Whitman about Carlyle

On a list serve that I run I was asked not long ago by a fellow who described himself as an archivist for Alcoholics Anonymous whether I knew of any passage in which William James referred to certain religious experiences as being of the "educational variety."

The AA fellow also mentioned that as he had heard the phrase (he had gotten it second hand) James meant specifically by these experiences of an "educational variety," those that aren't immediate stroke-of-lightning conversions, that represent a gradual turning about.

I couldn't give him a precise use of that phrase. I was reminded of this passage, though, which is a quote from Walt Whitman to which James devotes a footnote in VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. I like the passage and will reproduce it here. You folks can make of it what you will.

"There is apart from mere intellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity, a wondrous something that realizes without argument, frequently without what is called education (though I think it is the goal and apex of all education deserving the name) an intuition of the absolute balance, in time and space, of the whole of this multifariousness, this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettledness we call the world; a soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events, however trivial, however momentous, like a leashed dog in the hands of the hunter. [Of] such soul-sight and root-centre for the mind mere optimism explains only the surface."

This is part of a critique of Carlyle for the simple reason that Whitman believes Carlyle has never acquired the vision he describes, and thus failed to become a "superior human identity." Carlyle is the "mere optimist" of the final thrust.

I think it may have been what the archivist wanted, because the word "education" is in there twice, and in precisely the sense that would have impressed the founders of AA. Whitman is contrasting "what is called education" with what is truly "worthy of the name."

Also, the archivist had in mind the "educational variety" of experience as a drawn-out process, that Whitman had in mind -- as James was passing along to his reaers -- the notion of a certain intuition as a "goal and apex" of such a process -- which doesn't sound like a one-off stroke of lightning!

Critics and their art

How much does it matter to us that a critic is an artist him/herself?

If I commend a statue, or on the other hand if I compare it invidiously to another, does it matter that I have never taken chisel to marble in my life?

Does the taint of the dilletante disappear if I have tried my hand at it, failed, and then have used my appreciation of and study in the art to assess the contributions of others? Or is that worse from the point of view of my trustworthiness than if I had never tried at all?

"Those who can do, those who can't carp," is a common enough complaint by those on the receiving end of such criticism.

So we turn, at least in some moods, with some relief to critics who have "done it themselves," and done it successfully.

Still, they have their own set of vulnerabilities. If an active and successful sculptor criticizes the work of one of his competitors in that line, is he not an interested party? Isn't it a bit like Goodyear offering an appraisal of tires one might consider buying from Firestone?

So what kind of critic is ideal?

I don't know, but those thoughts came to mind recently when I encountered, through circumstances I won't bother to relate, a scholarly paper written in 1938 on the critical writings of Walt Whitman.

The author, Maurice O. Johnson, concludes in a manner that reminds me a bit of Goodyear and Firestone. Whitman's critique of other poets was always in the service of the idea that "the poet who was to combine all the prescribed virtues was Whitman himself."