Krieger - Creative Criticism- A Broader View of Symbolism (Sewanee Review, 1950)

7/29/2019 Krieger - Creative Criticism- A Broader View of Symbolism (Sewanee Review, 1950)

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Creative Criticism: A Broader View of SymbolismAuthor(s): Murray KriegerReviewed work(s):Source: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1950), pp. 36-51Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27537969 .

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CREATIVE CRITICISM:A BROADER VIEW OF SYMBOLISM

By MURRAY KRIEGER

ALTHOUGH the so-called University of Chicago orneo-Aristotelian school of literary criticism has not published widely in the literary quarterlies (their workhas appeared from time to time in Modern Philology, ascholarly journal edited by Mr. R. S. Crane, the leader of theschool), they have for some time been accorded serious consideration by several of the "new critics." A series of articlesin the University Review in 1942, which explained and demonstrated the theory of the school, eventually led to a defenseof the position by Hoyt Trowbridge and a more critical analysis by John Crowe Ransom inThe Sewanee Review in 1944.Cleanth Brooks and, more recently, Allen T?te have visited atChicago. Robert Stallman's recent critical anthology, whichmay very well become the handbook of the new criticism, includes an article by Elder Olson, a younger colleague of Mr.

Crane, which sets forth the school's position in its most cogentform to date.1

But the real challenge of the neo-Aristotelians to the newcriticism was sharply proclaimed by Mr. Crane's attack on Mr.

Brooks in an article in the May, 1948, issue of Modern Philology. The article was entitled "Cleanth Brooks; or, thebankruptcy of critical monism." Although principally he isattacking Mr. Brooks, Mr. Crane makes it quite clear that he

^he main sources for my discussion of the neo-Aristotelians :Mr. Olson's essay,c'An Outline of Poetic Theory," from Critiques and Essays in Criticism, edited byRobert W. Stallman, New York: Ronald Press, 1948; Mr. Crane's article referredto

above; Mr. Olson's review of R. P. Warren's essay on The Rime of the AncientMariner-, essay by Crane, Olson, and Maclean, in University ^Review (VIII),

1942; classroom notes.


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MURRAY KRIEGER 37is using Mr. Brooks only as a convenient symbol of many newcritics, all of whom, he asserts, would be equally open to hischarges. He says, for example,

He is not alone among the "new critics." The terms maydiffer, but the same tendency toward a monistic reductionof critical concepts (as in Brooks's paradox or irony) is

manifest in Allen Tate's doctrine of "tension," in JohnCrowe Ransom's principle of "texture," in Robert PennWarren's obsession with symbols, above all in I. A. Richards' Pavlovian mythology concerning the "behavior" ofwords. ... I shall treat him therefore rather as a signthan as an individual.

Mr. Crane later states that Mr. Brooks deals

with one only of the several antecedent causes of poems,and the cause which they have most in common with allother literary productions, namely, their linguistic matter:here he begins, and here also he ends. The choice is regrettable, since it allows him to deal only with one of thenecessary, and never with any of the sufficient or distinguishing, conditions of poetic works; but itwould be unfairto blame him unduly for making it, inasmuch as it hasbeen a characteristic methodological choice, as I have saidbefore, in the school of 'new critics' to which he belongs.

Thus, Mr. Crane's argument, extended as it is beyond Brooks,bares a significant polemic in modern criticism, since Mr. Cranehas brought so wide a variety of critics under his fire. To perceive clearly the direction and adequacy of modern criticismit is important that this conflict be examined. For it was the

new criticism which furnished the antidote to undisciplined critical impressionism and which has guided rigorous critical activity since the Twenties, when impressionism was relegated tothe newspaper book review sections and Saturday Reviews, from

which, quite amiably, it still exudes weekly. Some time will


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38 CREATIVE CRITICISM

have to be spent in tracing the theories of the neo-Aristoteliansbefore they can be set in relief against the more familiar ideasof Mr. Brooks. Not only may the comparison reveal the shortcomings of each, but these very shortcomings may point a wayout of the dilemma which these positions impose.

