Years ago there was a reader comment in Harper's Magazine to the effect that the spirit of a place is a residue of emotions from the person who cared for it. Examples were the backseat of a taxicab and a favorite aunt's guest bedroom. Imagine the one, a robotic garage worker, mindlessly vacuuming and swabbing, and now Aunt Sally in a sunny kitchen starching linens and putting flowers in a vase. The reader was attempting to pinpoint a distinction of spirit that we recognize but can't define. Lewis Hyde confronts this problem as he tries to explain the difference between schlock and art. It is the dilemma that so vexed Potter Stewart as he tried to define pornography-"I know it when I see it, but I can't say what it is." Like Potter Stewart, Hyde can give examples, but no explanation. Hyde, however, is too game for surrender in the face of the ineffable.
Hyde starts with a hypothesis: Art acquires a spiritual quality that comes from a giving heart, And a corollary: The spiritual quality of art is lost if disrespected by the recipient. Hyde hypothesizes that the artist, recipient of an unearned talent from a giving god, must share it in turn with a giving heart. (Does this mean art cannot be sold? Oops, we're getting ahead ... .)
In seven chapters, two questions predominate: What is the spiritual quality that differentiates gifts from non-gifts ("commodities" in Hyde's parlance)? And, what is the nature of the disrespect that will so profane the gift as to nullify it? Here are some of his suggestions.
Gifts are not-as some suppose-without strings. (Forget flowers or a `thank you' to Aunt Sally, you'll see.) Rather, gifts and commodities differ because gifts are ambiguous and variable as to value. First, gifts and their reciprocals may not be equivalent in price, but it is bad manners to compare. (One does not "look a gift horse in the mouth." Right? "It is the thought that counts." Right? See, you already know this stuff.) And second, although the price of a gift may be low, the "thought that counts" (the spirit of the gift) causes a gift to increase in value as it is passed along. Aunt Sally gives you a frayed scrap of lace your grandmother and she both wore at their weddings. It is tattered, yet, from one generation to the next, each exchange has enhanced its value. Later, you send fudge to Aunt Sally. She invites friends to share and brags about your thoughtfulness. Lousy stale resort fudge, it may be awful, but it is bad manners to say so. It is the fact that these tokens came as gifts that gives them value.
Ambiguity and variability mean gifts, literally, do "keep on giving". In a commodity exchange, I trade corn, you trade tomatoes, we agree on equivalent values, we exchange, we are quit. In a gift exchange inequivalencies of price together with increases in value leave a residuum, an indefiniteness of obligation that binds both parties to future transactions. We have not balanced our account; we are not quit. We have a continuing duty to make future exchanges to extend the longer-term relationship.
Reciprocity creates gift circles. Where the circle is greater than two, a gift to one is a proxy gift to all. Thus, when Aunt Sally invites you to stay, she may not think her son will one day come stay with you, but when he does, your gift to him is a reciprocal gift to Aunt Sally as well. Every gift enhances the bonds with all whom we perceive to be within the circle.
Disrespect of a gift weakens our sense of community with the one who disrespects it. This is true on the level of mundane-when Uncle Henry skips family Christmas for a cruise with country club friends-and the sublime-when we perceive that others devalue divine gifts. For instance, why is society uncomfortable with sales of kidneys? Why is society uncomfortable with slavery? Do sales of people and parts profane what others believe to be a gift? Why is post-modern society so uncomfortable with pornography and prostitution? Does commercialization profane something that many believe is a gift between partners? Why are emotions so high in the debates on abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty? Do the objectors believe these actions profane a gift?
Hyde uses the themes from the first seven chapters to devise a theory of literary criticism that he applies to Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound. Like some of the other reviewers, I did not feel that the theory's application was as engaging as its development. It seems to work better with Whitman. This is in part because Whitman's effusive spirituality lends itself to discussions of the artist as medium, but I may also be influenced by the fact that I am stingier with appreciation of Pound. Hyde, himself, admits that by the time he has completed his proofs he is no longer as convinced of his premise as he was at the outset. He acknowledges that art may be sold in some circumstances and does not always become profaned thereby.
Though the theory's application is perhaps not successful in the way Hyde hoped it would be, still, the book is a stunning work. It succeeds in so many ways that a copy (with marginal notes) resides permanently on the topmost select shelf in my non-lending library. I keep copies on hand to give to friends.
Frankly, first time through, this book was difficult. Hyde is a poet, first and after all, and each paragraph is dense with meaning, so I read it in small bites with careful digestion in between. He uses words (`erotic' and `copulative' come to mind) in ways that are so far removed from modern usage as to be confusing at first. But take the time; make the effort. This book is a gift to all of us. It would be churlish not to appreciate it.
