LITERATURE A^D IDEOLOGY 47 ^ to argue that politics and political attachments are only possible to superficial minds ; that any appreciation of the complexity of human nature necessarily involves a wise depreciation of these noisy instruments.1 Literature has been posed as an alternative to politics primarily because this would serve to hide the conservative sanctification of the established order which is implicit in most liberal writers. But, even more importantly, this type of thinking may have been intended to create a confusion in the minds of those writers who, because of their genuine humanity, might feel attracted towards the democratic and progressive movements which pose a real challenge to the corrupt and inhuman social order. One way of challenging this neat and mischievous separation between politics and literature could be to expose the hidden and submerged ideological biases even in the works of those writers who have been eulogised by the liberal critics for their maturity and their preeminent humanity reflected in their refusal to be drawn into the arena of politics and their supposed concern for preserving artistic integrity even at the cost of a total alienation from the reading public. Henry James has received highest praise from the liberal critics for precisely these reasons. It would, however, be worthwhile to examine his particular case more closely in order to establish that a definite political ideology is implicit in his works, too. This would lend support to the view that politics is inseparably linked with the values finding expression in a work of literature and the substantive issue to be considered by a writer is not to see whether he can be apolitical or not but to decide about the kind of politics to which he would like to give his commitment. James has been acclaimed by most critics as a writer who is remarkably free from ideological biases. It is often suggested that as a writer James refused to be bound by any particular set of ideas or doctrines or to be swayed by partisan excitements. James himself thought that he was 'free and uncommitted5 with regard to various competing ideologies or conventions of his times. This is accepted uncritically and viewed by the critics as a sign of his fine and mature intelligence. T S Eliot, for example, supports this view when he says : James's critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas ; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.2 Richard Blackmur and F R Leavis too refer to James's responsiveness to "shades and refinements of meaning and feeling'53 and, like Eliot, find in these subtle shades of "inflexion and implication"4 evidence of a superior intelligence and a humane sensibility. Most of these critics consciously or unconsciously subscribe to a liberal ideology under whose compulsions they do not feel happy with a writer who shows open commitment to, and makes an explicit statement of, his basic political convic-