D20-DES14
On American Poetry Criticism;
& Other Dastardly –Isms
PART 10:
New Criticism: Same Old Game Redux
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 6/11/02
I have been
highly critical of contemporary American Poetry Criticism (from the ensconced
Dead White Males who litter the byways of Academia to the PC Elitists who
snidely condescend to both non-PCEs & DWMs); but the problems with APC go
back decades, to the start of the 20th Century. In truth, there was
no real poetry criticism in America in the 19th Century, & the 20th
Century’s initial versions were rather flaccid, until the High Modernists of
Pound, Eliot, & Co. sauntered in. But, when 1 thinks of APC in the 20th
Century there’s 1 group that stands out- for better or worse: the New
Critics.
New
Criticism was an influential ‘school’ of southern-based Formal Criticism
that reigned over APC from the mid 1930s until about 1970. It was highly
political in nature, even as it ever claimed to disdain politics in favor of
‘true’ or ‘high’ art- of which poetry was the ‘highest’- a rare
truth the NCs were to feast on. Some of its adherents were: John Crowe Ransom,
Allen Tate, R.P. Blackmur, Robert Penn Warren, I.A. Richards, William Empsom,
Cleanth Brooks, William Wimsatt, & Monroe Beardsley. Of import to note is
that all but RPW were literary mediocrities whose own works, in essence,
necessitated their place as critics- or lovers of literature- rather than
producers of it. Some key works associated with NC were CB’s & RPW’s Understanding
Poetry, WE’s Seven Types of Ambiguity, IAR’s Practical
Criticism, & CB’s The Well Wrought Urn (the most well-known
& respected of the tomes). They were given their collective sobriquet,
however, by JCR in his own The New Criticism (1941). The NCs claimed to
want to avoid Impressionistic Criticism, which they saw as vapid, Social
& Historical Criticism, which they saw as formless. But, in large
measure, politically, it was their immanent Conservatism that responded most
violently to Biographical Criticism: the theory that art is primarily a
reflection of the writer’s life, & the only way to even begin to come to
grips with art is to study intimately, & in detail, the artist’s life. NCs
failed to see that a good critic should incorporate all these critical aspects
to form a good critical base, & then pick & choose which approach (or
approaches) to apply to any given work. Alas, like those before & after,
they did not, & eventually their own limited purview proved their critical
undoing.
Let’s
briefly look at some NC peeves & desires: NC sees the text as an autotelic
(a word that was a NC fave) artifact; it is something autonomous, written for
its own sake, unified (an aspect never fully fleshed out in any logical or
coherent way by the NCs) in form, & independent of the writer’s life,
intent, etc. In fact- 3 of the major tenets of NC were: 1) self-sufficiency:
the poem should be independent of biography, historical content or effect on the
reader– which were called the Intentional, Historical & Affective
fallacies. 2) unity: the poem should be a coherent whole- a very
traditional view, albeit limited. 3) complexity: though to be the central
element of poetry. NC believed it was the reader’s duty to seek
this out in the art. Violations of these tenets were examples of the Intentional
Fallacy- that the artist’s intent is the primary value of the art. The NC
damning of this canard is perhaps the lone good idea to survive from NC. Its
almost forgotten corollary was the Affective Fallacy- or how an
individual reader reacts to a work of art is the primary thing. That no 2 people
will react in similar ways (a good thing) is impossible- well….Another ax of
the NCs was the Heresy of Paraphrase, which CB railed against in The
Well-Wrought Urn. He states that the meaning of a poem is complex and
precise, & any attempt to paraphrase it inevitably distorts &/or reduces
it: i.e.- any attempt to say what a poem means is heretical,
because it insults the complexity & integrity of the work. Lost to him was
that the HOP irreducibly obviates the very act of criticism! Wherefore, then,
the critic?
NC assumed
the critic’s job is to help appreciate technique & form in art- not state
what the art means or is. This is another example of NC common sense. But, then
they veered wrongly in their extensions from this plinth. It also viewed Western
Tradition (or The Canon) as an unbroken, internally consistent set of
artistic formulae dating from Classical Greece & continuing into futurity.
The NCs defined the themes inherent in all good or great art as eternal
oppositions: life/death, good/evil, love/hate, truth/lie, emotion/reason, etc.
