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The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society is a collection of sixteen essays by American literary critic Lionel Trillingpublished by Viking in The book was edited by Pascal Covici, who had worked with Trilling when he edited and introduced Viking's Portable Matthew Arnold in The essays, then, represent Trilling's written work and critical thoughts of the s. In the essays, Trilling explores the theme of what he calls "liberalism" by looking closely at the relationship between literature, culture, mind, and the imagination. He offers passionate critiques against literary ideas of reality as material and physical, such as those he ascribes to V. ParringtonTheodore Dreiserand the writers of the Kinsey Reports. He supports writers who engage in "moral realism" through an engaged imagination and a "power of love," which he sees expressed in works by Henry JamesMark TwainTacitusF. Scott Fitzgeraldand William Wordsworth —and in the ideas of human nature in the works of Sigmund Freud. Blackmore, Norman Podhoretzand Delmore Schwartzrepresent the importance of this book to the "Intellectuals. Trilling argues that because his contemporary America is predominantly tending to an intellectually liberal tradition, the lack of a robust conservative intellectual tradition causes the lack of a cultural dialectic, making liberal ideas also weak. Trilling confronts the influence of literary critic V. Trilling argues that Parrington believed in a reality that is "immutable; it is wholly external, it is irreducible," and that Parrington believed the job of a literary writer to be the transmission of this reality by loyal reproduction. This conception of reality can turn Americans toward an unwarranted "sympathetic indulgence" of writers, such as Dreiser, who claim to represent material reality "hard, resistant, unformed, impenetrable, and unpleasant. It also informs a disavowal of writers, such as Henry Jamesthat engage in the "electrical qualities of the mind," and are not easily conformed to a social mission or politic. Trilling addresses the The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society work and career of novelist Sherwood Andersontrying to reconcile his admiration for the man with the problems of his work. He assesses Anderson as victim to the fate "of the writer who at one short past moment has had a success with a simple idea which he allowed to remain simple and fixed. In his reading of the novel, Trilling points out James's "penetrating imagination" that gives an accurate account and imagining of not only the anarchy of the s, but also the "social actuality" of anarchy's general moral claim on the goodness of humanity and the corruptive character of society. Trilling investigates the autobiographical aspects of the novel to conclude The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society the novel also acts as James's "demonstrative message," and that the artist possesses social responsibility. James's novel is an achievement of what Trilling calls "moral realism," which rests on James's "knowledge of complication," a penetrating awareness of "modern ironies," and an "imagination of disaster" complemented by an "imagination of love. Trilling wrote this essay on the event of the publication of The Partisan Readercelebrating the ten-year anniversary of the literary magazine Partisan Reviewa magazine that, though influential, maintained a relatively low circulation. Trilling describes Huck's moral crisis as being between his "genuinely good will" and his distrust of others, based on a "profound and bitter knowledge of human depravity. Trilling sees Rudyard Kipling as a writer belonging "irrevocably to our past;" specifically, the past of childhood, where a justified rejection of him represents "our first literary-political decision. In so doing, Trilling argues, Kipling did damage to the very national values he cared so much about. Trilling confronts the notion that an artist's imagination and The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society comes from a neurotic illness. Trilling believes, countering the formal reading style of the New Criticsthat we must read literature with a sense of its past. The aesthetic aspect of a work's "pastness" "the intellectual conditions in which a work of literature was made" is an important part of understanding its power, validity, and relevance. Trilling also argues that literary artists are both effects and causes of culture, and that historical criticism which treats a literary movement as something that can fail or succeed incorrectly supposes ideas are autonomous "generators of human events," that literature is meant to settle the problems of life "for good," and that the will plays little part in human life. Thus, Trilling suggests evoking Nietzsche "an ambivalent view" of the historical sense that looks to culture as "life's continuing evaluation of itself. Trilling argues that though his histories "have been put to strange uses," Roman historian Tacitus had a psychological "conception of history [that] was avowedly personal and moral. Trilling argues that manners, the "hum and buzz of implication," are The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society significant part of the formation of culture, and therefore are an important part of literature. He sees a novel's focus on social manners as a focus on a moral conflict between reality and appearance, a research into the truth behind the "snobbery" of false appearance and The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society status. A novelist's creative awareness of manners becomes the "function of his love," making his literary work what Trilling calls "moral realism," in which the moral imagination is given free play. Trilling concludes that the novel The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society manners has never been "established" in