A Literature Without Qualities: American Writing Since 1945

A LITERATURE WITHOUT QUALITIES Th1.s One 111 111111 111 11 11111111111 111 2J6Y-XGB-BRPE Ma1ep111an. 3all\1i1U\eHHb1!il aa1opcK111M npaaoM ABOUT QUANTUM BOOKS QUANTUM, THE UNIT OF EMITTED ENERGY. A QUANTUM BOOK IS A SHORT STUDY DISTINCTIVE FOR THE AUTHOR'S ABILITY TO OFFER A RICHNESS OF DETAIL AND INSIGHT WITHIN ABOUT ONE HUNDRED PAGES OF PRINT. SHORT ENOUGH TO BE READ IN AN EVENING AND SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO BE A BOOK. Marepi'lan, Jauti'luteHHblj;\ aeropCKi'IM npaeoM Warner Berthoff Literature • 1t out • • ua 1t1es AMERICAN WRITING SINCE 1945 University of California Press Berkeley • Los Angeles • Lo11don Ma1ep1>1an. 3aU\1>1U\eHHb1� aenopcK1>1M npae.oM University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1979 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN Library 0-520...03696-4 of Congress Catalog Card Number; 78-57305 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Marep14an. 3aU\"1U\eHHbllii aBropCK"1M npaaoM For Leo Marx and William H. Pritchard Marep111an. 3a�111�eHHbllil asropcKll!M npaBOM Contents Ack11owlcdg111.e11ts 1. I11tr1an. 3aU\1>1U\eHHb1� aenopcK1>1M npae.oM 7 Introductory what they symbolize, more idiosyncratic as cultural and historical indicators, than the passion for critical system building can conveniently admit. What par­ ticularly distinguishes created works that do outlast their own historical moment seems always to elude attempts at a full systematization, either of their es­ sential compone11ts or of their transacted functions in the consciousness of readers. Yet what is this distinguishing element likely to be bt1t the very force that energizes those components and breathes life into those functions? By servi11g their own immediate ends, works of art (and their makers and finders) do inevitably serve various grand collective interests-la11guage, cultural or ideological revision and reir1tegration, collective memory, the recovery and enrichn1ent of common feeling. Bt1t a willed fidelity to such interests does not by itself guarantee great achievement. If it did, we would have mt1ch more in the way of fully ac­ complished art tl1an we actually get; and the scandal of major art, to critical schen1atization, is at all times its infreque11cy together with its creative singularity. Yet when the surprise of the genuinely original and accomplished has in time been absorbed, its ''long foreground'' in both traditio11 and self-preparation invariably discloses itself (as Emerson, from whom I borrow the phrase, understood in his extraordinary letter of welcome to the unk11own author of Leaves of Grass). Then critical apprehension and accurate historical understanding become, as they must, a single exercise of mind. 4 . Ma1epL'1an. 3aU1L'1U1eHHb1lil aBTopcKL'IM npaBOM 8 Introductory 2 These are among the considerations framing what I have undertaken to do in this short book. Within its limits I offer it as three different but related things: an inventory, a recollective critique, and a diagnostic projection. As inventory it is partial and somewhat idiosyncratically selective; forgivably so, I trust, sin.ce what is under review spans nearly one-fifth of our national literary history, a