ABSTRACT
Ignoring the traps of ontological speculation, we can nevertheless assert that a work of literature is usefully considered as a verbal structure, whatever else it may be. This verbal structure may be described. But we assume that description and criticism pursue different goals, since they do not imply one another reciprocally: description, as an activity, is most efficient without critical direction; yet criticism, according to most theoretical and practical efforts in this century, entails the activity of description. 'Efficiency' is no doubt an impertinent ideal for criticism, although 'objectivity' is probably a desirable attribute-hence the willingness of the twentieth century to accept the label 'descriptive criticism' as a shorthand indication of what it is doing.
