Abstract

A collection of previously printed but newly revised essays. The author holds that "art both creates and discovers values and meanings," because it reveals its object both in itself and through itself, because it is, as it were, an opaque sign. Art is semi-autonomous; the world of art organizes experience, yet does not find its validation in it. There are some essays in and about literary criticism, but the author is primarily concerned with the "manner in which art informs culture," and only secondarily with works of art themselves. The book is important and illuminating.--A. R.