Candor and Perversion: Literature, Education, and the Arts

This volume offers an array of provocative ideas to reaffirm literature as a central field of study and personal reward. With analysis, the author elucidates the nature of intellectual craftsmanship, defends art's moral component, and laments our culture's drift toward both anti-intellectualism and philistine pretension. Whether commenting on Flaubert, Foucault, or Pulp Fiction, this work presents a stirring, humane synthesis of the principles and values by which we can live together as a nation finally at peace with its diversity. The author also considers subjects as diverse as the writings of Michel Foucault, the "Beulah Quintet" novels of Mary Lee Settle, the accomplishments of Sarah Bernhardt, and the collaborative efforts of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Much of the book is devoted to the intellectual life of 19th- and 20th-century France, with Shattuck focusing on impressionism, symbolism, surrealism, and other avant-garde movements in art and literature. He also includes several essays on the current state of higher education.