{"product_id":"the-liberal-imagination-essays-on-literature-and-society-paperback","title":"The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLionel Trilling\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eLouis Menand\u003c\/b\u003e (Introduction by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e The Liberal Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement about politics and society. Published in 1950, one of the chillier moments of the Cold War, Trilling's essays examine the promise --and limits--of liberalism, challenging the complacency of a na ve liberal belief in rationality, progress, and the panaceas of economics and other social sciences, and asserting in their stead the irreducible complexity of human motivation and the tragic inevitability of tragedy. Only the imagination, Trilling argues, can give us access and insight into these realms and only the imagination can ground a reflective and considered, rather than programmatic and dogmatic, liberalism. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Writing with acute intelligence about classics like \u003ci\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/i\u003e and the novels of Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also on such varied matters as the Kinsey Report and money in the American imagination, Trilling presents a model of the critic as both part of and apart from his society, a defender of the reflective life that, in our ever more rationalized world, seems ever more necessary--and ever more remote.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLionel Trilling\u003c\/b\u003e (1905-1975) was born in New York and educated at Columbia University, to which he returned as an instructor in 1932, and where he continued to teach in the English Department throughout his long and highly distinguished career as a literary critic. Among the most influential of his many works are three collections of essays, \u003ci\u003eThe Liberal Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Opposing Self\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBeyond Culture\u003c\/i\u003e; a collection of lectures, \u003ci\u003eSincerity and Authenticity\u003c\/i\u003e; a critical study of E.M. Forster; and one novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Middle of the Journey\u003c\/i\u003e (available as an NYRB Classic). \u003ci\u003eThe Journey Abandoned\u003c\/i\u003e, an unfinished novel, was published posthumously in 2008. Lionel Trilling was married to the writer and critic Diana Trilling. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eLouis Menand\u003c\/b\u003e is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English at Harvard University, and a staff writer at \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eDiscovering Modernism\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Metaphysical Club\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAmerican Studies\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 320\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.7 x 7.98 x 5.2 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 23, 2008\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51771232780576,"sku":"9781590172834","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/d421201f32462cd932ca0258d40c47b4.webp?v=1780383595","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-liberal-imagination-essays-on-literature-and-society-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}