Ambiguity, therefore, is thus held out as a paragon: the more meanings a
word has, the richer the ambiguity- & the meaning. The reader’s job is to
search out irony (ambiguous meaning) & paradox (contradictory meaning). This
gives a work its dramatic tension, which causes an art appreciator to want to
delve even more deeply. 2 other things NCs railed against were stock
responses (i.e.- someone’s departure should not make the reader sad
unless the poem elicits sadness at the departure- this is so flimsy &
personalized a rationale that to debunk it would waste both our times), & idiosyncratic
(or affective) responses (i.e.- milk should not make the reader think
of cows no matter how direct the connection is- the poem should be the vehicle
for the connection. Again, this tenet is so dependent & flexible on the poem
in question that it really has no place as a tenet- per se).
An early hero
of the NCs was poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge & his criticism, which was among
the 1st set of dicta to elaborate on the poem as being a unified, organic whole,
& whose purpose was forging some internal harmony- in the poem, itself. A
more coeval hero was T.S. Eliot & his mounds of self-centered gibberish.
Foremost in the gibber his Objective Correlative- a term to identify an
image, action, or situation in a literary text in which the reader's response is
suddenly focused, & from which the rest of the art either will fail or
succeed depending on its fidelity to that focused thing. Basically TSE held that
an artwork failed if it did not meet certain ‘objective’ standards. The OC
failed, basically, as a critical tool because TSE saw himself as the sole
arbiter of ‘objectivity’- got that nice piece of intellectual contortion? In
a famously idiotic case in point, TSE declared Hamlet a failure because
Hamlet’s character development did not seem to usher forth from the specific
dramatic situations of the play. I repeat- got it? This theory was of bizarre
interest to NCs, for they believed an OC provided that focal point of the
‘organic unity’ for the text. Got it [trey]? These were all principles
believed to have descended from Hellenistic times. They formed a (or rather, The)
Western Tradition. The NC stated that good art participates in &
extends this tradition. Also, the critic’s job is to uphold that tradition
& save it from life’s abasements & vulgarisms. To a NC the closer a
text comes to achieving ‘unity’, where each element contributes to the
overall art, the more worthy it is of being art. High art is the
province of NC- not pop art; for high art reflects unchanging, universally human
issues, ethics, & experiences passed down through the ages. In short, the
best art is a totality unto itself. This myopic insularity has since been
twisted & led to the wild PC Elitism which inversely declares that art is
not art unless it engages politics at every turn, & avoids
hermetic insularity. Both extremes are laughable, & easily seen as such to
the sane reader & art afficionado.
No doubt
NC’s ills were plentiful. Its emphasis on technique, unity of effect, &
that damnable autotelic status works best only in evaluating the simpler
structures of lyric poetry. More complex poetry- say of a Hart Crane, or W.B.
Yeats, or poetry that does depend (to a degree) on a historic, personal, or
something-specific aspect, or most prose, is largely immune to such simplistic
evaluations. Another valid point against NC is that it makes the Western
Canon seem far more unified than it is by ignoring diversity &
contradictions (as example- where does innovation or influence fit
in?)- as well as isolating the Canon from the rest of the art of humanity. The
changing taste of societies is also posited as a flaw in NC. Recall the
damnations heaped upon Walt Whitman & Charles Baudelaire, in the 1850s, for
perversion & evil. Yet, now we recognize them as the American & European
pillars to poetic modernity (not Modernism).
Despite these
often manifest failings NC has its defenders to this day. In a famed retort
called The Attack on Literature Rene Wellek charged that the major
accusations leveled at the NC are false. RW answered the 4 major retorts against
the NCs: 1) NCs were formalists with no interest in the humanity of literature.
2) NCs ignore the historical context of literature. 3) NCs bastardize literature
to a science. 4) the NCs ‘close reading’ & ‘unity’ are pedagogical
devices. RW asserts NC has not been vilified because it is wrong (although the
bulk of it is) but for its correctness. RW believed that NCs were seen as
bastions of Old Boy Elitism- & they were. Had they not been the reaction
against their ideas may have modulated into a sane critical middle, rather than
the hysterical PC Elitism which suffocates most contemporary criticism. I will
briefly deal with some of these charges later on with some examples.
