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| american canon of literature: The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon Harold Bloom, 2019-10-15 Our foremost literary critic on our most essential writers, from Emerson and Whitman to Hurston and Ellison, from Faulkner and O'Connor to Ursula K. LeGuin and Philip Roth. No critic has better understood the ways writers influence one another—how literary traditions are made—and no writer has helped readers understand this better, than Harold Bloom. Over the course of a remarkable sixty-year career, in such bestselling books as The Western Canon, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and How to Read and Why, Bloom brought enormous insight and infectious enthusiasm to the great writers of the Western tradition, from Shakespeare and Cervantes to the British Romantics and the Russian masters. Now, for the first time, comes a collection of his brilliant writings about the American tradition, the ultimate guide to our nation’s literature. Assembled with David Mikics (Slow Reading in a Hurried Age), this unprecedented collection gathers five decades’ worth of Bloom’s writings— much of it hard to find and long unavailable—including essays, occasional pieces, and introductions as well as excerpts from his books. It offers deep readings of 47 essential American writers, reflecting on the surprising ways they have influenced each other across more than two centuries. The story it tells, of American literature as a recurring artistic struggle for selfhood, speaks to the passion and power of the American spirit. All of the visionary American writers who have long preoccupied Bloom―Emerson and Whitman, Hawthorne and Melville, and Dickinson, Faulkner, Crane, Frost, Stevens, and Bishop―make their appearance in The American Canon, along with Hemingway, James, O’Connor, Ellison, Hurston, Le Guin, Ashbery and many others. Bloom’s passion for these classic writers is contagious, and he reminds readers how they have shaped our sense of who we are, and how they can summon us to be better versions of ourselves. Bloom, Mikics writes, “is still our most inspirational critic, still the man who can enlighten us by telling us to read as if our lives depended on it: Because, he insists, they do.” For readers who want to deepen their appreciation of American literature, there's no better place to start than The American Canon. |
| american canon of literature: The Western Canon Harold Bloom, 2014-06-17 The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review). Placing William Shakespeare at the “center of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickenson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion. “An impressive work…deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michel Dirda, The Washington Post Book World |
| american canon of literature: Deaf American Literature Cynthia Peters, 2000 The moment when a society must contend with a powerful language other than its own is a decisive point in its evolution. This moment is occurring now in American society. Peters explains precisely how ASL literature achieved this moment, tracing its past and predicting its future in this trailblazing study. Peters connects ASL literature to the literary canon with the archetypal notion of carnival as the counterculture of the dominated. Throughout history carnivals have been opportunities for the low, disenfranchised elements of society to displace their high counterparts. Citing the Deaf community's long tradition of literary nights and festivals like the Deaf Way, Peters recognizes similar forces at work in the propagation of ASL literature. The agents of this movement, Deaf artists and ASL performers -- Tricksters, as Peters calls them -- jump between the two cultures and languages. Through this process they create a synthesis of English literary content reinterpreted in sign language, which also raises the profile of ASL as a distinct art form in itself. Peters applies her analysis to the craft's landmark works, including Douglas Bullard's novel Islay and Ben Bahan's video-recorded narrative Bird of a Different Feather. Deaf American Literature, the only work of its kind, is its own seminal moment in the emerging discipline of ASL literary criticism. |
| american canon of literature: From Outlaw to Classic Alan Golding, 1995-05-15 From Outlaw to Classic presents a sweeping history of the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the American poetry canon. Students, scholars, critics, and poets will welcome this enlightening and impressively documented book. Recent writings by critics and theorists on literary canons have dealt almost exclusively with prose; Alan Golding shows that, like all canons, those of American poetry are characterized by conflict. Choosing a series of varied but representative instances, he analyzes battles and contentions among poets, anthologists, poetry magazine editors, and schools of thought in university English departments. The chapters: • present a history of American poetry anthologies • compare competing models of canon-formation, the aesthetic (poet-centered) and the institutional (critic-centered) • discuss the influence of the New Critics, emphasizing their status as practicing poets, their anti-nationalist reading of American poetry, and the landmark textbook, Understanding Poetry by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren • examine the canonizing effects of an experimental “little magazine,” Origin • trace how the Language poets address, in both their theory and their method, the canonizing institutions and canonical assumptions of the age. |