America because of a conception of reality as the "hard, brute facts of existence. Trilling introduces the The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society and commercial success of The Kinsey Reports as a therapy for society's need for the establishment of a "community of sexuality" and a symptom of that community's need to be "established in explicit quantitative terms. Trilling argues that the Report dehumanizes sexual behavior and rejects the idea that sex is involved with an "individual's character. Trilling concludes that the Report's idea of fact as a "physical fact" rejects the crucial "personal or cultural meaning," or "even the existence," of the social fact of sexuality. Trilling examines the life and literary career of American novelist F. Scott Fitzgeraldadmiring Fitzgerald's heroism found "in his power of love. Trilling calls Fitzgerald "a moralist to the core," because Fitzgerald was able to transcend the historical moment to "seize the moment as a moral fact. Trilling reflects on whether "the novel is still a living form," concluding that he does not believe the novel to be dead. He sees the declining perception of the novel as reflective of a weakness in the "general intellectual life" and a passivity in the political mind. Trilling argues that the novel, as a "celebration and investigation of the human will," can reconstitute the will by teaching it to refuse the temptation of the ideologies of the social world. Trilling predicts that the novels of the future will "deal very explicitly with ideas," and that they should criticize ideas by attaching them to their "appropriately actuality," instead of allowing ideas to be systematized thoughtlessly through ideology. Trilling wants novelists to realize their ability "to maintain ambivalence toward their society," and wants a general understanding of the "fortuitous and gratuitous nature of art" that makes an intellectual atmosphere where novels are possible. Trilling defines an idea as the product of The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society juxtaposition of two emotions, and as the key dialectic component of literature. He sees the anxiety about The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society in literature as actually an anxiety that ideology, a "respect for certain formulas" whose "meaning and consequence we have no clear understanding," will intellectualize the power and spontaneity out of life. Poets, Trilling argues, can be attracted to ideas without being "violated" by them, and poets often try to develop consistent intellectual positions along with their poetry. Trilling elevates the importance of "activity" in literary thinking that keeps ideas constantly at play with one another. Trilling concludes by advocating that we think of ideas as "living things, inescapably connected with our wills and desires," in order The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society facilitate a more active literature. Commentators of The Liberal Imagination note two distinguishing qualities of Trilling's prose: his use of the plural singular and the balanced sentence. Howe describes Trilling as an ideologue whose work is "excessively dependent on that mere will whose danger he has so often observed. A year-old student at Columbia and writing for British journal ScrutinyNorman Podhoretzlater to become a substantial figure in the " neo- conservative " movement that grew out of " The New York Intellectuals ," writes that The Liberal Imagination is not really about liberalism at all as Howe argues ; it is "a collection of critical essays," whose purpose is to clear the air rather than definitively demonstrate. In his essay published in The Partisan Reviewpoet and short-novelist Delmore Schwartzcritically evaluated "Manners, Morals, and the Novel," as representative of what he calls Trilling's ability to make his personal preference for a novel of manners into a "standard of judgment and a program for the novelist. Literary critic and Princeton professor of English R. Blackmur, in his review of the book in the Kenyon Reviewwrites that the core questions of The Liberal Imagination are what the American mind is to do with "mass urban society," and what is to be done to surmount a pervasive distrust of the intellect. Blackmur posits that the literature Trilling supports never existed. The true subject Trilling addresses, Blackmur suggests, is the "politics of human power," and the place literature has in creating "turbulence" in ordering The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society of societal living. Later commentators on The Liberal Imagination focus on the historical, political, and cultural contexts and influences of Trilling's work and thoughts. Further, many of Trilling's intellectual heirs include prominent neo-conservativessuch as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Trilling," in Ed. Categories : Essays about literature. Hidden categories: Books with missing cover. Namespaces Article Talk. 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A highly intellectualized, precious collection of essays in literary criticism on diverse broad subjects, writers, books, literary trends, united by an underlying concern for liberalism as an Lionel Trilling. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society Liberal Imagination is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement about politics and society. Only the imagination, Trilling argues, can give us access and insight into these realms and only the imagination can ground a reflective and considered, rather than programmatic and dogmatic, liberalism. Writing with acute intelligence about classics like Huckleberry Finn and the novels of Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also on such varied matters as the Kinsey Report and money in the American imagination, Trilling presents a model of the critic as both part of and apart from his society, a defender of the reflective life that, in our ever more rationalized world, seems ever more necessary—and ever more remote. Among the most influential of his many works are three collections of essays, The Liberal ImaginationThe Opposing Selfand Beyond Culture ; a collection The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society lectures, Sincerity and Authenticity ; a critical study of E. The Journey Abandonedan unfinished novel, was published posthumously in Lionel Trilling was married to the writer and critic Diana Trilling. Louis Menand is the Anne T. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society - Lionel Trilling - Google книги

