27. Science and Criticism

Eight days ago, this journal published an article on "Scientific Criticism". It seems to me that the essay had its proper place in the "Dramaturgische Blätter", although it does not deal solely with matters relating to the theater. For nowhere in literary life is there more sin than in "theater criticism". That is why I think it is appropriate to follow up this article with a few supplementary remarks. I would like to agree in part with Grillparzer's statement, which the author of the above-mentioned article quotes. "Critical talent is an outflow of the creative. He who can do something himself can also judge what others have done." I absolutely subscribe to that. But I believe that not everyone will interpret these sentences correctly. Most people will understand them as follows: the lyricist should only be judged by the lyricist, the epicist by the epicist, the dramatist by the dramatist and so on. I think such an interpretation is wrong. For I believe that in order to practise a certain kind of art, it is necessary to have a one-sided talent that moves in a certain direction, which makes the personality particularly receptive to the peculiarity of its achievements and makes it less receptive to other directions within the same artistic genre. A lyricist with a pronounced individuality will have to be unfair to a lyricist with a different individuality.

Furthermore, I believe that he who cannot produce anything in any field is not fit to be a critic at all. For an unproductive head will never have anything to say about a productive one. He who does not know the pains of childbirth and the joys of parenthood that his own creatures cause, who does not know the experiences of spiritual pregnancy, should not sit in judgment on other people's spiritual children.

So if the lyricist should not judge the lyricist, the playwright should not judge the playwright: yes, who should actually judge?

My opinion is this. A creator should pass judgment on creations in a field other than his own. A poet should judge a work of painting, a painter should judge a philosophical book on my account, a philosopher should judge a work of painting or a work of poetry. I presuppose, of course, that my readers understand that the philosopher is an artist. Every philosophical thought is a work of art like an Iyrian poem; and he who wants to be a philosopher without productive talent is a mere scientist. He is like the teacher of composition to the composer.

When I read a review, I always ask about the author. If he has produced something himself, I start to take an interest in his critical work. He will then perhaps say some one-sided, stubborn things about other productions. But he will always say something that deserves to be said. The person who produces nothing himself will also only ever produce empty chatter about the achievements of others.

I like to hear a poet talk about a painter, I like to hear a philosopher talk about a playwright. I regard a critic who is nothing more than a critic as a superfluous personality.

Now people will say to me: there have been critics who have put forward important and correct ideas and who were nothing more than critics. I reply: that may happen once in a while. It just happens when a person has missed their calling. And because that is the case, Bismarck was right when he defined the journalist as a person who has failed in his profession. I can think of a music critic who has never achieved anything in any branch of human production. Let's say his name is Hanslick. I will speak quite frankly. I believe such a person has missed his calling. He should have been a musician. His musical talent did not develop. He then says as a critic what he is unable to say as an artist. If he had become an artist, he would have expressed a certain idiosyncrasy. One would have enjoyed it and would have a certain idea of the personality in question. But now, for some reason, this personality has not become an artist. Its character has not taken on a tangible form. It has remained in a kind of slumber. When such a personality criticizes, it judges in the sense of an idiosyncrasy that has never seen the light of day. This may be quite interesting in individual cases, but in general we don't know what to do with such a personality's judgments.

Yet we will always know whether we are dealing with one of those natures who have missed their calling, or with a person who has received no calling at all from nature. For if one had the malice necessary to recognize the real situation, one would have to say of most critics: these are people who could not miss a profession because they never had one.

When a journalist, who has never produced anything independent to which I can attach an artistic value, writes about a play, it has no more value than when a witty lady gives her opinion of this work in a salon. But don't think I'm a pedant just because I say this. I am not of the opinion that only he is an artist who paints over the canvas with colors or who puts something printed into the world. I am one of those pure fools who believe in Raphael without hands. Perhaps the lady who gives me her opinion of the latest Hauptmann in the salon is a lyricist who only lacks the organ to put her feelings into the necessary form.

That may be true. But I'm not talking about the ladies in the salon who didn't become poets for lack of organ. I have no need for that. Because they don't write. I'm talking about the people who write. And in the present day, these are mostly not Raphaels without hands, but people who have hands and nothing but hands.

You can see today that artists generally speak about all criticism in the most negative, dismissive way. But that's only because they are mostly criticized by unproductive people, by people who have absolutely nothing to say to them.

I have never found my opinion of who should and should not judge an artist better confirmed than when I have heard actors judge actors and when I have heard unartistic natures judge actors. Actors have no judgment at all about other actors. And inartistic natures only talk great nonsense about acting performances. Every actor is absorbed in his own nature; and if he does certain things differently from himself, he considers him a bad artist. The inartistic nature believes that acting is an easy thing, and thinks every one a great mime who amuses it. Neither judgment is worth speaking of. A painter, a lyric poet, a musician, a dramatic writer, a philosopher can judge an actor, but an actor and a non-artist cannot. The actor can only tell us something that ultimately boils down to: he does it differently than I do, and what I do is the only right thing. The inartist babbles stupid things into the air.

Artists should only judge artists; but artists should never judge artists in the same branch of art. If this principle were applied to theater criticism, there would probably be a great demand for theater critics and only a small supply. But one has to reckon with the fact that in this day and age supply can significantly exceed demand.

Perhaps if this principle were followed, not all positions could be filled. But what harm would it do if, for example, not all the daily newspapers in Berlin were to publish their obligatory theater reviews during the winter? Most of these reviews are written by people who have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say about the things they write about. Why should every play that is brought to the stage give rise to a waste of ink and ink? I don't want to talk about the time the writers waste, because it's not really a pity. I do not believe that those who waste it would put it to better use in another occupation.

Criticism should basically be a sideline. What an artist has to say about art forms that are not his own, he should tell us as a critic. Criticism as a main occupation is nonsense. But big cities are teeming with critics who are nothing but critics. And how do the voices of such nothing-but-critics count? They don't really count for much with the artists themselves. But all the more so with the audience. That is sad. Because a critical judgement that is not recognized by an artistically sensitive person should have no validity anywhere.

One rarely hears unbiased talk about the gears of criticism. Unfortunately, the critical nature of unproductive people has become a power that most artists, not just the public, reckon with. In private circles, artists can be heard making jokes about the phrases of the critics in the most informal way; in public, however, they rarely say anything about this kind of criticism. I once wanted to express my completely unbiased opinion.