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Explores the humanist criticism of Lionel Trilling and Edward Said through a critical analysis of their influences and the changing landscapes of literary studies.
Assessments of the history of literary criticism suffer from two errors. On one hand, they often ignore the relationship between critical history and literary history. On the other hand, they tend to assume a progressive vision of history where literary movements or critical schools of thought build upon each other. As a result, such assessments either privilege the present and praise its progress or express nostalgia for the past.
The Humanist Critic: Lionel Trilling and Edward Said demonstrates the poverty of these tendencies. By examining the careers of two of the most significant figures in literary-critical history, it demonstrates how Said inherits and revises an older style of criticism that Trilling practices, and conversely, we see how Trilling anticipates future directions in criticism that Said will scrutinize. At the same time, The Humanist Critic argues that developments in critical history and developments in literary modernism represent a parallel story. Recognizing these intertwined narratives is key to lessening the perceived antagonism between modernism, continental critical theory, and what each presumably displaced.
The Humanist Critic thus studies the influence of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Mann on Trilling and the influence of Joseph Conrad and Gerard Manley Hopkins on Said while also putting the careers of Trilling and Said in dialogue with structuralist and deconstructive thought. The Humanist Critic is ultimately a focused genealogy of literary studies; a study of influence; a critique of current trends in critical culture; and a renewed justification for the humanist vocation.
‘Nutters has written an important critical history of modernism and theory. The reader learns not only about Trilling’s chosen precursors, Matthew Arnold and Thomas Mann, or Said’s Joseph Conrad and Gerard Manley Hopkins, but about the impact of large-scale cultural changes upon literary and critical institutions. The specifics of Nutters’ nuanced readings uncover our present and likely forecast the future. These brilliantly contextualized analyses encourage the reader to do likewise, thereby adding significant substance to critical debate at a moment when hash-tag simplifications dominate. Nutters has thus followed closely his revisionary precursors. His deftly rewarding major study is fully aware of theory but always in a style emulating their pointed clarity and complexity’. - Daniel T. O’Hara, Emeritus Professor of English, Temple University, USA.
‘Analyzing two outstanding twentieth-century critics, Daniel Nutters surprises and delights his reader by doing much more: he opens historical perspectives from Romanticism to our own century; discusses great writers, including Thomas Mann and Gerard Manley Hopkins; and achieves a strong case for the human value of continuing to read literature’. - Jonathan Arac, Andrew Mellon Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, USA.
‘In The Humanist Critic, Daniel Rosenberg Nutters presents a critical genealogy of developments in literature studies in recent decades, focusing on the careers of two major critics who almost heroically maintained close ties with older traditions amid the tumultuous changes facing the discipline. In the process, Nutters shows, Trilling and Said helped to shape productive ways of engaging with the new theories and methods. Inspired by their work, Nutters offers a spirited defense of a humanism that opposes the false binaries of the various culture wars dominating critical discussions of late, while also pointing to affirmative models of literary critical practice in our time’. - Robert T. Tally Jr., author of The Critical Situation: Vexed Perspectives in Postmodern Literary Studies.
‘Nutters views Trilling and Said as equally critical of “rote political practices” and of irony’s “disruptive” energy. Accordingly, they kept alive “humanist ideals at the very moment they seem[ed] to become a lost cause.” Nutters brilliantly evokes their ideals anew, for a similar moment now. The result is inspiring criticism’. - Robert L. Caserio, Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
‘With flair and astonishing erudition, The Humanist Critic fully lives up to its title. Appealing to two of his cultural “heroes,” Lionel Trilling and Edward Said, Daniel Rosenberg Nutters lovingly reconstructs their intellectual forebears, their compelling inspirations (in high modernism), their theoretical challenges, and significant contributions persisting to this day. In so doing, he adds an authoritative overview of the institutions and values of literary criticism in the U.S. from the postwar period to the present. A needed and indispensable contribution in its own right’. – Henry Sussman, Professor Emeritus, Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo, USA.
Daniel Rosenberg Nutters teaches English at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.
Preface: Secret Sharers; Introduction: The Humanist Challenge; 1. Early Trilling and Matthew Arnold; 2. Late Trilling and Thomas Mann; 3. Early Said and Joseph Conrad; 4. Late Said and Gerard Manley Hopkins; Afterword: The Bloody Crossroads; Index;