It should first be noted that Mr. Crane and Mr. Brooks havein common one important concept which makes them allies in a

much wider polemic. Early in his essay Mr. Crane says,... on a number of points I am in sympathy with the

purposes which differentiate Mr. Brooks and the writerscommonly associated with him from most of the other critical schools of the day. I applaud them for having rejected the temptation to assimilate poetry, by large analogies, to metaphysics or rhetoric or history or the spirit ofthe age, and for having insisted on considering it, in Eliot'sphrase, as poetry and not another thing. I welcome theirefforts to shift the emphasis in practical criticism from generalities about authors to particularized studies of texts;and I have only praise for their desire to rescue poeticsfrom the dictatorship of factual science and relativism andto reorient it toward normative judgments.

So this is not to be one of those so common scholarship-versuscriticism disputes. They are on far more common ground, thatof the close study of an isolated text.

The Chicago system stems, presumably, from Aristotle'sPoetics, which, with a great many extensions, is made the basisfor a complete aesthetics. It is only in this way that this shortpiece of practical criticism could be made to serve modern critical theory. As its first principle the system assumes imaginativeliterature to be an imitation of nature having pleasure as itsend. The key to this approach is found in its scholastic divisionof literary works into species, each of which is defined by thepeculiar effect it is to arouse. Thus, if we may discover inductively in a work the intention of arousing pity and fear, we


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MURRAY KRIEGER 39know we are dealing with tragedy; if amusement without pain,comedy (or the "lout-comic"); if revenge, serious or comicpunitive (or the "rogue-comic") depending on other factors.And so it goes on into other species. All poetry aside fromepic and dramatic is classified as lyric and divided according tothe intended effect into lyrics of action, passion, and character.Since only certain combinations of elements allow the readerthis peculiar effect, these types may be grouped into the seriousand the comic, depending on the stature of the characters andthe kinds of actions in which they are involved. But these

divisions are more than merely descriptive ones. It is the determination of the species, according to the effect to be aroused,that enables criticism to begin. The basic criteria for all beautyare order and magnitude. And since Aristotle says of dramathat "the proper magnitude is comprised within such limits, thatthe sequence of events, according to the law of probability ornecessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to good, orfrom good fortune to bad," probability becomes a principalcriterion. Now this probability is not to be taken in any simplesense; that is, it is not simply to be referred to life. Thisrather is mere possibility. But, on a more sophisticated level,artistic probability is to be considered in the universe created bythe author, in his own terms. In an effective plot, concurrentwith probability and yet always consistent with it should be theelement of surprise, which may come in the form of such devices as reversal of intention or discovery. The former andmore effective of these involves a result which is the opposite ofwhat the actor intended and which is brought about only by histrying for its opposite. Here is a concept which is close to Mr.

Brooks's irony, except that it is founded on structure rather thanlanguage. Since probability is the criterion by which all parts

of the work are to be judged, then the examination of the setsof probabilities, long and short-range, in terms of the final effect,is key to the determination of the species of any work and the


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judgment of its value as an example of that species. This approach is completely textual, since the audience is considered asuniversal and the intention involves no personal reference tothe author.

The system consistently adheres to Aristotle's four causes.Although in the Poetics Aristotle does not explicitly use this exhaustive analysis of the aspects of reality, his modern interpreters have introduced it into his definition of tragedy. The mostimportant aspect of intended effect is the final cause, while theobject of imitation is the material cause, the manner of imitation (our modern "point-of-view") the efficient cause, and the

means or medium of imitation the formal cause. The objectof imitation is of the greatest importance in determining thefinal effect; and we are always to assume that, except in lyricpoetry, it is an action involving certain types of characters whichis being imitated and which arouses the intended effect. Inlyric poetry it may be character or thought as well as action,but these are treated in an analogous fashion. It is this consideration which has forced the system to be so completely absorbed in the structure of the incidents or the progression ofany work. The problem of manner or point-of-view enters theappraisal of a work with the question of what the author haschosen to include and what to omit, what to have shown and

what merely reported to the audience. Problems of the "means,"language in all literature, of course, are somewhat slighted assecondary matters which are merely to conform to the structuraldiscoveries. But, except for the required fitness, diction is notmade an important factor in our appreciation and judgment.

