TRILLING
"Now and then," writes Lionel Trilling, "it is
possible to observe the moral life
in
process
of revising itself." In his new book, Trilling
is concerned with the process by which the
arduous enterprise of sincerity, of being true
to one's own self, came over the years to occupy
for certain.men and classes ofmen a place of
surpreme importance in the moral life - and
the further shift that finds that place now
usurped by the darker and still more strenu–
ous modern ideal of authenticity. Its lucid,
brilliantly framed, and boldly polemical view
of cultural history suggests the contradictions
and ironies to which the ideals of sincerity and
authenticity give rise, most especially in
contemporary life.
SINCERITY
AND AUTHENTICITY
by
Lionel
Trilling
$7.95
At better bookstores.
Harvard University Press
Cambridge,
Massachusetts
02138
