Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
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Full Name and Common Aliases
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Lionel Trilling was born on July 5, 1905, to Jewish parents in New York City, USA. He is often referred to as Lionel Trilling or, informally, as Lio by friends and family.
Birth and Death Dates
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Trilling's birth date is July 5, 1905, and he passed away on November 5, 1975.
Nationality and Profession(s)
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Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, academic, and essayist. He held dual nationality as a citizen of both the United States and Canada.
Early Life and Background
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Growing up in New York City's Upper West Side, Trilling's family encouraged his love for reading and learning from an early age. His father, Benjamin Trilling, was a Russian immigrant who owned a small grocery store. Lionel's mother, Frieda (née Stern), came from a more affluent background and raised her children with strong emphasis on education.
Major Accomplishments
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Trilling earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1925 and later went on to earn his Master of Arts degree from the same institution. He continued his academic pursuits by earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1938.
As a renowned literary critic, Trilling's work appeared regularly in prominent publications such as _The Partisan Review_ and _The Kenyon Review_. His writing often explored themes related to modernism, existentialism, and the role of literature in society.
Notable Works or Actions
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Some notable works written by Lionel Trilling include:
The Liberal Imagination (1950) - a collection of essays on literary theory and criticism
Beyond Culture (1965) - an examination of contemporary cultural trends
* Speaking of Literature and Society (1987, published posthumously) - a compilation of his lectures and public talks
As a professor at Columbia University, Trilling taught courses in literature and helped shape the institution's English department.
Impact and Legacy
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Trilling's impact on literary criticism is significant. He was one of the first critics to emphasize the importance of literary theory in understanding modern literature. His work has influenced generations of scholars, including notable authors such as Irving Howe, Susan Sontag, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
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Trilling's thought-provoking essays and critiques on the role of literature in society have left a lasting impression on readers. His insight into modernism, existentialism, and human nature continues to resonate with scholars and general readers alike.
Quotes by Lionel Trilling
A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
It is hard to believe that the declaration of antifascism is nowadays any more a mark of sufficient grace in a writer than a declaration against disease would be in a physician or a declaration against accidents would be in a locomotive engineer. The admirable intention in itself is not enough and criticism begins and does not end when the intention is declared.
Academic time moves quickly. A college year is not really a year, lacking as it does three months. And it is endlessly divided into units which, at their beginning, appear larger than they are – terms, half terms, months, weeks. And the ultimate unit, the hour, is not really an hour, lacking as it does ten minutes.
By most people the ‘sense of reality’ is understood to be the submission to events and indeed illusion is often salvation.
Insanity is a direct and appropriate response to the coercive inauthenticity of society... it is an act, expressing the intention of the insane person to meet and overcome to coercive situation; and whether or not it succeed in this intention, it is at least an act of criticism which exposes the true nature of society.
We properly judge a critic’s virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life.
Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion.
