The Shrinking Of The Contemporary Literary Critic

Literary critics have become more subdued, adopting methods with less grand speculation, more empirical study, and more use of statistics or other data. They aim to read, describe, and mine data rather than make “interventions” of world-historical importance. Their methods include “surface reading,” “thin description,” “the new formalism,” “book history,” “distant reading,” “the new sociology.”

Breakout Success Of “Into The Woods” Is A Surprise

For a popular but complicated Stephen Sondheim musical that had nowhere near the widespread appeal of such shows as “Les Misérables” or “The Phantom of the Opera,” the breakout success of the film is something of a surprise. The film is managing the difficult feat of appealing to the younger “Frozen” audience as well as older fans of Broadway musicals.

Why It Matters To Have A Canon Of Great Works

“Starting from the premise that aesthetics were just another social construct rather than a product of universal principles, postmodernist thinkers succeeded in toppling hierarchies and nullifying the literary canon. Indeed, they were so good at unearthing the socioeconomic considerations behind canon formation that even unapologetic highbrows had to wonder if they hadn’t been bamboozled by Arnoldian acolytes and eloquent ideologues.”