| american canon of literature: Contemporary African American Literature Lovalerie King, Shirley Moody-Turner, 2013-08-28 Essays exploring contemporary black fiction and examining important issues in current African American literary studies. In this volume, Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner have compiled a collection of essays that offer access to some of the most innovative contemporary black fiction while addressing important issues in current African American literary studies. Distinguished scholars Houston Baker, Trudier Harris, Darryl Dickson-Carr, and Maryemma Graham join writers and younger scholars to explore the work of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Trey Ellis, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, Kyle Baker, Danzy Senna, Nikki Turner, and many others. The collection is bracketed by a foreword by novelist and graphic artist Mat Johnson, one of the most exciting and innovative contemporary African American writers, and an afterword by Alice Randall, author of the controversial parody The Wind Done Gone. Together, King and Moody-Turner make the case that diversity, innovation, and canon expansion are essential to maintaining the vitality of African American literary studies. “A compelling collection of essays on the ongoing relevance of African American literature to our collective understanding of American history, society, and culture. Featuring a wide array of writers from all corners of the literary academy, the book will have national appeal and offer strategies for teaching African American literature in colleges and universities across the country.” —Gene Jarrett, Boston University “[This book describes] a fruitful tension that brings scholars of major reputation together with newly emerging critics to explore the full range of literary activities that have flourished in the post-Civil Rights era. Notable are such popular influences as hip-hop music and Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.” —American Literary Scholarship, 2013 |
| american canon of literature: The Way We Live Now , |
| american canon of literature: This Thing We Call Literature Arthur Krystal, 2016 This Thing We Call Literature collects ten essays from the combative, cantankerous cultural critic Arthur Krystal. The essays in this compact volume, mostly coming from The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Chronicle of Higher Education--all share Krystal's conviction that literature and the humanities more broadly are going down the tubes |
| american canon of literature: The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination Harold Frederic , 1899 |
| american canon of literature: The Politically Incorrect Guide to English And American Literature Elizabeth Kantor, 2006-10-01 Citing declining coverage of classic English and American literature in today's schools, a politically incorrect primer challenges popular misconceptions while introducing the works of such core masters as Shakespeare, Faulkner, and Austen, in a volume that is complemented by a syllabus and a self-study guide. Original. |
| american canon of literature: The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Le Guin Harold Bloom, Our foremost literary critic celebrates the American pantheon of great writers from Emerson and Whitman to Hurston and Ellison, to Ursula K. LeGuin, Philip Roth, and Thomas Pynchon. Harold Bloom is our greatest living student of literature, a colossus among critics (The New York Times) and a master entertainer (Newsweek). Over the course of a remarkable career spanning more than half a century, in such best-selling books as The Western Canon and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he transformed the way we look at the masterworks of western literature. Now, in the first collection devoted to his illuminating writings specifically on American literature, Bloom reflects on the surprising ways American writers have influenced each other across more than two centuries. The American Canon gathers five decades of Bloom's essays, occasional pieces, and introductions as well as excerpts from several of his books, weaving them together into an unrivalled tour of the great American bookshelf. Always a champion of aesthetic power, Bloom tells the story of our national literature in terms of artistic struggle against powerful predecessors and the American thirst for selfhood. All of the visionary American writers who have long preoccupied Bloom--Emerson and Whitman, Hawthorne and Melville, and Dickinson, Faulkner, Crane, Frost, Stevens, and Bishop--are here, along with Hemingway, James, O'Connor, Ellison, Hurston, LeGuin, Ashbery and many others. Bloom's enthusiasm for these American geniuses is contagious, and he reminds us how these writers have shaped our sense of who we are, and how they can summon us to be yet better versions of ourselves. |
| american canon of literature: New Ground Axel Carl Bredahl, 1989 New Ground: Western American Narrative and the Literary Canon |
| american canon of literature: This is the Canon Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne, Kadija Sesay, 2021-10-28 'A vital and timely introduction to some of the best books I've ever read. Perfectly curated and filled with brilliant literature' Nikesh Shukla 'The ultimate introduction to post-colonial literature for those who want to understand the classics and the pioneers in this exciting area of books' Symeon Brown These are the books you should read. This is the canon. Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne and Kadija Sesay have curated a decolonized reading list that celebrates the wide and diverse experiences of people from around the world, of all backgrounds and all races. It disrupts the all-too-often white-dominated 'required reading' collections that have become the accepted norm and highlights powerful voices and cultural perspectives that demand a place on our shelves. From literary giants such as Toni Morrison and Chinua Achebe to less well known (but equally vital) writers such as Caribbean novelist Earl Lovelace or Indigenous Australian author Tony Birch, the novels recommended here are in turn haunting and lyrical; innovative and inspiring; edgy and poignant. The power of great fiction is that readers have the opportunity to discover new worlds and encounter other beliefs and opinions. This is the Canon offers a rich and multifaceted perspective on our past, present and future which deserves to be read by all bibliophiles - whether they are book club members or solitary readers, self-educators or teachers. |
