Rahv, Philip 1908–1973: Critical Essay by William Barrett

[Philip Rahv's break with Communism marked the real beginning of his career as a literary critic]. Starting in 1939, and then through the 1940's, he wrote some solid and really first-rate essays in literary criticism, which still remain the best memorial to his powers of mind and sensibility. One of the remarkable things about them too was the degree to which his Marxism had receded into the background. In fact, he had not given up his beliefs; when pushed in conversation, the Marxist formulary would come out as flat and dogmatic as ever; but in his literary criticism, and much to its benefit, he seemed to look the other way. The god of Marxism had not died for him, it had simply withdrawn—and, as it turned out, only for a while. Nevertheless, when the faith of a believer recedes over a fairly long period, we sometimes expect that there may be a new readjustment at length. The surprising thing is that when Rahv's Marxist faith was reborn in the 1960's, it came back with the same simple and point-blank ferocity it had possessed in 1932 and 1934. (p. 42)

If Rahv's most memorable pieces of writing were done as a literary critic in relative independence of his political convictions, it might seem odd that I have begun this revaluation of him by plunging him so immediately and deeply into a political context. But, even as critic, Rahv was very much part of his actual world. To attempt to distill out the literary criticism, and regard it as something apart, would not give us a proper idea of his importance. To compare him, for example, simply as a literary critic with someone like Edmund Wilson would be both bizarre and belittling. Yet if we look at the comparison from another direction, the result may not be so belittling. It may come as a rather shocking paradox at first, but I think the claim might reasonably be defended that in his own particular way, and over a certain period, he probably had a more powerful influence than Wilson. True, his output was very, very slender in comparison, and he reached only a tiny fraction of the audience Wilson did; but his influence was more strategically located—on young intellectuals who went on to teach or write about literature themselves and who, though they might not have followed him to the letter and might even have found themselves very much in opposition, nevertheless took from him a certain direction in their own thinking, and thus propagated something of his influence.

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