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Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination (Viking, 1950; Harcourt Trade Publishers, 1979) A collection of essays in literary criticism from one of the famed New York intellectuals of the 1950s. Trilling covers a broad range of topics, including books and authors, art and neurosis, art and money, and the relationship of literature to ideas. Most of Trilling's contemporaries rated the book as one of the great works of American liberal intellectualism. The most common criticism, in fact, was that Trilling was too firmly ensconsed in liberal thought. Philip Toynbee of the New York Times wrote that "readers should not be lulled by [the book's] extreme persuasiveness into forgetting that it has been written from a definite point of view, and one which is not alone in its contemporary validity." Writing in The Nation, Irving Howe commented that "Trilling writes with a high regard for the possibilities of the English language, for the dramatic gesture an essay may become, and for the sheer pleasure discussion of literature may bring." MORE: The Atlantic Monthly book review/essay on Trilling Amazon |
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