What Was Literature?: Class Culture And Mass Society
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn/faded, with some minor chipping and edge wear. Page Condition: Yellowed/tanning consistent with age. Markings: previous owner. Binding: Intact hardcover.
A landmark work of American cultural criticism, What Was Literature?: Class Culture and Mass Society presents a bold and provocative reassessment of the literary canon and its relationship to popular culture. Leslie Fiedler, celebrated author of Love and Death in the American Novel, argues that the traditional boundaries between high and low culture are artificial constructs maintained by a cultural elite — and that mass-market fiction, melodrama, and pop genres deserve serious critical attention. With characteristic wit and intellectual daring, he chronicles the rise of a distinctly American sensibility shaped not by the academy but by the tastes and desires of ordinary readers. The work challenges entrenched assumptions about aesthetic value, urging critics and scholars to confront the democratic, often rowdy energy that has always driven American storytelling. Provocative, erudite, and consistently surprising, it remains one of the most stimulating interventions in twentieth-century literary and cultural studies.
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Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Worn/faded, with some minor chipping and edge wear. Page Condition: Yellowed/tanning consistent with age. Markings: previous owner. Binding: Intact hardcover.
A landmark work of American cultural criticism, What Was Literature?: Class Culture and Mass Society presents a bold and provocative reassessment of the literary canon and its relationship to popular culture. Leslie Fiedler, celebrated author of Love and Death in the American Novel, argues that the traditional boundaries between high and low culture are artificial constructs maintained by a cultural elite — and that mass-market fiction, melodrama, and pop genres deserve serious critical attention. With characteristic wit and intellectual daring, he chronicles the rise of a distinctly American sensibility shaped not by the academy but by the tastes and desires of ordinary readers. The work challenges entrenched assumptions about aesthetic value, urging critics and scholars to confront the democratic, often rowdy energy that has always driven American storytelling. Provocative, erudite, and consistently surprising, it remains one of the most stimulating interventions in twentieth-century literary and cultural studies.
