Why Trilling Matters by Adam Kirsch National Jewish Book Award Winner Between the 1880s and 1920s

Between the 1880s and 1920s

By examining the meaning of shtetl

But now with war clouds gathering and harassment increasing

and Yiddish plays in particular

Why Trilling Matters by Adam Kirsch National Jewish Book Award Winner Between the 1880s and 1920sLionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as Americas preeminent literary critic, is today often seen as a relic of a vanished era. His was an age when literary criticism and ideas seemed to matter profoundly in the intellectual life of the country. In this eloquent book, Adam Kirsch shows that Trilling, far from being obsolete, is essential to understanding our current crisis of literary confidenceand to overcoming it. By reading