There is a brilliant new essay by Ashley C. Barnes in The Hedgehog Review about the (apparent) conflict between reading literature as a timeless object of love and reading it as the product of its historical conditions. I urge you to read it. I’m confident I would have found it unusually illuminating even if I were not married to the author.
In the essay, Ashley looks around at our disenchanted world, the world of adulthood, lost magic, and secularity, and sees that authors and critics alike talk about art as a way to transcend this reality. Their agreement on this point nevertheless leads them to interminable, circular debates over art’s place within (or without) history. In response, Ashley sets new terms for the debate, arguing for an aesthetics not of transcendence, but of incarnation:
In contrast to an aesthetics of transcendence, then, an incarnational aesthetic posits that art’s power to move us depends on its emergence in history, and on the arguments, like [literary critic Jon] Baskin and [novelist and poet Ben] Lerner’s spat, that keep it alive over time. It also depends, crucially, on conserving and reforming the institutions that make such talk possible. If we see art as creating history, then the apparent gulf between knowing and loving disappears. What makes an incarnation miraculous is that it happens in a particular time and place, even though it didn’t have to. To ignore that time and place is to miss the power of the act. A true love for art, then, requires knowing where and how art appears in history, how far it traveled to reach us, and how obligated we are to keep it alive by acting and speaking ourselves. The incarnational aesthetic doesn’t mourn this world as lost to enchantment; it sees the enchantment of the world as our ongoing collective task.
Basically, the magic of literature is that we keep talking about it. The essay performs exactly what it calls for. It will not be free to read forever; read “Toward an Incarnational Aesthetic” now, before it goes back behind the paywall.
Or just subscribe to the magazine! In addition to Ashley’s essay, the current issue includes work by some of your favorites: Phoebe Maltz Bovy, Charles Mathewes, Phil Christman, Nancy Isenberg, Kieran Setiya, and Matt Dinan.
It’s really gratifying to see Ashley’s essay published at THR. The magazine is published by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Ashley and I first met 17 years ago in the Institute’s offices, which at the time were in the basement of a forgettable academic building off of Thomas Jefferson’s Lawn. I had just finished my Ph.D. but didn’t have an academic job, so I begged an unpaid position at the Institute. Ashley had just left a career in high school teaching and had returned to U.Va. to prepare for grad school. She got a job as the Institute’s receptionist.
It’s important that I say, publicly for everyone subscribing to this newsletter: None of this would have been possible without Jenny Geddes and Chuck Mathewes. Jenny was Ashley’s contact at the Institute, and Chuck was one of mine, along with Joe Davis. I am so grateful for Jenny’s and Chuck’s role in helping to bring Ashley and me together.
I had always admired The Hedgehog Review for its intelligence and fearless commitment to exploring pressing issues from many different angles. (Jenny was its first editor.) A few years ago, I got to contribute to it. And now that Ashley is a contributor, too, it feels like things have come full circle for us, whatever that might mean.
The Hedgehog Review’s senior editor for the past six years, B.D. McClay, has recently stepped down from her position so she can write full time. This is a loss for THR but a gain for readers everywhere, because it means you’ll get to read more of her insightful essays and reviews, such as this New Yorker essay from late last year about the movie “Moonstruck.” You can subscribe to her newsletter here.
In my last newsletter, I shared some thoughts about Thoreau and the deep freeze and blackout we experienced in Texas a few weeks ago. I expanded those thoughts into a short essay for Commonweal called “Experiments in Self-Reliance.” Thoreau questioned whether New England and Texas had anything meaningful to say to each other; I think we in the Lone Star State have much to learn from him.
As always, thank you for reading.
Jon