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Critical thinking #1: Adam Kirsch

An interview with literary critic Adam Kirsch

by David Wolf / May 22, 2013 / Leave a comment
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Published in June 2013 issue of Prospect Magazine

Adam Kirsch: “Writers shouldn’t develop an inferiority complex towards the wider culture—television, mass media”

This is the first in a new series of interviews about the art of criticism. More to follow soon.

Adam Kirsch is one of America’s most distinguished literary critics. Still only 37, over the past decade he has written extensively for the New Republic, the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. He is the author of two collections of poetry, a biography of Benjamin Disraeli, and, most recently, Why Trilling Matters (Yale University Press).

For Prospect he has written on a wide variety of subjects, including 9/11, fairy tales, Nietzsche’s influence on American thought and, in the latest issue, a new generation of African writers who are helping to reinvent the modern immigration novel. I spoke to Kirsch earlier in the month about his work, influences and the future of literary criticism.

When you were growing up did you read much criticism?

It’s definitely something that was in the air in my house because my father is, and my grandfather was, a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. I think my own desire to do it started when I began reading TS Eliot’s essays as an English major at Harvard in the mid-90s. That was the first time I encountered criticism as literature. From there I was led to read Matthew Arnold and Samuel Johnson and the tradition of criticism.

What was it that struck you reading Eliot’s essays for the first time?

I suppose it was the idea of the intellectual drama of criticism, the idea that you’re responding to texts not just in terms of personal taste but in terms of what they say about the history of ideas, about society, about how literary ideas connect to political and ethical ideas. Those things made Elliot’s essays exciting to me, even though my personal tastes and politics are different from his.

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Comments

  1. David Herman
    May 22, 2013 at 17:20
    Dear David,I grealty enjoyed your interview with Adam Kirsch. He is one of my favourite new literary critics and Jonathan (Derbyshire) and I interviewed him recently for PN Review. I am glad to say both interviews feel very different and yours was full of interesting insights about criticsm and engagement with form as opposed to ideas and how Jews like Kirsch (or Trilling) negotiate their place in non-Jewish cultures. An excellent interview.Best wishes,David Herman
  2. Bernecky
    May 25, 2013 at 12:17
    All the comments made in response to articles such as this one are literature. Those critics who appreciate this fact will survive and cause literature to thrive.It may be "professional" to ignore these sources, even to drop the names of those who are preferable and upon whom the critic *will* bestow the honor of his attention. The question is whether it's wise.
  3. Gurumurthy Neelakantan
    May 25, 2013 at 16:29
    Great interview. As always, Adam Kirsch is intense and engaging.
  4. Gunjan Srivastava
    December 15, 2013 at 09:34
    Congrats for such an open minded.Criticism is not something we do forcefully but a way to imprint our thinking for a particular work of art.It is an inspiration that builds background for a major work of literature.It support us when we feel bereft of ideas or ammunition in the battle of superiority.

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About this author

David Wolf
David Wolf was Arts and Books Editor at Prospect and now works for the Guardian Long Read
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