The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society (1950) is a collection of sixteen essays by American literary critic Lionel Trilling, published by Viking in 1950. The book was edited by Pascal Covici, who had worked with Trilling when he edited and introduced Viking's Portable Matthew Arnold in 1949.[1] With the exception of the preface, which was written specifically for the publication of the book, all the essays included in The Liberal Imagination were individually published in the decade before the book's publication in literary and critical journals, such as The Partisan Review, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, and The American Quarterly. The essays represent Trilling's written work and critical thoughts of the 1940s.
In the essays, Trilling explores the theme of what he calls "liberalism" by looking closely at the relationship between literature, culture, mind, and the imagination. He offers passionate critiques against literary ideas of reality as material and physical, such as those he ascribes to V. L. Parrington, Theodore Dreiser, and the writers of the Kinsey Reports. He supports writers who engage in "moral realism" through an engaged imagination and a "power of love," which he sees expressed in works by Henry James, Mark Twain, Tacitus, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Wordsworth—and in the ideas of human nature in the works of Sigmund Freud.[2]
The Liberal Imagination enjoyed a relatively large commercial success, selling 100,000 hardcover and 70,000 paperback copies, and was later to be understood as an essential book for a group of influential literary, political, and cultural thinkers of the era, called “The New York Intellectuals." The initial reviewers, such as Irving Howe, R. P. Blackmore, Norman Podhoretz, and Delmore Schwartz, represent the importance of this book to the "Intellectuals."[3] In later years, scholars turned to The Liberal Imagination as a work representative of the post-war politics and culture of the United States, which was entering the early stages of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.[4]
^"Letter to Pascal Cavici," 8 August 1949, Lionel Trilling Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.
^"Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, (New York: The Viking Press, 1950), pp. ix, 88".
^Adam Kirsch, Why Trilling Matters, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 14.
^"The Liberal Imagination sits at the center of the emerging postwar positions of the New York Intellectuals because of both its intrinsic and its symbolic importance." Alexander Bloom, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World (Cary, US: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 191.
and 25 Related for: The Liberal Imagination information
TheLiberalImagination: Essays on Literature and Society (1950) is a collection of sixteen essays by American literary critic Lionel Trilling, published...
collection of essays, TheLiberalImagination, was published in 1950, followed by the collections The Opposing Self (1955), focusing on the conflict between...
2017). "Final Fantasy: Neoreactionary politics and theliberalimagination". The Point. Archived from the original on 12 October 2019. Retrieved 6 January...
Phenomenology of Reading Raymond Williams: The Country and the City Lionel Trilling: TheLiberalImagination; Julia Kristeva: From One Identity to Another;...
contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals...
Sociological imagination is a term used in the field of sociology to describe a framework for understanding social reality that places personal experiences...
Australia. ISBN 978-0-647-51855-7. Frame, Tom (2018). Harold Holt and theliberalimagination. Australian Biographical Monographs. Vol. 2. Redland Bay, Qld:...
Gombrich – The Story of Art Thor Heyerdahl – The Kon-Tiki Expedition Octavio Paz – The Labyrinth of Solitude Lionel Trilling – TheLiberalImagination: Essays...
read Jacques Barzun’s Teacher in America and Lionel Trilling’s TheLiberalImagination. These works convinced him that he could continue to do professionally...
examples of modern liberal policy programs include the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the Affordable Care Act, the Infrastructure...
A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free (Latin: liber) human being. It is based on the medieval concept...
Science and theLiberalImagination. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 1998. p. 231. Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle...
of Liberal Arts and Management Sciences (BILAMS, Kolkata) established in 1987, is an autonomous non-profit educational society a division of the Birla...
the despotic rule by British in the meantime. Mid-century liberals like John Stuart Mill provided the ideological basis for such tendencies. At the end...
outline of liberalism in Germany (German: Liberalismus). Theliberal parties dealt with in the timeline below are, largely, those which received sufficient...
the growing antisemitism and yearning to return to the historical homeland. A variety of types of Zionism have emerged, including political, liberal,...
transformation, whereby the personal and collective unconscious is brought into consciousness (by means of dreams, active imagination or free association...
The National Liberal Club (NLC) is a London private members' club, open to both men and women. It was established by William Ewart Gladstone in 1882 to...
This is a list of the episodes of Mad, an animated sketch comedy television series inspired by Mad magazine that aired on Cartoon Network. "iTunes – TV...
of the term liberal in the context of religious philosophy appeared as early as the mid-19th century and became established by the first part of the 20th...
of both theliberal arts and professional development education, whereas humanities subjects are generally confined to the traditional liberal arts education...
evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds...