| Much of Lionel Trilling's canon of literary criticism is devoted to the novel; yet, none of the Trilling studies published to date has focused on Trilling's critical treatment of the novel. This study adds to the existing Trilling scholarship an in-depth examination of Trilling and the novel. Specifically, this study investigates Trilling's theory of the novel and his concept of novel criticism. It then analyzes his applied criticisms of the novel to show how and to what extent he carried theory and concept into practice.;As early as 1940, Trilling was formulating a theory of the novel and a comprehensive concept of what criticism of the novel should be and do. Although he never published an all-encompassing single statement of novel theory, the total corpus of his works from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s does comprise a theory of the novel. Trilling's novel theory and his concept of criticism were informed by several influences: the Columbia University "idea of intelligence"; the Freudian system of thought and Freud's view of the "self" and the "culture"; the Arnoldian vision of the function of literature and literary criticism; liberal thought; and a belief in the complexity of ideas. He theorizes that the novel must deal with ideas and issues, must treat the self and the culture, and must involve "moral realism." He conceives of a dialectical literary criticism which first employs the interdisciplinary approach--with heavy emphasis on historical and sociocultural criticism and less emphasis on New Criticism--to interpret and judge literature, and then relates literature to the critic's contemporary culture. In his applied criticism of novels, he uses historical and sociocultural criticism to investigate the novels' ideas and to explore the novels' treatment of the self and the society. The dialectical method he employs is a part of the total meaning of his criticism.;The method used in this study is analysis, and that analysis yields three results heretofore unavailable: a detailed delineation of Trilling's theory of the novel; a systematically developed, coherent overview of his concept of novel criticism; and a close examination of his applied criticism of the novel. |