There may seem to be something circular in a system whichfirst demands from each work a peculiar emotional effect,searches it out from the work's structure, and then judges the

work by its conformity to this effect, which the systematic criticmay very well have read into it. But looking beyond the problem of logical validity to that of aesthetic adequacy, we see


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MURRAY KRIEGER 41

that the system is a purely structural or formalistic one in itsrestricted emphasis on the relation of the parts to the whole,in its insistence that the arousal of a peculiar kind of pleasureis the sufficient as well as the necessary cause of a literary pro

duct.A theory proceeding from such principles must feel the chal

lenge in new critics like Mr. Brooks. Mr. Crane, in his argument, narrows the universe of discourse of the new critics to

that of language only. The inadequacy of this reductive "monism," as far as Mr. Crane is concerned, becomes obvious whenwe consider that language is only one, and the least importantat that, of the four causes inhering in literary production. Heproves too conclusively for comfort that this exclusive concernwith language can indicate, first, only the similarities but notthe differentiae among various kinds of poems, and secondly (inan extreme reductio ad absurdum) only the similarities but notthe differentiae between poetry and other forms of discourse.

Thus Mr. Brooks's concern with irony and paradox on a purelylinguistic level forces his "readings" to deal only with examplesof these in various works, forces his critical judgments to reston the greater or lesser use of this discovered ironic complexity.Similar objections could be raised by Mr. Crane to others of thenew critics.

Even assuming the truth of the fine distinctions in Mr.Crane's ruthless analysis, we can see certain insights in Mr.Brooks's technique which scholastic exactitude cannot offer. Itis interesting to note that Mr. Crane accuses Mr. Brooks of

missing the peculiarly poetic in poetry because he does not concern himself with the differentiae between poetry and othergenres. Mr. Crane would find the differentiae in terms ofdifferent kinds of actions, characters, probabilities, in terms ofthe effect to be aroused. But really

it isMr. Crane also who isvulnerable to the charge of missing the peculiarly poetic, sincehe is so indifferent to a major poetic property?language, with


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42 CREATIVE CRITICISMits ambiguous and connotative values. Thus, in his intense

dealings on the verbal level with literary works (and I haveextended Mr. Brooks's methodology, as has Mr. Brooks himself, beyond poetry) Mr. Brooks and other new critics certainlyseem at least to have supplemented an important weakness in

Mr. Crane's architectural approach.With the second major contribution of certain new critics we

come, I believe, to an even more important formulation of thebasic dispute. Mr. Brooks can use his discoveries on the verballevel to define not merely a simple "moral," but rather a highlycomplex and paradoxical theme, one that is essentially untranslatable outside the context of the work. The verbal nuancesand ambiguities allow him to come to these conclusions. Hereagain the Aristotelians are opposed. In the same issue of

Modern Philology there appears a review of Robert PennWarren's essay on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. We may

admit that Mr. Warren's interpretation is a bit far-fetched andarbitrary in its search for symbols. Elder Olson answers Mr.

Warren's claim that it is absurd to assert that a poem has notheme:

We may indeed worry about whether, on the contrary, itis not an absurdity to conceive of a poem as having a themeor meaning. The words have a meaning; they mean thepoem; but why should the poem itself have any furthermeaning? . . . Such interpretation springs from the use ofa very arid grammatical apparatus and wholly blinks thequestion of how powerfully we are affected by the spectacle of human fortunes. . . .

Mr. Olson goes on to imply that only those who are too insensitive to enjoy the "poem as a poem" would insist on the presenceof a philosophical theme. But we may wonder, as does Eliseo

Vivas, howa work can be "imitative" and yet mean only itself.Of course it must be admitted that Mr. Olson's complaint is

often quite valid. He states elsewhere in this passage,


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MURRAY KRIEGER 43

Moreover, these "meanings of poems" are at best something very trivial, prosaic, and obvious: Oedipus meansthat man walks in darkness, Hamlet that man is utterlyalone, The Ancient Mariner that life is one and that theimagination revenges itself.

When themes are so simply stated they become rarified abstractions, philosophical generalities taken out of context, and are oflittle value as artistic analysis. But neither do they satisfy Mr.Brooks's xQeed for complex ambiguity in explaining poetic ex

perience. Certainly the poem means itself in that it is not tobe used in any simple Platonic conception as reflecting some general idea. But we shall see later how symbolism and theme maybe considered in an infinitely more complex fashion, one whichwill still permit the poem to mean itself.

