The Making of Middlebrow CultureUniv of North Carolina Press, 09.11.2000 - 438 Seiten The proliferation of book clubs, reading groups, "outline" volumes, and new forms of book reviewing in the first half of the twentieth century influenced the tastes and pastimes of millions of Americans. Joan Rubin here provides the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, the rise of American middlebrow culture, and the values encompassed by it. Rubin centers her discussion on five important expressions of the middlebrow: the founding of the Book-of-the-Month Club; the beginnings of "great books" programs; the creation of the New York Herald Tribune's book-review section; the popularity of such works as Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy; and the emergence of literary radio programs. She also investigates the lives and expectations of the individuals who shaped these middlebrow institutions--such figures as Stuart Pratt Sherman, Irita Van Doren, Henry Seidel Canby, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, John Erskine, William Lyon Phelps, Alexander Woollcott, and Clifton Fadiman. Moreover, as she pursues the significance of these cultural intermediaries who connected elites and the masses by interpreting ideas to the public, Rubin forces a reconsideration of the boundary between high culture and popular sensibility. |
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Seite xvi
... response were largely unavailable or problematic , I have emphasized the artifacts middlebrow ventures created ... responses of academic critics and the avant - garde to the challenge of middlebrow initiatives ; and , where appropriate ...
... response were largely unavailable or problematic , I have emphasized the artifacts middlebrow ventures created ... responses of academic critics and the avant - garde to the challenge of middlebrow initiatives ; and , where appropriate ...
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... response , Americans intensified their at- tachment to the idea that a person's actions certified the presence or absence of the inner qualities comprising " true gentility . " Essayists , novelists , journalists , ministers , and ...
... response , Americans intensified their at- tachment to the idea that a person's actions certified the presence or absence of the inner qualities comprising " true gentility . " Essayists , novelists , journalists , ministers , and ...
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... response to beauty . It is true that , for Norton and his col- leagues , literature which was not morally sound could not be aesthet- ically pleasing either . Yet , in light of the changes the meaning of culture would subsequently ...
... response to beauty . It is true that , for Norton and his col- leagues , literature which was not morally sound could not be aesthet- ically pleasing either . Yet , in light of the changes the meaning of culture would subsequently ...
Seite 18
... response to that mandate . Porter's volume was characteristically reassuring : he issued his edicts about appropriate books in the unequivocal , definitive tone that Godkin and Arnold prescribed for disseminating literary judgments ...
... response to that mandate . Porter's volume was characteristically reassuring : he issued his edicts about appropriate books in the unequivocal , definitive tone that Godkin and Arnold prescribed for disseminating literary judgments ...
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... response , both upper- and middle - class Americans , Levine has written , felt lost in a " new universe of strang- ers , " beset by " a sense of anarchic change , of looming chaos , of fragmen- tation . " 49 More specifically , the ...
... response , both upper- and middle - class Americans , Levine has written , felt lost in a " new universe of strang- ers , " beset by " a sense of anarchic change , of looming chaos , of fragmen- tation . " 49 More specifically , the ...
Inhalt
1 | |
Stuart Pratt Sherman Irita Van Doren and Books | 34 |
The Early History of the BookoftheMonth Club | 93 |
John Erskine and Great Books | 148 |
illustrations | 199 |
Will Durant and the Vogue of the Outline | 209 |
Book Programs on Commercial Radio | 266 |
Notes | 331 |
Bibliography | 373 |
Index | 405 |
Permissions | 415 |
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Adler advertising aesthetic Alexander Woollcott American appeared Arnold Arnoldian audience authority Autobiography Babbitt Book Review Book-of-the-Month Club broadcast Broun Canby Canby's Canfield character civilization classics Clifton Fadiman club's COHC College critics democratic Dewey Dorothy Canfield Fisher Durant's early editor effort Eliot Emerson Erskine Papers Erskine's essay example experience Fadiman Fisher Folder genteel tradition Haldeman-Julius Helen Helen Rogers Reid Henry Seidel Canby Herald Tribune human Ibid idea ideal intellectual Irita Van Doren James John Erskine Lazarsfeld lecture Letters Library Lincoln Schuster listeners literary Loon Loon's Mark Van Doren Max Lincoln ment middlebrow modern moral Morley NBC Records Norton novel outline personality Phelps Phelps's political popular publishers quiz Radio readers reading Review of Literature role Saturday Review selection sense Sept Sherman Similarly Simon and Schuster social Story of Philosophy tion Weekly Wells's William William Lyon Phelps Woodberry Woodberry's Woollcott writers wrote Yale