| american canon of literature: The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon Dana Schwartz, Jason Adam Katzenstein, 2019-11-05 How do you use ‘taraddidle’ in a sentence? Is it possible to make a Gin Ricky that’s also a metaphor for the American Dream? How can you tell your Faulkner from your Franzen if you haven’t actually read either? Allow me, the @GuyInYourMFA, to expound on the most important (aka white male) writers of western literature. You’ve probably seen me around, observing the masses, or defying the wind by hand-rolling a cigarette outside a local, fair-trade coffeeshop. I’ve actually read Infinite Jest 9 1/2 times. Care to discuss? From Shakespeare's greatest mystery (how could a working-class man without access to an MFA program be so prolific?) to the true meaning of Kafkaesque (you know you've made it when you have an adjective named for you), the pages herewith are at once profound and practical. Use my ingenious Venn diagram to test your knowledge of which Jonathan—Franzen, Lethem, or Safran Foer—hates Twitter and lives in Brooklyn. (Trick question: all 3!) Sneer at chick-lit and drink Mojitos like Hemingway (not like middle-aged divorcées!). So instead of politely nodding along next time you make an acquaintance at a housewarming party in Brooklyn, you can roll up your sleeves and get to work schooling them in character arcs and the experimental form of your next great American novel. Dazzle your friends with how well you understand post-modernism. You’ll be at a literary event asking a question “that’s really more of a comment” in no time. |
| american canon of literature: The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature Marc Shell, Werner Sollors, 2000-11 American literature appears here as more than an offshoot of a single mother country, or of many mother countries, but rather as the interaction among diverse linguistic and cultural trajectories.. |
| american canon of literature: Cultural Capital John Guillory, 2023-10-24 An enlarged edition to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of John Guillory’s formative text on the literary canon. Since its publication in 1993, John Guillory’s Cultural Capital has been a signal text for understanding the codification and uses of the literary canon. Cultural Capital reconsiders the social basis for aesthetic judgment and exposes the unequal distribution of symbolic and linguistic knowledge on which culture has long been based. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups and more as a question of the distribution of cultural capital in schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing. Now, as the crisis of the canon has evolved into the so-called crisis of the humanities, Guillory’s groundbreaking, incisive work has never been more urgent. As scholar and critic Merve Emre writes in her introduction to this enlarged edition: “Exclusion, selection, reflection, representation—these are the terms on which the canon wars of the last century were fought, and the terms that continue to inform debates about, for instance, decolonizing the curriculum and the rhetoric of antiracist pedagogy.” |
| american canon of literature: The Role of the Literary Canon in the Teaching of Literature Robert Aston, 2020-05-12 This book investigates the role of the idea of the literary canon in the teaching of literature, especially in colleges and secondary schools in the United States. Before the term canon was widely used in literary studies, which occurred in the second half of 20th century when the canon was first seriously viewed as politically and culturally problematic, the idea that some literary texts were more worthy of being studied than others existed since the beginning of the discipline of the teaching of literature in the 1800s. The concept of the canon, however, extends as far back as to Ancient Greece and its meaning has evolved over time. Thus, this book charts the changing meaning of the idea of the literary canon, examining its influence specifically in the teaching of literature from the beginning of the field to the 21st century. To explain how the literary canon and the teaching of literature have changed over time and continue to change, this book constructs a theory of canon formation based on the ideas of Michel Foucault and the assemblage theory of Manuel DeLanda, illustrating that the literary canon, while frequently contested, is integral to the teaching of literature yet changes as the teaching of literature changes. |
| american canon of literature: Race Sounds Nicole Brittingham Furlonge, 2018-05-15 Forging new ideas about the relationship between race and sound, Furlonge explores how black artists--including well-known figures such as writers Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, and singers Bettye LaVette and Aretha Franklin, among others--imagine listening. Drawing from a multimedia archive, Furlonge examines how many of the texts call on readers to listen in print. In the process, she gives us a new way to read and interpret these canonical, aurally inflected texts, and demonstrates how listening allows us to engage with the sonic lives of difference as readers, thinkers, and citizens. |
| american canon of literature: One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez, 2022-10-11 Netflix’s series adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude premieres December 11, 2024! One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race. |
| american canon of literature: Essays and Reviews Edgar Allan Poe, Gary Richard Thompson, 1984 Gathers Poe's essays on the theory of poetry, the art of fiction, the role of the critic, leading nineteenth-century writers, and the New York literary world. |
| american canon of literature: Postmodern/Postwar and After Jason Gladstone, Andrew Hoberek, Daniel Worden, 2016-07 Within the past ten years, the field of contemporary American literary studies has changed significantly. Following the turn of the twenty-first century and mounting doubts about the continued explanatory power of the category of “postmodernism,” new organizations have emerged, book series have been launched, journals have been created, and new methodologies, periodizations, and thematics have redefined the field. Postmodern/Postwar—and After aims to be a field-defining book—a sourcebook for the new and emerging critical terrain—that explores the postmodern/postwar period and what comes after. The first section of essays returns to the category of the “post-modern” and argues for the usefulness of key concepts and themes from postmodernism to the study of contemporary literature, or reevaluates postmodernism in light of recent developments in the field and historical and economic changes in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These essays take the contemporary abandonments of postmodernism as an occasion to assess the current states of postmodernity. After that, the essays move to address the critical shift away from postmodernism as a description of the present, and toward a new sense of postmodernism as just one category among many that scholars can use to describe the recent past. The final section looks forward and explores the question of what comes after the postwar/postmodern. Taken together, these essays from leading and emerging scholars on the state of twenty-first-century literary studies provide a number of frameworks for approaching contemporary literature as influenced by, yet distinct from, postmodernism. The result is an indispensable guide that seeks to represent and understand the major overhauling of postwar American literary studies that is currently underway. |
