Levine. Highbrow, Lowbrow - The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America

Abstract

To this reviewer, Lawrence W. Levine's latest study represents cultural, intellectual, and social history at its best. In the introduction Levine recounts his growing awareness of the fact that the present hierarchical distinction between "highbrow" or "elite" culture and "lowbrow" or "popular" culture is of relatively recent origin, dating only from the tum of the last century. For instance, during most of the nineteenth century Shakespeare was "part and parcel" of a "rich shared public culture." In theaters the Bard was presented, suitably altered to suit local dramatic and moral tastes, to a socially heterogeneous audience who freely expressed their views, verbally and in more physical ways.