Representations. Essays on Literature and Society

360 Pages·1975·36.898 MB·English

by  Steven Marcus

Steven
jyxarcus
on
Kssays Literature
and
Soeiety
wide-ranging collection
In this
of essays the distinguished literary
and social critic Steven Marcus ex-
plores the complex relationship be-
tween literature and society and the
ways in which the former often
provides insights into the latter.
Among his subjects are such writers
Charles Dickens, Evelyn Waugh,
as
Sigmund Freud, Sinclair Lewis,
William Faulkner, and Dashiell
“An
Hammett, and such topics as
Reviewer,” “The Limits of
Ideal
Literary History,” and “Madness,
Literature, and Society.”
BOSTON
C
PUBLl
LIBRARY
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i
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL)
https://archive.org/details/representationseOOmarc
BOOKS BY STEVEN MARCUS:
Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey
The Other Victorians
Engels, Manchester & the Working Class
The Continental Op (Editor)
Representations: Essays on Literature and Society
Representations
ESSAYS ON LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
Steven Marcus
RANDOM HOUSE Q NEW YORK
Representations
Essays on Literature and Society
—
©
Copyright^1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1964, 1974, 1975 by Steven
Marcus
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions, Published in the United States by Random House, Inc.,
New
York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of
Canada Limited, Toronto.
The following first appeared in Partisan Review: "Evelyn Waugh and
the Art of Entertainment" ^3, 1956, "Snopes Revisited" #3, 1957 and
"Three Obsessed Critics" #4, 1958. "Sinclair Lewis I" was first pub-
New
lished in Statesman. "Awakening from the Nightmare? Notes on
the Historical Novel" originally appeared in Harper’s. "Hunger and
Ideology" and "Mt. Everest and the British National Spirit" first ap-
peared in Commentary. The following were originally published in
The New York Review of Books: "The Poetry of Madness," "The
Limits of Literary History," "The Ideal Reviewer," and "Sinclair
Lewis 11."
Thanks are due the following for permission to reprint previously
copyrighted material: The New York Times for a book review, Janu-
ary 13, 1974. Copyright © 1974 by The New York Times Company;
Daedalus (Winter, 1972) for "Language into Structure: Pickwick
©
Papers." Copyright 1972 by American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., for Introduction to Stalky & Co. by
Rudyard Kipling. Introduction Copyright © 1962 by Macmillan Pub-
lishing Co., Inc.; Random House, Inc., for Introduction "Dashiell
Hammett and the Continental Op," to The Continental Op by Dashiell
Hammett. Introduction Copyright © 1974 by Steven Marcus,
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Marcus, Steven.
Representations.
—
CONTENTS: Hunger and ideology. Authority and obedience,
—
Snopes revisited. Sinclair Lewis, I and 11, [etc.]
— —
1. English literature History and criticism Addresses, essays, lec-
— —
tures. 2. American literature History and criticism Addresses, es-
says, lectures. 3. Literature and society. I. Title.
PR99.M3247 820'.9'3 75-10252
ISBN
0-394-49559-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition