The critical and biographical writing of Edward Wagenknecht represents the epitome of a style of subjective criticism which began with the nineteenth-century French critic Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve. Sainte-Beuve believed that the best way to understand a literary work was to immerse oneself in the life and personality of the author. Once the critic achieved a kind of saturation in the mind that had produced the work, comprehension would inevitably result, as long as the critic proceeded with ordinary good taste, moderation, respect for artistic unity, and belief in the necessity for truth in the portrayal of life. Sainte-Beuve's Causeries du lundi (1851-1862) and Nouveaux lundis (1863-1870) contain an enormous mass of well-written and intelligent prose with here and there an exquisite jewel of perception concerning a text. Sainte-Beuve's method was taken up by the American biographer Gamaliel Bradford, who adopted the word "psychography" (which previously meant "spirit writing") to...