128 ' ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM 



In other words, within the framework of Taine's thought, 

 critical analyses of the work (which is one of the 'records'), the 

 man, and the age were closely interrelated; they cast light on one 

 another; they were all parts of the same enterprise. As a result, a 

 true understanding (and, ultimately, judgment) of Paradise Lost, 

 for example, was unthinkable without an understanding of John 

 Milton and the Puritans. That this must be so follows from the 

 fact that poetry depends on communication by means of language 

 and symbols that are themselves social and cultural products, so 

 that attempting to analyze its 'meanings' without some under- 

 standing of the context which produced them is like trying to 

 read an unknown language; of course, any skilled reader of English 

 poetry must bring to his reading much Race, Environment, Time, 

 and Master Faculty, willy-nilly, and whether he is conscious of it 

 or not! And, in the last analysis, if we wish to resolve the aesthetic 

 issue, we are driven to an examination of its philosophical 

 bases. 



The Problem of Causation 



Thus, the questions raised by Taine's theory of causation are 

 more fundamental than those raised by the 'new criticism', since 

 how we answer them will in turn decide which factors in aesthetic 

 analysis we consider 'extrinsic', and which 'intrinsic'. Three chief 

 approaches to the problem of causation seem possible: the 

 monistic, the dialectical, and the pluralistic; and if we recognize a 

 plurality of causes, we may treat them anarchically, oligarchi- 

 cally, or monarchically, the latter two implying some sort of 

 hierarchical principle. 



Thus, the basic source of many of Taine's limitations, as well as 

 his virtues, as a critic may be his tendency towards philosophical 

 monism, as a result of which he usually expects a one-to-one 

 relationship between the condition and the product, the cause and 

 the effect; fortunately, history is not so simple. He assumes that 

 the artist and his work will be typical of, i.e. similar to, his Race, 

 Environment, and so forth; but, as Jung has noted, 'some writers 

 reveal their type in their creative work, while others reveal their 

 anti-type, their complement', i^ Is WiHiam Blake a typical product 

 of eighteenth-century rationalism? An artist may follow the 

 general lead, or be in rebellion against it, or reach some sort of 

 compromise; the compromise, in turn, may be more or less stable, 

 or in a constant state of tension. 



