The Critical Wager: Essays on Criticism and the Architecture of Ideology

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

The “critical wager” in question is forced upon us because, when faced with a text, we inevitably speak about it “in one particular way, and not another” (p. 3). What in fact are our choices, and to what do we commit ourselves when we choose? Gairdner’s aim is to clarify and elucidate the philosophical implications — and especially the difficulties — that lie behind the principal modern critical approaches. After a brief account of earlier critical developments, he offers discussions of philological, Marxist, psychological, existential, structuralist, and phenomenological criticism, with a concluding postscript (“exposé” might be a better word) of the American New Criticism.

This is a book for those already initiated into the basics of literary theory. Gairdner assumes a general knowledge of contemporary critical and philosophical thinking. His prose is relatively free of jargon, but it is decidedly abstract. Readers who cannot take a sentence like “Synchrony in the service of synecdoche requires a prior homogeneity” (p. 177) may find themselves befuddled. Moreover, those who expect a philosophical disinterestedness will be disappointed. Gairdner does not disguise the fact that he finds in existentialism an ideology that “holds a hope for humanity of a responsible and creative freedom” (p. 191). All the other approaches listed above are firmly challenged and found to some extent wanting. Gairdner ends up by being adjudicator as well as interpreter, and existentialism wins the prize.

I applaud Gairdner’s honesty in not hiding behind a pretence of objectivity; nonetheless, his personal prejudices show through in ways that are sometimes unfortunate. Critics of a “practical” persuasion may be disturbed by the fact that one of the few literary value-judgments in the whole book, on D.H. Lawrence, reads as follows: “Lawrence … so laced the dialogue of Women in Love with his own theories that the book is almost unreadable” (p. 157). This is surely an idiosyncratic personal opinion; no innocent reader would guess that this novel is frequently regarded as the finest achievement of a great novelist. And one wonders about the possible subjectivity of other judgments. Thus, New Criticism is branded with such words and phrases as “elitism,” “paternalism,” “slippery personal demogoguery,” “the most complete form of modern literary censorship” (pp. 178-87). The rhetoric seems more appropriate to a political tirade than to a philosophical discussion. But this is Gairdner’s own “critical wager.” He makes his choice, and explains why he does so. His book should be read critically, but for the reader prepared to question and argue it can be both stimulating and valuable.