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Thursday, June 05, 2008
Man of Letters vs the Academy
John Gross reviews Stefan Collini, Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics, at TLS. Collini discusses such figures as Aldous Huxley, V. S. Pritchett, William Empson, Stephen Spender, Rebecca West, Edmund Wilson, George Orwell, E. H. Carr, and Perry Anderson. Collini is interested in these figures as essayists and reviewers, regardless of whatever else they may have done (e.g. write poetry or fiction). Gross asserts: “In the case studies which follow, the myth (or alleged myth) of the man of letters is mostly rejected by implication, but at a number of points it comes in for an explicit drubbing.” He concludes: “Still, to be forever pitting academia (by now very large) against a freelance literary world (by now much depleted) is a wasteful conflict. The differences are real enough, but what is more important is that man-of-letterish qualities can and do survive in the university, and sometimes even flourish there.”
Comments
Still, to be forever pitting academia (by now very large) against a freelance literary world (by now much depleted) is a wasteful conflict. The differences are real enough, but what is more important is that man-of-letterish qualities can and do survive in the university, and sometimes even flourish there.
You’re taunting me, aren’t you, Bill. Academics are just too paranoid, and too fussy about some of the the wrong things.
Actually, no, John, I’m not. I thought the review interesting and worthy of attention at here, given recent conversations. But on the man-of-letters bit, I think you’re more accurate than Gross. A few such people can flourish in the university, but only as exceptions. The institution is not designed either to produce such thinkers or support them, nor, for that matter, does it favor profound innovators. Occasionally some of each manages to slip through the lines and, if they are sufficiently renowned, the university will claim them. But the claim is fraudulent.