MODERN MANUAL OF CRITICISM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 15

MODERN MANUAL OF CRITICISM

CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE, by David Daiches; Longmans, Green and Co., English price 25/-. R DAICHES, himself an experienced critic, has compiled a streamlined "specimen book" of literary criticism, classical and modern, which will be of considerable practical’ use to advanced students and teachers. It has the air of something designed for a sophomore course at a good private college in the U.S.A.-which means that it is probably very well suited to New Zealand demands. By old-fashioned standards the sections on Plato, Aristotle and Longinus are perfunctory; and those on the newer schools of Cambridge, Kenyon and~ Chicago rather too detailed and respectful. There are notable gaps: the "whole field of literary criticism’ is certainly not covered, as the publishers unwisely claim. But within its limits, this book is smoothly planned. The extracts are well chosen, the exposition is clear and able, next week’s exercise is regularly given out. Dr Daiches is an adroit showman, very much at home among the more fashionable developments of modern’ scholarship. He gives us a neat pattern, with all the names dropping into their proper places; just when a charge of glibness seems unavoidable, he’ produces a penetrating epilogue on the limitations of all literary criticism, and steps back into the wings on the unexceptionable line, "Art is greater than its inter-

preters."

J.

B.