The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [751]
We must dissent from nearly all that is here said. The species of review which is designated as the "characteristic growth of the nineteenth century," is only the growth of the last twenty or thirty years in GREAT BRITAIN. The French reviews, for example, which are not anonymous; preserve the unique spirit of true criticism. And what need we say of the Germans ? — what of WINKLEMANN ? — of SCHELLING? — of GÖTHE — of AUGUSTUS WILLIAM ? — and of FREDERICK, [[extraneous comma]] SCHLEGEL? — that their magnificent critiques raisonnées, differ from those of JOHNSON, of ADDISON, and of BLAIR, in principle not at all, — for the principles of these artists will not fail until Nature herself expires — but solely in their more careful elaboration, their greater thoroughness, their more profound analysis and application of the principles themselves. To say that a criticism now should be different in spirit, from a criticism at any previous period, is to insinuate a charge of variability in laws that cannot vary — the laws of man's heart and intellect — for here are the sole basis upon which the true critical art is established. And this art now, no more than in the days of the "Dunciad," can, without neglect of its duty, "dismiss errors of grammar," or "hand over imperfect rhymes to the proof-reader." And all that which "Arcturus," maintains a criticism to be, is all that which we sturdily maintain it is not. Criticism is not, we think, an essay, nor a sermon, nor an oration, nor a chapter in history, nor a philosophical speculation, nor a prose-poem, nor an art-novel, nor a dialogue. In fact, It can be nothing in the world but a — criticism. But if it were all that "Arcturus" imagines, it is not so very clear why it might not equally be "imaginative," or dramatic — a romance or a melo-drama —or both. That it would be a farce cannot be doubted.
It is against this frantic spirit of generalization that we protest. We have a word, "criticism," whose import is sufficiently distinct, through long usage, at least; and we have an art of high importance and clearly ascertained limit, which this word is quite well-enough understood to represent. Of that conglomerate science to which Arcturus' correspondent so eloquently alludes, and of which we are instructed that it is anything and everything at once — of this peculiar science we are not particularly well qualified to speak; but we must object to the appropriation, in its behalf, of a term to which we, in common with a large majority of mankind, have been accustomed to attach a certain and very definitive idea. Is there no word but "criticism" which may be made to save [[serve]] the purposes intended. Is there any objection to Orphicism, or Dialism, or Alcottism — or any other frequent compound indicative of confusion worse confounded ?
But critical heresies such as these are but a softened expression, or reflection, of the ruling "cant of the day." By the ruling cant of the day we mean the disgusting practice of putting on the airs of an owl, and endeavoring to look miraculously wise; — the affectation of second-sight — of a species of extatic prescience — of an intensely bathetic penetration into all sorts of mysteries, psychological ones in especial; — an orphic, an ostrich affectation, which buries its head in balderdash, and, seeing nothing itself, fancies, therefore, that its preposterous carcass is not a visible object of derision for the world at large; an affectation particularly in vogue, just now, among a knot of miserable bedlamites in BOSTON — a clique of pitiable dunderheads who go about babbling in parables, and swearing