Alice Munro by
A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Munro and the critical discussions surrounding her work. Over more than forty years, Alice Munro's reputation has slowly grown to a point where she is today recognised as one of the finest living short story writers, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Often compared to Chekhov for her fastidiously structured plots and psychological complexity, she has won the admiration of writers and readers around the world. From her early success with Dance of the Happy Shades to her most recent collections, Munro has steadily proven that short stories can be just as intricate, moving, and formidable as the best novels. Edited by Charles May, Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the Canadian writer. For readers who are studying Munro for the first time, a biographical sketch relates the details of her life and four essays survey the critical reception of Munro's work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Munro among her contemporaries, and review key themes in her work. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the writer can then move on to other essays that explore topics like Munro's Canadian identity; her aesthetics and narrative devices; the psychology of her characters; and recurrent themes in her work, like secrets, acting, and memory. Works discussed include The Beggar Maid, Friend of My Youth, Runaway, Too Much Happiness, Lives of Girls and Women, The Progress of Love, and The Love of a Good Woman. Among the contributors are Philip Coleman, David Crouse, Robert Thacker, and Alisa Cox. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Munro's life and a list of her principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this iconic 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 appendices offer a section of useful reference resources.
Carver: a Life in Poems by
Newbery Honor Book National Book Award finalist Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Flora Stieglitz Straus Award Beautiful verse explores agricultural scientist George Washington Carver's life and many achievements, from his work as a botanist and inventor to his unsung gifts as a painter, musician, and teacher. George Washington Carver was determined to help the people he loved. Born a slave in Missouri, he left home in search of an education, eventually earning his master's degree. When Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start the agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute, Carver truly found his calling. He spent the rest of his life seeking solutions to the poverty among landless Black farmers by developing new uses for soil-replenishing crops such as peanuts, cowpeas, and sweet potatoes. This STEAM biography reveals Carver's complex and profoundly devout life.
Claiming Sylvia Plath by
Over the years, Sylvia Plath has come to inhabit a contested area of cultural production with other ambiguous authors between the highbrow, the middlebrow, and the popular. Claiming Sylvia Plath is a critical and comprehensive reception study of what has been written about Plath from 1960 to 2010. Academic and popular interest in her seems incessant, verging on a public obsession. The story of Sylvia Plath is not only the story of a writer and her texts, but also of the readers who have tried to make sense of her life and work. A religious tone and a rhetoric of accountability dominate among the devoted. Questing for the real or true Sylvia, they share a sense of posessiveness towards outsiders or those who deviate from what they see as a correct approach to the poet. In order to offer a new and more nuanced perspective on Plath's public image, the reception has been organized into interpretive communities composed of critics, feminists, biographers, psychologists, and friends. Pertinent questions are raised about how the poet functions as an excemplary figure, and how - and by whom - she is used to further theories, politics, careers, and a number of other causes. Ethical issues and rhetorical strategies consequently loom high in Claiming Sylvia Plath. The book may be employed both as a guide to the massive body of Plath literature and as a history of a changing critical doxa. Why Sylvia Plath has been serviceable to so many and open to colonization is another way of asking why she keeps on fascinating all kinds of readers worldwide. Claiming Sylvia Plath suggests a host of possible answers. It includes an extensive Plath bibliography.
Critical Insights: Edgar Allan Poe by
Edgar Allan Poe has long been considered one of America's most important and influential writers. The author of famous novels, short stories, poems, and nonfiction, he remains a popular writer both inside and outside the classroom. This volume examines the full range of Poe's works in various genres and also takes many deliberately different approaches to the texts of a writer who is often seen both within the United States and throughout the world, as one of the most distinctive authors this country has produced.
Five Great Short Stories by
Incisive, masterfully written tales -- set in Tsarist Russian milieux -- reveal noted author's skills in character, nuance, and setting development. Includes "The Black Monk" (1894), "The House with the Mezzanine" (1896), "The Peasants" (1897), "Gooseberries" (1898), and "The Lady with the Toy Dog" (1899).
Herman Melville by
A great starting point for students seeking an introduction to Melville and the critical discussions surrounding his work. ""Call me Ishmael,"" begins Melville's most famous novel, Moby Dick. Like much of the Melville's writing, it's a deceptively simple line, a seemingly transparent surface that opens into dark oceans of meaning. And like many of Melville's novels, what follows is an incredible tale of madness, obsession, and disaster rife with metaphysical symbolism. Though neglected for decades after his death, today Melville stands as one of America's pre-eminent writers. Edited by Eric Carl Link, Professor of English at the University of Memphis, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the American writer. For readers who are studying Melville for the first time, a biographical sketch relates the details of her life and four essays survey the critical reception of Melville's work, explore its cultural and historical contexts, situate Melville 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 Melville's symbolism, metaphysics, and aesthetics; his views on faith and religion; his responses to the issues of his day, like slavery, industrialisation, and American democracy. Works discussed include Typee, Omoo, Moby Dick, Pierre, The Confidence Man, and Billy Bud as well as commonly studied selections of Melville's poetry. Among the contributors are Wyn Kelley, John Wenke, Steven Frye, and John Samson. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Melville'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.
