“The sense of the past”: the historical sensibility in Lionel Trilling’s literary criticism

Abstract

In this article, I intend to look into the issue of the relation of History to Literature through the works of the American literary critic Lionel Trilling (1905-1975). Therefore, I will both analyze Trilling’s argument in favor of the historicity of literature and will relate this argument to Trilling´s interest in the history of sensibilities. Finally, I intend to look into the historicity of Trilling’s own arguments. In doing so, I hope to show that Trilling becomes part of a particular branch of American literary history, alongside Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James, which is marked by the awareness that every self is inevitably historically shaped.