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thus they tend to live more on one side or the other
of some allegedly golden mean. (145)
For Elbow, this “sort of” strategem that is “middling” -
“[M]idling. Muddling. Not excellence or passion in either
direction” (145) – whether consciously employed or not, is not a
way to truly wrestle with “contraries” but simply a way to avoid
the uncomfortable tension aroused by their polar opposition: to
fool yourself into ignoring that tension – that conflict and
that struggle - through the illusion of some “happy medium.”
Because of this, neither side, neither “opposite extreme” or
“polar opposition,” is served. Neither is utilized. Neither is
“embraced.” This “middling” that Elbow warns those who would be
writers or teachers of writing away from is, for all intents,
balance and, as a consequence, his warning still applies for the
simple fact that balance is “compromise.” In an attempt to be
“fair” to those “contraries,” the result could be anything but
“fair” because that attempt at balance, that “sort of,”
“middling” tenor, is a cheat. It is an easy out, so to speak,
that is no less detrimental than what I had tried to portray in
the past two chapters: a black or white, “either/or” devotion
to the one and rejection of the other. According to Elbow, to
“sort of” pursue Certainty and “sort of” pursue Uncertainty
would be to pursue neither of them. Because of this, balance is
not the answer. In fact, it would seem that Elbow’s judgment of
“middling” is written across the face of the universe, upon the
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