Between the Linesn(continued from p. 9)nGreek class is corrected by a teacher, he can easily ascertainnthe rightness or wrongness of the correction. Points ofnhistory, grammar, and metrics are open to investigation.nFacts have a fine and democratic quality. But interpretahonnis a hieratic mystery, closed to all but the initiates who havenlearned to recite and manipulate the sacred language.nInterpredve criticism has come a long way since Prof.nRichards first developed his system. New schools have risennand fallen with the grim regularity of pre-Socraticnphilosophy—error replacing error. Richards’ own theoriesnhave now all the vitality of Ozymandias’ statue—look on,nye mortals and despair! The New Critics had set sail for thatnGolden Age promised by Arnold but found themselves lostnin their own subjectivity: “Your mind and you are ournSargasso Sea,” wrote Ezra Pound. Richards himself thoughtnhis methods would be picked up by unscrupulous poetsn”desiring to increase their sales,” but in looking back, wen”Essential Reading on War and Peace”nOUT OF JusTRE. PEACEnjMii PiKorii Lewn1 ihi- %ni o>^RLBi BuaofinWINNING mh PEACEnJoBt Kjsiorji Lenan:ii’iMRni.liBuJi<^n;A.M£SV M:HAII SInPermanent soft-cover $3.95n(10 or more copies $2.95)n1100 or more $1.95)n—from the French & German BishopsnThis important volume, Out of Justice, Peace andnWinning the Peace, contains the complete text ofnboth the Joint Pastoral Letters of the West GermannBishops and of the French Bishops on war andnpeace. Edited and with an introduction by Fr.nJames Schall. S.J., and an appendix by BasilnCardinal Hume of England, these texts are essentialnfor a thorough discussion on this vital issue.n”Extraordinarily lucid and persuasive pastoralnletters on war and peace. The bishops have givennus remarkably sane statements on nuclear deterrencenand its positive relation to keeping peace.”n— James V. Schall, S.J.n”The first time since Pope Pius XII that a bodynof the Catholic Church has officially stated thatnCommunism is intrinsically perverse.”n— National Reviewn”These documents are distinguished by theirnwisdom and judgement in regard to the morality ofndefending national and individual rights. Thoseninterested in the continuing dialogue about thenmorality of deterrence should consider thesendocuments as absolutely essential reading.”n— Archbishop Philip Hannan,nNew Orleans, La.nBUOKS ON SOCIAL LS.SLLS:nTWO OTHLR LMPORTANlnThe Social Teaching of Vatican II. by Rodger Charles, S.J.nEngland’s foremost Catholic scholar on the Church’s social teachings gives us the mostncomprehensive and definitive work on this topic to date. This masterpiece is the fruit ofntwenty years of study and research. Hardcover, 600 pages $30.00nLiberation Theology, by James V. Schall, S.J.nDrawing on important ecclesiastical documents, as well as contemporary articles fromnexperts in the U.S. and abroad. Fr, Schall. an authority on the social issues, gives anthorough and concise treatment of this controversial subject. Permanent soft $12.95n148] Ignatius pwess pi> B„nCOPIESnNamenStreetnCity. State. ZIPn281 CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnTITLEninclude Si,00 for postage and handling. (Calif, residents please add 6”:”i salesnKr.intKoi), ( -MllRnA.MOUNTnnncannot say that all their efforts have resulted in a widespreadnappreciadon of poetry, much less in the refinement of thenart itself. Of the poets in Britain and America who have •nmade a noise in the world—Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Frost ornhave enjoyed a universal critical reputation—Hart Crane,nWallace Stevens, W.H. Auden—almost all were practicingntheir craft before they were exposed to any of the newncritical theories. The exceptions go a long way towardnproving the rule. Dylan Thomas, John Betjeman, PhilipnLarkin, and Stevie Smith are all postwar poets with largenfollowings, but none of them has cared much for formalncriticism.nIt is easier to see the impact of criticism on the readershipn50 years ago. American high school and college studentsnseem to have enjoyed some kinds of poetry. Ordinarynpeople read Frost, and many of us can remember parentsnand grandparents who could quote yards of Tennyson andnShakespeare.nNow, nobody reads the poets except persons whosenlivelihood is at stake, and even they don’t profess to like itnmuch (as C.S. Lewis was early in pointing out). U’s all erynstrange, since nearly half the population is going to college,nmost of them taking at least a year of English where they areninstructed in Sound and Sense or Understanding Poetry.nPerhaps that is the problem. I remember all too well thenprofessorial yammerings on the real meaning of books I hadnonce been simple enough to enjoy and the relief I felt onnentering a class in chemistry or German: at least thenscientists and pedants were not always poking at some poornfellow’s motives and meaning or fiddling with the buttonsnon a corpse.nOur meddling intellectnmisshapes the beauteous forms of things—nwe murder to dissect.nWordsworth was not the soundest of critics, but he was angood prophet. How many students have spent two years innEnglish classes, only to discover that poetry was tooncomplicated for their poor heads, that poems were riddlesnconstructed to trap the unwary and give opportunities tonglib girls who learned to parrot the professor’s line?nOf course, there is a place for critics and men of letters.nBut their role, to use Allen Tate’s language, has more to donwith evaluation than “the Communication of insights.”nThis evaluation must have an ethical base, at the very least.nAs Tate put it, “There would be no hell for modern man ifnour men of letters were not calling attention to it” (“ThenMan of Letters in the Modern World”). We may even ha”enan interest in what an Allen Tate or a Cleanth Brooks has tonsay about the meaning of a poem. (Donald Davidson’snessays on Hardy, I must confess, came as a revelation.) But,nin general, what is the point to a hermeneutic criticismnwhen it is not directed to ethical or religious ends? Thengreatest critics of the past never practiced it. They wereneither philosophical (or rhetorical) theorists like Aristotie,nLonginus, and Coleridge, or critics in the truest sense likenJohnson, who groped for standards of good and bad. EvennArnold, who wrote a great deal about the qualities of variousnpoets, did not generally stoop to explanation. Arnold was angehtieman, and gentlemen—we used to be told—nevernexplained. For what most critics do now, I can only think ofn