Z̤id-i Sant Bū (Khāṭirah'hā-yi Bāmdād): Persian 1402

In Pour la critique, Sainte-Beuve sets out his vision of a protean criticism which must make the work understood in an intimate way and act as an intermediary between the intellectual elite and all readers. When he speaks out against Sainte-Beuve, it is both these declared ambitions and Sainte-Beuve's manner that Proust pillories. For him, this tone which is intended to be detached is in reality a worldly virtue that is similar to the piece of bravery sought. As for making criticism a mimetic activity to the point of reaching pastiche, adopting the author's style to the point of forgetting one's own, this is equivalent to having none at all. Beyond a quarrel over a method that would transgress temporal boundaries, this work offers a way of understanding beauty that is not intellectual and categorizing, but sensorial and spiritual. Beauty imposes itself as a truth, it manifests itself through an impression. This illustrated plea for liberation of sensation, in creation as in literary criticism, therefore presents itself quite naturally as an intertwining of analyses and impressions that gives free rein to memory. --Sana Tang-Léopold Wauters