Why Trilling Matters

The distinguished poet and critic argues for the abiding relevance of a great literary mind of the twentieth century Lionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as America’s 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 confidence—and to overcoming it.By reading Trilling primarily as a writer and thinker, Kirsch demonstrates how Trilling’s original and moving work continues to provide an inspiring example of a mind creating itself through its encounters with texts. Why Trilling Matters introduces all of Trilling’s major writings and situates him in the intellectual landscape of his century, from Communism in the 1930s to neoconservatism in the 1970s. But Kirsch goes deeper, addressing today’s concerns about the decline of literature, reading, and even the book itself, and finds that Trilling has more to teach us now than ever before. As Kirsch writes, “Trilling’s essays are not exactly literary criticism” but, like all literature, “ends in themselves.”

“Why Trilling Matters is not simply the best book yet written on Lionel Trilling. Its subject . . . is the pretext for an invigorating magic trick. With Trilling’s help, Kirsch transforms a backward glance into a forward step.”—Michael Kimmage, New York Times Book Review, “Eminently readable...a brief, enthusiastic rejuvenation of Trilling’s work.”—Michael Washburn, Boston Globe, “An attractive account of a powerful critic.”—Jacques Barzun, Wall Street Journal, "Kirsch deftly untangles [Trilling’s] intellectual journey, freeing Trilling from the collective opinions of a generation."—Gerald Russello, Wilson Quarterly, "If any contemporary mind can be said to be Lionel Trilling’s inheritor and indispensable successor, both in imaginative breadth and cultural comprehensiveness, it is Adam Kirsch. As Matthew Arnold served Trilling, so does Trilling serve Kirsch—as a model of literary and humanist heroism. And though Kirsch arrives on the scene some three generations afterward, he sees into the older critic’s complex, strenuous, yet unassuming sensibility as no one before him has succeeded in doing. Why Trilling Matters is a small but elastic masterwork that enlarges, with crucial immediacy, our own understanding of why literature itself must matter."—Cynthia Ozick

Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at the New Republic and a columnist for Tablet magazine. He is the author of several books of poetry and criticism, and most recently of a short biography of Benjamin Disraeli. He lives in New York City.