The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

by Erik Larsen Introduction and Historical Information Despite its relative brevity, Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” continues to inspire significant scholarly attention as a major work in the history of modern aesthetic and political criticism. The essay is credited with developing an insightful interpretation of the role… Continue Reading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Look, Stranger!

by Kenneth Ligda W.H. Auden’s Look, Stranger! (1936) is an extraordinarily transitional work. The second of Auden’s three 1930s poetry collections, it lacks both the precociously distinctive voice that launched Auden to the forefront of his generation with Poems (1930) and the embarrassment of canonized riches in Another Time (1939). Yet as a major poet’s… Continue Reading Look, Stranger!

Abinger Harvest

by Sam Alexander Abinger Harvest (1936) collects essays, reviews, poetry and a pageant play, written by E.M. Forster between the years 1903-1935. The volume is ordered not chronologically but “by subject,” and Forster groups the selections under five headings: “The Present,” “Books,” “The Past,” “The East,” and “The Abinger Pageant”—the play that gives the volume… Continue Reading Abinger Harvest