No, There Has Not Been a Reactionary Turn in Literary Studies

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William Empson (1965). Credit: Mark Gerson/National Portrait Gallery

Elizabeth S. Anker’s review of Jonathan Kramnick’s Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies in the Los Angeles Review of Books is an odd one. It’s called “A Reactionary Turn in Literary Studies,” though anyone who has followed literary studies over the past twenty years knows that there has been no such turn—if by “turn” one means a significant trend in a certain direction. Oh, that there were such a trend! There have been a few voices crying in the wilderness, but that’s about it.

But not according to Anker. English departments are in grave danger of succumbing to the siren song of conservative ideas, and supposedly “reactionary” books like Kramnick’s are particularly dangerous.