The Humanist Critic

The Humanist Critic

Lionel Trilling and Edward Said

By Daniel Rosenberg Nutters

Anthem symploke Studies in Theory

The Humanist Critic reexamines the careers of Lionel Trilling and Edward Said. It demonstrates how each critic turned to the modernist literary tradition to reinvent the role of the humanist intellectual during the rise of critical theory.

Hardback, 250 Pages

ISBN:9781839991592

July 2025

£80.00, $110.00

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About This Book

Assessments of the history of literary criticism suffer from two errors. On one hand, they often ignore the relationship between critical history and literary history. On the other hand, they tend to assume a progressive vision of history where literary movements or critical schools of thought build upon each other. As a result, such assessments either privilege the present and praise its progress or express nostalgia for the past.

The Humanist Critic: Lionel Trilling and Edward Said demonstrates the poverty of these tendencies. By examining the careers of two of the most significant figures in literary-critical history, it demonstrates how Said inherits and revises an older style of criticism that Trilling practices, and conversely, we see how Trilling anticipates future directions in criticism that Said will scrutinize. At the same time, The Humanist Critic argues that developments in critical history and developments in literary modernism represent a parallel story. Recognizing these intertwined narratives is key to lessening the perceived antagonism between modernism, continental critical theory, and what each presumably displaced.

The Humanist Critic thus studies the influence of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Mann on Trilling and the influence of Joseph Conrad and Gerard Manley Hopkins on Said while also putting the careers of Trilling and Said in dialogue with structuralist and deconstructive thought. The Humanist Critic is ultimately a focused genealogy of literary studies; a study of influence; a critique of current trends in critical culture; and a renewed justification for the humanist vocation.

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Author Information

Daniel Rosenberg Nutters teaches English at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.

Series

Anthem symploke Studies in Theory

Table of Contents

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