The methodology of Mr. Crane and his followers, we find,is an extremely fruitful one. Their incisive consideration of

action, progression, and structure brilliantly clarifies much ofwhat the author is saying, establishes the objective hierarchy ofthe values to be given his characters; in short, it shows what

mechanism and technique make the literary product work artistically. But is this purely formalistic approach completelyadequate in its accounting for the greatness of our real literary

masterpieces? Is it not analogous to the writings of the formalistic critics in the plastic arts, where we see everything exceptthe peculiar greatness of the work explained for us? Althoughall great works should satisfy this critical method, are all works

which satisfy it necessarily great works? Pride and Prejudicemay be as efficient as you please in arousing its intended effect,but is there not some other criterion which can show us its inferiority to certain other works, even those of the same species?(For I do not mean here to raise any argument for the tragic

vision.) In other words, is there not another aspect aside fromthe formal, the pleasure-arousing aspect, which must be equallyconsidered as a resident quality within the work? The final


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value of the work would seem to show itself fully in illuminating the connection of art to life, in establishing certain philosophic complexes of ideas, as we break into the artificial realmof pure art, while maintaining its integrity as much as we can.

And it is in this connection that, aside from their linguistic insights, we have seen the worth of many new critics to reside.

The principal differentiating feature of art (and here as elsewhere I am indebted to the terminology of Eliseo Vivas) isthat it deals solely and continually with the primary level ofexperience. This is to say that the artist cannot allow himselfany abstraction or generalization of experience (the rightfulfunction of the philosopher or scientist), but rather must concern himself with his organization of experience in all its complexity, an organization which must lose none of the ambiguitiesand paradoxes inherent in man's condition. If this integrity ofexperience is the point which sets imaginative literature off fromother forms of discourse, may it not be said that the peculiarfunction of literature is located in the intuitive grasp of theparticulars of existence; that its peculiar value is found in the

meaningful organization of the relationships with which it deals?It would seem that Melville's artistic intention inMoby Dicklies in this realm. It may be true that he wants to stir us in a

given manner by a certain arrangement of incident, character,and diction; but above this is a desire to expose certain problems

which he can see not in abstract terms but only in the individuality of that very arrangement. In the writings of some newcritics, with their concern for ambiguity, paradox, tension, weran sense this refusal to reduce literature to a simplistic, oneto-one thematic formula. It may perhaps be that some of themhave strayed into more "conclusive," and thereby less valuable,allegorical discoveries because of their emphasis on diction,

which implies an acceptance of symbolism as a purely linguisticterm, and because of their lack of a clearly defined aestheticsfrom which their criticism arises. Certainly, in their contribu


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MURRAY KRIEGER 45

tions to critical theory the Aristotelians seem to have made itclear that action and character must share the spotlight withdiction in any formal analysis; and if we extend their principles,it should be equally clear that action and character (and these

defined by more than diction) count as much in any search formeaning.

The question of aesthetic theory has been raised. As far astheir critical

theory permitsthem to go, the Aristotelians show

themselves clearly to be naturalists. A peculiarly ordered combination of imitated characters in action acts therapeutically, inthe framework of an oversimplified psychology, to produce acertain emotional response. The artist is combiner and arrangeronly in his medicinal task. Since at least early nineteenth-century German philosophy, from which Coleridge borrowed histheory of the imagination, there has been alive in some aesthetictheory the concept that the artist in the creative process addssomething entirely new to what nature has made available tohim. This something, less transcendental modern qualifiershave added, is discovered by the artist in his struggle with hismedium. What is the nature of this addition?

It should be noted that the aesthetic tradition from Schellingto Croce is based on the philosophical concept of intuitionalimmanence. This theory of knowledge is symbolic at its roots,since it demands that the superficial only can be studied and

must be studied profoundly in order that the essence of which itis a symbol may reveal itself. Involved here is the neo-Platonicunity of the divine idea which lies as an essence enfolded byall particular phenomena, through which itmanifests itself. Thusthe particular and universal are one, and the former is not tobe neglected for the latter, since only through the sensuous canthe ideal be intuited. Paradoxically, only by avoiding the essential can the essential be attained. This philosophic traditionis completely opposed to the Platonic dualism which allows agreater independence between thing and idea. The aesthetic


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concomitants of such an epistemology should be obvious. Theydefine the nature of the artist's addition or discovery in thecreative process. By an organization of the particular whichpreserves all its discrete shadings and intricacies, he somehowcreates an essential significance which lies immanently withinthe object. Yet the discovery and creation are the artist's. Literary criticism on this level should satisfy Elder Olson sincethe work means itself. Yet in the very act of meaning itselfit means something else as well, although this something elseis still, itself. For it is only in this particular context, withthese particular sets of significant relationships, that the indwelling meaning may be imparted.

