What was newly vivid to one generation reads as insipid to later readers

Evidence

For taken individually the various sensations collected by the Romantics fade and wither, and what was the freshest and most vivid in them (felt against the conventional rhetoric of eighteenth-century poetry) comes across the generations to us as the very epitome of the insipid, a dialectical reversal in which pure sensation turns around into its own opposite, its own absence. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 650

Categorization

• XREF: The reversal of freshness into insipidness across generations parallels Benjamin’s theory of aura decay and the historicity of aesthetic reception. — connects to: Future readers will see today’s cultural monuments as children’s books — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 2354; Doctorow’s novels span successive generational moments of American history; What was background attention now evokes the past most powerfully — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 325 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Future readers will see today’s cultural monuments as children’s books #exemplifies (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 2354
• Doctorow’s novels span successive generational moments of American history #exemplifies (0.75)