Twentieth-Century Sage-writing and Other Forms of Nonfiction

George P. Landow

The issues that arise when one compares Emerson to Carlyle lead directly to similar problems involving the twentieth-century sages, many of whom do not match every single part of my genre description. We have already seen that the prehistory or antecedents of the sage include the sermon tradition, Old Testament prophecy, and the interpretative tradition associated with both Testaments, and the genre also draws upon satire, both classical and neoclassical, and British and German romantic poetry as well. The formal type tentatively emerges first in Thomas Carlyle's "Signs of the Times (1829) and then appears fully formed in Chartism (1839), Past and Present (1843), and Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850). Writings of the sage that obviously imitate Carlyle's works in this genre include many of the major landmarks of Victorian nonfiction, such as Ruskin's five volumes of Modern Painters (1843-60), The Stones of Venice (1851-53), Unto This Last (1860), and his later political writings; Henry David Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" (1854), "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1859) and his other antislavery papers; and Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy (1869) and Friendship's Garland (1871). Twentieth-century works that exemplify this developed phase of sage-writing include D. H. Lawrence's Twilight in Italy (1916), Sea and Sardinia (1921), Etruscan Places ( 1932), and The Fantasia of the Unconscious (1923); Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night (1968), Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), and Of a Fire on the Moon (1971); and Joan Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979).

Twentieth-century practitioners of this mode produce works that differ in some significant ways from those of their predecessors despite major continuities of theme and technique. They still concentrate upon the same basic subjects, which include concerns to define the human, to restore the powers of language, to warn against the danger to man of technology (or mechanism), to examine the possibility of achieving heroism or the human ideal in a modern age, and above all, to read the Signs of the Times to save the audience from potential disaster. Furthermore, the same emphasis upon interpretation, definition, and prophetic warning appears in twentieth-century instances of the genre. Two obvious differences, however, distinguish Victorian from modern writings of the sage. First, because Carlyle, Thoreau, Ruskin, and Arnold shared with their audience a thorough knowledge of the Bible and the interpretative traditions by which it was most commonly understood, they could salt their works with complex, often witty, allusions to them. Such scriptural allusion, which conveniently authenticated the sage's claims to high seriousness, also created a sense of community between the sage and his audience, even when he no longer held to any orthodox Christian belief. In fact, the use of such methods not only borrowed some of the preacher's prestige and authority but also tended to reassure the sage's audience by disguising how unorthodox some of his ideas might be. Now that writers and a major part of their audience barely know the Bible at all, these techniques of sophisticated allusion have fallen by the way.

Second, modern practitioners of the form tend to place much more emphasis upon creating credibility by informing the reader about their weaknesses and shortcomings. Although Victorian sages frequently open lectures, essays, or books with a pose of humility. they quickly assert their superiority over the audience. Modern sages, in contrast, may inform their readers more specifically about personal weakness and also enter into intimate details of health and behavior. Part of this different approach and tone arises from the way Victorian and modern attitudes toward knowledge diverge. Although the Victorian sages admit that they live in an age of transition and shaken belief, they nonetheless claim to have a clear view of the issues, and this confidence assists their enterprise, which involves first winning a hearing from their audience and then gaining its credence. Although both Victorian and modern authors who write in this mode face audiences equally skeptical about their controversial interpretations, the modem audience is far more skeptical about the possibility of attaining any true knowledge at all, and therefore initial assertions of confidence will alienate it. Modern sages therefore necessarily present themselves as groping toward the truth.

Thus far we have considered only writings of the sage that exhibit a full repertoire of characteristic literary devices, but a considerable amount of interesting twentieth-century nonfiction turns out to use many, though not all, of the same devices. Therefore, after setting forth the range of devices that characterize the writings of the sage, I shall briefly discuss contemporary work that employs some of them. The writings of Germaine Greer, Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, Hunter Thompson, and many of the New Journalists exemplify work that benefits from discussion within the context provided by my notion of this genre. Such an approach, I must emphasize, is intended to permit us to read these and other works of nonfiction more perceptively and more enjoyably and not to create a means of separating the sage's wheat from the chaff of other associated forms.

Last modified 2000