From lowbrow to nobrow / Peter Swirski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swirski, Peter, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Čapek, Karel, 1890-1938. Válka s mloky.

Čapek, Karel.

Chandler, Raymond, 1888-1959. Playback.

Chandler, Raymond.

Lem, Stanisaw. Katar.

Lem, Stanisaw.

Popular literature--History and criticism.

Popular literature.

Fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Swirski begins with a series of groundbreaking questions about the nature of popular fiction, vindicating it as an artform that expresses and reflects the aesthetic and social values of its readers. He follows his insightful introduction to the socio-aesthetics of genre literature with a synthesis of the century long debate on the merits of popular fiction and a study of genre informed by analytic aesthetics and game theory. Swirski then turns to three "nobrow" novels that have been largely ignored by critics. Examining the aesthetics of "artertainment" in Karel Capek's War with the Newts, Raymond Chandler's Playback, and Stanislaw Lem's Chain of Chance, crossover tours de force, From Lowbrow to Nobrow throws new light on the hazards and rewards of nobrow traffic between popular forms and highbrow aesthetics.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Introduction: Books Without Frontiers

Lowbrow: Positions and Oppositions

Facts and Popular Fictions

Towards Nobrow Aesthetics

Genres and Paradoxes

Nobrow: Varie Ties of Artertainment

Karel Èapek and the Politics of Memory

Raymond Chandler’s Aesthetics of Irony

Stanislaw Lem and the Art of Science

Conclusion: Whose Art?

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-216) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-86385-1

9786612863851

0-7735-7324-0

OCLC:

756589352