The Hatred of Literature
By William Marx and Nicholas Elliott
4/5
()
About this ebook
For the last 2,500 years literature has been attacked, booed, and condemned, often for the wrong reasons and occasionally for very good ones. The Hatred of Literature examines the evolving idea of literature as seen through the eyes of its adversaries: philosophers, theologians, scientists, pedagogues, and even leaders of modern liberal democracies. From Plato to C. P. Snow to Nicolas Sarkozy, literature’s haters have questioned the value of literature—its truthfulness, virtue, and usefulness—and have attempted to demonstrate its harmfulness.
Literature does not start with Homer or Gilgamesh, William Marx says, but with Plato driving the poets out of the city, like God casting Adam and Eve out of Paradise. That is its genesis. From Plato the poets learned for the first time that they served not truth but merely the Muses. It is no mere coincidence that the love of wisdom (philosophia) coincided with the hatred of poetry. Literature was born of scandal, and scandal has defined it ever since.
In the long rhetorical war against literature, Marx identifies four indictments—in the name of authority, truth, morality, and society. This typology allows him to move in an associative way through the centuries. In describing the misplaced ambitions, corruptible powers, and abysmal failures of literature, anti-literary discourses make explicit what a given society came to expect from literature. In this way, anti-literature paradoxically asserts the validity of what it wishes to deny. The only threat to literature’s continued existence, Marx writes, is not hatred but indifference.
Related to The Hatred of Literature
Related ebooks
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Recognizing Persius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Uses Of Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What is Symbolism? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature - New and Expanded Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zionism and Melancholy: The Short Life of Israel Zarchi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetics before Plato: Interpretation and Authority in Early Greek Theories of Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter the New Criticism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Innocence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Song of Igor's Campaign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Poetry Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why Read the Classics? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seeing Double: Baudelaire's Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWard No. 6 and Other Stories (Translated by Constance Garnett) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Understanding Lee Smith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoet's Tomb, The: The Material Soul of Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLectures on Russian Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Belonging and Narrative: A Theory of the American Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMadame Bovary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Stephen Crane's "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon Quixote Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Impossible Modernism: T. S. Eliot, Walter Benjamin, and the Critique of Historical Reason Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaria, or The Wrongs of Woman Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rhetoric of Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Criticism For You
A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween the World and Me: by Ta-Nehisi Coates | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for The Hatred of Literature
3 ratings0 reviews