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.
- ISBN10 0226431681
- ISBN13 9780226431680
- Publish Date 1 February 1987 (first published 1 January 1987)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 10 September 2005
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 128
- Language English