The Imaginary Library : : An Essay on Literature and Society / / Alvin B. Kernan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton Legacy Lib. eBook Package 1980-1999
• VerfasserIn: Kernan, Alvin B.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2014]; ©1982
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Essays in Literature ; 726
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (196 p.)

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.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of Contents

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