Candor and Perversion

Literature, Education, and the Arts

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by Roger Shattuck

W. W. Norton and Co.

Due/Published September 2000, 432 pages, paper

ISBN 0393321118

Roger Shattuck takes up the cudgel to reaffirm literature as a central field of study and personal reward. With incisive analysis, he elucidates the nature of intellectual craftsmanship, defends art's undeniable moral component, and laments our culture's tendencies toward both anti-intellectualism and philistine pretension.. "Shattuck argues that in recent years, American literary studies have embarked on a deeply wayward course. He shows how politics and theory have grown increasingly dominant, now threatening to eliminate the very category of literature. Looking to the past for guidance, Shattuck offers a vision of a common literary and philosophical heritage.