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Showing papers in "American Literature in 1986"



Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the lives and work of 24 English, American and French women whose energy and creativity as well as literary output is investigated in Paris between 1900 and 1940 are explored.
Abstract: Looking at Paris between 1900 and 1940, this book explores the lives and work of 24 English, American and French women whose energy and creativity as well as literary output is investigated. The impulses that drew women to Paris, their politics, sexual preferences and lifestyles, and the communities they created around them are also examined.

155 citations











Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Their Eyes Were Watching God as discussed by the authors is a novel about black love and the humanistic values that love embodies, and it has been both defended and condemned as a novel which expresses its protest against white injustice only by affirming the creative power of black folk life.
Abstract: ZoRA Neale Hurston's powerful second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has enjoyed-or suffered-a curiously contradictory critical response. It has been praised for expressing the genius of Black folklore and denounced for presenting the Negro as a folkloric stereotype. It has been cited as an apologia for traditional sex roles and praised as one of the earliest and clearest black feminist novels. It has been analyzed as a quest for self-fulfillment or self-identity and as a novel about black love and the humanistic values that love embodies, and it has been both defended and condemned as a novel which expresses its protest against white injustice only by affirming the creative power of black folk life. In its first forty years it was often skirted or misjudged by the black male critics who provided the preponderance of comment on black literature. Only by the late 'seventies had attention to Hurston by black and white female critics moved one such previous critic thoughtfully to recognize something elusive or unsettling in the novel that he should understand before he rendered a final judgment.1 Today Hurston has begun to receive the full-scale

Book•DOI•
TL;DR: T. S. Eliot's mind encompasses just about every important avant-garde intellectual movement of his time as mentioned in this paper and his thought, as well as his poetry, represents an essential and original achievement within Modernism.
Abstract: T. S. Eliot's mind encompasses just about every important avant-garde intellectual movement of his time. His thought, as well as his poetry, represents an essential and original achievement within Modernism. This study presents Eliot's unique synthesis of contemporary philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and studies in mysticism, and demonstrates how it is responsible for the nature of his religious belief, the basic tenets of his literary theory, and the figurative, structural, and dramatic aspects of his verse, pervading virtually everything he wrote throughout his life. The chapters are Skepticism, Mysticism, The Unconscious, Primitive Experience, Mythic Consciousness, and A Surrealist Poetic.





Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Wise Blood as discussed by the authors is the whipping-boy of the O'Connor canon, a mass of faults that reveals the greater expertise of The Violent Bear It Away or the superiority of the stories to both novels.
Abstract: IN Flannery O'Connor: The Imagination of Extremity, Frederick Asals observes that Wise Blood "seems to have become the whipping-boy of the O'Connor canon, a mass of faults that reveals the greater expertise of The Violent Bear It Away or the superiority of the stories to both novels."1 Objections to, Wise Blood go as far back as the letter one man wrote to O'Connor demanding to know "what happened to the guy in the ape suit."2 Subsequent complaints about the novel have also centered on Enoch Emery-in particular on the supposed disconnectedness of his subplot from the structure of the rest of the story. One critic, for example, while admitting there are thematic parallels between Enoch and the Christ-haunted Hazel Motes, concludes that the episode of Enoch and the gorilla "would have better been deleted from the novel."3 Taking the opposite position is Jonathan Baumbach, who, far from viewing Wise Blood as a collection of thematic loose ends, argues that the novel is overly schematic.4 In the last fifteen years or so, however, a critical consensus has emerged that Wise Blood neither lacks unity nor suffers from an excess of it, whatever that might mean Critics have demonstrated how Enoch's story intricately parallels and parodies Haze's inverted quest for salvation, and how Enoch's donning of the ape suit is the culmination of O'Connor's theme of "reverse evolution," an idea she makes explicit with a profusion of animal imagery.5 Other critics have pointed out the

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this paper, the romantic revisionist reading of The Damnation of Theron Ware and The Scarlet Letter is used to illuminate Frederic's novel, showing that sexual passion is not an evil, but a temptation into which one falls, as is assumed in those interpretations which suggest that Ware's temptation by Celia Madden parallels his loss of faith through exposure to the new science of Dr. Ledsmar and the Higher Criticism of Father Forbes.
Abstract: CRITICS of Harold Frederic have frequently noted the relationship between The Damnation of Theron Ware and The Scarlet Letter.' But what has not been explored is how well the romantic revisionist reading of Hawthorne developed by Nina Baym and others can be used to illuminate Frederic's novel.2 For Baym The Scarlet Letter is less a drama of sin and redemption than the story of conflict between the passional self and social authority. A similar point can be made about The Damnation of Theron Ware. For Frederic sexual passion is not an evil, something into which one falls, as is assumed in those interpretations which suggest that Ware's temptation by Celia Madden parallels his loss of faith through exposure to the new science of Dr. Ledsmar and the Higher Criticism of Father Forbes.3 Instead, Frederic presents sexuality, especially female sexuality, as something proscribed by society, by a male authority which fears it. The novel traces several consequences attendant upon this proscription: the blight on the Wares' marriage, which begins when the Methodist trustees insist that Alice no longer wear those roses in her cap on Sundays; the somewhat disordered sexuality of Celia Madden, teased and hated for her red hair; and the effeminization, regression, and adolescent

