The Role of The Critic

A Case Study in Canon Formation: Reviewers, Critics, and The Cather in the Rye by Richard Ohmann persuaded me to think about the role of literary critics, or critics of any genre for that matter. I found myself asking throughout the article, “What is the purpose of the critic?” Are critics essential arbiters of meaning or are they parasites on literary works, making careers from authors’ hard labor? What are ones motivation in becoming a critic?

I must admit, in the twenty minutes I’ve contemplated these questions since finishing the article, I’m still far from a conclusion. However, one piece of evidence presented in Ohmann’s article has continually worried me. Ohmann asserts that critics jumped on the opportunity to write about The Catcher in the Rye given their need to publish, to build a career, and to obtain fellowships. In short, the critic seeks to analyze, and perhaps over analyze, Catcher for personal gain. I see this as presenting an entirely new problem, proving potentially detrimental to the relationship between the reader and the text. By offering a scholarly, privileged critique of texts, the lay reader may easily be intimidated into thinking the meaning they ascribe to a text is ill informed, and simply cannot compare.

While I may be rather critical of the critic, I do see at least one very important role the critic serves, clearly exemplified by Ohmann’s article: the critic serves to define the literary canon. With this in mind, we are all indebted to the critic, having been directed by their work throughout our academic careers. In short, the literary landscape of our high schools and colleges would prove dramatically different if not for the critic. Although I may assert that the critic detracts from the meaning a layperson ascribes to a text, the critic also plays an imperative role in directing the layperson to seminal texts.