The Myth of Popular Culture
From Dante to Dylan
Published on 15. November 2009
224 pages
978-1-4443-1750-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Myth of Popular Culture from Dante to Dylan is afascinating examination of the cultural traditions of the Americannovel, Hollywood, and British and American rock music which leadsus to redefine our concept of the division between "high" and "low"culture.
* A stimulating history of high and low culture from DanteAlighieri to Bob Dylan, providing a controversial defence ofpopular culture
* Seeks to rebut the durable belief that only high culture is'dialectical' and popular culture is not by turningTheodor Adorno's theories on 'pop' againstthemselves
* Presents a critical analysis of three popular traditions: theAmerican novel, Hollywood, and British and American rock music
* Offers an original account of Bob Dylan as an example of howthe distinction between high and low culture is highlyproblematic
* A provocative book for any student, scholar or general reader,who is interested in popular culture
Reviews / Votes
"Perry Meisel's study of popular culture is asurprising enhancement of received opinion and common wisdom onthat vexed subject. Moving from Shakespeare through Freud on toBobby Dylan would seem something of a descent, yet Meisel providesa perspective that has its own descriptive justice. Even if I amnot wholly persuaded that Dylan's ultimate importance is assublime as Meisel ventures it to be, I am given much here tointrigue me." --Harold Bloom "Perry Meisel has written a boundary-smashing critique ofthe myth that popular culture is distinct from and inferior to thefine arts." --Richard Goldstein, Hunter College of the City University ofNew York "... stunning in its originality, breadth, erudition, and in itsunderstanding of the transatlantic evolution of popularculture." --Josephine G. Hendin, New York UniversityMore details
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Person
Perry Meisel is Professor of English at New York University. His books include The Myth of the Modern (1987), The Cowboy and the Dandy (1999), and The Literary Freud (2007). He has also written widely for publications that include The Village Voice, The New York Times, Partisan Review, and October.
Content
Preface: The Resistance to Pop
Acknowledgments
Part I "The Battle of the Brows"
1. A History of High and Low
"Highbrow," "Lowbrow," "Middlebrow"
"Folk" and "Soul"
Dante's Republic
"General Converse": Johnson and the Long Eighteenth Century
"Similitude in Dissimilitude"
Keats and Mediocrity
Culture and Anarchy in the UK
"The Battle of the Brows"
"Kitsch"
The Myth of Popular Culture
2. Pop Culture in the Spectator
Poems of the People
Canons and "Camp"
Base and Superstructure, Soma and Psyche
3. Pop and Postmodernism
The Social Self
Andy Warhol
"Hey, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair"
Part II Dialectics of Pop
4. The Death of Kings: American Fiction from Cooper toChandler
"Paleface" and "Redskin," Cowboy and Dandy
Pathfinding: Cooper and Mark Twain
Labor, Leisure, Love: Melville, James, Hemingway
Transatlantic: Raymond Chandler
5. Knock on Any Door: Three Histories of Hollywood
Ars Gratia Artis
Benjamin, Bazin, Eisenstein
Dialectics of Directing: Hawks, Welles, Scorsese
Dialectics of Acting: Barrymore, Bogart, Brando
Blonde on Blonde: Harlow and Monroe
Hang 'Em High: Welles, Lewis, Eastwood
6. The Blues Misreading of Gospel: A History of Rock andRoll
A Scandal in Bohemia
Jazz Myth, Jazz Reality
Soul Synthesis
Plugging In
Buddy Holly and the British Invasion
The Body English
Part III The World of Bob Dylan
7. Dylan and the Critics
Falling
The Limits of Typology
Dylan as Poet
8. Words and Music
Fractions
"Slippin' and Slidin'"
Dylan and Deferred Action
9. Dylan Himself
The Death of the Author
The Grand Tour and the Middle Passage
Hortatory
10. The Three Icons: Sinatra, Presley, Dylan
Iconography and Gender
The Fedora as Phallus
Elvis as Bobbysoxer
"My Darling Young One"
Works Cited
Index