Let me end
this introduction with a listing of some of the basic themes, or tenets, of NC:
1) a literary text is not a cultural artifact but a unified, self-contained,
& self-defining piece of art. A reader needs no specialized nor special
knowledge beyond the text itself to understand its meaning. 2) the meaning of a
literary text is immanent in its unique structure. The goal of criticism is
therefore to explain this ‘organic unity’ of the text. 3) a literary text
contains interrelated images & linguistic elements. These motifs are
important to the ‘organic unity’ of the text. 4) the images &/or motifs
are vital to the meaning of the text. These objective correlatives reflect the
thematic unity of the text. 5) every part of the text contributes to the meaning
of the text. NCs want to explain the function of all pieces of the text.
Let me tackle
each of these 5 tenets & examine the pros & cons vis-à-vis some poems.
A Cosmos Of 1
The basic
thrust of this tenet is that the artwork is an inviolate thing unto itself.
There are plenty of times that that is manifestly & undeniably true- but
only to an extent. Here is where we encounter 1 of NC’s greatest ills: absolutism;
the same malady that has afflicted the NCs latter-day counterparts- the PC
Elitists. Logically- & obviously- since words connote & denote things
other than the written word, there is no way a poem could ever be 100%
self-sustaining. But, it can come close to this on occasions. Whether this is
desirable, or indicates any greater success rate in art, is a tangential
question. Is the art all to itself? Does a poem fail merely because it is not
self-sustaining? I think not. To counter that NC claim let me present a
well-known poem by American poet Robert Hayden:
"Monet's Waterlilies"
(for Bill and Sonja)
Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.
Let’s
approach this in 2 ways: 1) is the poem good? & 2) is the poem
self-sustaining? Then let’s see the correlation between these 2 points.
Obviously the
title directly references something beyond, something the poem is dependent on-
in this case a famed painting. A good portion of the readers of this poem will
envision the pastel flower painting right away. Yet, note how this is not simply
a typical describe what you see & add a twist painting poem.
The poem uses the title as a port to anchor the reader- then it sets sail away
from that shore. The poem’s dedication, it could be argued, further undermines
the poem’s independence. But, perhaps only RH, Bill, & Sonja have any
reason to invest anything into the dedication.
Stanza 1
breaks the poem immediately from the title. It uses 2 more referents outside
‘poetry’, per se. Even 4 decades on the names Selma & Saigon bring back
national points of pain & shame. But, in 400 years will it? Does it matter?
I think line 2 gives us all we need to know of these places. They were not good.
The political minutiae are immaterial in the long run- take that PC Elitists!
Then we twist right back to the actual painting. So far we are almost wholly
dependent on things not in the poem- save for the descriptions of the 2
1960s-era cities. We end with a rather vague description of the painting:
serene, great, beloved. Quite a difference from the typical painting poem.
Stanza 2
opens with a very transcendent couplet. Its very awkward phrasing actually
bolsters the sense of transcendence from the norm. The last 3 lines attempt to
shimmer like the painting itself. Yet, there is still no real description. The
poem has now inverted & is unto itself- the titular painting is no matter.
Stanza 3 then
ends with this rapturous sense of loss. Not only does this poem both deny &
adhere to the NC tenet- but it amply demonstrates the tenet’s silliness. Along
with absolutism NC, & its subsequent PCE counterpoint, suffer from a drastic
oversimplification in how their belief systems are applied. At a
fundamental level we see, here, how NC was bound to fail in the long run- its
basic tenet is merely a sometimes good application, not an ironclad law of
literature- as if there could be such a thing. This great poem violates the core
of the 1st central tenet NC posits. This basis for tenet 1’s
failing, we will see, infects all the other points as well. Add in the fact that
this poem, or any of RH’s poetry, would probably never be directly addressed
(by virtue of its poet’s race) by the NCs is 1 of those niggling little things
that gave rise to NC’s demise, & PCE’s subsequent rise.
Art As Life
Meaning
& structure are 1. That’s what the 2nd NC tenet boils
down to. Also, a good critic must be able to notice & explicate this basic
organic unity, or synthesis of meaning & structure. Well, we do want critics
to act as intermediaries & break down some things within a work of art.
