Picture of author.
55+ Works 9,932 Membros 61 Reviews

About the Author

Hirsch is a conservative critic best known for his repudiation of critical approaches to literature (chiefly poststructuralism and New Criticism) that assume that the author's intentions do not determine readings. He argues that any such methodology is guilty of "the organic fallacy," the belief mostrar mais that the text leads a life of its own. For Hirsch, the author's authority is the key to literary interpretation: The critic's job is to reproduce textual meaning by recovering the author's consciousness, which guarantees the validity of an interpretation. In his two most important books, Validity in Interpretation (1967) and its sequel, The Aims of Interpretation (1976), Hirsch warns against the "critical anarchy" that follows from the "cognitive atheism" of both relativism and subjectivism. For him, these result from a corollary of the organic fallacy, the thesis that meaning is ultimately indeterminate because it changes over time or with the differing interests and values of different readers. According to Hirsch, meaning does not change; only value or significance does, as readers relate a text's fixed meaning to their cultures. If there is more than one valid interpretation of a text, it is because literature may be reduced to more than one "intrinsic genre" or meaning type---the particular set of conventions governing ways of seeing and of making meaning at the time the author was writing. Many critics suggest that the intentions Hirsch recovers in intrinsic genres are really his own, rather than those of the author, because no one, including Hirsch, can escape his or her historically conditioned frame of reference when developing interpretations of literature. Hirsch's recent books, including Cultural Literacy (1987), are seen as proof of those flaws by those who are troubled by the history and values of the dominant culture that Hirsch insists is the only culture. Hirsch argues that "common knowledge" is being denied minority students and others by feminists and other "radicals" who have undermined the authority of its great texts. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Image credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Core Knowledge Foundation

Séries

Obras de E. D. Hirsch

Validity in Interpretation (1967) 366 cópias
Aims of Interpretation (1800) 71 cópias
History and Geography (2002) 23 cópias
Core knowledge. Grade 1 (2004) 5 cópias
Cultural Literacy 1 exemplar(es)
The Knowledge Deficit 1 exemplar(es)
Why Knowledge Matters 1 exemplar(es)
How to Educate a Citizen 1 exemplar(es)

Associated Works

Critical Theory Since Plato (1971)algumas edições400 cópias
Byron's Poetry [Norton Critical Edition] (1978) — Contribuinte — 236 cópias
THE WAR OF 1812, PUPIL EDITION, GRADE 2 (CORE KNOWLEDGE) (2002)algumas edições7 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Resenhas

 
Marcado
Kim.Sasso | outras 13 resenhas | Aug 27, 2023 |
This book and the one that spawned it pretty much changed my life. I am totally on board with Hirsch's philosophy of cultural literacy.
 
Marcado
Kim.Sasso | outras 6 resenhas | Aug 27, 2023 |
Hey, this is something that will require continual updates and I would love to have that job!
 
Marcado
Kim.Sasso | outras 6 resenhas | Aug 27, 2023 |
This book is more notable, in my opinion, for all the many omissions than for what it does include. The sections on history are especially lacking. There are actually not entries for slavery (although the slave trade gets a mention), pogroms, or genocide, for example. “Literature in English” is another section that doesn’t do justice to actual literature in English, especially with respect to children’s literature. Dr. Seuss actually has an entry, but where is Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, C.S. Lewis, or Ludwig Bemelmans, to name a very few of the excluded?

Other sections, which include the Bible, Mythology and Folklore, World Literature, Fine Arts, Geography, and sciences, inter alia, are similarly lacking. With resources on the World Wide Web at our disposal, I really don’t see a reason to have this book.
… (mais)
½
 
Marcado
nbmars | outras 13 resenhas | Jan 20, 2022 |

Listas

Prêmios

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Estatísticas

Obras
55
Also by
3
Membros
9,932
Popularidade
#2,395
Avaliação
3.9
Resenhas
61
ISBNs
151
Idiomas
2

Tabelas & Gráficos