The Imaginary Library

In this speculative treatment of literature as a social institution, Alvin B. Kernan explores the inability of contemporary writers and critics to maintain a literary vision in a society that denies their values and methods.

Originally published in 1982.

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Autorentext

Alvin B. Kernan

Inhalt

• FrontMatter,
• Contents,
• Acknowledgments,
• Introduction. The Place of Poetry in the World,
• I. The Actual and Imaginary Library: Literature as a Social Institution,
• II. Mighty Poets in their Misery Dead: The Death of the Poet in Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift,
• III. "Battering the Object": The Attack on the Literary Text in Malamud's the Tenants,
• IV. Reading Zemblan: The Audience Disappears in Nabokov's Pale Fire,
• V. The Taking of the Moon: The Struggle of the Poetic and Scientific Myths in Norman Mailer's of a Fire on the Moon,
• VI. Finding the New Thing,
• Works Cited,
• Index,