About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherSTATE University of New York Press

ISBN-100887065600

ISBN-139780887065606

eBay Product ID (ePID)1015438

Product Key Features

Number of Pages267 Pages

Publication NamePaul Elmer more : Literary Criticism As the History of Ideas

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year1987

SubjectGeneral, Rhetoric

TypeTextbook

AuthorStephen L. Tanner

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Language Arts & Disciplines

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Weight0 Oz

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN86-006847

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal801/.95/0924

Table Of ContentPreface One Introduction The Argument More's Objectives The Development of More's Thought Characteristics of More's Method Limitations and Procedures Two First Principles Art and Life Dualism Humanism Rationalism Science Romanticism Humanitarianism Conclusion Three The Renaissance The Spirit of the Renaissance The Religious Imagination The Ethos of the Restoration Conclusion Four The Eighteenth Century A Battle of the Wits A Compliant Brotherhood Rousseau and the Drift to Humanitarianism The Quarrelsome Twins of Rational Science and Irrational Romanticism Five The Nineteenth Century The Romantic Revolution in England The Philosophy of Change The Religious Spirit Morality and Fiction Foreign Voices Currents of Literary Criticism The Decadent Illusion Conclusion Six American Literature More and the New England Tradition The Spirit of Early New England The Flowering of New England The Dispossessed Conscience Seven The Twentieth Century More and the Modern Spirit The Demon of the Absolute Modern Currents in American Literature The Lust of Irresponsibility Eight Conclusion Summary of Historical Continuity Summary of Philosophical Continuity More's Achievement List of Abbreviations Notes Index

SynopsisPaul Elmer More was one of the leaders of the New Humanism, the most important critical movement in the United States during the first decades of this century. It was a wide-ranging moral approach to literary and cultural criticism that laid the intellectual foundation for American conservatism. Though eclipsed in the realm of critical fashions by more exclusively aesthetic approaches, the moral approach retains its appeal among general readers, and More has remained known and respected among those concerned with literature as an expression of ideas and values, as a criticism of life. Seriously considered for the Nobel Prize on two occasions, More wrote over a dozen volumes of literary criticism, which Robert Spiller, in the Literary History of the United States, calls "the utmost ambitious and often the most penetrating body of judicial literary criticism in our literature." Among those who have praised More's brilliant and comprehensive mind is T. S. Eliot, who in acknowledging his indebtedness to More referred to him as "one of the two wisest men I have known." Focusing on the continuity of More's literary criticism, Stephen L. Tanner has performed the useful service of distilling from More's diverse and prolific literary essays the characteristic principles that determined his literary judgments. Chief among these principles is a concept of dualism that views each individual as being subject to the opposing forces of "passion of the moment and the eternal law above and within." This concept is the anchor point of More's probing critique of the excessive and dehumanizing forms of romanticism, naturalism, humanitarianism, scientism, and rationalism. And it accounts for his forceful advocacy of the "inner check" and the "law of measure.", Paul Elmer More was one of the leaders of the New Humanism, the most important critical movement in the United States during the first decades of this century. It was a wide-ranging moral approach to literary and cultural criticism that laid the intellectual foundation for American conservatism. Though eclipsed in the realm of critical fashions by more exclusively aesthetic approaches, the moral approach retains its appeal among general readers, and More has remained known and respected among those concerned with literature as an expression of ideas and values, as a criticism of life.Seriously considered for the Nobel Prize on two occasions, More wrote over a dozen volumes of literary criticism, which Robert Spiller, in the Literary History of the United States, calls "the utmost ambitious and often the most penetrating body of judicial literary criticism in our literature." Among those who have praised More's brilliant and comprehensive mind is T. S. Eliot, who in acknowledging his indebtedness to More referred to him as "one of the two wisest men I have known."Focusing on the continuity of More's literary criticism, Stephen L. Tanner has performed the useful service of distilling from More's diverse and prolific literary essays the characteristic principles that determined his literary judgments. Chief among these principles is a concept of dualism that views each individual as being subject to the opposing forces of "passion of the moment and the eternal law above and within." This concept is the anchor point of More's probing critique of the excessive and dehumanizing forms of romanticism, naturalism, humanitarianism, scientism, and rationalism. And it accounts for his forceful advocacy of the "inner check" and the "law of measure."

LC Classification NumberPS2432

Picture 1 of 15

Paul Elmer More : Literary Criticism as the History of Ideas by Stephen L. Tanner (1987, Hardcover)

About this product

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

Dimensions

Additional Product Features

You may also like