Defense of Reading

In Defense of Reading, edited by Reuben A. Brower and Richard Poirier. Dutton, 311 pp., $5.95.

In Defense of Reading presents the unhappy paradox of a badly written book about the delights of good writing. A collection of essays by present and one-time section-men in Reuben Brower's Hum 6, it has in parts all the dedication to reading as (in Brower's phrase) "active amusement, a game demanding the highest alertness and the finest degree of sensibility" one remembers from Hum 6, but --alas-- all the section-man dullness which is also a part of one's recollection of the course.

Unfortunately, this defect is far more crucial in the book than it is in the course. For the guts of Hum 6 (as of "Literature X" the imaginary Hum 6-ish course Brower outlines in his introduction to this volume) are not to be found here: the carefully prepared and skillfully guided discussions of a work of literature by which the students are brought to discover for themselves the subtleties of the work. Brower's idea of first year literature course doesn't rely very heavily on lectures, except as a means to introduce new students to the practice of "reading in slow motion," as he calls his and his colleagues' approach. So that In Defense of Reading is only a collection of such introductory lectures, the merest fringe of the course.

And what the book shows beyond any question is that Brower is sage indeed in not emphasizing lectures in "Literature X"-Hum 6. For in all but a few of these essays, the low-lying grey haze of section-man prose completely obscures the rich English literary landscape that lies somewhere below. Whatever effect Brower may predict "Literature X" will have on students, the essays in this volume--explicitly intended to demonstrate his ideas on teaching literature--ought to send him scurrying back to the old drawing board to plan a little re-tooling. The dullness of so many of these essays suggests, among other things, that any English department which shares Brower's concern for giving undergraduates what he calls the "life-time reading habit" (and what more important task can any English department have?), ought to think twice about relying on graduate students to do the job.

This is not the place to try to explain precisely what the relation is between the literary badness of these essays and the fact that they were written by graduate students. But when one thinks of it, there is no reason why recently demonstrated interest and competence in solving some "literary problem" should be considered anything like adequate preparation for the difficult educational enterprise Brower describes in his essay.

However, one can use Brower's own techniques of analysis to come up with one small but significant indication that there is such a relationship. Let us consider the following passage from an essay on Frost:

It is not useful to think of "nature" in the dialogues as either a broadening presence, existing behind the characters and forcing itself on their attention, or even as the ordinary physical landscape of rocks, stones, and trees in which rural affairs take place. For if we insist that "character" in these poems should not be viewed as a substance which lies behind and determines conversation but rather as the way a voice sounds, the way it "takes things", so "nature" can more justly be equated with out sense, vauge enough when it is stated abstractly, of the way things are. Against this stock reality made up of ordinary routine, gesture, and response, all carried by the expected rhythm of a voice, are placed those moments when particular dreams assert themselves in an attempt to transform nature.

Now, let us assume that this passage has a meaning; and ignoring that meaning for the nonce, let us place the passage before a Hum 6 student and ask him what he makes of it. He would certainly note the vagueness of syntax, the frequent use of passive (or inactive" active) verbs; the strange shifts of person; the lack of any tone or speaker's authority; the fatigued manner in which the author goes from critical alternative to alternative; and, if our imaginary student was gifted in the gentle art of placing in context, he might note that this vocabulary and syntax occurs again and again in different essays in In Defense of Reading. He might conclude that all the authors were products of a similar and limited, milieu, one which somehow made originality, both of perception and expression, difficult.

And he certainly wouldn't think that these essays could excite much interest either in the subject they were discussing, or the method they were using to discuss it. If told that the authors of these pieces were people whose job it was to demonstrate the rewards open to anyone who devotes himself to literature as an amateur (in the strict sense of the word), our imaginary Hum 6 student would no doubt be astonished, since it was precisely the inappropriateness of flat tone to exciting subject matter that struct him--a fledgling amateur--most sharply.

For that is, finally, the most basic weakness of this collection: It is inconceivable that it would interest anyone coming to it without the experience of Hum 6 to teach him to make allowances. In Defense of Reading simply doesn't work as one of Brower's attempts to spread his ideas and win support for them.

A few of the essays, however, are in themselves wonderful, thoughtful examples of young critical thinking at its best. Paul De Man (since lost to Cornell) contributes an essay on Wordsworth and Yeats; he is probably the most rigorous "close reader" of the bunch, and his essay successfully solves the problem which trips up many of his co-authors, making the careful analysis of particular poems yield insights into the writers' general concerns and methods. William Taylor (on his way to Wisconsin), who has the unenviable task of making Parkman's De Salle interesting, also succeeds where others fail, by skillfully combining description of the author's life and personality with intelligent evaluation of his book and its significance.

And Richard Poirier (still here, thank goodness), who must rank high on anybody's list of people with important things to say, demonstrates, in a paper on Twain and Austen a critical method he has been exploring for some time (and in which he will give a course next year), that of comparing European and American authors in an effort to understand the differences between the two societies and their literature. His is a difficult and not always clear argument, but those who follow it to the end of its considerable length will be amply rewarded.

He has not been such a success as an editor, however; one wonders why Paul Alpers is not represented by some of his brilliant comments on the Faeric Queene instead of by the criticism of other critics' criticism of King Lear, which appears here. Also, one misses an essay by Professor Brower in addition to his introduction (which, by the way, must deserve some sort of prize for the number of times it has been anthologized); some of Brower's memorable remarks on Troilus and Cressida might, for example, have replaced the rather wretched essay on Henry VIII. (And of the two little read plays, there can be no doubt that the Troilus is the more worth considering.)

And, as editor, Poirier (along with Brower) is indirectly responsible for the bleakness of much of his volume. What one misses most in the majority of these essays is the sense of what used to be called "vocation"; the three essays I singled out have it, and that makes them exciting. De Man is obviously fascinated by the overt mysticism of Yeats and the more furtive strangeness of Wordsworth; Taylor really sees in Parkman a figure whose own history made his writings something a great deal more interesting than mere chronicles; while Poirier is dedicated to a particular way of seeing and describing the workings of society and of individuals within it, and has formed a style all his own to express that vision.

The others, in greater or lesser degree, give no indication of this kind of dedication, and their work is accordingly anonymous and dull. Some of them, I know, are able to make their subject come alive in the classroom, but their literary inadequacies are disappointing and their greyness disturbing.