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Singing the Body Mechanic
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12930 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
2,600 Words |
| Author
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Gregory Wolfe
Gregory Wolfe is the founder and coeditor of Image: A Journal
of the Arts and Religion, and a frequent contributor to The
World & I. |
THE MECHANIC MUSE
Hugh Kenner
New York: Oxford University Press, 1986
136 pp., $13.95
Hugh Kenner stands apart from most of the literary critics of our day for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that his books are widely read. That may seem an odd claim, given the surge in popularity of literary critics espousing radical ideologies, including writers like Jacques Derrida and that semiotics professor-turned-novelist Umberto Eco, author of The Name of the Rose. But these literary ideologues write impenetrable prose; except for the most assiduous graduate students, most people refer to them at cocktail parties and faculty clubs by paraphrasing a few quirky ideas.
Kenner, on the other hand, writes with vivacity and elegance about those "difficult" poets, the High Modernists (Joyce, Eliot, Pound, et al.). In fact, Kenner has been criticized by fellow critics for being too involved with his love of style and generalization. Denis Donoghue observes that in Kenner's prose "liveliness has to fill the space by making each phrase and clause an event: distinctions of a scholarly nature...are eliminated from the space of the only dialogue in the case, that which takes place between Kenner and his typewriter." Add to these strictures Kenner's association with William F. Buckley, Jr.'s conservative magazine National Review, and one can see that any of Kenner's books will be an "event" that will provoke controversy.
The Mechanic Muse is no exception. In a little over a hundred pages, Kenner attempts to demonstrate that the Modernist writers were both subtly influenced by, and consciously aware of, the way modern technology affects our perception of reality. In doing so, Kenner manages to assault one of the most cherished prejudices that we have inherited from the Romantics: the notion that the poet or imaginative writer has divorced himself from the harsh, impersonal world of the machine in order to cultivate a more sensitive personality. Indeed, we are accustomed to the idea that the poet gained a special civilizing mission with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. In political terms, the artist has often been seen as the antagonist of materialistic capitalism, upholding the beauty of nature and the simplicity of the common man.
Between the Virgin and the Dynamo
As with many prejudices,
...
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