Excerpt from "M.H. Abrams: Historian as Critic, Critic as Pluralist" by Wayne C. Booth

When M. H. Abrams published a defense, in 1972, of "theorizing about the arts,"1 some of his critics accused him, of falling into subjectivism. He had made his case so forcefully against "the confrontation model of aesthetic criticism," and so effectively argued against "simplified" and "invariable" models of the art work and of "the function of criticism," that some readers thought he had thrown overboard the very possibility of a rational criticism tested by objective criteria. In his recent reply to these critics,2 Abrams concentrates almost entirely on whether his critical pluralism is finally a skeptical relativism. He does not even mention his great historical works, The Mirror and the Lamp and Natural Supernaturalism, and he has nothing to say about how his pluralistic theories would be applied to the writing of history. But then, surprising as it seems once we think about it, neither of the two histories has much about his method either. What is the true achievement of these aggressive raids into our past, and how does Abrams see them in relation to other possible histories of the same subjects? Knowing in advance that he has agreed to reply to my nudging, I should like both to propose that everyone has - with Abrams' own encouragement - understated the importance of what he has done and to ask: What kind of pluralist is he?

  • 1. "What's the Use of Theorizing about the Arts," In Search of Literary Theory, ed. Morton Bloomfield (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972), pp. 3-54.
  • 2. "A Note on Wittgenstein and Literary Criticism," ELH 41 (Winter 1974): 541-54.

    Wayne C. Booth's other contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Kenneth Burke's Way of Knowing" (September 1974), "Irony and Pity Once Again: Thais Revisited" (Winter 1975), >"THE LIMITS OF PLURALISM: Preserving the Exemplar: Or, How Not to Dig our Own Graves" (Spring 1977), "CRITICAL RESPONSE: Notes and Exchanges" (Autumn 1977), "Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation" (Autumn 1978) ,"Ten Literal 'Theses" (Autumn 1978), with Wright Morris: "The Writing of Organic Fiction: A Conversation" (Autumn 1976), and with Robert E. Streeter, W.J.T. Mitchell: "EDITORS' NOTE: Sheldon Sacks 1930-1979" (Spring 1979).

    © 1976 by The University of Chicago. All excerpts appear in Critical Inquiry, Volume 2, Number 3 (Spring 1976). This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of US copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice is carried and that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or reduplication of this text in other terms, in any medium, requires both the consent of the authors and the University of Chicago Press.

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