Defining Literary Criticism is both a substantial and imaginative work of literary scholarship in its own right, and a significant contribution to – and symbol of – the relationship between English in schools and in universities. Occupying ground associated with the tradition of historical-critical writings about the origins, development and ideological status of English Studies (Palmer, Eagleton, Guy and Small etc.), Atherton’s study nevertheless strikes out in new directions by focusing, through archival study of university English courses, both on the historical realisation of the discipline, and on the way in which the tensions marking that history are manifest in school English today. For readers in university English departments, this book should have a double appeal, providing both a rich account of the development of the discipline in universities, and a rare commentary on the A-Level subject which produces today’s undergraduates.
Atherton is well placed to perform this feat. The book is the product of her doctoral study in English, carried out whilst continuing to teach English full-time to 11 to 18 year olds at Bourne Grammar School (a state school in Lincolnshire.) Whilst (as an ex-state secondary Head of English myself) I find it hard to imagine the stamina required for this, her dual perspective as school-teacher and literary critic is certainly both exceptional and valuable. There have, of course, been school-teachers who have practised literary criticism at this level; however most of those have been associated with the rather more rarified environment of the public school, and have been concerned with a more conventional form of textual appreciation. Atherton, on the other hand, has sought to draw together her expertise in both literary criticism and the history of the discipline with her interest in, and experience of, the way in which the subject is actualised in both secondary and tertiary educational institutions.
The core of the book is an absorbing exploration of the tensions between ‘critics and professors’ and ‘methods and institutions’ from 1880 to the mid-twentieth century, showing how the work of cultural and literary critics in the tradition of Matthew Arnold was often at odds with the practicalities of the institutions in which the fledgling discipline, English, was taught. Atherton begins with an account of the work of Arnold, Pater and early professors of English such as Courthope, Saintsbury and Gosse. Most interesting, perhaps, is her subsequent examination in two chapters of the impact of Modernist critics – Woolf, Murray and Orage – and of the three critics popularly most associated with the formation of the taught subject – Eliot, Leavis and Richards. Throughout, she problematises the relationship between the broad cultural purposes of the critical work of these figures, and the specialist, professionalised academic practices of the university subject.
Framing this historical account, Atherton places it in the context of two contemporary debates. First, she locates her work within the ongoing debate about the validity of accounts of the development of the discipline. If this debate can be characterised as the Marxists (Baldick, Doyle, Eagleton et al.) versus Guy and Small (Politics and Value in English Studies, Cambridge, 1993), then Atherton’s study is clearly ideologically aligned with Guy and Small’s, and indeed Atherton makes this explicit. Guy and Small suggest that their establishment of a firm disciplinary pedigree for literary studies rooted in the intellectual history of the nineteenth century invalidates the politicised nature of the Marxists’ accounts. Atherton argues that the Marxists conveniently ignore the real institutional history of the discipline in order to stage a political attack on ‘the public arguments put forward to justify the inclusion of English in the curricula of various institutions.’
I find the oppositional nature of this discourse somewhat overdone. Atherton’s early demolition of some of the claims made in broad-brush strokes by Doyle, Eagleton and others is fascinating and convincing, based as it is in her archival studies. It makes an excellent case for a more sceptical reading of those authors, and a clearer recognition of the partial nature of their account. However, neither it, nor Guy and Small’s argument, suggests to me that the broad political perspectives of those authors, or the alternative targets of their critique, are invalid, especially given the continuing influence of thinking about English in the Arnoldian tradition (in schools particularly, as Atherton’s last chapter suggests). The core of Atherton’s book tells another part of the complex story of the way in which the worlds of literature, criticism, teaching and the university collided during the twentieth century. This narrative can surely not only co-exist with but also inform and lend nuance to other more political accounts.
Second – and this is where the interest of the book lies in relation to the school subject – Atherton shows, in her introduction and conclusion, how the tensions she describes in her history of the discipline are paralleled in current debates about the nature of the subject at A-Level, the two sides of which are broadly exemplified by the differences which exist between literary study as practised at university and as practised in the sixth form. She also explores the parallel way in which critics such as Harold Bloom and John Carey continue to blur distinctions between the popular reader and the serious critic in their work. Her argument for a more disciplined approach at A-Level, rooted in contemporary practice at university level, is a strong one – whatever one’s view of how the discipline came to be as it is.