It’s the essence of a critics job- that, & to state whether the poem does
or does not succeed in doing so. Let us take a look at a poem of mine that
intimately embodies tenet 2- even as it violates the 1st tenet:
Magritte
Nude Reclining
"No
one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence,
or whose attitude is patronizing."- E.B. White
As
he lay on the bridge the seeming solidity of
movement was what he objected to The
strands of
stuff that would hunker down in to that which is
not here But there
on the page it seemed to
all relax him and the lion which
sauntered by
Often in times like these
he discovered it was
best to grant illusion its due pay
the piper
and all that This was the source of
thought of
reason of creativity
i e creativity is
opportunism applied not inspiration
divined
Furthermore it was not the
overwhelm of clouds
that is the subject of this bit nor
the beast
nor the bridge rather
it is the simple fact
that you cannot give another a dozen eggs if you
only have half
.
. , , , . , , - , . , , - . . : , . , , , ; , .
I am not
going to expound at length on why this poem is a great example of ‘form
following function’, nor its overall greatness. That’s not the point of
my choosing it. I chose it because it absolutely embodies the 2nd
tenet of NC. This is, in fact, what the NCs meant when they declaimed tenet 2-
or at least what they ‘stated they meant’. But how many poems that you’ve
ever read actually embody this belief? The short answer is not many. In fact, I
could only think of this & several other of my own poems which do defile
this virgin territory. &, more importantly, to embody such with abiding
excellence that lifts the poem above mere gimmickry?
This poem
succeeds especially well if you do know something of the art of the painter;
although it is something a savvy reader might infer. The poem mimics
Magritte’s poetic, surreal style & reliance on word ‘gags’ in his
paintings by inverting that into sight ‘gags’ that contribute to the poem.
The subject matter’s seeming schism with the title is in perfect logical
keeping with Magritte’s artistic bent. The epigraph serves a vital function in
basically stating what the poem shows. At poem’s end we see the punctuation
missing from the poem. We also see, if we care to insert it, that the
punctuation is in the correct order- although the reader, 1 presumes, is free to
do what he/she chooses- thereby making the poem a participatory act. Yet, the
title is very Classical, & invokes much of what the NCs draw their own
rationales from. This poem, however, innovates & uses these traditions to
extend that Classicism. By both using & going against the NC’s tenets this
poem could correctly be called a success or failure (by NC standards). Yet, it
is a poem that never fails to provoke admiration for its literary quality.
Therefore, the schism between the NC belief system & the gut level system
most lay readers have is something that strongly indicates that NC standards
were fundamentally wrong, or possibly incomplete.
But, let’s
think about what the NCs probably meant when they put tenet 2 out there- as
opposed to the reality of its near total nonexistence. I am sure that this goes
back to the silly NC obsession with ‘beauty’ & such. What they meant was
that a poem describing, say, an urn, should have a smoothness of music to match
the smooth beauty of the pot. This is ‘Classicism’ at its central being.
But, any astute reader of poetry knows that meter is an utter illusion (or
delusion- see my essay on Robinson Jeffers & the Metric Fallacy),
for good music can actually be harsh sounding- yet be ‘good’ if by good 1
means apropos to assorted ideas, situations, & ideals posited
by the given poem. This is the very nub of NC limitations/essence- but it’s a
pathetically weak nub to hang a coat on. Does a great Shakespeare sonnet work
merely because it’s lovely to hear- & about love? Or, does a ‘Surreal’
poem work simply because it may have images of a pelican, General Custer, &
a movie starlet’s measurements in the text of 2 consecutive lines? No, there
is alot more going on that such supersimplistic approaches miss. Magritte
Nude Reclining is what- if 1 were to be absolutely literal to the NC
‘critical text’- the NCs meant- although we see how much that deviates from
what they really meant. Ain’t it a kick that the very phrasing
of their tenet is fundamentally key to its undoing? &, that there really
were no poems to support their absurd posit (in those days, at least) only
underscores the ongoing effeteness of NC particularly, & any –Ism
generally.
Movers, Prime & Otherwise
The next bit
of mumbo-jumbo from the NCs is that images & lingual elements contribute to
the organic unity of the text. Well, yes & no. Yes- in the Duh!
aspect that, of course, poems contain images and lingual devices- it’s
literature, after all! But the answer is also no, in that the NCs meant that
these things are fundamental to the poem’s unity- or, ala tenet 1, they help
hermetically seal the poem off from the rest of the cosmos. Of course, they CAN
do that- but they fundamentally do not HAVE TO do that! This is
because while images & words, themselves, are important to the text (&
words are the text!) they do not necessarily divorce a work from the world about
it. In fact, they insuperably (to a 100% degree) CANNOT- only to certain,
limited, extents. Let’s examine a Judith Wright poem next:
The Killer
The day was clear as fire,
the birds sang frail as glass,
when thirsty I came to the creek
and fell by its side in the grass.
