The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction by
Reading lists, course syllabi, and prizes include the phrase '21st-century American literature,' but no critical consensus exists regarding when the period began, which works typify it, how to conceptualize its aesthetic priorities, and where its geographical boundaries lie. Considerable criticism has been published on this extraordinary era, but little programmatic analysis has assessed comprehensively the literary and critical/theoretical output to help readers navigate the labyrinth of critical pathways. In addition to ensuring broad coverage of many essential texts, The Cambridge Companion to 21st Century American Fiction offers state-of-the field analyses of contemporary narrative studies that set the terms of current and future research and teaching. Individual chapters illuminate critical engagements with emergent genres and concepts, including flash fiction, speculative fiction, digital fiction, alternative temporalities, Afro-futurism, ecocriticism, transgender/queer studies, anti-carceral fiction, precarity, and post-9/11 fiction.
Cultural Tapestry: Readings for a Pluralistic Society by
This multicultural reader contains 85 accessible readings, with a non-biased political stance, and composition-orientated apparatus. It is divided into nine thematic chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of American culture. It's concluding chapter encourages students to see the tapestry as a whole. The apparatus is constructed to help students gain broader perspectives by comparing readings both within each chapter and throughout the entire text. Contributors include Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, V.S. Naipaul, Garrison Keillor, Gloria Steinham, Martin Luther King Jr, Kurt Vonnegut Jr and Oscar Hijeulos.
Essays in Context by
This exceptional anthology of British and American prose provides a chronological survey of over ninety of the most important and popular essays written in the twentieth century. Essays in Context acquaints students with the development and evaluation of the essay form while also introducingthem to the key historical, cultural, social, and intellectual issues of the last century. The text is organized into eighteen themes to highlight the various patterns of thought and feeling that developed throughout the century. Comprehensive biographic headnotes for the authors and a timeline ofhistoric events help students to place the authors and their works in context. Extensive discussion questions--organized under two headings, "Understanding and Analysis" and "Comparison"--follow each selection, motivating students to evaluate the work and relate it to other selections in the text.The volume also includes footnotes and an opening chapter on how to read essays. The selections have been thoroughly annotated to explain terms, people, events, and literary allusions. An ideal text for courses in composition and expository writing, Essays in Context provides students with aframework for understanding and interrogating an extensive range of authors, from Mark Twain and T.S. Eliot to bell hooks and Leslie Marmon Silko.
Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works by
In her short lifetime, Flannery O'Connor became one of the most distinctive American writers of the twentieth century. By birth a native of Georgia and a Roman Catholic, O'Connor depicts, in all its comic and horrendous incongruity, the limits of worldly wisdom and the mysteries of divine grace in the "Christ-haunted" Protestant South. This Library of America collection, the most comprehensive ever published, contains all of her novels and short-story collections, as well as nine other stories, eight of her most important essays, and a selection of 259 witty, spirited, and revealing letters, twenty-one published here for the first time. Her fiction brilliantly explores the human obsession with seemingly banal things. It might be a new hat or clean hogs or, for Hazel Motes, hero of Wise Blood (1952), an automobile. "Nobody with a good car needs to be justified," Hazel assures himself while using its hood for a pulpit to preach his "Church Without Christ." As in O'Connor's subsequent work, the characters in this novel are driven to violence, even murder, and their strong vernacular endows them with the discomforting reality of next-door neighbors. "In order to recognize a freak," she remarks in one of her essays, "you have to have a conception of the whole man." In the title story of her first, dazzling collection of stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), the old grandmother discovers the comic irrelevance of good manners when she and her family meet up with the sinister Misfit, who claims there is "no pleasure but meanness." The terror of urban dislocation in "The Artificial Nigger," the bizarre baptism in "The River," or one-legged Hulga Hopewell's encounter with a Bible salesman in "Good Country People"--these startling events give readers the uneasy sense of mysteries about to be revealed. Her second novel, The Violent Bear It Away (1960), casts the shadow of the Old Testament across a landscape of backwoods shacks, modern towns, and empty highways. Caught between the prophetic fury of his great-uncle and the unrelenting rationalism of his uncle, fourteen-year-old Francis Tarwater undergoes a terrifying trial of faith when he is commanded to baptize his idiot cousin. The nine stories in Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965) show O'Connor's powers at their height. The title story is a terrifying, heart-rending drama of familial and racial misunderstanding. "Revelation" and "The Enduring Chill" probe further into conflicts between parental figures and recalcitrant offspring, where as much tension is generated from quiet conversation as from the physical violence of gangsters and fanatics. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Harriet Jacobs: A Life by
In this remarkable biography, Jean Fagan Yellin recounts the full adventures of Harriet Jacobs, before and after slavery. Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , one of the most widely read slave narratives of all time, recounts through the pseudonymous character named "Linda" the adventures of a young female slave who spent seven years in her grandmother's attic hiding from her sexually abusive and cruel master. Jean Yellin takes us inside that attic with Harriet Jacobs and then follows her on her escape to the North, where she found safe haven with Quaker abolitionists. Drawing upon decades of original research with never-before-seen archival sources, Yellin creates a complete picture of the events that inspired Incidents and offers the first rounded picture of Jacobs's life in the thirty-six years after the book's publication. Harassed by her former owner, living under threat of recapture until the end of the Civil War, Jacobs survived poverty, ran a boarding house, and built a career as a political writer and speaker, struggling all the while to provide for her family. Jean Yellin brings to life the struggles and triumphs of this extraordinary woman whose life reflected all the major changes of the nineteenth century, from slavery to the Civil War to Reconstruction to the origins of the modern Civil Rights movement.
