The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy

Eric Donald Hirsch, Joseph F. Kett, James S. Trefil, James Trefil

Houghton Mifflin, 1993 - Education - 619 pages

A national bestseller, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy has been widely acclaimed for identifying and defining the core body of knowledge that no literate American should be without. Now in this newly revised and updated edition, the authors provide a comprehensive look at cultural literacy for the nineties. New entries reflect suggestions from hundreds of readers. The dictionary takes into account the growing consensus over the specifics of multiculturalism, the political and geographic changes in the world, and the new ideas and terms that flow constantly from scientific research and technological development. Twenty-three sections, each alphabetically arranged, cover every major area of knowledge. Within each section, hundreds of individual entries identify ideas, events, and individuals, explaining their significance in our culture and placing them in context. More than 250 maps, charts, and illustrations provide information that cannot be conveyed by words alone. A complete index enables quick reference to any topic. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy challenges us to find out more about what we know and helps us make sense of what we read, hear, and learn. It is a "must have" book for every home.

Contents

• The Bible: 394
• Mythology and Folklore: 409
• 28: 433
• Idioms: 459
• World Literature Philosophy: 494
• Religion: 507
• Literature in English: 516
• Conventions of Written English: 562
• Fine Arts: 579

About the author

Hirsch is a conservative critic best known for his repudiation of critical approaches to literature (chiefly poststructuralism and New Criticism) that assume that the author's intentions do not determine readings. He argues that any such methodology is guilty of "the organic fallacy," the belief that the text leads a life of its own. For Hirsch, the author's authority is the key to literary interpretation: The critic's job is to reproduce textual meaning by recovering the author's consciousness, which guarantees the validity of an interpretation. In his two most important books, Validity in Interpretation (1967) and its sequel, The Aims of Interpretation (1976), Hirsch warns against the "critical anarchy" that follows from the "cognitive atheism" of both relativism and subjectivism. For him, these result from a corollary of the organic fallacy, the thesis that meaning is ultimately indeterminate because it changes over time or with the differing interests and values of different readers. According to Hirsch, meaning does not change; only value or significance does, as readers relate a text's fixed meaning to their cultures. If there is more than one valid interpretation of a text, it is because literature may be reduced to more than one "intrinsic genre" or meaning type---the particular set of conventions governing ways of seeing and of making meaning at the time the author was writing. Many critics suggest that the intentions Hirsch recovers in intrinsic genres are really his own, rather than those of the author, because no one, including Hirsch, can escape his or her historically conditioned frame of reference when developing interpretations of literature. Hirsch's recent books, including Cultural Literacy (1987), are seen as proof of those flaws by those who are troubled by the history and values of the dominant culture that Hirsch insists is the only culture. Hirsch argues that "common knowledge" is being denied minority students and others by feminists and other "radicals" who have undermined the authority of its great texts.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
• Authors: Eric Donald Hirsch, Joseph F. Kett, James S. Trefil, James Trefil
• Editors: Eric Donald Hirsch, Joseph F. Kett, James Trefil
• Contributors: Eric Donald Hirsch, Joseph F. Kett, James S. Trefil
• Edition: 2, illustrated
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1993
• Original from: University of Minnesota
• Digitized: Feb 16, 2010
• ISBN: 0395655978, 9780395655979
• Length: 619 pages
• Subjects: Education / Non-Formal Education; History / Civilization; History / United States / General; Reference / Dictionaries; Reference / Encyclopedias