OUR HERITAGE FROM TAINE 201 



he was 'a resolute foe of political democracy', 22 this is essentially 

 a corollary of the democratic principle in the arts: 'So criticism, 

 which is the valuation and history of poetry as an achievement, is 

 impatient to reach its Homer, its Sophocles, its Shakespeare, as 

 soon as it can; but the student of poetry as a social art, an institu- 

 tion, an element in human life, must turn to democratic and com- 

 munal origins. . . .'23 



In this respect, especially, Taine embodies the social values of 

 the Romantic tradition. However, and here he seems particularly 

 relevant to the needs of our day, his is a Romanticism with a 

 minimum of sentimentality, grown critical of its own assump- 

 tions. ^4 Francis B. Gummere's comparisons with Whitman are 

 suggestive on this score: 'Whitman's poetic democracy, like 

 Rousseau's, is not only redolent of the ego^ of a kind of lawlessness; 

 it is destructive and not constructive.' 25 In contrast, Taine is 'the 

 most resolute and extreme representative of that democracy in 

 science and in the theory of art, of that literary convention, which 

 Whitman rejected and defied. What Taine hated. Whitman 

 loved; and what Whitman despised, Taine defended to the utmost 

 of his formidable resources.' 26 Perhaps, then, Taine helps restore 

 a much-needed balance: his combination of a pluralistic demo- 

 cracy of contributory causes with hierarchies of ideal values (as in 

 The Ideal in Art) may be just the synthesis towards which our 

 generation is groping. 27 



Finally, Taine provides a frame of reference — indeed, the only 

 possible frame of reference — for those who would labour in the 

 vineyards of Comparative Literature, and towards a concept of 

 World Literature, to which the comparative method must ulti- 

 mately lead. Comparative studies cannot do without his cate- 

 gories of analysis — Race, Environment, Time, and Master 

 Faculty — though they may perhaps add new ones and refine the 

 applications of the old far beyond what Taine himself achieved. 

 How else can the student proceed than from an analysis of the 

 works produced by various nations, against the background of 

 their historical experiences, seeking to discover and abstract their 

 'dominant traits' — and so forth? 



Nor is there anything provincial or divisive about Taine's 

 method: the universal always lurks behind his particulars. Con- 

 sider, for example, the following criticisms by Professor Guerard: 

 'What Taine cannot explain is why Racine is not Pradon. Nor can 

 he account for the fact that, in scorn of race, environment and 



