The Astonished Muse

On its initial appearance the book was praised as a work that combines a searching formal analysis of the popular arts with a close historical grasp of their genres and a sociological sense of their audiences. Its themes of critical competence and performance anticipate current concerns with reader-centered and linguistic approaches to popular literature. In an economic-historical sense, this book presages the rise of popular arts and media as rivals in scale to manufacturing industries in the United States. In a political sense, it affirms audience selectivity. Above all it takes a quiet stand against attempts to devalue, decry, and censor the popular arts under banners of morality, childhood inno-cence, puritanical religion, and other limits to free expression.