Margaret Fuller: “A Short Essay on Critics”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Margaret Fuller's role as the first editor of the Dial grew out of her participation in the Transcendental Club, an informal discussion group of Boston-area intellectuals. Her formidable knowledge—particularly of classical and modern European literature—more than qualified her for membership. Along with her friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott, Fuller believed that the ideas of the Transcendentalists should be discussed in an American periodical. The Dial was announced in May 1840 with the intention of accomplishing this goal. Among its chief aims was to improve the standards of American criticism and to expose readers to new modes of writing. In defining this mission as editor, Fuller had to reconcile the widely differing aesthetic ideas of the Dial's contributors, which ranged from the mystical pronouncements of Alcott to the more conventional commentaries of Theodore Parker and George Ripley. In the first issue of the Dial, published in July 1840, Fuller sketched out critical standards that were clear in principle yet expansive enough to encompass a wide range of artistic visions. In the process she helped establish herself (rivaled only by Edgar Allan Poe) as the most significant American literary critic of her time.

Fuller begins her essay by stating her desire to “investigate the laws of criticism as a science,” a difficult task considering the warring conceptions of what criticism should be. She acknowledges that some critics write as a form of pure personal expression while others are hacks writing only for money. Despite this difference, she hopes to forge “laws” of criticism that members of the “republic of letters” can agree upon. She compares the representatives of various literary factions to members of the Amphictyonic council, an association of regional councils in classical Greece charged with protecting temples and sacred sites. Rather than advocating her own critical standards directly, she hopes to set them forth by implication by describing the most common types of critics.

In the second and third paragraphs Fuller begins to introduce terms derived from the German idealist school of writers and philosophers, whom she refers to as “our German benefactors.” In particular, she draws upon the ideas of Goethe and Thomas Carlyle in developing a comprehensive approach to criticism. Those who take the most impressionistic (or subjective) approach are criticized by Fuller as often irresponsible and lacking in scholarly method. Critics of the “subjective class” write out of emotion and base their opinions on nothing more than their likes and dislikes. Fuller's comments can be taken as a veiled criticism of certain Transcendentalist writers, including some who contributed to the Dial. Alcott and the poet Jones Very were prone to base their authority as critics upon inner revelations, or messages from God. Even Emerson preferred to advocate poetically rather than debate artistic points from logical standards. Fuller's comments here can be seen as a gentle warning against falling into subjective excess.

Moving on, Fuller considers the “apprehensive” critics, who seek to understand a creative work by fully entering into its creator's ideas and methods. Echoing Goethe's thoughts on the subject, she mostly approves of this sympathetic approach to a writer's inner world, though she wonders if critics are serving as witnesses rather than acting as true critics. While respecting the apprehensive critics' function, Fuller shows greater appreciation for “comprehensive” critics, those who can judge the ability of the artist to succeed on his own terms. Beyond this ability, such critics are able to apply “analogies of the universe” to measure an artist's work against “an absolute, invariable principle.” Such a principle should sustain a critic's efforts, but it should not be constricted by narrow rules or formulas. Fuller does not spell out how principles can be distinguished from rules and formulas, but her ambiguity may be intentional. Like most of the Transcendentalist circle, Fuller avoided hard distinctions even when trying to craft aesthetic guidelines.

Having established these categories, Fuller focuses on more immediate issues involving the working critic in the sixth through eighth paragraphs. She pays honor to critics by acknowledging their poetic and philosophical qualities. Writing with the blend of the mystical and the practical that was a hallmark of the New England Transcendentalists, she praises the critic as someone who can translate an artist's “divine” creations into objective, accessible terms. In a sense, the critic is able to reveal things to the public that artists do not understand themselves. This function is not as exalted as that of the artists, but it does require rigor and seriousness. Unconsciously or not, Fuller is marking out her own path as a critic here. She describes her gifts quite accurately when she states that a critic of poetry “must want nothing of what constitutes the poet, except the power of creating forms and speaking in music.” While her peers sometimes found her prose style lacking in finesse, few doubted her sensitivity or sound judgment as a critic.

The essay's eighth paragraph alludes to standards of criticism modeled on philosophic inquiry and based upon rigid moral principles. Such eighteenth-century English writers as Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke applied an absolute, classically based standard of beauty and harmony to the arts. In Fuller's time, established Boston literary figures, such as George Ticknor and Edward Everett, upheld this classical tradition and were appalled at the broader outlook championed by the German idealists and American Transcendentalists. Fuller attempts to walk a line between the two extremes by rejecting the “hard cemented masonry of method” favored by conservative critics while reaffirming the need for objective “inquiry” and for seeking standards beyond the individual artist.

Fuller continues to try to find a middle path. She insists upon the right to classify a work of art by considering the qualities it lacks as well as those it possesses. A portion or aspect of the work should be measured against its overall intention. Balancing this is the recognition that a critic should not pretend to be an “infallible adviser” talking down to readers. This sort of arrogance has undermined the stature of critics and the journals that publish them, she feels. For all the skepticism these journals have aroused, they have not outlived their usefulness. Fuller may be thinking of the North American Review and similar conservative publications when she mentions “vehicle[s] for the transmission of knowledge” that still have a role to play in American culture.

Rather than defending the conservative old order, Fuller is more interested in noting the influence of democracy upon the new critical standards of her country. America, she insists, longs for honest expression and is tired of the “judicious man” who calculates his words. As if anticipating the emergence of Walt Whitman some fifteen years in the future, she sees the value in the “crude, rash, ill-arranged” artistic voice that speaks truthfully even as it challenges the notions of good taste. This earnest tone is needed in criticism. Writing with rising intensity, Fuller condemns the “uniformity of tone” that makes a journal's contents safe and predictable. Invoking the ever-new qualities of nature (a favorite theme among Transcendentalist writers), she urges “freshness of thought” in critical writing in order to stimulate similar qualities in the general reader.

Fuller stresses that equality is needed in the world of ideas as well as in the social and political spheres. She looks forward to meeting the critic as an equal instead of deferring to an authority figure. To make this meeting of equals possible, the critic must be honest and forthright, inspiring the reader to think and not simply assimilate information. Ultimately, the critic should become strong and firm enough to be the friend, rather than the instructor, of the reader. By engaging in sympathetic dialogue with an inspired audience, the critic might well resemble Fuller in her role as the leader of her Conversations.