Présentation de l'éditeur
Criticism is no isolated thing; it is not an amusanent of elegant triflers; it is not as many people think a, sjport of aloof atademicians. It is as present as the air, as concrete as bread, and far more necessary to human civilization than steam or petrol. The proverbial Philistine who refuses to see a play that will not make him laugh practices criticism of the most formidable kind and reveals in that practice all he is. For consider the implications of his critical reaction: the utter lack of humane sympathies, the stubborn defiance of all gentler influences, the hard determination to give no part of his earnings for an3rthing that neither stirs his senses nor flatters his consciousness of superiority. Consider, furthermore, the forces in his dvilization that have made him what he is: the insistence on mechanical values, the steely ferocities of business conyetiti(H i, the militant subordination of all the elements of life to one coarse and impoverishing kind of success. I could go further and point out how this Philistine slack of a subtle shame in his attitude, indeed his brazen pride in it, demonstrates die failure on the part of the intellectuals of his age and country to create a cultural atmosphere in whidi he would be forced, despite himself, into an imeasy awareness of the poverty of his own soul. And I could proceed to an analysis of the impotence of these intellectuals. Or else, I could select another critical reaction of our average business man: his moral indignation over a literary or dramatic treatment of sex, and I could readily derive that from his own furtive grossness or embittered self-repression. .. .B ut it is already clear that the hiunblest critical remark made by a random man or woman in any crowd you please has implications that can sear the soul or cry to heaven. ..
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
About the Publisher
Forgo
Présentation de l'éditeur
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
