(Over 60 diverse thinkers on how to get more from books)
Abrams was an American literary critic and theorist.
He believed that even the non-theorist can better understand a book if they’re aware of the different types of theory for doing so. When we use “common sense” to judge and discuss books we are implicitly using unsystematic and desultory concepts that derive from earlier critics who orientated them in theoretical structures (Abrams 1989, 30). We unconsciously adopt a particular theoretical stance and the associated implicit assumptions, criticising what we read in terms of what we were taught in school, approaches adopted from book reviews, and how experts talk about books. Yet this ad-hoc, hodgepodge of assumptions, is unexamined and disjointed. If we gain familiarity with a range of theories, Abrams suggests, we become more aware of what we’re actually doing, and see possibilities for doing something different.
We can think about any literary work, or “poem” in Abrams’ terms, as something that “is produced by a poet, is related in its subject matter to the universe of human beings, things, and events, and is addressed to, or made available to, an audience of hearers or readers” (p. 3). In each type of theory one of these elements is elevated, and the rest made subservient. On this basis a taxonomy of theories develops as follows.
Mimetic theories suggest that the poem reproduces, imitates, or represents the world. Literature is regarded as a mirror of nature, so the “focus of attention is thus on the relation between the imitable and the imitation, and the primary aesthetic criterion is or ” (p. 7). Using this approach we evaluate books by how accurately they conform to our experience the world. Authors are great according to their acuity of observation.
A pragmatic theory “sets a poem in a means-end relationship, regarding the matter and manner of imitation as instrumental toward achieving certain effects in the reader” (p. 8). The poet intends to instruct or please us, and does this by deliberately making an object to achieve specific ends (pp. 9–10). For example, a text aiming to improve the reader’s moral character is good if its audience becomes more moral. Such authors are judged by their inherent powers and skills—their nature and art—in constructing a poem that fulfils its aims (p. 11). We can envisage a text that, because it’s highly faithful to nature, comprising accurate poetic descriptions of natural beauty, we judge favourably on a mimetic basis. However, because it does not bring us particular pleasure, we regard it a failure on pragmatic terms.
In expressive theories “the poet moves into the center of the scheme”, becoming “the prime generator of the subject matter, attributes, and values of a poem” (ibid.). The source of the work lies not in the external world but in the poet, so poetry is “the language of feeling” (p. 14). This means that “the art of affecting an audience, which had been the defining attribute of poetry in pragmatic theory, becomes precisely the quality that invalidates a poem”: “The mirror held up to nature becomes a mirror held up to the poet, or else it is rendered transparent” (pp. 13–14).
Objective theories focus on the formal aspects of the poem, the text itself. They include “the heterocosmic model, in which each work constitutes a unique, coherent, and autonomous world” and “the contemplation model, in which each work is a self-sufficient object that is contemplated disinterestedly for its own sake” (p. 18). The contrast between these theories and mimetic theories is striking: a work judged exceptional in mimetic terms would likely fail utterly in an objective light. The truth of an objective poem is in its internal coherence whereas the truth of a mimetic poem is in its correspondence to the real world.
Science fiction demonstrates this distinction well, and points to a broader implication of Abrams’ analysis: if we implicitly value only a single aspect of literature, we reject huge swathes of works that are written in a different manner. Further, if we’re unaware of what underlies our judgements, we won’t realise what a more adaptable approach would yield.
These traditional theories were upended by more recent theorists who maintain that “there are”no right readings” of any poem, hence…a critic is liberated from his traditional subordinacy to the work he comments on, and in fact achieves the production of meaning…that earlier critics had mistakenly attributed to the author of a work” (p. 27).
So, criticism needs theory, but there are many diverse types of theory, and Abrams doesn’t regard developing a new one or prioritising an existing one as viable. Instead, he advocates pluralism: these theories “may in fact serve as alternative and complementary procedures for doing the critic’s job, with each theory, from its elected vantage, yielding distinctive insights into the properties and relations of poems” (p. 30). Awareness of this taxonomy allows us to adopt the approach we deem appropriate for a particular poem, or more usefully, allows us to apply different theories to different parts of the poem.
Where does this leave meaning? By insisting on one particular theory being correct, the criteria for determining a work’s truth are relatively straightforward. But a pluralistic approach to interpretation makes absolute certainty of a poem’s meaning impossible: different theories yield different meanings. Instead, we should aim at interpretations that we can be reasonably warranted in believing.
Achieving this requires us assuming that the author wrote to be understood and produced sentences “designed to have a core of determinate meanings” (p. 126). Indeed, for a work or interpretation to succeed, writer and reader need common ground before either begins their task (p. ix). There’s a “partial circularity” at play (p. 400). Both parties need “some grounds for imaginative consent, some comparative ordering of values, some readiness of emotional response to the matters shown forth” (p. 134). We come to the text, then, believing that the author wants to be understood and is employing the linguistic and literary norms that we have in common (p. 126).
We validate our assumptions and interpretations with other competent readers who share in these norms and our “expertise and tact” (p. xi). By talking with them and reading their criticism we obtain reasonable assurance of what the author meant. We can also test our interpretation by making it public, permitting our peers to confirm or falsify our understanding (p. 126). This isn’t an obligation to publish an academic paper on what we read, but just to discuss our perspectives with others. Even the best criticism, therefore, is never certain, but it is rational, it is evidentiary, when it produces valid knowledge about texts (p. ix).
Explicitly considering the type of theory we’re employing when we read, subscribing to the general norms of competent readers, then discussing our interpretations becomes a way to gain better comprehension of books, as Abrams demonstrated by example with his extensive critical oeuvre and thoughtful responses to his critics (pp. 113–134 (e.g.)).