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The Liberal Imagination is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement about The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society and society. Published inone of the chillier moments of the Cold War, Trilling's essays examine the promise—and limits—of liberalism, challenging the complacen The Liberal Imagination is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement about politics and society. Only the imagination, Trilling argues, can give us access and insight into these realms and only the imagination can ground a reflective and considered, rather than programmatic and dogmatic, liberalism. Writing with acute intelligence about classics like Huckleberry Finn and the novels of Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also on such varied matters as the Kinsey Report and money in the American imagination, Trilling presents a model of the critic as both part of and apart from his society, a defender of the reflective life that, in our ever more rationalized world, seems ever more necessary—and ever more remote. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published April 1st by Harcourt first published More Details Original Title. Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society. Reprint of the Ed Trilling, Lionel, Works. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Liberal Imaginationplease The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society up. Be the first to ask a question about The Liberal Imagination. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. What a subtle and scrupulous intellect! I love that Trilling insists on the social, political and moral mission of literature out of a love for art, out of a feel for its centrality, and without ever scolding writers, as is the tic of too many social-minded critics, for disdaining bald polemic and the other artless travesties of true engagement. On the contrary, the idiosyncratic perceptual sophistication of the Jamesian novel, its "moral The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society about the cost and complexity of any action, are What a subtle and scrupulous intellect! On the The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society, the idiosyncratic perceptual sophistication of the Jamesian novel, its "moral realism" about the cost and complexity of any action, are for Trilling humane correctives to the reductive materialist dogmas of politics: [the novelist:] is, as Fielding said, the historian's heir; but he will also be indifferent to History, sharing the vital stupidity of the World Historical Figure, who of course is not in the least interested in History but only in his own demands upon life and thus does not succumb to History's most malign and subtle trick, which is to fix and fascinate the mind of men with the pride of their foreknowledge of doom. There are times when, as the method of Perseus with Medusa suggests, you do well not to look straight at what you are dealing with but rather to see it in the mirror-shield that the hero carried. Menand's real point is that Trlling is writing in an intellectual world characterized, to a degree almost unimaginable today, by ideological debates and doctrinal hair-splitting in an essay on the future of the novel, Trilling even suggests that if novelists can no longer take social upheaval and class fluidity as indicated by manners and mores for their subject, as Stendahl, Balzac and James did in the 19th century, then the "range of passions" and "complex system of manners" brought about by the various allegiances within an ideological society could serve just as well; and from what I've skimmed, Trilling's one novel, The Middle of the Journeyis about just that; as it turned out, the ideological gloom lifted and most American fiction, at least, went it way with either postmodern playfullness or domestic realism. The task Trilling undertakes in so many of these essays is to clear a space for imaginative literature amidst the ideological allegiances of the educated classes. The Liberal Imagination stands The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society the most ambitious repudiation, by a midcentury liberal intellectual, of the aesthetic--and therefore human--compromises compelled by the previous three decades of fellow-traveling, by even the mildest armchair sympathy with a Leninist view of culture: Our liberal, progressive culture tolerated Dreiser's vulgar materialism with its huge negation, its simple cry of "Bunk! It is therefore not a happy fate, even if it has an heroic sound, but there is no escape from it, and the only possibility of enduring it is to force into our definition of politics every human activity and very subtlety of human activity. That last extract can sound too doom-laden, and even a bit silly, to our ears, but remember Trilling was writing in the late s. The Liberal Imagination seems to me dated--but not dated in the pejorative sense of being obsolete, but of being readably illuminating about a past The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society crucial period. Chamberlain places Lenin's expulsion of a mass of The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society