| american canon of literature: Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 Matthew K. Gold, Lauren F. Klein, 2016-05-18 Pairing full-length scholarly essays with shorter pieces drawn from scholarly blogs and conference presentations, as well as commissioned interviews and position statements, Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 reveals a dynamic view of a field in negotiation with its identity, methods, and reach. Pieces in the book explore how DH can and must change in response to social justice movements and events like #Ferguson; how DH alters and is altered by community college classrooms; and how scholars applying DH approaches to feminist studies, queer studies, and black studies might reframe the commitments of DH analysts. Numerous contributors examine the movement of interdisciplinary DH work into areas such as history, art history, and archaeology, and a special forum on large-scale text mining brings together position statements on a fast-growing area of DH research. In the multivalent aspects of its arguments, progressing across a range of platforms and environments, Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 offers a vision of DH as an expanded field—new possibilities, differently structured. Published simultaneously in print, e-book, and interactive webtext formats, each DH annual will be a book-length publication highlighting the particular debates that have shaped the discipline in a given year. By identifying key issues as they unfold, and by providing a hybrid model of open-access publication, these volumes and the Debates in the Digital Humanities series will articulate the present contours of the field and help forge its future. Contributors: Moya Bailey, Northeastern U; Fiona Barnett; Matthew Battles, Harvard U; Jeffrey M. Binder; Zach Blas, U of London; Cameron Blevins, Rutgers U; Sheila A. Brennan, George Mason U; Timothy Burke, Swarthmore College; Rachel Sagner Buurma, Swarthmore College; Micha Cárdenas, U of Washington–Bothell; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Brown U; Tanya E. Clement, U of Texas–Austin; Anne Cong-Huyen, Whittier College; Ryan Cordell, Northeastern U; Tressie McMillan Cottom, Virginia Commonwealth U; Amy E. Earhart, Texas A&M U; Domenico Fiormonte, U of Roma Tre; Paul Fyfe, North Carolina State U; Jacob Gaboury, Stony Brook U; Kim Gallon, Purdue U; Alex Gil, Columbia U; Brian Greenspan, Carleton U; Richard Grusin, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Michael Hancher, U of Minnesota; Molly O’Hagan Hardy; David L. Hoover, New York U; Wendy F. Hsu; Patrick Jagoda, U of Chicago; Jessica Marie Johnson, Michigan State U; Steven E. Jones, Loyola U; Margaret Linley, Simon Fraser U; Alan Liu, U of California, Santa Barbara; Elizabeth Losh, U of California, San Diego; Alexis Lothian, U of Maryland; Michael Maizels, Wellesley College; Mark C. Marino, U of Southern California; Anne B. McGrail, Lane Community College; Bethany Nowviskie, U of Virginia; Julianne Nyhan, U College London; Amanda Phillips, U of California, Davis; Miriam Posner, U of California, Los Angeles; Rita Raley, U of California, Santa Barbara; Stephen Ramsay, U of Nebraska–Lincoln; Margaret Rhee, U of Oregon; Lisa Marie Rhody, Graduate Center, CUNY; Roopika Risam, Salem State U; Stephen Robertson, George Mason U; Mark Sample, Davidson College; Jentery Sayers, U of Victoria; Benjamin M. Schmidt, Northeastern U; Scott Selisker, U of Arizona; Jonathan Senchyne, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Andrew Stauffer, U of Virginia; Joanna Swafford, SUNY New Paltz; Toniesha L. Taylor, Prairie View A&M U; Dennis Tenen; Melissa Terras, U College London; Anna Tione; Ted Underwood, U of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign; Ethan Watrall, Michigan State U; Jacqueline Wernimont, Arizona State U; Laura Wexler, Yale U; Hong-An Wu, U of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. |
| american canon of literature: Studies in Classic American Literature D. H. Lawrence, 2003 Landmark volume of D. H. Lawrence's writings on American literature including major essays on Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and Whitman. |
| american canon of literature: Charlotte Sometimes Penelope Farmer, 2016-07-06 A time-travel story that is both a poignant exploration of human identity and an absorbing tale of suspense. It’s natural to feel a little out of place when you’re the new girl, but when Charlotte Makepeace wakes up after her first night at boarding school, she’s baffled: everyone thinks she’s a girl called Clare Mobley, and even more shockingly, it seems she has traveled forty years back in time to 1918. In the months to follow, Charlotte wakes alternately in her own time and in Clare’s. And instead of having only one new set of rules to learn, she also has to contend with the unprecedented strangeness of being an entirely new person in an era she knows nothing about. Her teachers think she’s slow, the other girls find her odd, and, as she spends more and more time in 1918, Charlotte starts to wonder if she remembers how to be Charlotte at all. If she doesn’t figure out some way to get back to the world she knows before the end of the term, she might never have another chance. |
| american canon of literature: Reading Contemporary African American Literature Beauty Bragg, 2014-11-12 Reading Contemporary African American Literature focuses on the subject of contemporary African American popular fiction by women. Bragg’s study addresses why such work should be the subject of scholarly examination, describes the events and attitudes which account for the critical neglect of this body of work, and models a critical approach to such narratives that demonstrates the distinctive ways in which this literature captures the complexities of post-civil rights era black experiences. In making her arguments regarding the value of popular writing, Bragg argues that black women’s popular fiction foregrounds gender in ways that are frequently missing from other modes of narrative production. They exhibit a responsiveness and timeliness to the shifting social terrain which is reflected in the rapidly shifting styles and themes which characterize popular fiction. In doing so, they extend the historical function of African American literature by continuing to engage the black body as a symbol of political meaning in the social context of the United States. In popular literature Beauty Bragg locates a space from which black women engage a variety of public discourses. |
