Finally, Ihave included chapters on two novels by Charles Brockden Brownbecause I wanted to show that texts already in the canon, whichmodern critics have considered artistically weak or defective, as-sume a quite different shape and significance when considered inlight of the cultural "work" they were designed to do
New question: Who was the critic who said Wilkie Collins lost his edge when he found a cause, and does it line up with this timeline?
more fit for children thanfor adults.
NQ: Is reorganizing a book's readership from adults to children a common strategy to trivialize that work's importance?
This tracks with Richard Brodhead's observation that literature got harder. Brodhead states the rediscovery of the 19th century's great authors is connected to the rise of a new professoriate, which was a professoriate "trained not so much in general humane learning as in field-specific expertise." "This version of our literature," Brodhead explains, "requires the aid of expert assistance to bring it home to the common mind--and so helps support the value of expertise more generally."