Adam Kirsch: 'The Modern Element'

'The Modern Critic: a review of Adam Kirsch’s The Modern Element'

The title of this volume is fitting for a man of letters with humanist, even nineteenth century, taste, and whose sensibilities are just a tiny bit twee. 'The modern element' is a term coined by great nineteenth-century critic Matthew Arnold, and it is the guiding principle of Kirsh's criticism. In his typically Arnoldian introduction, Kirsch argues that a poet “can only become modern by mastering the civilization in which he finds himself” and that this lies at the heart of all great twentieth century poetry, from Ezra Pound and TS Eliot to contemporary masters.

Kirsch's critical style is technical but never opaque, precise without dwelling too insistently on details. He shrugs off the language of academia and theory in favor of more classically humanist formulations of quality. The work of each poet is assessed over the span of their whole careers, with examples and excepts when necessary, making the brevity of each essay only more remarkable – not a word is wasted, the brisk pace of an urban mind. He begins his essays by acknowledging the presumptions and aesthetic project of the poet, and although he will allow them to set their own goals to some degree, he also maintains his distance in order to diagnose their (mostly modest) successes and failures. Of the first there are few, of the latter, many: this volume is laden with terminal diagnoses.

An unfamiliar reader will learn quickly that Kirsch is unfazed by passing judgment – in that, his style resembles the critics Yvor Winters (featured in The Modern Element) and James Wood, whose unpopular but skillfully argued judgments reveal at least a certain strength of character, and integrity. Rarely do these judgments appear to be unearned though (his routing of Billy Collins seemed gratuitous; maybe dedicating too much time to to work supposedly worth so little); each is the culmination of an exacting process of assessment, and it is that rigorous assessment which gives the critic his authority.

This is not to say he is entirely unbiased. Aside from his own sensibilities, Kirsch also has his darlings and villains, and they show. Czeslaw Milosz, a poet who produces “art for life’s sake,” is dubbed “one of the master spirits of the twentieth century.” In his essay on Philip Larkin, Kirsch shelves the complicated issue of weighing personality against poetry, falling heavily in favor of his poetic accomplishments, writing that “It is his rare generosity, not his common failings, that will secure Larkin’s place for posterity."

Postmodern artists – perhaps predictably – do not fare as well. Kirsch broadly dubs postmodern poetry, “poetry that, because it is not self-sufficient, refuses to be even sufficient.” In a critical shot across the bow, John Asberry is dealt with early on in the collection. He is dealt with, in fact – considered as well as any, but mostly dismissed. Ashbery’s poetry, Kirsch surmises, leaves the reader “exhausted,” with the feeling that “there were nowhere fruitful for poetry to turn.” It would be hard to argue that most general readers haven’t read more about Ashbery than have actually read his work, and so perhaps exhaustion is just the right term.

Here is a revised model for literary assessment: no flashy purple prose, no vague emotive descriptions of the work’s impression, no tabloid-page biographies masquerading as reviews, and no assessment without some final judgment. This is a model that all critics, regardless of their predispositions, can, and should, follow. It is the clear product of an educated mind: patient, erudite, and even. Kirsch is consumed by the myriad ways that poetry drives insight for readers and the culture, and it is by this yardstick – not some over-rationalized theory – that he weighs these artists: a modern critic, indeed.