James Baldwin by
Although James Baldwin today holds a secure position in the canon of twentieth-century literature, more than twenty years after his death he still remains one of America''s most illusive authors. An eloquent writer who wanted to be more than just "a Negro novelist," he nevertheless became one of the country''s most prominent African American leaders when Time magazine emblazoned his image across its cover in 1963. The body of his work-six novels, a handful of short stories, and five major essay collections along with three plays and a book of poetry-is wide-ranging, complex, and occasionally contradictory, the product of a mind in a tireless dialogue with itself and its paradoxical and swiftly changing culture. 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 wide variety of insightful and provocative essays on Baldwin''s novels, short stories, essays, and plays. Dickstein''s introduction considers the rise and fall of Baldwin''s remarkable career and the unique space the author carved for himself in American letters. Writing on behalf of The Paris Review, Richard Beck meditates on the many varieties of homelessness that Baldwin-a sometime expatriate always at odds with mainstream American culture-embodied in his work and his life. For those studying Baldwin for the first time, a series of introductory essays acquaint readers with the key themes and contexts of his work. Douglas Field situates Baldwin within the culture and politics of his time, and James Campbell describes how Baldwin''s flight to Paris in 1948 influenced two of his most important essays, "Everybody''s Protest Novel" and "Preservation of Innocence." Horace A. Porter then explores Baldwin''s relationship with two of his literary forebears, Richard Wright and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mildred R. Mickle offers a comparative analysis of the depiction of faith in works by Baldwin, Phillis Wheatley, Tananarive Due, and Octavia E. Butler. D. Quentin Miller traces the arc of Baldwin''s popular and academic reception up to the present day. A collection of classic and contemporary essays then deepen readers'' understanding. A number of pieces are dedicated to Baldwin''s essays and their cultural and political contexts. Geraldine Murphy examines how the New York Intellectuals, with whom Baldwin regularly appeared in the pages of Commentary and Partisan Review, influenced the formation of his early political views, and Douglas Field explicates Baldwin''s complex alliance with black nationalism and how its rhetoric affected his later work, a subject F. W. Dupee also takes up in his assessment of The Fire Next Time. Baldwin''s individual literary works are also treated in a variety of essays. Charles Scruggs and Peter Kerry Powers both examine Baldwin''s first and most popular novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and its themes of regret, recollection, and confession. John M. Reilly considers one of Baldwin''s most frequently anthologized short stories, "Sonny''s Blues," and Tiffany Gilbert analyzes the themes of nostalgia and sexual desire in close readings of Giovanni''s Room and "Going to Meet the Man." Lionel Trilling offers an assessment of Another Country, and C. W. E. Bigsby in turn considers the merits and flaws of one of Baldwin''s few plays, Blues for Mr. Charlie. If Beale Street Could Talk is the subject of two essays, one by Yoshinobu Hakutani and one by Trudier Harris. Rounding out the volume are two highly readable and insightful essays, by Darryl Pinckney, on Baldwin''s inimitable mind and the value of his work, as well as a brief biography of Baldwin, a chronology of his life, and a bibliography of resources for readers wishing to learn more about this fascinating author. Finally, the volume''s appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources: A chronology of the author''s life A complete list of the author''s works and their original dates of publication A general bibliography A detailed paragraph on the volume''s editor Notes on the individual chapter authors A subject index
Langston Hughes by 
Narrative Conventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison by
This study analyzes the relationship between race and genre in four of Toni Morrison's novels: The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, Jazz, and Beloved.nbsp;Heinert argues how Morrison's novels revise conventional generic forms such as bildungsroman, folktales, slave narratives, and the formal realism of the novel itself. This study goes beyond formalist analyses to show how these revisions expose the relationship between race, conventional generic forms, and the dominant culture. Morrison's revisions critique the conventional roles of African Americans as subjects of and in the genre of the novel, and (re)write roles which instead privilege their subjectivity. nbsp;This study provides readers with new ways of understanding Morrison's novels. Whereas critics often fault Morrison for breaking with traditional forms and resisting resolution in her novels, this analysis show how Morrison's revisions shift the narrative truth of the novel from its representation in conventional forms to its interpretation by the readers, who are responsible for constructing their own resolution or version of narrative truth. These revisions expose how the dominant culture has privileged specific forms of narration; in turn, these forms privilege the values of the dominant culture. Morrison's novels attempt to undermine this privilege and rewrite the canon of American literature.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales by
The Author on His Work contains the prefaces Hawthorne wrote for the three collections of tales published during his lifetime as well as relevant selections from his American Notebooks and selected letters, both of which are reprinted from The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.Criticism offers key contemporary assessments by Park Benjamin, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry F. Chorley, James Russell Lowell, and Henry James.The collection of recent criticism displays a considerable range of approaches, including essays by Q. D. Leavis, John P. McWilliams, Jr., Frederick C. Crews, Michael J. Colacurcio, Jorge Luis Borges, Sharon Cameron, Robert B. Heilman, Nina Baym, Leo Marx, and John W. Wright.A Chronology of Hawthorne's life and a Selected Bibliography are included.