My breasts on the bright moss
and shower-embroidered weeds,
my lips to the live water
I saw him turn in the reeds.
Black horror sprang from the dark
in a violent birth,
and through its cloth of grass
I felt the clutch of earth.
O beat him into the ground.
O strike him till he dies,
or else your life itself,
drains through those colourless eyes.
I struck again and again.
Slender in black and red
he lies, and his icy glance
turns outward, clear and dead.
But nimble my enemy
as water is, or wind.
He has slipped from his death aside
and vanished into my mind.
He has vanished whence he came,
my nimble enemy;
and the ants come out to the snake
and drink at his shallow eye.
This is an excellent, & probably great, poem. Trust me on that-
because I shall not explicate why to any great degree, as my point is to not
prove the poem’s excellence, but to relate this poem to the NC’s tenet. I
have issues with a few word choices but its ending is devastatingly effective.
This poem does not just depict the ‘Death Of A Snake’, but the continual
need for humans to battle their own fears projected in to the world- sometimes
justified, but often not. So, how does this poem relate to the NC claim that
images, words, etc. are vital to organic unity- in the sense that it makes the
poem a thing unto itself? Well, it doesn’t- & you’d be hard-pressed to
argue that any poem does. Poems rely on their ability to play off of a
reader’s experience. Again we see the utter silliness that lies behind NC
reasoning- if 1 were to call such stupidity that.
Yet, I’m sure, because of the poem’s formal leanings, a typical NC
would fawn over the poem. But for its technical wizardry- not its profound
psychological implications- despite NC rhetoric to the contrary. But, here is an
example of a poem that can & has taken on a patina of meaning different
& deeper from its original one. The snake can be seen as the female
speaker’s symbolic sublimated fears of the masculine, & then the imagery
becomes more than what is actually happening, & more than what is in the
speaker’s mind, but a political allegory as well- whose ultimate outcome
(post-poem) is to be played out. Another NC failure manifested by this poem is
its rigidity, & failure to account for the changing tastes
& philosophies that life evolves through. Simply put, NC was a dead
end bound to run out of its time. A point that is always important to
stress when dealing with criticism is not whether or not a critic is right
or wrong about a particular poet, poem, poetic technique, etc. but the reasoning
& rationale that informs the opinion; i.e.- the process behind it
all is as important as the end result, because the end result could merely be
the byproduct of an accident, chance, or the infamous 10,000 Monkeys
effect. This helps evaluate if there is any coherent thought or rationale behind
the critical approach, & if it’s reproducible from criticism to criticism
(which helps determine its validity as an approach), or if it’s all just
shooting from the lip, or hip, or….speaking of coherence.
Coherence At All Costs
T.S.
Eliot’s Objective Correlative nonsense, which posits singular responses
to singular stimuli, is not really a NC posit- it actually predates NC- yet the
NCs clung to it as if it were- in spirit, if not word. Things must logically
outflow from something else, this is the basic dictum. This provides
‘thematic unity’- another highfalutin’, yet ultimately intellectually
sterile phrase. But how often does life (& especially our personal emotional
dramas) veer from logic? The OC was also, basically, TSE’s biases writ large,
& self-justified. The whole thing was totally & utterly dependent upon
some objective source clairvoyantly knowing a character’s or artist’s
intent. See? It is this kind of pretzel logic that hallmarks NC. OC is,
fundamentally, antithetical to the dictum & values the NCs championed- most
specifically the Intentional Fallacy.
Let us review
a juicy little poem by Japanese poet Shuntarō Tanikawa & see what, if
anything, objectivity has to do with it.
Twenty Billion Light Years Of Loneliness
Mankind on a little globe
Sleeps, awakes and works
Wishing at times to be friends with Mars.
Martians on a little globe
Are probably doing something; I don't know what
(Maybe sleep-sleeping, wear-wearing, or fret-fretting)
While wishing at time to be friends with Earth
This is a fact I'm sure of.
This thing called universal
gravitation
Is the power of loneliness pulling together.
The universe is distorted
So all join in desire.
The universe goes on expanding
So all feel uneasy.
At the loneliness of twenty billion
light years
Without thinking, I sneezed.
