M.H. ABRAM’S

 

M.H. ABRAM’S

FAMOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT LITERATURE

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Meyer Howard Abrams (July 23, 1912 – April 21, 2015), usually cited as M. H. Abrams, was an American literary critic, known for works on romanticism, in particular his book The Mirror and the Lamp. Under Abrams's editorship, The Norton Anthology of English Literature became the standard text for undergraduate survey courses across the U.S. and a major trendsetter in literary canon formation.

Statements:

1.     Literature is human: Literature is about humans, and its power and permanence come from that focus.

2.     Literature is a reflection of humanity: Literature is a human thing, and nothing is more interesting to humans than humanity.

3.     Literature is influenced by history and culture: To understand literature, you must understand its place in history and culture.

4.     Literary theories can be classified by their emphasis on four elements: These elements are the author, the reader, the shared world, and the text.

5.     Metaphor is central to human communication: Metaphor is central to human communication.

6.     Romanticism was pivotal in the development of literature: The Romanticism of the later 18th century was pivotal in the development of literature.

7.     Poetry must be read aloud: Poetry must be read aloud to yield its full meaning.

8.     Literature is a lamp: For the Romantics, writing was more like a lamp, illuminating the world with the light of the writer's inner soul.

9.      We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity.

10.   Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable.

11.   It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

12.   If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.

13.   Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.

14.   If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.

15.   We believed that to understand literature, you had to understand its place in history and culture.

16.   The Romantics were whipping boys of the New Criticism, but they appealed to me anyway. I was recalcitrant. It was clear to me that they had thought innovatively.

17.   The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives.

18.   The first test any poem must pass is no longer, 'Is it true to nature?' but a criterion looking in a different direction: namely, 'Is it sincere? Is it genuine?'

19.   The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

20.   Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.

Literary theories, Abrams argues, can be divided into four main groups:

1.     Mimetic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Universe)

2.     Pragmatic Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Audience)

3.     Expressive Theories (interested in the relationship between the Work and the Artist)

4.     Objective Theories (interested in close reading of the Work)

 

 

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