thinkers and literary critics in the larger context of his attempt to reorient the intellectual life of Russia along positivist and materialist lines. Lenin and Stalin and beyond murdered, exiled and co-opted the Russian intelligentsia so that the life of the nation's mind--including its science, as witnessed by Stalin's official sanction of various quack biologists--was always conducted under the sway of ideology. The left-leaning intellectuals of Europe and America obviously weren't experimented on in this way, but Soviet cultural policy rippled outward to determine progressive opinion, particularly in the arts, where even very gifted and subtle readers, critics and theorists struck populist poses from a sense of the eschatology of ideological conflict. Trilling's great work was to remind his readers of the humane essence of imagination and art. Trilling's career doesn't share the aura of almost mythic heroism seen in the life of, say, Nadezhda Mandelstam, who memorized her murdered husband's unpublished poems because she was unwilling to entrust them to confiscatable paper, but he did his part to keep minds free. The job of criticism would seem to be, then, to recall liberalism to its first essential imagination of variousness and possibility, which implies the awareness of complexity and difficulty. To the carrying out of the job of criticizing the liberal imagination, literature has a unique relevance, not merely because so much of modern literature has explicitly directed itself upon politics, but more importantly because literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. View all 3 comments. Jan 28, Roy Lotz rated it really liked it Shelves: literary-criticismperson-of-letters. To read Lionel Trilling is to confront the mysterious gulf that separates intellectuals from academics. Of course, Trilling taught under the auspices of Columbia The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society but how little a mark his professorial career left on him. In the heat of Freud's influence, Trilling's essay on his work is cool and critical. On To read Lionel Trilling is to confront the mysterious gulf that separates intellectuals from academics. One will only find the honest thoughts of a man who cared deeply about literature, and who wished to communicate this The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society in prose that is both direct and that does justice to the complexity of his subject. It was a feeling hard to account for. His large vocabulary was only used to add an extra flavor to a sentence here or there—never with extravagance or pretension. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society subject matter did not involve any conceptual difficulties. So why did I feel exhausted after a mere 20 pages? Few authors have expressed themselves more carefully. He includes a caveat with every thought, he qualifies every statement, he weighs every assertion. The sentences seem to close in on themselves—doubling back, moving forward, and then circling round. But this does not lead him to tip-toe around issues. Rather, this constant dialogue with himself turns his prose into a sort of sieve. All he has to do is shake an issue, and the extraneous material falls away, leaving only gold. As a result, this book held my interest even when the topic at hand bored me. Nevertheless, the experience of watching the wheels of his mind spin as he slowly circled and closed in on his main point was exhilarating, even humbling. Despite the title, the political message of this book is mostly hinted at. Trilling refrains from all partisan politics. For me, the value lay more in contemplating possible connections between literature and politics than in any definite The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society on the matter. And it is a subject worth considering. It is characteristic of liberal thinking to make negative arguments concerning rights. To me, and to many others, this seems to be a wise and logical basis for political freedom. Yet there is a danger. Noam Chomsky and Neo-Nazis, men's rights and and gay rights activists, all are permitted to send their messages over the airwaves. On one level, this is a marvelous thing. But think about the logic of it. It is, in a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy. They feel threatened by ideas, threatened The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society to dedicate time and resources to squash them; whereas we think of ideas as harmless. But rather argue that ideas and language have the potential to do an enormous amount of damage, and therefore have the potential to do an enormous amount of good as well. Do I agree with everything Trilling says? Of course not: he's disturbingly keen on a very orthodox Freud, and he's not immune to the old 'the cure for the problems of democracy is more democracy line;' and I'm not sure how those two tendencies mesh. Also, early 21st century America is a very different place than mid 20th century America. It's hard to imagine a moment in history when the rationalists were on the offensive and everything was being quantified. Today I would say the irrationalists a Do I agree with everything Trilling says? Today I would say the irrationalists are definitely on the defensive. But Trilling's book is still fabulous: first, he argues that the question is not limited to reason The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society the one hand, and the irrational on the other. There are kinds of reason, and kinds of the irrational. You can't just pick a side. Second, he's willing to get in the trenches and shout it loud: books matter! They help you think better! Literature has a purpose! I'd like to throw a few dozen copies of this at Stanley Fish's head on the right, and at the heads of people on the left who think it's cool to disdain rational argument. Jul 13, Andrew added it Shelves: essaysliterary-studies.