History and Value (Clarendon lectures) - Hardcover

Kermode, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198123817 ISBN 13: 9780198123811

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1988

Synopsis

In this work, the author returns to the literature of his youth to ask why we appear to have forgotten how powerful it seemed in a time of economic crisis and imminent world war. He begins with a study of bourgeois left-wing writing in England and to a lesser extent the United States in the 1930s. He examines the causes of literary neglect and the connection between a book and its historical context. Succeeding chapters discuss some left-wing novelists, eg Edward Upward and Lewis Jones and their response to the crises and political myths of the decade. Kermode also examines the "committed" work of the left-wing bourgeois poets; he questions whether, under the influence of George Orwell and the later recantations of the poets themselves, we have too easily accepted low valuations of their work. The first section ends with a re-evaluation of Auden's political poetry. The second part considers the problem of value in work belonging to a period earlier than one's own. The Marxist approach is examined and also canon- and period-formation. The last chapter concentrates on the most recent attempt to make these issues manageable, namely, postmodernism which rejects all notions of wholeness and speaks of a catastrophic break with the past.

About this title

Review

'it is a bold and expert defence of the '30s writers, in which historical perspective and personal memory work to show how practical criticism and a sense of period can recuperate literature and clarify criticism ... an eloquence that is inseparable from the clarity of his argument and the gravity of his purpose.' The Age

'readers never have the feeling here of being lectured at: rather, they are drawn into a witty, intelligent and civilised debate in which a great many topics are touched on and the continuing revolutionary movements of living history are viewed sympathetically and with understanding.' Observer

'Where others find fault he is not embarrassed to praise. He hears in the political literature of the Thirties a lucid note of awe and wonder.' London Review of Books

'so elegant, so intelligent a writer' D. J. Enright, Times Literary Supplement

'Kermode's book is always lucid, often brilliantly insightful. Essential for scholars and students of the period.' Library Journal

'a cogent defence of the now-unfashionable principle of evaluation ... a bold and expert defence of the '30s writers' The Age

'At times Kermode's bare and unemphatic style issues into an eloquence that is inseparable from the clarity of his argument and the gravity of his purpose ... passionate and elegant book' Peter Craven, Age

'Oxford University Press deserves many congratulations on their institution - and on the choice of Professor Kermode for their inauguration.' Roma Gill, Notes and Queries

'he recovers some forgotten texts and introduces some new motifs that can only modify our reading of that decade' Robert Sullivan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 91 No. 2 (April 1992)

About the Author

Frank Kermode is at University of Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198123817
• ISBN 13: 9780198123811
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160