If, as many now seem to argue, "everything changed" in the early 1980s, it should come as no surprise that the same has happened with our view of the more immediate past. Recent history –that in which the contemporary world has its roots– is no longer the XIX century, but the modernism of the XX. Accordingly, our new "classicism" no longer starts from the ancient world, but has moved in time forward, until the Renaissance and beyond, periods whose works of art are now conceived in a different relationship with the present. In this groundbreaking book, renowned theorist and critic Fredric Jameson shows how this revamped perspective alters the critical reception of Rubens, Wagner, or Mahler. This renewed reading is also proposed for other arts, particularly cinema, the object of an analysis more closely linked to literature. Attempts and prospects on contemporary artistic trends and experiments, on the staging of plays, national epics, science fiction, the new forms that television series take, and even on the latest American literary trends complete this vast overview. of the aesthetic future.