A criticism based on such assumptions and proceeding fromat least a symbolic acceptance of this epistemology would implya far broader and more profound conception of symbolism thanis now current. The primary interest of such a criticism certainly would not center in the search for simple, exact, andoften arbitrary representations, sometimes in the text and sometimes over-ingeniously read into it. Rather it would dwell onthe complex of meanings seen in the arrangement of the action,the development of character, as well as in the individuallysymbolic objects. Thus, while the literature which is symbolicin the narrow sense may be limited by and dependent on the

age and the intention of the author, itmay very well be that allgreat literature is symbolic in the broader sense; that is, allgreat literature discovers something essential in its organizationof the complex of experience. Conrad sees this universal property of art in his discussions of aesthetic problems, particularlyin his famous preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus. He isreally part of the tradition described above. Significantly enough,

many aestheticians in this tradition have differentiated betweensymbol and allegory. I believe Croce's famous statement onthe subject should show the pertinence of the distinction to thisdiscussion.


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MURRAY KRIEGER 47

Now, if the symbol be conceived as inseparable from theartistic intuition, it is a synonym for the intuition itself,which always has an ideal character. There is no doublebottom to art, but one only; in art all is symbolical, because all is ideal. But if the symbol be conceived as separable?if the symbol can be on one side, and on the otherthe thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist error: the so-called symbol is the exposition ofan abstract concept, an allegory, it is science, or art apingscience.8

Is this not really a comparison between the insight into experience on the primary level and the mere dramatization of a preconceived idea? The first constitutes true artistic discovery, whilethe second can be reduced at last to a rhetorical argument byexample, with a one-to-one relationship between abstract andparticular. Each may be superbly executed in its own way, eachhave its intended effect, indeed each may be a great work; butonly the former is great as imaginative literature.

It is true that many of the writers in this tradition have dealttoo completely with the highly evasive level of intuition andtoo slightly with the exacting and important aspect of technique.

And one of the great contributions of the new critics is justthis concern with complexities in the literary medium. Couplingthis concern with an extension of the findings on the structurallevel of such formalists as the Aristotelians, we may very welldiscover systematically what a work really means in meaningitself. In this manner a pair of terms like symbolism and alle

gory could become criteria for judgment, provided we remember the all-inclusive nature of the former, the ambiguities it

must embrace. Actually, one can see some possibilities of sucha treatment in F. O. Matthiessen's analysis of Melville and

Hawthorne in the chapter of The American Renaissance fittinglyentitled "Allegory and Symbolism." But here there is some

*Aesthetic, by Benedetto Croce; translated by Douglas Ainslie; London: Macmillan,1922, p. 34.


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lack of a well-defined, systematic use of these terms and littleindication of their usefulness in less obviously symbolic literature.

Both Mr. Brooks and Mr. Crane claim pure induction fortheir systems. Yet we can see the a priori assumptions underlying each of them, whether it be the paradox and irony of Mr.

Brooks or the peculiarly pleasurable effect of Mr. Crane. It isobvious and inevitable that they should narrow their field ofdiscussion to the one trait they believe to be universal to literaryartistry. Once having established their universe of discourse,however, they do the reading and inductively reach conclusionsrelevant to that universe of discourse, avoiding over-ingenuityfor the sake of theory wherever possible. In the completenessof their accounting for the work without recourse to over-ingenuity lies the proof of their adequacy.

