I look at how thinkers over the centuries have viewed so-called popular or lightweight literature.
Tag Archives: Herbert Marcuse
Does Lightweight Lit Do Damage?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Dunciad, Feminism, Frankfurt School, Frederick Engels, Jaws, John Dryden, Karl Marx, lightweight literature, Lovers' Vows, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Percy Shelley, Persuasion, Peter Benchley, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Terry Eagleton, W.E.B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
What Lit Is Good For–A Debate
Thursday Tim Parks has written a provocative essay for The New York Review of Books, asking, Is literature wise? In the sense, does it help us to live? And if not, what exactly is it good for? If you follow this blog, you already know my answers: –Yes, literature is wiser than we are (and […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charles Dickens, King Lear, Little Dorrit, Madame Bovary, Tempest, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Defending the Canon vs. New Attacks
Yale English majors have been complaining about requiring them to study canonical writers. Here’s is why they are wrong.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged canon, canonical works, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Poetry Standing Firm in the Face of Fire
“But maybe stories and poetry can help open our minds to possibilities that are very real but extremely hard to see; and in that sense, they can be very practical.” – Rachel Kranz in a response to yesterday’s post I love the two responses to yesterday’s post (from the two major women in my life) […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Azar Nafisi, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Luther King, politics, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Simin Belbahani, Ulysses, Uncle Tom's Cabin Comments closed
