Nicely done, Kieran, as usual. To add a fourth (?) criticism, I think your piece doesn't take account of how conservative or perhaps radical Kramnick's argument is, at least from your retelling. "Close reading" was associated with the so-called "New Criticism" of the 50s and 60s, which (if my memory serves) itself was a reaction against life of the artist sort of criticism, and even the criticism I like most, the sort of philosophically spirited work of Trilling and others, who rarely quote much. The New Criticism could easily be overdone, and was -- sort of Talmudic studies -- and was passe by the time I was a student in the late '80s. Part of the excitement of post structuralism generally was that it seemed to offer just the sort of play and creativity for which you call. All of this became quite ideological, people lost interest . . . so a call for a return to the text is no doubt in order. And I think the part about perception is right, fwiw. Anyway, thanks for bringing this to my attention, and keep up the good work.
Thanks for this. It's actually hard to gauge how reactionary Kramnick's argument is. I think he would deny that he's urging a return to a narrower vision of literary studies. His claim is more that close reading remains *part* of the practice of the discipline, and is a teachable skill with genuine epistemic power (as well as a creative exercise). He leaves unclear (to me) how much of the work you describe he would want to fold into close reading and what attitude he takes to its value.
"Reactionary" is perhaps stronger than I meant. I think close reading is a good idea, though it isn't really how I think about texts. It seems most useful for poetry, and (though nobody says it like this) math -- highly compact forms that benefit from scrutiny, essentially "stopping." But that's a substantive argument. Insofar as this is a social/political book, a defense, then I don't think it's quite fair to say "this is what is going on in literary studies, I don't know why people are reacting against it." In particular, creative writing (Iowa) appears to be very highly politicized. There is a bunch of this on Substack -- many writers on Substack because don't want to be part of that crowd, nor can they seem themselves as white identitarian. So, my guess is that he has to circle back to some sort of more formal practice (which in principle, I'd support). I'm underwater in the mountains revising a book, Quixote's Dinner Party: Hopes for Social Thought, that I think you'd find interesting.
Why use the word creative at all? All writing is creative insofar as the writer fills a blank page with words.
The only question is: Are those words worth reading? Are they amusing, intelligent, incisive, or are they banal, dull, and tedious? Writers speak of creative non-fiction but is there such a thing as un-creative non-fiction or non-creative non-fiction? Of course there isn't. Let's give the word creative a rest.
I see your point: maybe "creative" is not the best term here, and there are dimensions and gradations rather than crisp distinctions of genre. But if you think of scientific reports or studies in medical journals, which take the form of prose nonfiction, the sort of creativity they aspire to seems different from that of Annie Dillard or Zadie Smith. There's real dispute about where, e.g. philosophical articles in academic journals, should position themselves with respect to these models.
Medium coincidence sounds very weird. When analysing each others' hypotheses, mainstream economists traditionally do so in terms of models. "I reject your model, here's my model" or "I reject your non-mathematical intuitions/arguments, where's your model" --- so both the text and its analysis could be said to be in the same medium. But this would not be close reading.
Nicely done, Kieran, as usual. To add a fourth (?) criticism, I think your piece doesn't take account of how conservative or perhaps radical Kramnick's argument is, at least from your retelling. "Close reading" was associated with the so-called "New Criticism" of the 50s and 60s, which (if my memory serves) itself was a reaction against life of the artist sort of criticism, and even the criticism I like most, the sort of philosophically spirited work of Trilling and others, who rarely quote much. The New Criticism could easily be overdone, and was -- sort of Talmudic studies -- and was passe by the time I was a student in the late '80s. Part of the excitement of post structuralism generally was that it seemed to offer just the sort of play and creativity for which you call. All of this became quite ideological, people lost interest . . . so a call for a return to the text is no doubt in order. And I think the part about perception is right, fwiw. Anyway, thanks for bringing this to my attention, and keep up the good work.
Thanks for this. It's actually hard to gauge how reactionary Kramnick's argument is. I think he would deny that he's urging a return to a narrower vision of literary studies. His claim is more that close reading remains *part* of the practice of the discipline, and is a teachable skill with genuine epistemic power (as well as a creative exercise). He leaves unclear (to me) how much of the work you describe he would want to fold into close reading and what attitude he takes to its value.
"Reactionary" is perhaps stronger than I meant. I think close reading is a good idea, though it isn't really how I think about texts. It seems most useful for poetry, and (though nobody says it like this) math -- highly compact forms that benefit from scrutiny, essentially "stopping." But that's a substantive argument. Insofar as this is a social/political book, a defense, then I don't think it's quite fair to say "this is what is going on in literary studies, I don't know why people are reacting against it." In particular, creative writing (Iowa) appears to be very highly politicized. There is a bunch of this on Substack -- many writers on Substack because don't want to be part of that crowd, nor can they seem themselves as white identitarian. So, my guess is that he has to circle back to some sort of more formal practice (which in principle, I'd support). I'm underwater in the mountains revising a book, Quixote's Dinner Party: Hopes for Social Thought, that I think you'd find interesting.
Why use the word creative at all? All writing is creative insofar as the writer fills a blank page with words.
The only question is: Are those words worth reading? Are they amusing, intelligent, incisive, or are they banal, dull, and tedious? Writers speak of creative non-fiction but is there such a thing as un-creative non-fiction or non-creative non-fiction? Of course there isn't. Let's give the word creative a rest.
I see your point: maybe "creative" is not the best term here, and there are dimensions and gradations rather than crisp distinctions of genre. But if you think of scientific reports or studies in medical journals, which take the form of prose nonfiction, the sort of creativity they aspire to seems different from that of Annie Dillard or Zadie Smith. There's real dispute about where, e.g. philosophical articles in academic journals, should position themselves with respect to these models.
Medium coincidence sounds very weird. When analysing each others' hypotheses, mainstream economists traditionally do so in terms of models. "I reject your model, here's my model" or "I reject your non-mathematical intuitions/arguments, where's your model" --- so both the text and its analysis could be said to be in the same medium. But this would not be close reading.