| american canon of literature: Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates Mary Jo Bona, Irma Maini, 2012-02-16 This groundbreaking collection reinvigorates the debate over the inclusion of multiethnic literature in the American literary canon. While multiethnic literature has earned a place in the curriculum on many large campuses, it is still a controversial topic at many others, as recent campus and corporate revivals of The Great Books attest. Many still perceive multiethnic literature as being governed by ideological and political issues, perpetuating a false distinction between highbrow literary texts and multiethnic works. Through historical overviews and textual analyses, the contributors not only argue for the aesthetic validity of multiethnic literature, but also examine the innovative ways in which multiethnic literature is taught and critiqued. The following questions are also addressed: Who and what determines literary value? What role do scholars, students, the reading public, book awards, and/or publishers play in affirming literary value? Taken together, these essays underscore the necessity for maintaining vibrant conversations about the place of multiethnic literature both inside and outside the academy. |
| american canon of literature: (Dis)forming the American Canon Ronald A. T. Judy, 1993 |
| american canon of literature: Possessed by Memory Harold Bloom, 2019-04-16 In arguably his most personal and lasting book, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors-- texts he has had by heart since childhood. Gone are the polemics. Here, instead, in a memoir of sorts--an inward journey from childhood to ninety--Bloom argues elegiacally with nobody but Bloom, interested only in the influence of the mind upon itself when it absorbs the highest and most enduring imaginative literature. He offers more than eighty meditations on poems and prose that have haunted him since childhood and which he has possessed by memory: from the Psalms and Ecclesiastes to Shakespeare and Dr. Johnson; Spenser and Milton to Wordsworth and Keats; Whitman and Browning to Joyce and Proust; Tolstoy and Yeats to Delmore Schwartz and Amy Clampitt; Blake to Wallace Stevens--and so much more. And though he has written before about some of these authors, these exegeses, written in the winter of his life, are movingly informed by the freshness of last things. As Bloom writes movingly: One of my concerns throughout Possessed by Memory is with the beloved dead. Most of my good friends in my generation have departed. Their voices are still in my ears. I find that they are woven into what I read. I listen not only for their voices but also for the voice I heard before the world was made. My other concern is religious, in the widest sense. For me poetry and spirituality fuse as a single entity. All my long life I have sought to isolate poetic knowledge. This also involves a knowledge of God and gods. I see imaginative literature as a kind of theurgy in which the divine is summoned, maintained, and augmented. |
| american canon of literature: Rethinking National Literatures and the Literary Canon in Scandinavia Dag Heede, Anne Heith, Ann-Sofie Lönngren, 2015-10-19 The literary field and canon in the Nordic countries are under constant negotiation and transformation, with various alternative literatures having evolved alongside the majority literatures of these nations in recent decades. These new phenomena, constructed around perspectives regarding language, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and social class, have been categorised as migration, minority and queer literatures. Rethinking National Literatures and the Literary Canon in Scandinavia highlights these literatures and their histories, roles and impacts on both the literary establishment and (post)modern societies in the Nordic region. It also discusses how the constructions of national literary canons today are challenged by the influence of various critical perspectives, including postcolonial theories, and queer, indigenous, ethnic literary and gender studies. On a broader level, the book showcases the position literature has in the building of national identities in Nordic nation-states, and, in the process, demonstrates that the plurality of perspectives in literary studies has the potential to question the fundamentals of the literary canon, canon formations, national self-understanding, and identity. The book is composed of nine articles authored by literary scholars in Finland, Sápmi, Sweden, and Denmark. It addresses issues such as methodological nationalism in literary scholarship, the uses of concepts such as “transnational” and “immigrant” literature, the ways in which traditional Sámi features are employed in contemporary Sámi poetry, postcolonial representations in Nordic literature, and the ways that political processes of “Othering” are made visible in contemporary literature’s uses of traditional Scandinavian folklore. Read together, these articles provide an overview of some of the challenges and changes in Nordic literature today. |
| american canon of literature: Beyond Bolaño Héctor Hoyos, 2015-01-27 Through a comparative analysis of the novels of Roberto Bolaño and the fictional work of César Aira, Mario Bellatin, Diamela Eltit, Chico Buarque, Alberto Fuguet, and Fernando Vallejo, among other leading authors, Héctor Hoyos defines and explores new trends in how we read and write in a globalized era. Calling attention to fresh innovations in form, voice, perspective, and representation, he also affirms the lead role of Latin American authors in reshaping world literature. Focusing on post-1989 Latin American novels and their representation of globalization, Hoyos considers the narrative techniques and aesthetic choices Latin American authors make to assimilate the conflicting forces at work in our increasingly interconnected world. Challenging the assumption that globalization leads to cultural homogenization, he identifies the rich textual strategies that estrange and re-mediate power relations both within literary canons and across global cultural hegemonies. Hoyos shines a light on the unique, avant-garde phenomena that animate these works, such as modeling literary circuits after the dynamics of the art world, imagining counterfactual Nazi histories, exposing the limits of escapist narratives, and formulating textual forms that resist worldwide literary consumerism. These experiments help reconfigure received ideas about global culture and advance new, creative articulations of world consciousness. |