The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano by
DISCOVER THE INDIGNITIES AND REALITIES OF SLAVERY FROM A CAPTIVATING FIRST-HAND NARRATIVE Olaudah Equiano's interesting narrative is an astonishing first-hand account of kidnapping, enslavement and eventual emancipation that has horrified and enlightened readers for over 200 years. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano is a seminal work in a genre that seeks to help us better shape the present by understanding our violent past. An insightful Introduction from Atlantic slave trade expert Michael Taylor sheds light on Equiano's life, including his spiritual conversion, his wide travels, and the impact of his writing on the eventual abolition of slavery.
Langston Hughes by
A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Hughes and the critical discussions surrounding his work. Poet, playwright, and short story writer Langston Hughes remains perhaps one of the most well known African American writers of the twentieth century. With memorable lines like ""Life for me ain't been no crystal stair"" and ""What happens to a dream deferred?,"" many of his poems are beloved by readers of all ages for their strong emotions, lucidity, and depth. His often anthologised stories, such as ""The Blues I'm Playing"" and ""Blessed Assurance,"" continue to delight, and even his plays, many years after their first performances, are proving to be a rich mine for scholars. Edited and with and introduction by R. Baxter Miller, Professor of English and the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the poet laureate of Harlem. For readers who are encountering Hughes for the first time, a biographical sketch then relates the details of his life and four essays survey the critical reception of Hughes work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Hughes among his contemporaries, and review key themes in his work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other essays that explore topics like Hughes' relations to the Harlem Renaissance and black aesthetics, blues music, religion, and modernism. Still other essays consider Hughes' portrayals of women and families, his politics, and his depiction's of racial violence. Works covered include Hughes' most commonly studied poems, like ""Theme for English B"" and ""Montage of a Dream Deferred""; the Semple stories; classic short stories like ""The Blues I'm Playing"" and ""Blessed Assurance""; Hughes' two autobiographies; and a sampling of his plays. Contributors include John Edgar Tidwell, Christopher C. De Santis, Sharon Lynette Jones, and Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Hughes's life and a list of his principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this seminal author in greater depth.
Language and Gender in American Fiction by
'This book offers both an original and substantial contribution to the field of literary criticism. By revealing the role of gender-marked language in major writers of realist fiction in America, Elsa Nettels does for literary studies what Deborah Tannen did for sociolinguistics.' --Susan J. Rosowski, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Mark Twain: His Words, Wit, and Wisdom by
Over 1,800 quips and quotes from an icon of American literature, on a variety of subjects from accidents to youth, and many in-between. All the humor, irreverence, and insight that were uniquely Twain come alive, enhanced by charming black and white line drawings. Also included is a chronology o Twain's life.
