Читать книгу Why Authors Go Wrong, and Other Explanations онлайн

26 страница из 38

Before the trial begins the critic-judge enunciates certain principles on which the verdict will be based and the verdict is based on those principles whether they find any application in the testimony or not. A favorite principle with the man on the bench is that all that is not obscure is not Art. It isn’t phrased as intelligibly as that, to be sure; a common way to put it is to lay down the rule that the popularity of a book (which means the extent to which it is understood and therefore appreciated) has nothing to do with the case, tra-la, has nothing to do with the case. Another principle is that sound can be greater than sense, which, in the lingo of the Highest Criticism, is the dictum that words and sentences can have a beauty apart from the meaning (if any) that they seek to convey. And there really is something in this idea; for example, what could be lovelier than the old line, “Eeny, meeny, miny-mo”? Shakespeare, a commercial fellow who wrote plays for a living, knew this when he let one of his characters sing: