theoryofliteratu00inwell

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Theory of Literature
humanity, they first challenged the feudal order." 29 But the con-
cept of humanism, of the universality of art, surrenders the cen-
tral doctrine of Marxism, which is essentially relativistic.
Marxist criticism is at its best when it exposes the implied, or
latent, social implications of a writer's work. In this respect it is
a technique of interpretation parallel to those founded upon the
insights of Freud, or of Nietzsche, or of Pareto, or to the
Scheler-Mannheim "sociology of knowledge." All these intel-
lectuals are suspicious of the intellect, the professed doctrine, the
mere statement. The central distinction is that Nietzsche's and
Freud's methods are psychological, while Pareto's analysis of
"residues" and "derivatives" and the Scheler-Mannheim tech-
nique of the analysis of "ideology" are sociological.
The "sociology of knowledge," as illustrated in the writings of
Max Scheler, Max Weber, and Karl Mannheim, has been worked
out in detail and has some definite advantages over its rivals. 30
It not only draws attention to the presuppositions and implica-
tions of a given ideological position, but it also stresses the hidden
assumptions and biases of the investigator himself. It is thus self-
critical and self-conscious, even to the extreme of morbidity. It
is also less prone than either Marxism or psychoanalysis to isolate
one single factor as the sole determinant of change. Whatever
their failure at isolating the religious factor, the studies of Max
Weber in the sociology of religion are valuable for their attempt
to describe the influence of ideological factors on economic be-
havior and institutions—for earlier emphasis had been entirely
upon the economic influence on ideology. 31 A similar investiga-
tion of the influences of literature on social change would be very
welcome, though it would run into analogous difficulties. It
seems as hard to isolate the strictly literary factor as the religious
factor and to answer the question whether the influence is due to
the particular factor itself, or to other forces for which the factor
is a mere "shrine" or "channel." 82
The "sociology of knowledge" suffers, however, from its exces-
sive historicism; it has come to ultimately skeptical conclusions
despite its thesis that "objectivity" can be achieved by synthe-
sizing, and thus neutralizing, the conflicting perspectives. It suf-
fers also, in application to literature, from its inability to connect
"content" with "form." Like Marxism, preoccupied with an ir-