Happy 101st, M. H. Abrams!

A Mindful Pleasures "Happy Birthday" goes out to M(eyer) H(oward) Abrams, who turns 101 today. More than just the first name on the spinal list of every English major's Norton Anthology of English Literature, Abrams is one of America's most important critics and teachers of Romanticism; his critical/theoretical works Natural Supernaturalism and The Mirror and the Lamp are virtually required reading (especially Nat. Supernat., which is an intellectual feast); and as a teacher he can count among his former students Harold Bloom, Thomas Pynchon and William Gass (who aren't exactly vernal poultry either, if you know what I mean...)  Abrams seems well on his way to matching Claude-Levi Strauss's achievement of the ultimate intellectual revenge: outliving your deconstructors.