(translated by Harold Wright)
Well? The answer is obviously NOT MUCH! The poem, indeed, works precisely
because it is NOT objective. Subjectivity (in observation & drama) drips
from every line- blatantly so. The speaker’s humor, warmth, & irreverence
all contribute to the poem’s ‘singularity’- or is that ‘unity’? From
even the title where the 1st 4 words hew the objective line, on to
the last 2 words which kibosh it. Line 3 starts the veer to the subjective. Line
5 emphasizes it. Line 6 italicizes it. Line 8 mocks it. Line 10 stretches it.
Line 12 goes farther. Line 14 farther. Line 16- well, if the OC is not dead by
now, this total inversion (subversion?) does the proverbial undead/stake deal.
The whimsy & depth of this little fantasy poem are selling points, as well.
That aside- ask yourself: how many poems (whimsical or not) make similar
detours from their starts? &, isn’t that a plus? Now, TSE actually seems
to have meant that a character or situation must be believable-
not a bad suggestion- IF you are sticking to straight drama- well, sometimes.
See what I mean? Ultimately the OC & the rest of NC tenets descend to reductios
ad absurdum.
Maximal Minutiae
Last tenet
(#5, if you’re still counting): Every part of the text contributes to the
meaning of the text. I.e.- everything in a poem matters- Duh! [Deux!]
What the NCs meant was that they wanted a justification for every iota in a
poem. While not a bad suggestion, off the top, there is 1 serious drawback that
any great artist will recognize: it kills the element of ‘magic’- for lack
of a better word. There is that alchemical reaction that all great art produces,
a synergy beyond description, that 1 just has to accept, lest fall into a
delirium of explicative froth that says nothing & lasts little longer than
the second it takes to read it. 1 can decode all the sources & meanings,
but- ultimately- there will be that bit of ineffable oomph that separates the
technically excellent from the flat-out great.
Let’s
examine a terrific poem by 1 of the most underrated, but probably great,
American poets of the last century- Weldon Kees. Let’s see its relation to
this tenet- if any:
For My Daughter
Looking into my daughter's eyes I
read
Beneath the innocence of morning flesh
Concealed, hintings of death she does not heed.
Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh
Of seaweed snarled these miniatures of hands;
The night's slow poison, tolerant and bland,
Has moved her blood. Parched years that I have seen
That may be hers appear: foul, lingering
Death in certain war, the slim legs green.
Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting
Of others' agony; perhaps the cruel
Bride of a syphilitic or a fool.
These speculations sour in the sun.
I have no daughter. I desire none.
This poem uses clichés- & inverts them & then its narrative pulls the rug out from under the sympathizing reader. In a sense this poem does contribute everything of itself in service to the poem. But, not in the way NCs would recognize. As example- the objective correlatives of the assorted clichés are totally subverted. This declichés the clichés, but also de-objectifies the correlative. Ah, the conundrum! Again, we see how simple-minded & poor NC is in relation to serious criticism of poetry. The great endline- which cements the poem’s very greatness, however, also would- technically- work against the poem in a NC’s view, for the very reason that nothing in the poem prepares us for it. I would argue, that that fact actually is in keeping with the NC ‘purpose’ of having all parts of the text contribute. But a strict NC would not. Again, the great flaws that damned NC to oblivion were absolutism, rigidity, & simplisticness. Yet, these 3 tenets are still found in NC’s reactionary critical descendent: PC Elitism, which vilifies all things NC. Why? Because, both systems were not based upon technical/critical means- rather upon political ends. Here surfaces 1 of the great abiding truths of human politics- which has poisoned poetry & its criticism of recent decades: Political thought is not graphed upon a line in 2 dimensions- but rather 3. It’s as if it were the equator on a globe- go far enough to the left or right, east or west, NC or PCE & you get the same poor results on the dark side of the world! Let’s looksy.
Tying The Noose
The basic
problem with NC- aside from the 3 specifics mentioned above- was that NC was so
vague in its conjectures that it really had no validity. Then, again, any
notion/theory of art that is so ironclad (& is not any theory for art such?)
is bound to suffocate the art it purports to value. This schism between what
they declared they valued & what they produced (especially, since the NCs,
as poets, were notoriously mediocre-bad) provided ample fodder to damn them
well. But it also provided the loam for the dastardly PC Elitists to take root,
with their equally dull & simpleminded tautologies in the opposite
direction. As with the NCs, PCEs are equally simple-minded in their declarations
that all art MUST serve the betterment of Mankind (or, as they prefer- Humanity)
politically. That the act of art, of any sort (& if of quality), by its
nature seems to better its observer, seems to have slipped by PCEs’ grasp.
