here, although, as I’ve already pointed out, I think the material to create meaning’s already there if only you can find it. But the general drift of Empson’s penultimate chapter is that form and meaning are starting to become unstitched, perhaps beyond repair. 7) “. . . full contradiction, marking a division in the author’s mind”. Empson is by now deep into the subconscious, and doesn’t fully acknowledge what we saw in our brief canter into the surrealist ideal that form and meaning can successfully exist in deep-level juxtapositions, and aren’t a symptom of bad writing or psychosis.