Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Culture of Conversation (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

Rating:
Summary: The Golden Age of Conversation
Review: According to Gibian, two oral practices flourished in antebellum America: the lecture (or sermon) and the conversation. Lectures, such as Emerson?s "The American Scholar" and sermons, such as the abolitionist sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, are well-known examples of this hyper-speechifying, Chataqua-inspired heavy, Second Great Awakening era. But it was also known as the Golden Age of Conversation, and its greatest practitioner was generally agreed to be Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior.

Gibian is out to revise and enhance Holmes? current reputation on the basis of a new critical reading. Holmes was considered an important American writer until the 1920s when he was excised from the American canon by the modernists. They depicted him as willfully provincial (because he named Boston the "Hub" of the world), and elitist (he invented the term "Boston Brahmin"). Gibian attempts a rescue by noting that it one of Holmes? characters, a provincial, town booster named "Little Boston" in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" who dubbed Boston the Hub. Gibian suggests that Boston Brahmin was an appellation meant to poke fun of the contemplative, upper class, pedigreed Bostonian who self-consciously removed himself from the hurly-burly of the common run. But much more than placing the "Hub" and "Boston Brahmin" in context, Gibian attempts to show that Holmes encouraged democratic conversation. That unlike his more elitist friends in the Saturday Club, he was a democrat, or a true republican, perhaps.

He does this by suggesting that Holmes? was equal parts house-breaker as house-keeper, invoking Mikhail Bakhtin?s theory of the carnival as appropriate to Holmes? comic, celebratory, and democratic view of American conversation as an open, free-wheeling discourse where anyone could join the Autocrat at his table (as long as they played by his conversation-enlivening rules, one of which seems to be to play the devil?s advocate at all times). Gibian elaborates on those rules at some length, noting philosopher Richard Rorty?s views on how a true dialogue can take place follows many of the same basic rules.

In his detailed examination of Holmes's "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Gibian shows Holmes was attracted to levity (levitation, lightness) through his mother, perhaps as a reaction to his Puritan Minister father?s gravity (grave, gravitas). His portrait of Holmes? early life (he could never stop talking as a boy), his description of Holmes? early readings and re-readings of early Renaissance humorists such as Rabelais, his continual search for bon mots and mot justes in those old texts, his eminent position as the only French-trained doctor in America (whose first paper on puerperal fever is an acknowledged medical classic), help us understand how Holmes came to be able to converse with everyone. The last of the generalists, in the time just before specialization in science arose, he was able to enter into conversations on any subject, draw knowledge from one to inform the other. And, he would take any side in any conversation, to try it on for size, refusing to stick with any position, believing that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, a trait that might make him the first multi-perspectivist.

Conversation is dead now, and its slow passing happened concomitantly with the rise of America?s power and industrial prowess, and, of course, the TV, which brings us the great sermons of the happy earthly life of consumption. There are some who say the Internet is bringing back the conversation. But for everyone who says that, there is another expert who tells us of its corrupting power. Meanwhile, the American breakfast and dinner table hears a few spectral conversations around it on the holidays, and the dining room still lingers in the American home. But it is no longer a performance space. Talking just doesn?t seem all that important anymore. For Holmes and his generation there was some urgency in conversation: they were trying to invent a democratic discourse, after all. It was a time when talking, joining clubs and associations, and sharing ideas seemed greatly to matter. After all, the great experiment had only recently begun. And space and race, the two quintessentially American topics, intimately intertwined, were critical issues needing resolution. Eventually, this a conversation that was conducted using different , and deadly, means.

Rating:
Summary: The Golden Age of Conversation
Review: According to Gibian, two oral practices flourished in antebellum America: the lecture (or sermon) and the conversation. Lectures, such as Emerson's "The American Scholar" and sermons, such as the abolitionist sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, are well-known examples of this hyper-speechifying, Chataqua-inspired heavy, Second Great Awakening era. But it was also known as the Golden Age of Conversation, and its greatest practitioner was generally agreed to be Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior.

Gibian is out to revise and enhance Holmes' current reputation on the basis of a new critical reading. Holmes was considered an important American writer until the 1920s when he was excised from the American canon by the modernists. They depicted him as willfully provincial (because he named Boston the "Hub" of the world), and elitist (he invented the term "Boston Brahmin"). Gibian attempts a rescue by noting that it one of Holmes' characters, a provincial, town booster named "Little Boston" in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" who dubbed Boston the Hub. Gibian suggests that Boston Brahmin was an appellation meant to poke fun of the contemplative, upper class, pedigreed Bostonian who self-consciously removed himself from the hurly-burly of the common run. But much more than placing the "Hub" and "Boston Brahmin" in context, Gibian attempts to show that Holmes encouraged democratic conversation. That unlike his more elitist friends in the Saturday Club, he was a democrat, or a true republican, perhaps.

He does this by suggesting that Holmes' was equal parts house-breaker as house-keeper, invoking Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnival as appropriate to Holmes' comic, celebratory, and democratic view of American conversation as an open, free-wheeling discourse where anyone could join the Autocrat at his table (as long as they played by his conversation-enlivening rules, one of which seems to be to play the devil's advocate at all times). Gibian elaborates on those rules at some length, noting philosopher Richard Rorty's views on how a true dialogue can take place follows many of the same basic rules.

In his detailed examination of Holmes's "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Gibian shows Holmes was attracted to levity (levitation, lightness) through his mother, perhaps as a reaction to his Puritan Minister father's gravity (grave, gravitas). His portrait of Holmes' early life (he could never stop talking as a boy), his description of Holmes' early readings and re-readings of early Renaissance humorists such as Rabelais, his continual search for bon mots and mot justes in those old texts, his eminent position as the only French-trained doctor in America (whose first paper on puerperal fever is an acknowledged medical classic), help us understand how Holmes came to be able to converse with everyone. The last of the generalists, in the time just before specialization in science arose, he was able to enter into conversations on any subject, draw knowledge from one to inform the other. And, he would take any side in any conversation, to try it on for size, refusing to stick with any position, believing that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, a trait that might make him the first multi-perspectivist.

Conversation is dead now, and its slow passing happened concomitantly with the rise of America's power and industrial prowess, and, of course, the TV, which brings us the great sermons of the happy earthly life of consumption. There are some who say the Internet is bringing back the conversation. But for everyone who says that, there is another expert who tells us of its corrupting power. Meanwhile, the American breakfast and dinner table hears a few spectral conversations around it on the holidays, and the dining room still lingers in the American home. But it is no longer a performance space. Talking just doesn't seem all that important anymore. For Holmes and his generation there was some urgency in conversation: they were trying to invent a democratic discourse, after all. It was a time when talking, joining clubs and associations, and sharing ideas seemed greatly to matter. After all, the great experiment had only recently begun. And space and race, the two quintessentially American topics, intimately intertwined, were critical issues needing resolution. Eventually, this a conversation that was conducted using different , and deadly, means.