Literature has passed through a crisis of confidence in recent decades-a radical questioning of its traditional values and its importance to humanity. In this witty and eloquent book, a distinguished professor of humanities looks at some of the agents that have contributed to literature's demise and ponders whether its vitality can be restored in the changing circumstances of late twentieth-century culture.
Other critics, such as E. D. Hirsch and Allan Bloom, have also explored the growing cultural illiteracy of modern society. Alvin Kernan probes deeper, relating the death of literature to potent forces in our postindustrial world-most obviously, the technological revolution that is rapidly transforming a print to an electronic culture, replacing the authority of the written word with the authority of television, film, and computer screens. The turn taken by literary criticism itself, in deconstructing traditional literature and declaring it void of meaning in itself, and in focusing on what are described as its ideological biases against women and nonwhites, has speeded the disintegration. Recent legal debates about copyright, plagiarism, and political patronage of the arts have exposed the greed and self-interest at work under the old romantic images of the imaginative creative artist and the work of art as a perfect, unchanging icon.
Kernan describes a number of the crossroads where literature and society have met and literature has failed to stand up. He discusses the high comedy of the obscenity trial in England against Lady Chatterley's Lover, in which the British literary establishment vainly tried to define literature. He takes alarmed looks at such agents of literary disintegration as schools where children who watch television eight hours a day can't read, decisions about who chooses and defines the words included in dictionaries, faculty fights about the establishment of new departments and categories of study, and courtrooms where criminals try to profit from bestselling books about their crimes.
According to Kernan, traditional literature is ceasing to be legitimate or useful in these changed social surroundings. What is needed, he says, if it is any longer possible in electronic culture, is a conception of literature that fits in some positive way with the new ethos of post-industrialism, plausibly claiming a place of importance both to individual lives and to society as a whole for the best kind of writing.
A distinguished writer and scholar explores literature's "crisis of confidence." Writing in anecdotal and witty style, Kernan relates the death of literature to a variety of agents and ponders whether literature's vitality can be restored in the changing circumstances of late 20th-century culture.

Kernan, Professor Alvin

Alvin Bernard Kernan

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Brandywine River Museum

Mariners' Museum, The

United States, United States of America

Reprint, New Haven, Sept. 1992

New Haven, Connecticut, 1990

New ed., England, 1992

2.pr., New Haven, 1990

Revised ed., US, 1992

First Edition, 1990

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-224) and index.

Bibliography: p. 215-224. Includes index.
6

subject: Postmodernism (Literature); Criticism

contributor: Internet Archive

format: Image/Djvu(.djvu)

rights: The access limited around the compus-network users

unit_name: Internet Archive

topic: Postmodernism (Literature); Criticism

Type: 英文图书

Bookmarks:
1. (p1) Prefatory Note
2. (p2) Introduction: The Death of Literature
3. (p3) 1 Ideology as Aesthetics: The Politics of Romantic and Modern Literature
4. (p4) 2 Lady Chatterley and "Mere Chatter about Shelley": The University Asked to Define Literature
5. (p5) 3 Authors as Rentiers, Readers as Proletariat, Critics as Revolutionaries
6. (p6) 4 Literature and the Law: The Moral Rights of Artists
7. (p7) 5 Plagiarism and Poetics: Literature as Property and Ethos
8. (p8) 6 Technology and Literature: Book Culture and Television Culture
9. (p9) 7 The Battle for the Word: Dictionaries, Deconstructors, and Language Engineers
10. (p10) 8 The Tree of Knowledge: Literature's Presence in the Social World
11. (p11) Epilogue
12. (p12) Works Cited
13. (p13) Index

theme: Postmodernism (Literature); Criticism

Библиогр.: с. 215-224
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Annotation Literature has passed through a crisis of confidence in recent decades-a radical questioning of its traditional values and its importance to humanity. In this witty and eloquent book, a distinguished professor of humanities looks at some of the agents that have contributed to literature's demise and ponders whether its vitality can be restored in the changing circumstances of late twentieth-century culture. Other critics, such as E. D. Hirsch and Allan Bloom, have also explored the growing cultural illiteracy of modern society. Alvin Kernan probes deeper, relating the death of literature to potent forces in our postindustrial world-most obviously, the technological revolution that is rapidly transforming a print to an electronic culture, replacing the authority of the written word with the authority of television, film, and computer screens. The turn taken by literary criticism itself, in deconstructing traditional literature and declaring it void of meaning in itself, and in focusing on what are described as its ideological biases against women and nonwhites, has speeded the disintegration. Recent legal debates about copyright, plagiarism, and political patronage of the arts have exposed the greed and self-interest at work under the old romantic images of the imaginative creative artist and the work of art as a perfect, unchanging icon. Kernan describes a number of the crossroads where literature and society have met and literature has failed to stand up. He discusses the high comedy of the obscenity trial in England against Lady Chatterley's Lover, in which the British literary establishment vainly tried to define literature. He takes alarmed looks at such agents of literary disintegration as schools where children who watch television eight hours a day can't read, decisions about who chooses and defines the words included in dictionaries, faculty fights about the establishment of new departments and categories of study, and courtrooms where criminals try to profit from bestselling books about their crimes. According to Kernan, traditional literature is ceasing to be legitimate or useful in these changed social surroundings. What is needed, he says, if it is any longer possible in electronic culture, is a conception of literature that fits in some positive way with the new ethos of post-industrialism, plausibly claiming a place of importance both to individual lives and to society as a whole for the best kind of writing

1. Ideology As Aesthetics: The Politics Of Romantic And Modern Literature -- 2. Lady Chatterly And Mere Chatter About Shelley: The University Asked To Define Literature -- 3. Authors As Rentiers, Readers As Proletariat, Critics As Revolutionaries -- 4. Literature And The Law: The Moral Rights Of Artists -- 5. Plagiarism And Poetics: Literature As Property And Ethos -- 6. Technology And Literature: Book Culture And Television Culture -- 7. The Battle For The Word: Dictionaries, Deconstructors, And Language Engineers -- 8. The Tree Of Knowledge: Literature's Presence In The Social World. Alvin Kernan. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 215-221) And Index.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-224) and index
1. Ideology as aesthetics: the politics of romantic and modern literature -- 2. Lady Chatterly and "Mere chatter about Shelley": the university asked to define literature -- 3. Authors as rentiers, readers as proletariat, critics as revolutionaries -- 4. Literature and the law: the moral rights of artists -- 5. Plagiarism and poetics: literature as property and ethos -- 6. Technology and literature: book culture and television culture -- 7. The battle for the word: dictionaries, deconstructors, and language engineers -- 8. The tree of knowledge: literature's presence in the social world

Exploring literature's 'crisis of confidence' and relating the death of literature to a variety of agents - among them television, computer technology, legal issues of copyright and plagiarism, faculty politics and literary criticism itself - this book looks at how to bring about a renewal of interest

Explores literature's "crisis of confidence" and relates the death of literature to a variety of agents - among them television, computer technology, legal issues of copyright and plagiarism, faculty politics and literary criticism itself - and looks at how to bring about a renewal of interest.

An examination of the devalued state of literature today. It argues that literature must meet the challenge from computer, television and film, with a concept of writing that enables the best to fit positively into post-industrial values with benefits for both the individual and society.

2023-06-28