PARTISAN REVIEW
505
resonate to produce something like the effects of art. But even when
Hoffman's posturings seem mere pretensions and his idiosyncrasies mere
encumbrances, his knowledge and understanding of Poe emerge. Mak–
ing useful reference to previous commentary, relevant philosophy and
psychological theory, and historical and literary contexts, Hoffman pre–
sents Poe's diverse literary performance as a comprehensible whole, and
testifies convincingly to Poe's power and greatness.
Jerome McGann's fine book on S.winburne also has its annoying
idiosyncrasies. Subtitled
An Experiment in Criticism,
the study is cast in
dialogue form, the speakers being minor early twentieth-century com–
mentators on the poet, resurrected and suitably transformed. McGann
has his fun. Clara Watts-Dunton, for example, the wife of Swinburne's
friend and protector, Theodore, and the author of
The Home Life of
Swinburne,
presents the book's most sophisticated view of the poetry, in
language which rivals Geoffrey Hartman's in ease of intelligibility. The
book begins with an argument about the best mode for introducing its
subject. On one thing only can the characters agree: that a certain
essay, " 'Ave atque Vale':
An
Introduction to Swinburne," is inadequate
to its pwpose. The author? Jerome McGann. McGann seems to think
better of the essay than his spokesmen, for he republishes it as an ap–
pendix.
In his description of his method, McGann implies that the study
reaches no conclusions. No "single generalizing conception" of Swin–
burne emerges, he says; "a master's voice has been dispensed with," and
the dialogue form "illustrates, in a dramatic and recreative fashion, the
absurd limits of analytical knowledge." The mannered prose of the In–
troduction, in which McGann makes these assertions, mayor may not
signal a hoax; in any case, what he says is false. The master's voice is
heard despite the disguises. McGann expands the boundaries of analyt–
ical knowledge, and offers a general conception of Swinburne, evident
in a complex pattern of related insights, and focused at the very end of
the book: "'Sky, and shore, and cloud, and waste, and sea': is all this
bleakness or is it beauty? Swinburne reminds us how and why it is and
must be both." The movement in the dialogue is toward clarification
and certainty. The insights once achieved, no amount of self-deprecatory
play can discredit them, any more than Swinburne's self-parodies in–
validate the style he makes fun of.
An
example: McGann has W. G. Blaikie Murdoch attack Swin–
burne for vagueness. Coulson Kernahan makes a defense along lines
