Adam Kirsch
Lionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as Americaâ€™s preeminent literary critic, is today often seen as a relic of a vanished era. His was an age when literary criticism and ideas seemed to matter profoundly in the intellectual life of the country. In this eloquent book, Adam Kirsch shows that Trilling, far from being obsolete, is essential to understanding our current crisis of literary confidenceâ€”and to overcoming it.,By reading Trilling primarily as a writer and thinker, Kirsch demonstrates how Trillingâ€™s original and moving work continues to provide an inspiring example of a mind creating itself through its encounters with texts. ,Why Trilling Matters, introduces all of Trillingâ€™s major writings and situates him in the intellectual landscape of his century, from Communism in the 1930s to neoconservatism in the 1970s. But Kirsch goes deeper, addressing todayâ€™s concerns about the decline of literature, reading, and even the book itself, and finds that Trilling has more to teach us now than ever before. As Kirsch writes, â€œTrillingâ€™s essays are not exactly literary criticismâ€ but, like all literature, â€œends in themselves.â€
Criticism,Literary Criticism,Writing,Journalism,Nonfiction
Why Trilling Matters