An Experiment in Criticism"Professor Lewis believed that literature exists above all for the joy of the reader and that books should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. He doubted the use of strictly evaluative criticism, especially its condemnations. Literary criticism is traditionally employed in judging books, and 'bad taste' is thought of as a taste for bad books. Professor Lewis' experiment consists in reversing the process, and judging literature itself by the way men read it. He defined a good book as one which can be read in a certain way, a bad book as one which can only be read in another. He was therefore mainly preoccupied with the notion of good reading: and he showed that this, in its surrender to the work on which it is engaged, has something in common with love, with moral action, and with intellectual achievement. In good reading we should be concerned less in altering our own opinions than in entering fully into the opinions of others; "in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself". As with all that Professor Lewis wrote, the arguments are stimulating and the examples apt"--Publisher description. |
Contents
The Few and the Many | 1 |
False Characterisations | 5 |
How the Few and the Many use Pictures and Music | 14 |
The Reading of the Unliterary | 27 |
On Myth | 40 |
The Meanings of Fantasy | 50 |
On Realisms | 57 |
On Misreading by the Literary | 74 |
Survey | 88 |
Poetry | 95 |
The Experiment | 104 |
Epilogue | 130 |
A note on Oedipus | 142 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity admire already Aristotle attention attitude bad picture bad reading become believe Beowulf better Chaucer Dante day-dream deceived delight demand discover distinction Edgar Wallace egoistic castle-building emotional enjoy escape Event eyes favourite feel fiction girl next door give happened Herakles human imagination invented invites Jane Austen judge judgement kind Lamb less literary experience literary fantasy literature Logos looking Lucretius mean ment merely Middlemarch Miller's Tale mind Montaigne myth narrative never novel object Oedipus Oedipus Tyrannus once ourselves pale Patience Strong philosophy play pleasure poem poetry poets Poiema pornography preter probable prose question realism of content realism of presentation reality rereading seems sense simply sometimes sort of reading sort of thing status seeker stories talk taste tell tion tragedy Translating Homer tune unliterary reader Vanity Fair vicarious whole words writing young