Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Modernism
- The Cambridge History of American Modernism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Methodologies
- Part II Forms, Genre, and Media
- 7 New Visual Media
- 8 Midwestern Modernism and the Radio
- 9 Modernist Writing and Painting
- 10 Modern Folk, Modernist Documentary
- 11 Skyscraper Organizations
- 12 The Jazz Age
- 13 Modernism’s Deep Roots
- 14 Modernizing the American Short Story
- 15 Modernist American Long Poems
- 16 The Modernist Lyric and Its Discontents
- 17 Anthologies
- 18 Fragile Realism
- 19 Post-World War II Theater and Media
- 20 The Limits of an American Modernist Avant-Garde
- 21 Magazines
- 22 The Modernist Presses
- 23 Literary Criticism
- 24 Libertad Bajo Palabra
- Part III Situating US Modernism
- Select Bibliography
- Index
23 - Literary Criticism
from Part II - Forms, Genre, and Media
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2023
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Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Modernism
- The Cambridge History of American Modernism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Methodologies
- Part II Forms, Genre, and Media
- 7 New Visual Media
- 8 Midwestern Modernism and the Radio
- 9 Modernist Writing and Painting
- 10 Modern Folk, Modernist Documentary
- 11 Skyscraper Organizations
- 12 The Jazz Age
- 13 Modernism’s Deep Roots
- 14 Modernizing the American Short Story
- 15 Modernist American Long Poems
- 16 The Modernist Lyric and Its Discontents
- 17 Anthologies
- 18 Fragile Realism
- 19 Post-World War II Theater and Media
- 20 The Limits of an American Modernist Avant-Garde
- 21 Magazines
- 22 The Modernist Presses
- 23 Literary Criticism
- 24 Libertad Bajo Palabra
- Part III Situating US Modernism
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter surveys literary criticism during the high phase of modernism with special focus on major critics’ conflicting attitudes toward reality. I show that the word reality is of central importance in our understanding of the era’s literary culture. Critics largely agreed that reality is the best touchstone to test the worth of a literary work, but they disagreed over what made some literary works more real than others. Their contrasting definitions of reality resulted in different ways to construct the literary canon.
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- The Cambridge History of American Modernism , pp. 397 - 412Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023