Birthing a nation Book

It's the first time I've had this reaction when reading an 'academic' book: awe and envy. I usually have 2 stock reactions: 1. interesting, but the author's argument was screwed in A and B manner and 2. how did this guy even get his phd?! in a cereal box!?

M.H. Abrams is too good to be anywhere near either 1 or 2. This is a work in which immense effort has been put in, together with an incredible amount of brain power -- and it shows. The differences between this and many other works of scholarship are, I think, 1. the scope of the reading 2. the tightness of the argument. With respect to 1, I wonder how one man can process so much information. Abrams has it all down, from Plato right up to the latest books on aesthetics of his day. It is very impressive. This I'm talking in general -- not including the number of Romantic texts and (seemingly?) obscure Victorian essays (some of which don't even have the author's names!) that he has read. It is a very good summary of the critical trends up to the present (well, not so present) -- but good enough -- day. Anyone who wants to know about the history of aesthetics, especially with regard to poetry, would be well-advised to read this. Abrams has read most texts sensitively and with a good amount of thought. Somehow, he's managed to compare and contrast critical trends across countries and ages, getting over the barriers of both time and language in order to isolate trends of thought which are similar (or dissimilar) to each other and listing them in a very organized manner. One could quibble that the focus is mainly on Romantic literature but I feel that it would be unfair -- after all the moment in which the mirror turns lamp is -- the big break in the perception of art, in Abrams's view -- is when Romanticism came along.

Abrams's writing style is something to be admired. My favorite sort of academic writing: impassioned without being unclear, and with the merit of being very organized. I like it when academics can detail exactly what it is they're talking about, and Abrams has a happy habit of thought I think, which allows him to be able to organize his argument. He is not shy about declaring his preferences: he is a huge Coleridge fan, that much is obvious and a bit of a downer on Keble. Samuel Johnson, who's always been one of my favorite critics, Abrams isn't as kind to as he could be, but what do you expect from a guy who's a fan of the Romantics? Now, what's interesting, to me, about Abrams's book (though this is idiosyncratic and personal) is the fairly systematic detailing of poetry as religion. This to me seems intuitively true, and I'm of course MUCH younger than Abrams himself, so it just shows how much this view has diffused into the mainstream. I do think he could've spoken more about Plato -- everyone cites The Republic -- I think Plato was given rather short shift... I have read some reviews saying that Abrams's style is 'ostensibly academic', to which I have nothing to say but 'bollocks' and 'up yours'. This I do not understand, is being logical, clear and expressive academic? If so then it's a really sorry age, because it means that all 'non-academic' writing is incomprehensible. From experience this is not true. Something that is 'ostensibly academic' might be purposefully obfuscatory for no other purpose than vulgarly showing off one's learning. To me, THAT is 'ostensibly' (or should I say 'ostentatiously'?) academic. I shall not name culprits; those in the academic world... you know where you are with (as the Radiohead song goes).

Abrams rescues Romanticism from those who have not a clue of what it's about. Part of the problem is the confusion between romantic (things like Twilight and overpriced chocolates) and Romantic (an emphasis on the power of emotion, the syncretic view of things, etc, all the things that Abrams talks about). To me, the interesting thing is what modern science says in relation to our understanding of literature: it seems that science and poetry might converge in some sort of way again. On JS Mill, near the end of the book, he details that '[Mills's] psychological grounds are that "the capacity for strong feeling", which is supposed to disturb judgement, "is also the material out of which all motives are made"...' -- having read Pat Hogan's book on cognitive science and the humanties, this sounds vaguely familiar. I think that many of the sciences, when used in conjunction with the understanding of literature, still operate on the whole 'literature as mimesis' thing. But there's all this, and so much more -- as a cursory read of Abrams would show. The question is, if one is a critic right NOW, working on aesthetics, how would we incorporate this rich history of writing and criticism on poetry IF we were to 'enter' science? The danger is in allowing science to become a sort of metanarrative to the poetry which we read -- and the other side of it -- which is thinking science as mutually exclusive, or even as opposed to literature. I think that much of this, when you take into account academia-as-it-is-today, has to do with the mode of production of criticism. The elephant that's in the room is the status that literature has in society, a buffonish one -- worse than useless -- a parody of culture because it comes in the form of capital (cultural capital). I would think many academics would write apologias as a reaction to this, but without naming it -- sort of like setting up fences without mentioning the huge elephant that might try to blunder through. I do not think that poetry needs another apologia per se, but what it does need I think, is some honesty over how modern academic work is... parasitic and cannabalistic.

What Abrams did is difficult even for someone who is very capable. 'Publish or perish' would certainly get in the way of understanding texts, and what he did would be near impossible nowadays (even if someone were as capable). Something has to be done........ we need to show that poetry requires love -- I can see how this might branch off really -- although that's my own thesis business and none of Abrams's!