To be a Wilsonian critic, even at a junior level, calls for a lot of effort. You can imitate, say, Mr. Blackmur, simply by refusing to express yourself clearly. Even Professor Trilling, with all his fineness of insight and his swift clarity of mind, has an easily imitable style (itself largely imitated, of course, from Matthew Arnold) which makes it no difficult matter to set up in business as a Trillingite. But it would be useless to try to imitate Edmund Wilson unless one had something like his breadth of literary equipment. Unlike the 'New Critics', who proceed mainly by the elaboration of specialised skills, Wilson has kept alive the older notion of the critic as the man who, first and foremost, knows more than the reader. Whether or not one agrees with his judgments, an article by him is always informative.

This idea of the critic is...