126 ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM 



concern with historical causes. ^ But Taine was fully aware of 

 questions of style: any one of his studies will probably illustrate 

 this concern, in some degree or other, lo and the theoretical point 

 is made in the section on 'The Converging Degree of Effects' in 

 The Ideal in Art. Either extreme is a false abstraction from the 

 complex total situation; and the 'new critics', who often treat the 

 work of art as if it existed 'out of space, out of time', are in 

 their own way 'reducing' the aesthetic experience to less than its 

 proper fullness. 



Wellek and Warren would agree with Taine on the importance 

 of analysis for criticism, but they would direct attention to other 

 elements more 'purely' literary, such as 'Euphony, Rhythm, and 

 Meter' (Chapter XIII), 'Style and Stylistics' (Chapter XIV), and 

 'Image, Metaphor, Symbol, Myth' (Chapter XV). The issue 

 becomes one ultimately of the nature and 'ontological status' of 

 the work of art: What, precisely, is it that the critic analyzes? i^ 

 'An answer to our question in terms of individual or social 

 psychology cannot be found. A poem, we have to conclude, is not 

 an individual experience or sum of experience, but only a poten- 

 tial cause of experiences.' Defined as 'a structure of norms, 

 realized only partially in the actual experience of its many 

 readers', 12 'it is neither real (like a statue) nor mental (like the 

 experience of light or pain) nor ideal (like a triangle).' Their 

 position, termed 'perspectivism', is an attempt at a synthesis to 

 supersede 'The unsound thesis of absolutism and the equally 

 unsound antithesis of relativism . . .' and involves 'a process of 

 getting to know the object from different points of view . . .'.i^ 



But surely this is not so very different from Taine's contention 

 that he was analyzing/^z^/i- and their relations. The point is that the 

 relations of a work of art are inevitably external as well as internal; 

 Taine's 'perspective' is therefore valid and important; and the 

 issue really is one, first, of how external factors are related to the 

 internal ones, and of the relative importance of the two; and 

 second, of the validity and status of our categories. Wellek and 

 Warren do not commit themselves on the issue of 'nominalism 

 versus reahsm', preferring merely 'to avoid two opposites, extreme 

 Platonism and extreme nominalism'. 1 4 But part of the strength of 

 Taine's critical system lies in the fact that he does not evade the 

 philosophic issue, frequently reasserting his Spinozism, as in the 

 concluding chapters of On Intelligence. An interesting criticism by 

 Wilham James is pertinent here: 'How can M. Taine fail to have 



