What Good Are the Arts? (Hardcover)

Hailed as "exhilarating and suggestive" (Spectator), "thought-provoking and entertaining" (David Lodge, Sunday Times), and "incisive and inspirational" (Guardian), What Good are the Arts? offers a delightfully skeptical look at the nature of art. John Carey--one of Britain's most respected literary critics--here cuts through the cant surrounding the fine arts, debunking claims that the arts make us better people or that judgments about art are anything more than personal opinion. But Carey does argue strongly for the value of art as an activity and for the superiority of one art in particular: literature. Literature, he contends, is the only art capable of reasoning, and the only art that can criticize. Literature has the ability to inspire the mind and the heart towards practical ends far better than any work of conceptual art. Here then is a lively and stimulating invitation to debate the value of art, a provocative book that "anyone seriously interested in the arts should read" (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post).

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	2006
First published:	2006
Authors:	John Carey
Dimensions:	221 x 147 x 26mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards / With dust jacket
Pages:	304
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-530554-8
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > The arts: general issues > Theory of art Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Aesthetics Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Aesthetics Promotions
LSN:	0-19-530554-X
Barcode:	9780195305548

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!