Forms of Attention: Botticelli and Hamlet (Wellek Library Lectures

by Frank Kermode, Frank Lentricchia

Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, 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 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.

 

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, Criticism, Art

93 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 (revised 2003).

Reviews

[Ana Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

La academia argentina lee poco a Kermode. Este es un libro fantástico sobre cómo se construyen los cánones, no sólo en literatura sino en las artes. La mejor parte es que adentro nos enteramos de que Kermode es también un warburguiano y su ensayo sobre Boticelli no tiene desperdicio. Nadie que se interesa por la recepción debería dejar de leer Boticelli recuperado.

[Lamadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read on canon formation and exclusions.