History bears out the ‘rise of professional society’ and of those writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries ‘who only have their own integrity and an esoteric knowledge guaranteed by certificate to sell, I went to University and I got a 'first' - rather than muscle, or the possession of land, or existing wealth which were the sina qua non of another historical time.
The Modernist novelists are exemplary, for novelists and the heroes of their novels are insistently preoccupied by the nature of their expertise (if they have any) and by the ironies of their ambitions.
The Modernist novelists are exemplary, for novelists and the heroes of their novels are insistently preoccupied by the nature of their expertise (if they have any) and by the ironies of their ambitions.
Is the ambition to be a novelist an ambition to be?
What kind of symbolic capital do writers have that bankers or lawyers or psychiatrists don’t have? In what sense is writing a profession? Come to that in what sense is acting, with their 'parts', a profession?
Writers, have a profession that wasn’t one. Their capital is symbolic, but there was no available certification. There was no institution – other than the market, which is a kind of counter-institution – to tell writers that they were the real thing.
Writers, have a profession that wasn’t one. Their capital is symbolic, but there was no available certification. There was no institution – other than the market, which is a kind of counter-institution – to tell writers that they were the real thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment