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" The hatred of literature / "
William Marx ; translated by Nicholas Elliott.
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BL
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| Record Number
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879649
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| Uniform Title
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Haine de la litterature.English
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| Main Entry
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Marx, William,1966-
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| Title & Author
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The hatred of literature /\ William Marx ; translated by Nicholas Elliott.
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| Publication Statement
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Cambridge, Massachusetts :: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,, 2018.
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, ©2018
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| Page. NO
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228 pages ;; 22 cm
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| ISBN
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0674976126
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: 9780674976122
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| Notes
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"This book was originally published in French as La haine de la littérature (c)2015 by Les Éditions de Minuit, 7, rue Bernard-Palissy, 74006 Paris."--Title page verso. Translated from the French.
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| Bibliographies/Indexes
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-217) and index.
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| Contents
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Introduction : Literature and anti-literature -- Words from elsewhere -- First trial : Authority -- Second trial : Truth -- Third trial : Morality -- Fourth trial : Society --- Conclusion : The hidden face of literature.
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| Abstract
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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. -- from dust jacket.
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| Subject
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Censorship-- History.
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Literature and morals-- History.
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Literature-- History and criticism.
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Prohibited books-- History.
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Prohibited books-- History.
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Censorship.
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Literature and morals.
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Literature.
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Prohibited books.
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| Dewey Classification
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801/.9
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| LC Classification
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PN45.M387313 2018
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| Added Entry
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Elliott, Nicholas
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