Criticism in Action: Enlightenment Experiments in Political Writing (review)

Abstract

168 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 3:2 genre would be truly sterile if every work in it recapitulated die prototype" (p. 12)— Wicks is right on die mark. Nevertheless, he ignores dûs insight when he fails to see how a novelist like Smollett adapts odier genres to die picaresque and plays off die expectations of die form, diereby extending it. For Wicks, Smollett, abetted by Sir Walter Scott, was "responsible for many of die major misconceptions of die picaresque that still haunt theory and criticism in English." By "using both Don Quixote and Gi/ Bias as models ... die eighteendi-century novelists created a case of literary mistaken identity" (p. 14). More effective is Wicks's account of how literary scholarship has treated die genre. Distinguishing between two critical approaches—historical and structural—he amply covers major critical studies, including many significant for eighteendi-century fiction. Still, too often he dismisses important commentary in passing references. Seemingly overwhelmed by die large body of scholarship on the subject, Wicks does not seem to know quite how to handle it. His commitment to bodi a bibliographical guide and a dieoretical assessment of die genre undermines his ability to achieve either successfully. That is a pity because die first two chapters indicate Wicks's scholarly breaddi and die subsequent two chapters suggest diat widi greater focus and more extensive treatment he might have offered a satisfactory construct of picaresque theory. For critics of eighteenthcentury fiction, Wicks's discussion of a picaresque mode has particular interest, since die modal approach has become a major means of eschewing die question of genre in die period. Whatever die reader may dunk of Wicks's attempt to "integrate [seven aspects of die picaresque] into [a] modal-generic concept" (p. 47), his plediora of information allows serious discussion of die subject. Largely discarding secondary material, Wicks's all-too-brief chapter on die characteristics of picaresque narrative efficiently outlines its main features: structure, rhydim, setting, characterization, tone, themes, and motifs. Precise and illuminating, dûs material is unfortunately left undeveloped and is intended to be treated in Wicks's "Guide to Basic Picaresque Fiction" that constitutes three-fourths of die volume. But while die "Guide" offers a good deal of worthwhile information, it does nothing to develop an integrated dieory of die picaresque. What Wicks presents is a kind of critical tinker-toy or do-it-yourself kit. Wicks had been better advised to present a study diat brought togedier scholarship and examples in a unified consideration of die genre. As it stands, however, Wicks's work will prove a valuable contribution to further study of the picaresque. Robert D. Spector Long Island University Dena Goodman. Criticism in Action: Enlightenment Experiments in Political Writing. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989. ix + 244pp. US$29.95. Since "political writing" for Dena Goodman means the Lettres persanes and the Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, as well as die Discours sur l'inégalité, it is appropriate to review this work in ajournai devoted to fiction. In fact, die author's approach to intellectual history adopts many procedures commonly used by scholars working on eighteendi-century literature. Goodman analyses "literary form and structure" of individual works in order to expose the "rhetorical context of Enlightenment texts," diat is, "die complex interaction between implied writers and readers which die Enlightenment , as a project directed toward changing die common way of thinking, entailed" (p. REVIEWS 169 228). For Goodman, close reading of die works diemselves must precede any attempt to answer empirical questions about die philosophes' success in creating a new critical readership diat took seriously "the responsibility mat was thrust upon it" (p. 227). With admirable caution, she warns us mat we cannot know in advance precisely what that project was. Goodman begins widi an extensive analysis of die Lettres persanes, which she calls die "first attempt to write political criticism for a public widiout writing for a prince" (p. 2). Surely Hobbes and Locke preceded Montesquieu in dûs respect, but die audior is right to stress die work's originality in die French context and die novelty of personally involving die "private" reader in a dramatization of die Persian travellers...