Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America

Simply put, across the late 19th Century the newly consolidate ruling class of industrial and financial magnates seized control over the definitions of culture, established an iron wall between high and low culture, moved to change the relationship between audience and performer, and between performers and those who dicated culture and owned cultural institutions, and changed museums and libraries from institutions established to broaden knowledge for all into places where the elite contemplate perfection. Levine is one of the great historians, having done his featured work on African American history and culture. Yet, he writes in clear, understandable language. The book is extremely well referenced with every section's notes being the beginning for scholarship and knowledge on what he speaks. Published in 1990, the book can hardly be taken to task for developments that have come to fruition since then. Music and culture once seen as alternatives to the Eurocentric approaches to high culture Levine outlines, seem to have proceded along the same lines. Free and post-modern Jazz, once the product of an iconoclast approach to mainline Jazz, has tended to take the view that it is "high art" to be comprehended by the totally advanced versus entertainment, while a politically conservative trend to paint Jazz as the U.S/s "true" classical music demand that Jazz emulate European "classical" music with a canon and repertory orchestras aimed at reproducing that canon. Meanwhile, they expel Jazz artists with strong links to Black popular music and dance from their definitions of Jazz. Few tend to share the views of Art Blakey and others about the need to reestablish Jazz as a form of dance and entertainment music for African Americans. My own focus has been on traditional Black and European American string band music, marketed as "Old Time Music" by record companies in the 1920s. This music was originally produced as pure entertainment for dancing and amusement for the most humble workers, farmers, share croppers, and small businesspeople of the South. Yet, in OTM there is often such an emphasis on knowledge of the history, folkways, and cultural references that one might think that like the art and drama Levine shows to have been "high browed," some believe that OTM can only be appreciated or performed by those who have amassed sufficient knowledge. Indeed, the entire hipster approach that emerged in the Jazz age with Jazz, Blues, folk, and other alternative musics mirrors the high brow approach used around high culture. Implict in being a hipster is the belief that whatever may be popular is intrinsictly inferior to that "hip" sound that only a small sector of the knowing can appreciate. Hipsters usually move on once music they deemed "hip" becomes popular. O

Spanning over one hundred and fifty years, Lawrence W. Levine's Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America, charts the development of culture beginning in the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. In Highbrow/Lowbrow, Levine tells the reader through various examples how the United States began with forms of culture celebrated by most of the countryside's population through the years where cultural classes developed and finally to the point where some cultural subjects nearly died off. Through narrow fields of entertainment, he is able to define what was and was not popular culture; how various forms of cultural entertainment were performed and watched or listened to by the general public; and how several key people in the late nineteenth century helped preserve art forms that still exist today. Three distinct areas are covered in the book's three chapters: Chapter One, "William Shakespeare in America" focuses on the popularity and decline of the performance of Shakespeare's works; Chapter Two, "The Sacralization of Culture" highlights the development and developing highbrow status of symphonies and orchestras; and Chapter Three, "Order, Hierarchy and Culture" describes how culture evolved from entertainment for many to culture for few. Lastly, an epilogue from the author briefly expands on culture today versus culture in the past century. "William Shakespeare in America" chronicles the rise and fall of the performance of Shakespearean plays in the United States from after the Revolutionary War until the end of the nineteenth century. Dramatic performances of Shakespeare were not the norm for the most part, but "...burlesques and parodies...constituted a prominent form of entertainment..." throughout the country. His plays were so popular that they constituted a large portion of theater presented throughout the early-to-mid nineteenth century with the most popular actors and actresses from Europe and America performing. These performances were not limited to the big cities of the eastern seaboard either; they were even performed in small cities throughout the Midwest and western states, like Mud Springs, Cherokee Flat and Rattlesnake in California and mine towns like Silver City, Dayton and Carson City. They were shown with a simple formula: Shakespeare was shown with "...afterpieces and divertissements that surrounded his plays...." Also, the draw to see these plays was strong "...because the people wanted to see great actors who in turn insisted on performing Shakespeare to demonstrate their abilities...." Another point of interest that Levine describes is that plays were seldom true Shakespearean works. Oftentimes the plays were ad-libbed or modified to satisfy the crowd, or the title and content slightly changed to bring about other meanings. For example, a version of Richard III was revised "...by cutting one-third of the lines, eliminating half of the characters, [and] adding scenes from other Shakes

Academia often will mark anything dated ten to fifteen years prior to the present as "dated" simply by the mere fact that its conception took place more than a decade ago. Levine's 1988 tome testifies that this attitude is shortsighted and moreover, erroneous. Levine has written a book that serves both as a history lesson as well as a hopeful plea to reconsider our cultural biases as constructs of our own doing. Levine does not simplify the situation by presenting a black and white portrait of the American development of high vs. low culture. Instead he offers a well-researched argument supporting a flux in cultural ideas wherein we travel through various redefinitions of culture, both high and low. Investigating the societal milieu surrounding Shakespeare, opera and orchestral music in nineteenth-century America, Levine aptly demonstrates how we arrived at our current struggle to accommodate contrasting ideas about culture. One need not be an expert in the arts to appreciate the severity of Levine's message. The comprehension of "cultural hierarchy" is absolutely fundamental to understanding our societal existence. One can moreover applaud Levine for tackling the subject in a way that is accessible and easily comprehended by those not ensconced in academic dialogue. His writing is bold and charismatic, making this book a refreshing change from many academic missives which aim to keep the discourse within the walls of the ivory tower. Levine invites us outside those walls by presenting us with an uncracked mirror by which we can clearly see our own responsibilities and reactions to culture in America.

Really. This book is so fine, so well written, so fascinating, that I actually re-read it! Mr. Levine, please write more. I've recommended this book to many friends, including scientists who had never shown an interest in literary subjects. I practically forced my best friend--a professional wrestler (!)--to read it. The result: Mr. Levine now has a motley crew of new admirers.

The Scene: Three months before my qualifying exams. I have crammed every book on theatre I can think of. I have notecards that I memorize. I have no love of theatre anymore, no interest in the subject, just trying to get through the ordeal that so many of my friends have failed. I don't allow myself to read books for fun, or all the way through. I only skim for facts to drop.One day this book arrives in the mail with several others I've ordered. I dutifully skim it for facts to put on my notecards. I find myself being drawn in. It is academic reading--I couldn't imagine that it could be all that enjoyable. More importantly I don't have time to enjoy a book. But I am enjoying it, so I decide to let myself really read the first chapter (on Shakespeare). I can't put it down. I'm reading about museums now, public parks, things that I will never be able to use on my exams, but I love the way he thinks! Not only am I loving Levine's incredible book, but I am even excited about my field again. Levine's book is an incredible gift, a gift that helped me renew my delight in what scholarship and history can do. A model I will never live up to, but will cherish and delight in. And I did pass, quoting Levine not to impress, but out of a real delight in the field and the joy of sharing ideas.