Oscar Wilde by
Oscar Wilde was popular in his own lifetime, especially as an author of comic plays. But he is also now seen as one of the most important figures in the development of modern gay literature and modern gay liberation, not only because of works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray but also because of the notorious trials that sent him to prison (and an early death) for behavior considered unacceptable in his own era. The present volume examines the whole range of Wilde's work, from the light-hearted to the tragically serious, and explores Wilde and his writings in their biographical, historical, cultural, and literary contexts.
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
Shakespeare's Sonnets by
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays is the essential Sonnets anthology for our time. This important collection focuses exclusively on contemporary criticism of the Sonnets, reprinting three highly influential essays from the past decade and including sixteen original analyses by leading scholars in the field. The contributors' diverse approaches range from the new historicism to the new bibliography, from formalism to feminism, from reception theory to cultural materialism, and from biographical criticism to queer theory. In addition, James Schiffer's introduction offers a comprehensive survey of 400 years of criticism of these fascinating, enigmatic poems.
Song of Ourselves: Walt Whitman and the Fight for Democracy by
In the midst of a crisis of democracy, we have much to learn from Walt Whitman's journey toward egalitarian selfhood. Walt Whitman knew a great deal about democracy that we don't. Most of that knowledge is concentrated in one stunning poem, Song of Myself. Esteemed cultural and literary thinker Mark Edmundson offers a bold reading of the 1855 poem, included here in its entirety. He finds in the poem the genesis and development of a democratic spirit, for the individual and the nation. Whitman broke from past literature that he saw as ?feudal?: obsessed with the noble and great. He wanted instead to celebrate the common and everyday. Song of Myself does this, setting the terms for democratic identity and culture in America. The work captures the drama of becoming an egalitarian individual, as the poet ascends to knowledge and happiness by confronting and overcoming the major obstacles to democratic selfhood. In the course of his journey, the poet addresses God and Jesus, body and soul, the love of kings, the fear of the poor, and the fear of death. The poet's consciousness enlarges; he can see more, comprehend more, and he has more to teach. In Edmundson's account, Whitman's great poem does not end with its last line. Seven years after the poem was published, Whitman went to work in hospitals, where he attended to the Civil War's wounded, sick, and dying. He thus became in life the democratic individual he had prophesied in art. Even now, that prophecy gives us words, thoughts, and feelings to feed the democratic spirit of self and nation.
Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell by
Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell presents critical introductions to two of the most significant American dramatists of the early twentieth century. Glaspell and Treadwell led American Theatre from outdated melodrama to the experimentation of great European playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw. This is the first book to deal with Glaspell and Treadwell's plays from a theatrical, rather than literary, perspective, and presents a comprehensive overview of their work from lesser known plays to seminal productions of Trifles and Machinal. Although each woman pursued her own themes, subjects and manner of stage production, this shared volume underscores the theatrical and cultural conditions influencing female playwrights in modern America.
Sylvia Plath by
Talented from the very beginning of her life, Sylvia Plath published her first poem at the age of eight in the ""children's section"" of the Boston Herald. She said of her childhood: ""I want to work at putting together the complex mosaic of my childhood; to practice capturing feelings and experiences from the nebulous seething of memory and yank them out into black-and-white on the typewriter."" Plath won several major prizes in writing and scholarship and her poems are considered today to be the most famous by an American female poet of the 20th Century, especially those in her 1965 collection Ariel. In 1981, Plath's Collected Poems was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the first American poet to win this prize after death. This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the unconventional American poet. This work will introduce Sylvia Plath to high school and college classrooms. Such introductions are usually conventional: biography, summary of works, and the author's ""place"" in the history of American literature. This title provides such information. Yet, there is nothing ""conventional"" about Sylvia Plath. She is a unique, rare, rebellious and unexpected voice in American literature. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Plath's life and a list of her principle publications as well as a bibliography for readers seeking to study this fascinating poet 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
William Faulkner by
When William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, he completed an emergence from comparative obscurity that had begun three years before. Since then, Faulkner has achieved the status of a world author. His works have been painstakingly translated into many languages, and perhaps more critical books and articles have been written about him in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries than about any other writer with the exception of William Shakespeare. Critics and scholars from all over the world have contributed to the commentary. Faulkner's achievement has been compared favourably with the achievements of Henry James, Honoré de Balzac, and Charles Dickens; many critics regard him as the preeminent novelist of the twentieth century. This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the canonised American novelist. For readers who are studying Faulkner 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 Faulkner 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 influence of James Joyce on Faulkner and his work, the author's tradition of literary pessimism, and the celebrated author's relationship to film and television. Among the contributors are Doreen Fowler, D. Matthew Ramsey, Jacques Pothier, and Bryan Giemza. Rounding out the volume are a chronology of Faulkner'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
