These are bad times for the study of the book, particularly in the States. College curriculums are stuffed with works by mediocre writers who champion idendity politics (i.e. Alice Walker) and so are loved for being, by our age's standards, morally righteous. The late Victorian aesthetes are gone--swarms of feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial critics assure us all that what matters most in a book is its examination of power structures, and that art for art's sake is a bourgeois lie designed to oppress various groups.

This saddens me, because if I want to read a political pamphlet, I'll seek one out. If I want lit, I want raw aesthetic power, independent of all values or ideas or any other petty concerns that have nothing to do with artistic splendour. You don't have to be a dogmatic Christian (I detest Christianity) to find Dante and John Milton bring a tear to your eye. It seems the only hope is with the readers like us, who read for our own pleasure and not for any sense of virtue. When Maya Angelou's considered a great poet, we're in trouble.

Discuss? All aesthetes should be aware of this.
cannabis=freedom Reviewed by cannabis=freedom on . How political correctness is destroying lit These are bad times for the study of the book, particularly in the States. College curriculums are stuffed with works by mediocre writers who champion idendity politics (i.e. Alice Walker) and so are loved for being, by our age's standards, morally righteous. The late Victorian aesthetes are gone--swarms of feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial critics assure us all that what matters most in a book is its examination of power structures, and that art for art's sake is a bourgeois lie designed to Rating: 5