| american canon of literature: Dream Boy Jim Grimsley, 1997-01-30 In a novel as stunning and heartbreaking as his acclaimed debut work, Grimsley recounts the story of a painful first love--between two adolescent boys who bravely sustain each other in a world of domestic disintegration. |
| american canon of literature: Catechism of the Catholic Church U.S. Catholic Church, 2012-11-28 Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. The word catechism means instruction - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation. |
| american canon of literature: A New Literary History of America Greil Marcus, Werner Sollors, 2010-01-23 America is a nation making itself up as it goes along—a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history. In more than two hundred original essays, A New Literary History of America brings together the nation’s many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what “Made in America” means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric—cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape. The meeting of minds is extraordinary as T. J. Clark writes on Jackson Pollock, Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg, Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Sarah Vowell on Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Walter Mosley on hard-boiled detective fiction, Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edison, Gerald Early on Tarzan, Bharati Mukherjee on The Scarlet Letter, Gish Jen on Catcher in the Rye, and Ishmael Reed on Huckleberry Finn. From Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, from Alexander Graham Bell and Stephen Foster to Alcoholics Anonymous, Life, Chuck Berry, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ronald Reagan, this is America singing, celebrating itself, and becoming something altogether different, plural, singular, new. |
| american canon of literature: Workshops of Empire Eric Bennett, 2015-10-15 During and just after World War II, an influential group of American writers and intellectuals projected a vision for literature that would save the free world. Novels, stories, plays, and poems, they believed, could inoculate weak minds against simplistic totalitarian ideologies, heal the spiritual wounds of global catastrophe, and just maybe prevent the like from happening again. As the Cold War began, high-minded and well-intentioned scholars, critics, and writers from across the political spectrum argued that human values remained crucial to civilization and that such values stood in dire need of formulation and affirmation. They believed that the complexity of literature—of ideas bound to concrete images, of ideologies leavened with experiences—enshrined such values as no other medium could. Creative writing emerged as a graduate discipline in the United States amid this astonishing swirl of grand conceptions. The early workshops were formed not only at the time of, but in the image of, and under the tremendous urgency of, the postwar imperatives for the humanities. Vivid renderings of personal experience would preserve the liberal democratic soul—a soul menaced by the gathering leftwing totalitarianism of the USSR and the memory of fascism in Italy and Germany. Workshops of Empire explores this history via the careers of Paul Engle at the University of Iowa and Wallace Stegner at Stanford. In the story of these founding fathers of the discipline, Eric Bennett discovers the cultural, political, literary, intellectual, and institutional underpinnings of creative writing programs within the university. He shows how the model of literary technique championed by the first writing programs—a model that values the interior and private life of the individual, whose experiences are not determined by any community, ideology, or political system—was born out of this Cold War context and continues to influence the way creative writing is taught, studied, read, and written into the twenty-first century. |
| american canon of literature: The Heart of American Poetry Edward Hirsch, 2022-04-19 An acclaimed poet and our greatest champion for poetry offers an inspiring and insightful new reading of the American tradition We live in unsettled times. What is America and who are we as a people? How do we understand the dreams and betrayals that have shaped the American experience? For poet and critic Edward Hirsch, poetry opens up new ways of answering these questions, of reconnecting with one another and with what’s best in us. In this landmark new book from Library of America, Hirsch offers deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems we thought we knew—from Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book” and Phillis Wheatley’s “To S.M. a Young African Painter, on seeing his Works” to Garrett Hongo’s “Ancestral Graves, Kahuku” and Joy Harjo’s “Rabbit Is Up to Tricks”—exploring how these poems have sustained his own life and how they might uplift our diverse but divided nation. “This is a personal book about American poetry,” writes Hirsch, “but I hope it is more than a personal selection. I have chosen forty poems from our extensive archive and songbook that have been meaningful to me, part of my affective life, my critical consideration, but I have also tried to be cognizant of the changing playbook in American poetry, which is not fixed but fluctuating, ever in flow, to pay attention to the wider consideration, the appreciable reach of our literature. This is a book of encounters and realizations.” |
