NP modernism in literature--2 of 2

[Mark Kohut]

Another good essay sez this re technology and industrialism: however sympathetic we are to any anti-science/technology message-- and
many writers and others are, in their work--we must see that it rests on a massive irony...only the modern age's societal developments allow
the luxury of such a vision. (we don't have to agree fully to ask if he is not right. And such irony sometimes lies in our plist discussions, methinks)
Adams and his dynamo make an appearance here. 
 
I was reminded of the other party in the argument/discussion that occasioned C.P. Snow's famous Two Cultures piece. F.R. Leavis, fierce 
critic, founder of Scrutiny mag, more important than  James Wood in defining the novelistic canon, and close but overarching reading. 
The Great Tradition, etc. anti-mass culture. Standards. Who championed D, H. Lawrence as the best English writer of the century.
Who did not rate Dickens great until @1970, (but to his credit did change his mind). Who did NOT feel writers, in writing of any time, needed
to know science and technology---I think he beleived this; I have not read (or reread?) his piece in the discussion (yet)---except as it was
felt by full human characters in the fictions. (D.H. Lawrence again)
 
Whose influence as a seminla critic has greatly faded since, I think it fair to say. Too narrow. Snow seems to have won the debate, hisotricallynot least by being the one who is cited about the debate. 
 
(There is an anecdote about james Merrill, who has a long poem whose conceit is that spirits from the beyond are telling him where to take the poem.
Essayist uses it to talk about the pivot to more science understanding among poets. SCIENCE NEXT, or close, the spirit says to Merrill. 
Evidendtly Muriel Rukeyser, whom i've read tangentially (as too many) too k up the Snow challenge in much of her work.
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