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A Reply to Joseph Frank

I'm pleased to have been offered the chance of replying to Joseph Frank's criticisms ("Spatial Form: An Answer to Critics," Critical Inquiry 4 [Winter 1977]: 231-52). He is a courteous opponent, though capable of a certain asperity. So, I hope, am I. We began this argument more than twelve years ago, when I was at Bryn Mawr giving the lectures later published as The Sense of an Ending. So our contention is lengthy as well as amicable. It seems improbable that either of us seriously expects it to end in the total conversion of one of us to the views of the other; but, as Frank suggests, the purpose of arguing the issue more publicly can't be to win a victory, or even to defend oneself against what appear to be misrepresentations. We have here an interesting, perhaps even an important problem, and what we hope from our discussion is usefully to alter the look of it, so that we and others may continue to think about it, and do so more fruitfully. Frank complains that his critics appear incapable of attending to what he really said in his original essay. It is the blight critics are born for; and it is undoubtedly sometimes caused by the venal haste of reviewers, and sometimes by native dullness, and sometimes by malice. But there are other reasons why an author may sometimes feel himself to be misrepresented. One is that a genuinely patient and intelligent reader may be more interested in what the piece under consideration does not quite say than in what is expressly stated. Another is the consequence of fame. Frank's original article is over thirty years old; it crystallised what had been for the most part vague notions, ideas that were in the air, and gave them a memorable name. "Spatial form" entered the jargon of the