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Episode details

Radio 4,01 Dec 1982,30 mins

Series Denis Donoghue - The Arts Without Mystery

A Cherishing Bureaucracy

The Reith Lectures

Available for over a year

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives the fourth Reith lecture in his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores how critics influence perception of art. In this lecture entitled 'A Cherishing Bureaucracy', Denis Donoghue identifies how the state has created a pluralist and populist approach to art. He believes that every piece of art can be enjoyed because they are sanctioned by the state. Art has become easily comprehendible and this understanding has lead to the death of mystery in art. He argues how the very act of naming pieces of art takes away peoples hesitancy; and without this hesitancy, the mystery art is lost.

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