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Forms of attention : Botticelli and Hamlet / Frank Kermode.
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Author
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Date published
2011
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Publisher
Chicago, Ill. : Bristol : University of Chicago Press ; University Presses Marketing [distributor], [2011]
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Subject
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Accession number
8341256
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Class
50.07 commentary/KER
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Language
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Physical description
xv, 93 pages ; 20 cm.
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Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, teacher, and author, was an inspired critic. "Forms of Attention" is based on a series of three lectures he gave on canon formation, or how we choose what art to value. The opening essay, on Botticelli, traces the artist's sudden popularity in the nineteenth century for reasons that have more to do with poetry than painting. In the second essay, Kermode reads Hamlet from a very modern angle, offering a useful (and playful) perspective for a contemporary audience. The final essay is a defense of literary criticism as a process and conversation that, while often conflating knowledge with opinion, keeps us reading great art and working with - and for - literature.