"In this thoughtful study, Philip Goldstein shows how the valuation of aesthetics in literary criticism has become increasingly complicated in recent decades. Contemporary readers not only need to look at the text's figures and structure, but they must also take into account various media - including television, movies, magazines, and newspapers - as well as the sexuality, gender, race, and nationality of the author. In this context, Goldstein argues that the study of modern reading practices most effectively preserves the autonomy of aesthetics while revealing the changing social and historical contexts of American readers. Using pluralist perspectives on novels such as Frankenstein, Huckleberry Finn, Native Son, Light in August, and Jazz, this study suggests that these new historical conditions have markedly expanded and transformed the ways in which Americans have defined and read literature in the last two hundred years."--BOOK JACKET.