Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study (2022) is John Guillory’s major intervention into the state, history, and future of literary criticism as a discipline. The book is both a sweeping historical analysis and a critical diagnosis of the current crisis in literary studies, particularly within the university2346.
Key Points:
Historical Evolution of Literary Criticism: Guillory traces the development of literary criticism from its origins, where “literature” was a broad category encompassing all writing, to its modern incarnation as a specialized academic discipline. He argues that the very definition of literature-and thus the object of criticism-has always been unstable, shifting with institutional and cultural changes5.
The Role of the Critic: Guillory interrogates the authority of literary critics, especially their tendency to move from textual interpretation to broader social critique. He questions when and why critics began to see themselves as social commentators rather than as specialists in textual analysis, noting that this shift is partly a response to the declining social value placed on literary knowledge5.
Professionalization and Its Discontents: The book examines how the professionalization of literary studies has led to credential inflation, overemphasis on publication, and a disconnect between research and undergraduate teaching. Guillory is critical of the way the discipline has become fragmented and overly responsive to intellectual trends, losing sight of its core purposes36.
Crisis and Purpose: Guillory argues that literary studies have lost their original sense of purpose and have become too dispersed in their curricular organization. He critiques the discipline’s susceptibility to every new critical trend and its struggle to define its social value in a context where literature is no longer central to public discourse6.
The Knowledge Produced by Criticism: Guillory’s culminating argument is that the unique contribution of literary study is a form of understanding-an “epistemic principle” grounded in the ability to say, “I know what you mean.” This kind of knowledge, he contends, is both deeply democratic and essential, offering a way of making sense of the world that is distinct from other forms of expertise5.
Close Reading as Performance: Guillory recuperates the practice of close reading, not as an exclusive academic tool but as a performative and replicable technique-one that models how criticism is constructed and invites broader participation in the interpretive process5.
Influence:
Guillory’s earlier work, especially Cultural Capital (1993), was foundational in understanding the sociology of literary education. Professing Criticism extends this analysis, focusing on the profession’s internal organization and its relation to the broader society38.
The book has sparked significant debate about the future of literary studies, with reviewers noting its role in clarifying the historical and institutional forces shaping the discipline and its current malaise6.
Importance:
Professing Criticism is widely regarded as a landmark work, praised for its depth, historical sweep, and acute analysis of the discipline’s perennial confusions and crises6.
Guillory’s insistence on historicizing the discipline and returning to its foundational purposes is seen as both a conservative and reformist gesture-one that seeks to rehabilitate and reorganize literary studies for contemporary conditions56.
The book is important for its clear-eyed assessment of the challenges facing literary studies-demographic, institutional, and intellectual-and for its defense of the value of literary knowledge in a rapidly changing media and educational landscape16.
While Professing Criticism is more diagnostic than prescriptive, its call to recognize and revalue the unique forms of understanding literary criticism offers is a powerful argument for the discipline’s continued relevance6.
In sum, John Guillory’s Professing Criticism stands as a major, thoughtful, and deeply informed reflection on the past, present, and possible futures of literary criticism, urging a renewed focus on the discipline’s core purposes and forms of knowledge in a time of profound change365.