AUTHORS AND CRITICS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4219, 4 December 1939, Page 7

AUTHORS AND CRITICS

AN IMPARTIAL REVIEW. “There is, as I see it, one outside law, and one only—the duty to be understandable. I do not think that even the most revolutionary writers, even to-day, could deny that the purpose of literature is to serve as a comm.Arqation between minds. Criticism, Therefore, is a comment upon communication, upon methods used to communicate, and upon their effectiveness for that purpose. It stands to reason, then, that unless an artist has something to communicate, and unless he has the wish to be comfrtunicative, criticism cannot begin. The true critic must swim with his author, not stand on the bank and object to the river. The critic must play the game, whatever game the author chooses. His province is, first to see what was in the intention of the

author, and afterward to say whether Ythe author’s genius or instinct, or perhaps his intelligence, has chosen the right convention and the right method for his purpose. Thus it comes about that the best and most useful kind of criticism is apprecia-

tion—for that praises after a full hearing; and the most barren is condemnation, since the fault that has caused communication to fail may be with the critic as much as with the author. Mr Frank Kendon, in the Cambridge Public Library Review.