Perry Meisel 
The Myth of Popular Culture 
From Dante to Dylan

The Myth of Popular Culture

In this fascinating examination of popular culture, esteemed cultural critic Perry Meisel shatters conventionally held notions about the division between ‚high‘ and ‚low‘ culture with the provocative theory that popular culture has sustained dialectical rhythms. Meisel’s deft critical analysis of three enduring cultural traditions — the American novel, Hollywood, and British and American rock music — leads us to question the very concept of the division between ‚high‘ and ‚low‘ culture.

Meisel begins his engaging discussion by refuting philosopher Theodor Adorno’s assertion that ‚high‘ culture is ‚dialectical‘ and ‚pop‘ is not, showing that popular culture does indeed have a conversation both with its sources and with cultural authority as a whole. In the final section, Meisel turns his attention to Bob Dylan, a figure who, more than any other, shows what it means to synthesize and revise all traditions — music, poetry, iconography — and transform them completely.

Brilliantly conceived and clearly articulated, The Myth of Popular Culture from Dante to Dylan redefines the way in which we think about all forms of artistic expression.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: The Resistance to Pop

Acknowledgments

Part I ‚The Battle of the Brows‘

1. A History of High and Low

‚Highbrow, ‚ ‚Lowbrow, ‚ ‚Middlebrow‘

‚Folk‘ and ‚Soul‘

Dante’s Republic

‚General Converse‘: Johnson and the Long Eighteenth Century

‚Similitude in Dissimilitude‘

Keats and Mediocrity

Culture and Anarchy in the UK

‚The Battle of the Brows‘

‚Kitsch‘

The Myth of Popular Culture

2. Pop Culture in the Spectator

Poems of the People

Canons and ‚Camp‘

Base and Superstructure, Soma and Psyche

3. Pop and Postmodernism

The Social Self

Andy Warhol

‚Hey, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair‘

Part II Dialectics of Pop

4. The Death of Kings: American Fiction from Cooper to
Chandler

‚Paleface‘ and ‚Redskin, ‚ Cowboy and Dandy

Pathfinding: Cooper and Mark Twain

Labor, Leisure, Love: Melville, James, Hemingway

Transatlantic: Raymond Chandler

5. Knock on Any Door: Three Histories of Hollywood


Ars Gratia Artis

Benjamin, Bazin, Eisenstein

Dialectics of Directing: Hawks, Welles, Scorsese

Dialectics of Acting: Barrymore, Bogart, Brando

Blonde on Blonde: Harlow and Monroe

Hang ‚Em High: Welles, Lewis, Eastwood

6. The Blues Misreading of Gospel: A History of Rock and
Roll

A Scandal in Bohemia

Jazz Myth, Jazz Reality

Soul Synthesis

Plugging In

Buddy Holly and the British Invasion

The Body English

Part III The World of Bob Dylan

7. Dylan and the Critics

Falling

The Limits of Typology

Dylan as Poet

8. Words and Music

Fractions

‚Slippin‘ and Slidin“

Dylan and Deferred Action

9. Dylan Himself

The Death of the Author

The Grand Tour and the Middle Passage

Hortatory

10. The Three Icons: Sinatra, Presley, Dylan

Iconography and Gender

The Fedora as Phallus

Elvis as Bobbysoxer

‚My Darling Young One‘

Works Cited

Index

Über den Autor

Perry Meisel is Professor of English at New York University. His books include The Myth of the Modern (1987), The Cowboy and the Dandy (1999), and The Literary Freud (2007). He has also written widely for publications that include The Village Voice, The New York Times, Partisan Review, and October.