| american canon of literature: O Pioneers! Willa Cather, 2024-07-15 When the young Swedish-descended Alexandra Bergson inherits her father's farm in Nebraska, she must transform the land from a wind-swept prairie landscape into a thriving enterprise. She dedicates herself completely to the land—at the cost of great sacrifices. O Pioneers! [1913] is Willa Cather's great masterpiece about American pioneers, where the land is as important a character as the people who cultivate it. WILLA CATHER [1873-1947] was an American author. After studying at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a teacher and journalist. Cather's novels often focus on settlers in the USA with a particular emphasis on female pioneers. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel One of Ours, and in 1943, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. |
| american canon of literature: Novel Subjects Leah A. Milne, 2021-07-01 How does contemporary literature contend with the power and responsibility of authorship, particularly when considering marginalized groups? How have the works of multiethnic authors challenged the notion that writing and authorship are neutral or universal? In Novel Subjects, Leah Milne offers a new way to look at multicultural literature by focusing on scenes of writing in contemporary works by authors with marginalized identities. These scenes, she argues, establish authorship as a form of radical self-care—a term we owe to Audre Lorde, who defines self-care as self-preservation and “an act of political warfare.” In engaging in this battle, the works discussed in this study confront limitations on ethnicity and nationality wrought by the institutionalization of multiculturalism. They also focus on identities whose mere presence on the cultural landscape is often perceived as vindictive or willful. Analyzing recent texts by Carmen Maria Machado, Louise Erdrich, Ruth Ozeki, Toni Morrison, and more, Milne connects works across cultures and nationalities in search of reasons for this recent trend of depicting writers as characters in multicultural texts. Her exploration uncovers fiction that embrace unacceptable or marginalized modes of storytelling—such as plagiarism, historical revisions, jokes, and lies—as well as inauthentic, invisible, and unexceptional subjects. These works ultimately reveal a shared goal of expanding the borders of belonging in ethnic and cultural groups, and thus add to the ever-evolving conversations surrounding both multicultural literature and self-care. |
| american canon of literature: 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Lorrie Moore, Heidi Pitlor, 2015 Collects forty short stories published between 1915 and 2015, from writers that include Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, and Alice Munro that exemplify their era and stand the test of time -- |
| american canon of literature: Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present Amy Berke, Robert Bleil, Jordan Cofer, Doug Davis, 2023-12-01 In 'Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present,' editors Amy Berke, Robert Bleil, Jordan Cofer, and Doug Davis curate a comprehensive exploration of American literary evolution from the aftermath of the Civil War to contemporary times. This anthology expertly weaves a tapestry of diverse literary styles and themes, encapsulating the dynamic shifts in American culture and identity. Through carefully selected works, the collection illustrates the rich dialogue between historical contexts and literary expression, showcasing seminal pieces that have shaped American literatures landscape. The diversity of periods and perspectives offers readers a panoramic view of the countrys literary heritage, making it a significant compilation for scholars and enthusiasts alike. The contributing authors and editors, each with robust backgrounds in American literature, bring to the table a depth of scholarly expertise and a passion for the subject matter. Their collective work reflects a broad spectrum of American life and thought, aligning with major historical and cultural movements from Realism and Modernism to Postmodernism. This anthology not only marks the evolution of American literary forms and themes but also mirrors the nations complex history and diverse narratives. 'Writing the Nation' is an essential volume for those who wish to delve into the heart of American literature. It offers readers a unique opportunity to experience the multitude of voices, styles, and themes that have shaped the countrys literary tradition. This collection represents an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in the development of American literature and the cultural forces that have influenced it. The anthology invites readers to engage with the vibrant dialogue among its pages, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of the United States' literary and cultural heritage. |
| american canon of literature: Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s Houston A. Baker (Jr.), Patricia Redmond, 1989-10-30 Featuring the work of the most distinguished scholars in the field, this volume assesses the state of Afro-American literary study and projects a vision of that study for the 1990s. A rich and rewarding collection.—Choice. This diverse and inspired collection . . . testifies to the Afro-Am academy's extraordinary vitality.—Voice Literary Supplement |
| american canon of literature: Laying Claim Patricia G. Davis, 2016-08-15 Laying Claim: African American Cultural Memory and Southern Identity explores the practices and cultural institutions that define and sustain African American southernness, demonstrating that southern identity is more expansive than traditional narratives that center on white culture. |
The Formation and Transformation of the American Literary …
In my paper, I will attempt to outline the history of the American literary canon and to possibly illustrate the fact that current canonical debates are nothing new but that they are just a new …
LITERATURE? AN OVERVIEW - Learner
cally dependent? How has the canon of American literature changed and why? How have American writers used language to create art and meaning? What does literature do? This …
Outline of AMERICAN LITERATURE
American literature as a whole is one of the richest and least explored topics in American studies. The Indian contribution to America is greater than is often believed. The hundreds of Indian …
Native American Literature and the Canon - JSTOR
Native American Literature and the Canon Arnold Krupat 1 Although the rich and various literatures of Native American peoples, by virtue of their antiquity and indigenousness, have an …
AML 2070 – Survey of American Literature, Fall 2020
the American literary canon, students will explore the structural factors that gave shape to American literature over time. Most of the texts we study contain metaphors of freedom.
