Fiction sets you free literature, liberty, and western culture - Berman, Russell A. (University Of Iowa Press, 2007)
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-228) and index
Why literature matters -- Introduction -- Periodization and the canon -- Human origins and literary beginnings -- Writing and heroism -- Literacy and autonomy -- The epic and the individual -- Religion and writing -- The democracy of literature -- Imagination and economy
In what can only be called a genuine intellectual adventure, Russell Berman raises fundamental questions long ignored by literary scholars; Why does literature command our attention at all? Why would society want to cultivate a sphere of activity devoted to the careful study of literary fiction? Written as a tonic to what he calls the debilitating cultural relativism of contemporary literary studies, Fiction Sets You Free advances the innovative argument that literature and capitalism, rather than representing merely commercialization, actually belie a long and positive association: literary a