M. H. Abrams Quotes

M. H. Abrams — Critic born on July 23, 1912, died on April 21, 2015

Meyer Howard "Mike" Abrams, usually cited as M. H. Abrams, was an American literary critic, known for works on romanticism, in particular his book The Mirror and the Lamp. Under Abrams' editorship, the Norton Anthology of English Literature became the standard text for undergraduate survey courses across the U.S. and a major trendsetter in literary canon formation... (wikipedia)

We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.

When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas.

When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that. I think its heyday has passed, but it's had an effect and will continue to have an effect.

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.