But their
silly dicta got its start totally in the NC’s prior contra-assertions. Yet,
these 2 thought systems not only followed each other in time, & are
opposing, but NC- in a way- actually melded in to PCE, even as it spawned it. It
is not such a great journey, after all, between absolutisms- how often has the
addict become the born-again religiot? Another aspect about NC should be evident
from this essay’s approach vis-à-vis other essays you might read about NC.
I’ve paraphrased & condensed most of the NC ideas, rather than drone on
& on, quoting bloated passages filled with attempts at critical
sleight-of-hand which says nothing. Most of NC writing was so dull & turgid
that most essays about it simply rehash the top 8-10 quotable excerpts. While
that shortens the time required to produce an essay it also shortchanges a
discerning reader- thus my paraphrasings.
The major
point to be reckoned is this: NC had some definite virtues- its assorted Fallacies-
& some ludicrous demerits- the Heresy of Paraphrase- but it was the
inability to provide depth & flexibility to their viewpoints, either way,
that fossilized the cult, & proved their undoing. A demise that is proof
that good & bad tend to get their respective dues over time- at least 99% of
the time. Yes, some of their posits were common sensical, but all too often they
did not adhere to their own strictures- either in criticism or, more tellingly,
in their prose & poetry. Why? Because it fundamentally makes no sense to so
suffocate & delimit 1’s art. The NCs’ writerly side rebelled against
their critical cast- & rightly so! This, in itself, gives some pretty strong
proof that the whole NC movement was politically, not artistically, based.
Further evidence can be mounted by showing the lack of poetic corpuses addressed
by the NCs from black, female, & other minority poets of their day. NCs also
refused to embrace their own aims, which we’ve noted was evidence of an
internal schism- but also they never even attempted to push their aims to their
logical ends, & raise the bar higher- none of the 5 poets whose poems grace
this essay were ever remotely associated with NC, yet each poem could be admired
& damned by NC standards. Ah, the dread complexity of being a good critic!
It’s so much easier when you have an –Ism to grind!
Speaking of
which- let’s primp the bow that ties NC with its bastard spawn PCE. 1st
off, let’s posit why NC thrived 50 years ago but PCE thrives today. The 1st
notable thing about the 2 systems (internally) is that, aside from their seeming
180° political sentiments, the 2 –isms are not that different: they share
absolutist stances politically, a rigidity of artistic mindset, that will soon
date PCE to the millennium as easily as NC dates to the mid-20th
Century, & an overriding simplemindedness that refuses to acknowledge
complexities beyond their limited fields. As for the external let me reiterate a
point whose consequences have never been fully addressed in the Academic halls
nor the ‘Outsider’ poetic worlds: 50 years ago, in a given year, there were
perhaps about 50 outlets for a published poem to appear. Nowadays there are
100-200 times that amount of venues. Rigidity ruled when there were fewer
outlets. Laxity is king when outlets are plentiful. The net effect is that PCEs’
stance is, to a large degree, a justification for the need to simply fill the
space. NCs’ stance was, in large measure, a justification for the need to
screen out the riff-raff. However, by percentage, the rate of good poems/poets
per 100 is about the same. The difference is purely access related.
However,
just as NCs were totally intolerant of anything below or outside what they
deemed literary ‘standards’, so too are the PCEs utterly contemptuous of
anything that hints at some ‘standards’ to judging good art vs. the dreck of
most art. You will be quickly branded & tarred as a bigot of some sort,
anti-this or anti-that. To PCEs the idea of even a general, broad & flexible
standard for measuring excellent writing is anathema, & evidence of some
nebulous political conspiracy to ‘silence’ women & minority artists- aka
‘emerging voices/peoples’- a sickening & condescending
euphemism, especially when applied to anyone over the age of majority. It’s
almost as if PCEs are mute & dumb to the similarities they share with the
NCs. Granted, I’m not lamenting that fact- I readily hope they join NC in the
same tumulus. I only fear the monster that’s bound to come next in the
evolution of bad APC- just imagine the bastard spawn of R.P. Blackmur & June
Jordan: think of old Kurtz’s last words!
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