What Good Are the Arts?Hailed as "exhilarating and suggestive" (Spectator), "thought-provoking and entertaining" (David Lodge, Sunday Times), and "incisive and inspirational" (Guardian), What Good are the Arts? offers a delightfully skeptical look at the nature of art. John Carey--one of Britain's most respected literary critics--here cuts through the cant surrounding the fine arts, debunking claims that the arts make us better people or that judgments about art are anything more than personal opinion. But Carey does argue strongly for the value of art as an activity and for the superiority of one art in particular: literature. Literature, he contends, is the only art capable of reasoning, and the only art that can criticize. Literature has the ability to inspire the mind and the heart towards practical ends far better than any work of conceptual art. Here then is a lively and stimulating invitation to debate the value of art, a provocative book that "anyone seriously interested in the arts should read" (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post). |
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Page v
... religion? 135 part two The Case for Literature Literature and critical intelligence 171 6 7 Creative reading: Literature and indistinctness 213 Afterword 249 Bibliography 261 Notes 271 Index 279 This page intentionally left blank Contents.
... religion? 135 part two The Case for Literature Literature and critical intelligence 171 6 7 Creative reading: Literature and indistinctness 213 Afterword 249 Bibliography 261 Notes 271 Index 279 This page intentionally left blank Contents.
Page xii
... religion, as our belief in its sacredness and spirituality implies. In recent years scientists who work on the brain and the nervous system have increasingly turned their attention to art, clarifying what physical changes take place ...
... religion, as our belief in its sacredness and spirituality implies. In recent years scientists who work on the brain and the nervous system have increasingly turned their attention to art, clarifying what physical changes take place ...
Page 3
... religious faith – not out of disrespect for religion, but because the assumption of a religious faith would alter the terms of the discussion fundamentally and unpredictably. If you believe in a God, or gods, the answer to the question ...
... religious faith – not out of disrespect for religion, but because the assumption of a religious faith would alter the terms of the discussion fundamentally and unpredictably. If you believe in a God, or gods, the answer to the question ...
Page 7
... religion, the creation of a spiritual aristocracy called geniuses, and the arena for the display of a refined discriminatory accomplishment called taste. On the contrary, in most previous societies, it seems, art was not produced by a ...
... religion, the creation of a spiritual aristocracy called geniuses, and the arena for the display of a refined discriminatory accomplishment called taste. On the contrary, in most previous societies, it seems, art was not produced by a ...
Page 9
John Carey. assertions that run counter to common experience, and to depend on religious assumptions that few now share. Kant begins by conceding, reasonably enough, that judgements of taste 'can be no other than subjective'. Like ...
John Carey. assertions that run counter to common experience, and to depend on religious assumptions that few now share. Kant begins by conceding, reasonably enough, that judgements of taste 'can be no other than subjective'. Like ...
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Common terms and phrases
abstract art activity aesthetic answer argued arouse art-world art’s artistic artworks Austen beautiful believes better brain Brillo Boxes Carroll cent redundancy century chapter child claim Clive Bell colour conceptual art Conrad course critic Cubism culture Danto death Dissanayake ecstasy effect Eliot emotions epigenetic epigenetic rules example experience feel galleries Gulliver’s Travels Heaney high art Hirstein Houyhnhnms human hunter-gatherer imagination indistinctness Jabberwocky Jeanette Winterson judgement Kant kind Kreitlers Laski literature literature’s Liverpool Biennial lives look mass art means ment mind modern moral objects one’s opera painting pattern people’s person Picasso picture pleasure poem poetry preferences prison question readers reason religion religious response seems sense Shakespeare social someone spiritual suggests superior T. S. Eliot taste theory things thought tion true universal visual cortex visual system Western whereas Wilson words Wordsworth writing Zeki Zeki’s