Literature as Communication.pdf

© Oxford University Press Book Reviews THE ARBITER-CRITIC Literature as Communication: The Foundations of Mediating Criticism. By ROGER D. SELL. John Benjamins, 2000; £69, paper £27.25. In addition to the primary goal of arguing its theses, each work of critical theory must locate itself among its predecessors and coevals while distinguishing itself from them. It must learn the lessons of its fathers while disregarding their questionable assumptions and fallacious logic. In the current state of affairs, at a time when individuality and novelty are valued, it has become common practice to debase one’s forerunners in order to make a place for oneself. Both post-structural critics and those interested in material and social criticisms have con- structed theories in the form of elaborate guillotines for the necks of New Critics. Meanwhile, the more recent proponents of close reading have argued that, whatever the merits of these theories, works of art too easily get lost in their grand and ideologically tainted analyses. Arch asides and sharp edges are a mainstay of late twentieth century criticism and theory. Now imagine a work of critical theory which is not fuelled by a will to identify opponents in order to deprecate or dismiss them; a work which states its goals and methods as clearly as does the analytic philosopher or the linguist (a device refresh- ingly straightforward and oddly underused); a work written in a tone suitable to academic discussion, without the vitriol of the insecure and petty – revealing a view of the academy as an intellectual community wherein ideas can be discussed reason- ably in order that they may receive the benefit of even-handed criticism. Such a voice would probably