If my analysis of these critical positions is valid, the distinction drawn by Mr. Trowbridge, in the article referred to above,is a non-existent one. His line of division would cut throughall criticism, separating the Platonic or dialectical from the Aristotelian or inductive. These methodologies supposedly are sodivergent as to render futile any attempt at reconciliation. Hiserror stems from his incomplete exposition of the neo-Aristotelian position. He asserts that all criticism is Platonic which setsforth an a priori ideal toward which all poetry must strive (e.g.imagination, paradox, tension) and then judges the work according to its approximation to the ideal. Thus this criticismdeals not with the poem as poem but rather with the poem inrelation to an extra-poetic conception. On the other hand,

Aristotelian criticism is to be purely inductive, assigning all nonpoetic properties to other fields of discourse. It is to deal withthe differentiae rather than the similarities among poems andall forms of literary art. To Mr. Trowbridge this criticism isdistinguished only by its formal investigation of the orderly relation of the parts to the whole. He thoroughly neglects the


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MURRAY KRIEGER 49

all-important aspect of final effect, toward which the formalproperties are directed and in which the problem of species isresolved. Thus, while the system is as highly formalistic as

we have observed it to be, it still rests on the primary assumption that the end of art is pleasure. And since the arousal ofthis peculiar pleasure is the key to judgment, then this systemalso depends on the adherence of literature to an extra-poeticideal; it also must be placed in Mr. Trowbridge's category ofthe dialectical. Mr. Ransom sees a similar confusion in hiscompanion article to Mr. Trowbridge's. He observes the unqualified use of logical paraphrase in Mr. Olson's analysis of"Sailing to Byzantium" coupled with a rejection of all extrapoetic "commonplaces." He asks,

How isMr. Olson going to determine the logical organization of "Sailing to Byzantium" without applying thecommonplaces of logic? And if he applies the logical commonplaces?as he does?what is the objection to the moralones?

Like other critical procedures, the one I have indicated movesinductively once the restricting bounds have been established.It is not by going to the author or his letters that we can determine whether he began with the idea or with the particular.

Obviously creation is too complex a process for him to be fullyaware of his intention or for us to discover it psychologically.The answer lies in the text, and by proceeding structurally as

well as linguistically we can search it out. Unfortunately, muchas I should like to demonstrate such an approach, any detailedapplication is not possible here. But the unique integrity of experience seen in the moral conflict of a Conrad novel or in thedissected image of a Donne lyric reflects much of what I mean.

The particular remains always itself, never allowing a justifiable leap

to the abstract realm, although it contains a range oftranscendent meanings immanently within itself. This is sym

4


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bolism. Important as a basis for judgment is the author's success in being true to experience; that is, his ability so to satisfyus on the level of his reality that we cannot charge him withdistorting or rarifying it to conform to a prearranged schemeof meaning. Only the particular, caught in the round, can illuminate the essence within it. The failure to achieve symbolism, that is, our relegation of the work or part of the workto allegory, occurs when thinness or duality appears in any ofits technical aspects. Clearly, the meaning of the symbolic work,its set of values, is not to be judged, since faithfulness to thecomplexities of experience assures validity of insight.

The adequacy of this approach would seem to be revealed inits absorption of the other two I have discussed. It systematizes and gives proper perspective to the insights of a Brooksas contextual ambiguities are made the very roots of symbolism.

On the other hand, since the work is considered as an organization of experience on the primary level, the structural probingsof the Aristotelians count heavily. Even the formal determination of species may be helpful. We need everything we canascertain about the technical intention, since so much of the

meaning is derived from the orderly and efficient arrangement.Yet the theory I have advanced goes beyond these as well in

its search for unified meaning.Criticism on this level can become truly creative. For the

critic's function in the analysis and judgment of a work broadlysymbolic involves his exposition of its highly complex insights;it is a procedure anterior to philosophy. For while it is truethat such a literary work is essentially beyond translatability,still much illuminating material can be set forth as long as theambiguities and complexities of context remain to qualify everyphilosophical comment. This procedure on the individual level

may remind one of the peculiar combination of art and philosophy which is found in the subjective discernments of Kierkegaard and certain Existentialists.


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MURRAY KRIEGER 51

The aesthetics which underlies the approach I have outlinedis in large measure borrowed from the tradition discussed above.

However, by taking into account the artist's medium, I havetried to ground this tradition in a formal analysis sufficientlyrigorous, so that the insights of what was so easily dismissed as"metaphysical criticism" would now be reckoned with as workable instruments for practical criticism. It may be argued thatsome fine craftsmen or some important novelists of ideas willbe omitted or relegated to inferior positions in such a frame

work. In any case, I suggest that much has been gained ifart, while being considered as more than a philosophical demonstration, has been rescued and raised from the sole functionof ornamenting pleasurably, in a moment's leisure, the life ofits beholder.

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Krieger - Creative Criticism- A Broader View of Symbolism (Sewanee Review, 1950)