Raymond Carver by
Raymond Carver made the short story a viable literary form; since Carver, short-story collections became a marketable commodity in the book trade. Both as a model and as a teacher, he had such an influence on younger fiction writers that author Jay McInerney could truthfully say (alluding to a famous statement that Fyodor Dostoevski made about Nikolai Gogol) that there is hardly a single American short-story writer younger than Carver who did not ""come out of Carver's overcoat."" This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the significant and controversial writer. For readers who are studying Carver for the first time, a biographical sketch relates the details of his life and four essays survey the critical reception of his work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Carver among his contemporaries, and review key themes in his work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other original essays that explore a bevy of topics, such as the author's association with the literary movement dubbed ""minimalism,"" the influence of the American West on Carver's body of work, Carver's approximation of the paintings of Edward Hopper, and the author's documented struggles with alcoholism. Among the contributors are Chad Wriglesworth, Kirk Nesset, Claire Fabre, and Peter J. Bailey. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Carver's life and a list of his principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this fascinating author in greater depth. Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of ""Works Cited,"" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources: About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index
Robert Frost by
This title presents in-depth critical discussions of his life and works. Widely celebrated during his lifetime as the greatest living American poet, Robert Frost remains one of the few poets whose work is enjoyed by scholars and general readers alike. A record four time winner of the Pulitzer Prize who gave readings across America and in countries as far flung as England, Brazil, and Russia, Frost is nevertheless known not as a cosmopolitan but as a plainspoken portraitist of rural New England. Yet despite this reputation, Frost is much more than a regional poet: his wit, irony, and willingness to rest in ambiguity make him a poet of the cosmic and universal. In the age of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, he stood alone in writing a poetry that was simultaneously accessible, complex, and profound. Edited and with an introduction by Morris Dickstein, Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and senior fellow of the Center for the Humanities, this volume in the ""Critical Insights"" series brings together a variety of critical perspectives on Frost's life and works. For readers new to Frost, four original essays provide valuable context for understanding and assessing his work. Together they outline the work's historical and cultural contexts, survey the major pieces of Frost criticism, examine Frost's relationship with modernist poetics, and consider how his use of paradox and contradiction participate in and differ from the use established by Whitman and Emerson. Nine other previously published essays deepen readers' understanding and offer a sampling of the key concerns of contemporary Frost critics. Among these essays, David Sanders draws on Frost's letters and interviews to understand how he developed his poetic voice from careful observation of his New England neighbors and how he sought to make these people visible within the growing mass culture of twentieth century America. Roger Gilbert further examines Frost's poetics in his discussion of the recurrence of the trope of the walk in Frost's poetry, concluding that, for Frost, the trope parallels the dynamic act of poetic composition. Other essays examine Frost's politics, with Frank Lentricchia considering how his poetry, with its emphasis on replicating the rhythms of everyday speech rather than traditional conceptions of the literary, gives evidence to the notion that poetics can be a register of social and political change, and Tyler B. Hoffman offering a unique reading of Frost's view of industrialism and the New Deal, arguing that Frost was not the archconservative that leftist critics have made him out to be but rather took a highly nuanced view of the poet's obligations to politics. Jeff Westover extends this vein of criticism by dissecting Frost's nationalism, and Robert Bernard Hass discusses how Frost's interest in science, especially astronomy, impacted the religious beliefs his mother inculcated in him as a child. Uniquely, this volume also contains an original piece by Paris Review contributor Elizabeth Gumport, who offers a writer's perspective on Frost's fierce independence. Rounding out the collection is a brief biography and chronology of Frost's life and an extensive bibliography for readers wishing to study the poet's work in greater depth. Each essay is 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of 'Works Cited', along with endnotes.
Walt Whitman by
Walt Whitman is truly one of the most innovative, influential, and respected American poets of all time. His poetry goes beyond borders, sparking inspiration in artists from every corner of the world, and nearly every medium of art. Without the introduction of Whitman's loose, free-flowing style of writing, later writers such as Carl Sanburg and Allen Ginsberg may have never been inspired to write poetry, especially using Whitman's work as a model. However, Whitman is notable not only for his writing style, but for the topics he addressed in his writing, including freedom, sexuality, the lives of common people, democratic values and aspirations, and spirituality that is not necessarily tethered to conventional religion. This volume provides readers with a better understanding of Whitman the person, the thinker, and the artist. For all these reasons and more, this latest contribution to the Critical Insights series may be of special interest to many readers. A collection of four critical contexts essays are intended to treat Whitman's poetry (1) from a historical vantage point, (2) in terms of its critical reception, (3) using a specific critical lens, and (4) by comparing and contrasting it with other important works. This section opens with an essay by Jason Stacy that discusses Whitman's work in the context of New York City from the 1830s through the 1850s, where a new stereotype of masculinity was being satirized during the changing culture of the time. This is followed by a survey by Robert Evans of various recent editions of Whitman's poetry. The following essay is by Joyce E. Kelley, closely and critically examining Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Daniel Mackay closes this section by using a comparative approach to continue the discussion on Leaves of Grass, particularly regarding the defense of sin from the vantage point of Lucifer. Edited and written by some of academia's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights: Walt Whitman provides authoritative, in-depth scholarship that students and researchers will rely on for years. This volume is destined to become a valuable purchase for all.
