File photo/University Photography
M.H.
"Mike" Abrams, the influential literary critic and Cornell English
professor, died April 21 at Kendal of Ithaca. He was 102.
M.H.
“Mike” Abrams, the influential literary critic and beloved Cornell
English professor who edited the renowned reference “The Norton
Anthology of English Literature” for four decades, died April 21 at
Kendal of Ithaca. He was 102.
Abrams, who received the National
Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama last July, was the Class of
1916 Professor Emeritus of English. He came to Cornell in 1945 as an
assistant professor and retired in 1983. Among his students over the
years were literary critics Harold Bloom ’51 and E.D. Hirsch ’50 and
novelist Thomas Pynchon ’59. Abrams was named the F.J. Whiton Professor
of English in 1960 and the Class of 1916 Professor in 1973.
“One
of the dominant figures in literary criticism of the 20th century, M.H.
(Mike) Abrams was also the quintessential Cornellian,” President David
Skorton said. “He was an inspiring teacher, an extraordinary colleague,
chair of the Cornell University Centennial Commission of 1965, and he
never missed a home football game. His good judgment, his perennial
optimism, his deep wisdom, his sense of humor and his fundamental
decency will be sorely missed.”
Born July 23, 1912, in Long
Branch, New Jersey, Meyer Howard Abrams majored in English at Harvard
University, earning a B.A. in 1934. He studied philosophy at Cambridge
University on a Henry Fellowship and returned to Harvard in 1935,
earning a master’s degree in English in 1937 and a Ph.D. in 1940. He met
his wife of 71 years, Ruth Claire Gaynes (1917-2008), at Harvard.
Abrams
conducted classified research at Harvard’s Psycho-Acoustics Laboratory
during World War II, helping the military solve problems in voice
communications by developing highly audible military codes and tests to
select personnel with the ability to recognize sounds in a noisy
background.
At Cornell, Abrams helped found the A.D. White Center
for the Humanities, now the Society for the Humanities. A longtime
Cornell University Library supporter, he chaired membership drives and
established an endowment that enabled the library to acquire a set of
William Wordsworth’s 1827 “Poetical Works” and other holdings.
“Mike
Abrams was a formidable figure in the humanities who changed our
understanding of 19th-century literature and thought. But he was also a
calm, modest and wholly unpretentious man,” said Jonathan Culler, the
Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature.
Mike Abrams sent this Western-Union telegram to accept the offer of a job from Cornell in 1945.
Abrams’ passion and dedication to literary scholarship was highly regarded by students and scholars the world over.
“We
are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity,” Abrams
said in 1999. “The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a
human thing – by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus,
you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature.”
Abrams’
contributions to the study of literature – on campus and around the
world – were many. He conceived “The Norton Anthology of English
Literature,” an enduring reference for high school and college English
students, and was its general editor through seven editions from 1962 to
2000. The New York Times noted that Abrams “refined the art of stuffing
13 centuries of literature into 6,000-odd pages of wispy cigarette
paper.”
He wrote or edited more than a dozen award-winning and
widely read books, including his 1953 history of criticism, “The Mirror
and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition” – ranked No.
25 on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best nonfiction books written
in English in the 20th century.
His other works included “Natural
Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature”
(1971) and “The Glossary of Literary Terms,” first published in 1957; he
remained its lead author and editor through several editions, and is
co-editor of the 11th edition, published this year.
Abrams was
elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the
American Philosophical Society and the British Academy. His honors
included the Award in Humanistic Studies from AAAS and the Keats-Shelley
Society’s Distinguished Scholar Award.
“Mike Abrams vividly
exemplified how a life of engagement with literature, the arts and the
humanities can keep the mind vigorously alive,” said Roger Gilbert,
professor and chair of English. “Since coming to Cornell I’ve taken
every opportunity I could to bring Mike to my classes, which he was
always happy to do. His teaching inspired generations of students.”
The
Department of English honored Abrams’ 100th birthday in July 2012 with a
tribute by friends and colleagues; he also gave a lecture on “The
Fourth Dimension of a Poem.”
“Mike Abrams’ impact on his students,
his colleagues and the wider world was immeasurable – he was publishing
important new work at age 100,” said Gretchen Ritter ’83, the Harold
Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “His passing is a deep
loss to the College of Arts and Sciences and to all of us who love
literature.”
Throughout his 80s and 90s, Abrams continued to
lecture at Cornell, Yale and other institutions, and remained a visible
and active participant in campus life – giving the keynote at a 2005
James Joyce conference, public talks on reading poetry in 2008 and 2010,
and attending English department events and Big Red football games. He
never missed a home game since coming to Ithaca in 1945, saying he liked
“the snappy fall air and the excitement of the game, and the good
fellowship.”
Mike and Ruth Abrams traveled extensively and
collected art, from Renaissance paintings and pre-Columbian pottery to a
Frank Stella Etch-A-Sketch drawing. They donated several artworks to
the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, including the ca. 500 A.D. Roman
mosaic of a lioness attacking an ibex that hangs in Goldwin Smith Hall
near the Department of Classics.
Abrams is survived by daughters
Jane Brennan of Westport, Connecticut, and Judith Abrams of Trumansburg,
New York; two grandchildren, a great-grandson and several nieces and
their children. Arrangements are pending at Bangs Funeral Home, Ithaca.
