"Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading"
About this Quote
Abrams’ line has the tidy, almost apologetic candor of a critic who’s spent his life watching readers confuse fluency with effortlessness. “Hard work makes easy reading” sounds like a small benediction for craft: the prose that feels natural is usually the product of ruthless revision, patient structuring, and an unglamorous amount of thinking. Then he undercuts his own certainty with that pivot - “or, at least, easier reading” - a critic’s hedge that doubles as a moral correction. Good writing can reduce friction; it can’t eliminate complexity. Some subjects resist being made “easy” without being made dishonest.
The intent is practical and gently polemical. Abrams is defending labor in an era (and discipline) where the audience often wants the payoff without seeing the scaffolding. As a leading figure in 20th-century literary criticism, he also knew the parallel truth on the interpretive side: serious reading is work, too. The subtext is a quiet rebuke to two kinds of laziness - the writer who hides behind obscurity as if it were depth, and the reader who treats difficulty as a design flaw.
What makes the sentence work is its economy and its ethics. It flatters neither party. It reframes “ease” not as simplicity but as earned clarity, the kind that respects the reader’s time without insulting the reader’s intelligence. In a culture that celebrates effortless genius and “content” optimized for skimming, Abrams offers an older, sterner promise: the hardest work is what lets intelligence travel light.
The intent is practical and gently polemical. Abrams is defending labor in an era (and discipline) where the audience often wants the payoff without seeing the scaffolding. As a leading figure in 20th-century literary criticism, he also knew the parallel truth on the interpretive side: serious reading is work, too. The subtext is a quiet rebuke to two kinds of laziness - the writer who hides behind obscurity as if it were depth, and the reader who treats difficulty as a design flaw.
What makes the sentence work is its economy and its ethics. It flatters neither party. It reframes “ease” not as simplicity but as earned clarity, the kind that respects the reader’s time without insulting the reader’s intelligence. In a culture that celebrates effortless genius and “content” optimized for skimming, Abrams offers an older, sterner promise: the hardest work is what lets intelligence travel light.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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