The Construction and Revision of American Literary Canon: — …
This dissertation focuses on the different editions of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, published from 1979 to 2003. The paper concentrates on the construction and revision of the …
Writing Multicultural America: The Powers of Canon and …
American literary canon. There follows a selective analysis of four multicultural arenas— Native America, Afro-America, Latino/a America and Asian America. Keywords: multicultural, canon, …
Toward a New Balance: Literary Canon Formation and the
the process of the formation of a heterogeneous and diverse canon of American literature. In this thesis, I will examine Chinese American literature set in the context of mainstream American …
ENGL 782, Current Directions in Literary Study: Canon …
American literature • Differentiate among different kinds of literary canon (e.g., diachronic, disciplinary, classroom, public or popular) • Develop a public-facing argument regarding a …
Race and Gender in the Shaping of the American Literary …
American literary canon will be changed only by conscious literary and organizing efforts. This study is, therefore, part of the groundwork for that effort, an attempt to understand the …
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Canon of American Literature
Her essay describes some of the ways Hawthorne managed to translate his own biography into fiction, and along the way provides a useful starting point for thinking about Hawthorne as a …
AML 2070: Survey of American Literature - english.ufl.edu
The canon refers to the body of literature that is considered high-quality, artistic, and valued representations of American identity. We will consider which forms, voices, and styles are …
The New Americanist Intervention into the Canon - JSTOR
Intervention into the Canon Yonjae Jung Influenced by contemporary critical theory, criticism of nine-teenth-century American literature has undergone a profound change in recent years. …
The Western Canon - Archive.org
the Western Canon. Giambattista Vico, in his New Science , posited a cycle of three phases— Theocratic, Aristocratic, Democratic—followed by a chaos out of which a New Theocratic Age …
inveSTigaTing The liTerary Canon What makes a novel or play …
The canon that is meant for everyone is determined by the niche and is not filtered throughout history. The books used on the AP Literature exam have authors that
Introduction: The Idea of Influence in American Literature
In ‘Early American Literature: Canon Theory in a Transatlantic Context’, Straub focuses particularly on the anthology and the literary magazine to assess interactions between British …
The Literary Canon in the Age of New Media - IT-Universitetet …
American literary canon—as well as the mainly Anglophone proposals for new or revised national, regional, or ethnic canons—takes the concept of canon as a given, while the analysis focuses …
Canonicity and Black American Literature - JSTOR
Black American literature canon needs representative works that give insight into the whole Black American culture, through urban experi-ences as well as rural, female experiences as well as …
Dalit Canon Formation and the African American Experience
In this paper, I will deliberate on the need for a distinct canon for Dalit literature with the African American social experience as a model. “Canon” in literary criticism means a body of literary …
ISSUES OF THE CANON: INTRODUCTION - JSTOR
Wendell Harris writes from the viewpoint of a professor of English long involved in both the theoretical and practical implications of the canon wars. He correctly points out that the uses …
The Formation and Transformation of the American Literary …
In my paper, I will attempt to outline the history of the American literary canon and to possibly illustrate the fact that current canonical debates are nothing new but that they are just a new …
LITERATURE? AN OVERVIEW - Learner
cally dependent? How has the canon of American literature changed and why? How have American writers used language to create art and meaning? What does literature do? This …
Outline of AMERICAN LITERATURE
American literature as a whole is one of the richest and least explored topics in American studies. The Indian contribution to America is greater than is often believed. The hundreds of Indian …
Native American Literature and the Canon - JSTOR
Native American Literature and the Canon Arnold Krupat 1 Although the rich and various literatures of Native American peoples, by virtue of their antiquity and indigenousness, have an …
AML 2070 – Survey of American Literature, Fall 2020
the American literary canon, students will explore the structural factors that gave shape to American literature over time. Most of the texts we study contain metaphors of freedom.
The Construction and Revision of American Literary Canon: …
This dissertation focuses on the different editions of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, published from 1979 to 2003. The paper concentrates on the construction and revision of the …
Writing Multicultural America: The Powers of Canon and …
American literary canon. There follows a selective analysis of four multicultural arenas— Native America, Afro-America, Latino/a America and Asian America. Keywords: multicultural, canon, …
Toward a New Balance: Literary Canon Formation and the
the process of the formation of a heterogeneous and diverse canon of American literature. In this thesis, I will examine Chinese American literature set in the context of mainstream American …
ENGL 782, Current Directions in Literary Study: Canon …
American literature • Differentiate among different kinds of literary canon (e.g., diachronic, disciplinary, classroom, public or popular) • Develop a public-facing argument regarding a …
Race and Gender in the Shaping of the American Literary …
American literary canon will be changed only by conscious literary and organizing efforts. This study is, therefore, part of the groundwork for that effort, an attempt to understand the …
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Canon of American Literature
Her essay describes some of the ways Hawthorne managed to translate his own biography into fiction, and along the way provides a useful starting point for thinking about Hawthorne as a …
AML 2070: Survey of American Literature - english.ufl.edu
The canon refers to the body of literature that is considered high-quality, artistic, and valued representations of American identity. We will consider which forms, voices, and styles are …
The New Americanist Intervention into the Canon - JSTOR
Intervention into the Canon Yonjae Jung Influenced by contemporary critical theory, criticism of nine-teenth-century American literature has undergone a profound change in recent years. …
The Western Canon - Archive.org
the Western Canon. Giambattista Vico, in his New Science , posited a cycle of three phases— Theocratic, Aristocratic, Democratic—followed by a chaos out of which a New Theocratic Age …
inveSTigaTing The liTerary Canon What makes a novel or play …
The canon that is meant for everyone is determined by the niche and is not filtered throughout history. The books used on the AP Literature exam have authors that
Introduction: The Idea of Influence in American Literature
In ‘Early American Literature: Canon Theory in a Transatlantic Context’, Straub focuses particularly on the anthology and the literary magazine to assess interactions between British …
The Literary Canon in the Age of New Media - IT-Universitetet …
American literary canon—as well as the mainly Anglophone proposals for new or revised national, regional, or ethnic canons—takes the concept of canon as a given, while the analysis focuses …
Canonicity and Black American Literature - JSTOR
Black American literature canon needs representative works that give insight into the whole Black American culture, through urban experi-ences as well as rural, female experiences as well as …
Dalit Canon Formation and the African American …
In this paper, I will deliberate on the need for a distinct canon for Dalit literature with the African American social experience as a model. “Canon” in literary criticism means a body of literary …
ISSUES OF THE CANON: INTRODUCTION - JSTOR
Wendell Harris writes from the viewpoint of a professor of English long involved in both the theoretical and practical implications of the canon wars. He correctly points out that the uses …
