From Publishers Weekly
This scathing critique argues that modernist literature and art arose as a reaction against popular culture and the mass reading public created by late 19th-century educational reforms. Oxford Enlgish professor Carey shows how intellectuals like D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Knut Hamsun, George Gissing and Wyndham Lewis scorned "the masses" as vulgar and trivial while exalting the artist as a natural aristocrat and transmitter of timeless values. T. S. Eliot predicted that the spread of education would lead to barbarism. Charles Baudelaire condemned photography as a distraction for the "vile multitude," while other intellectuals expressed contempt for newspapers and popular entertainments. H. G. Wells proposed measures to restrict parenthood as a means to curb the "black and brown races" whom he considered inferior to whites. Carey's razor-sharp analysis is an antidote to snobbery and class prejudice in all forms.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
Carey (English, Oxford Univ.) contends that the modernist literature of some prominent English authors writing from the 1880s through 1939 was a hostile reaction to the newly educated mass reading public and its popular culture. These writings were in styles designed to exclude semiliterate readers and buttress the self-esteem of literary intellectuals as part of a natural aristocracy. After World War II, confronted by television and other popular media, intellectuals were driven to create other literary modes to shield high culture from the reach of the majority. Separate chapters on George Gissing, H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and Wyndham Lewis reinforce Carey's general thesis. Published last year in England, this is a closely reasoned and stimulating discussion. Recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries.
- Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
- Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