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Frost's poems move naturally from description of an object or scene or event to a commentary or meditation on its significance as mentioned in this paper, and this pattern may be perfectly obvious, as in "Design", where it is also particularly appropriate to the subject of the poem's meditation.
Abstract: T HE reader of Frost can hardly help noticing a recurrent structural tendency in the nature lyrics: again and again, the poems move naturally from description of an object or scene or event to a commentary or meditation on its significance. This pattern may be perfectly obvious, as in "Design" (where it is also particularly appropriate to the subject of the poem's meditation). It may be considerably less obvious (as in "The Wood-Pile" or "On the Heart's Beginning to Cloud the Mind"); or it may be submerged, as it is in "Birches," almost hidden beneath the complexities of other kinds of twistings and turnings. But the basic pattern-the movement "from sight to insight" (p. 559), as the poet himself puts it-is altogether characteristic of the way Frost's mind works. It reflects a whole way of perceiving reality: fundamental epistemological assumptions, perceptual habits, linguistic assumptions, and structural preferences. It is, moreover, a highly conscious way of perceiving and writing, a practical poetics which Frost developed largely from Emersonian suggestions.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The Sketch Book's creator, Washington Irving, has been portrayed as a "genial" though diffident tourist indulging his fancy for aristocratic culture amidst the finery of the Old World as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: T HE popular image of The Sketch Book's creator as a "genial" though diffident tourist indulging his fancy for aristocratic culture amidst the finery of the Old World lingers on. Washington Irving must bear some of the blame for this misconception, since in his introduction he pictured himself as a sophisticated traveler "following the bent of his vagrant inclination" and dashing off a few sketches "for the entertainment of [his] friends."1 Perhaps, too, because Irving wrote as well as the eighteenth-century Englishmen (Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne) whose prose served as models for his unconvoluted style-"so elegant and so simple" that it earned for him the distinction (in British eyes) of being "the first literate American"2-his readers have imagined him a gentleman of letters in the stately English tradition. Distortion also has resulted from the fact that too often Irving's life has been sentimentalized out of all proportion to what a critical interpretation of the documents available will allow. While these notions have situated Irving pleasantly in the collective national mind, they have at the same time obscured the real achievement of his struggle to compose his masterpiece. In addition, preconceived ideas about Irving's life have tended to govern readings of his work, to the extent that the pervasiveness of this polite spirit has come to be mistaken for the essence of The Sketch Book. The life and work, in fact, do mirror each other, but the reflection is one that few readers have caught. The truth is that the


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: This article explored the complex uses and meaning of James's appropriation of economic "currency" in his fiction and criticism, through a variety of approaches, and concluded that "the majority of criticism of economic language in the last twenty years has been formalist; most notably, four studies, by Laurence Holland, Jan Dietrichson, Donald Mull and Daniel Schneider, have demonstrated unquestionably the quantity and difficulty of these terms.'
Abstract: H ENRY James's fiction and criticism abound with literal and metaphorical instances of business and financial terms. While metaphors far outnumber literal discussions about dollars and cents, both are so pervasive that this economic language acquires a privileged status among his linguistic codes. For just as money is a universal equivalent into which all other commodities must be translated to establish their value, so also James uses economic language as the dominant code to fix the value of characters and ideas in his writing. In this essay, I will explore, through a variety of approaches, the complex uses and meaning of James's appropriation of economic "currency." The majority of criticism of James's economic language in the last twenty years has been formalist; most notably, four studies, by Laurence Holland, Jan Dietrichson, Donald Mull, and Daniel Schneider, have demonstrated unquestionably the quantity and difficulty of these terms.' More recently, Carolyn Porter, Jean-Christophe Agnew, and Mimi Kairschner have focussed Marxist critical lenses upon his business rhetoric.2 All critics who have studied this idea agree that James portrays a gilded world of seductively available commodities and, in addition, that this imagery reveals a quantifying mentality among his characters and their author.3

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The authors reviewed the major features of this biformal pattern, noting their general conformity to a dominant structure and highlighting the dizzying pace of mental movement between extremes, and opened the way to fresh perspectives on Mark Twain's consciousness as it manifests itself in his first book-length narrative.
Abstract: CRITICAL commentary on The Innocents Abroad has been virtually uniform in its detection of a bold pattern of opposition in the voice of the narrator, Mark Twain. The elements to be found at the poles of opposition vary from one scholarly account to the next, as do assessments of Mark Twain's success in dealing with the tensions that at once grow out of and inform his narrative. In what follows I will review the major features of this biformal pattern, noting their general conformity to a dominant structure and highlighting the dizzying pace of mental movement between extremes. This discussion opens the way to fresh perspectives on Mark Twain's consciousness as it manifests itself in his first booklength narrative.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this paper, it has been conjectured that James "doctored" these letters, but it has up to now been impossible to confirm this, as James evidently burned the originals.
Abstract: H ENNRY James's orphaned cousin Mary Temple, generally called Minny, had a greater effect on his creative life than any other woman. Her early death from tuberculosis in March I870, when she was twenty-four and James twenty-six, inspired two of the most emotional and extreme letters he is known to have written. Six years later, when he began to make plans for The Portrait of a Lady, Minny's image supplied the germ of his heroine Isabel Archer, and in old age, when he wrote his memoirs of youth, Notes of a Son and Brother, she was the subject of the last and longest chapter. James built this chapter around numerous lengthy extracts from the remarkable letters Minny wrote to a friend during her last year of life. Leon Edel has conjectured that James "doctored" these letters, but it has up to now been impossible to confirm this, as James evidently burned the originals. Exactly how James revised them, Edel predicted, "we shall never know. "' But we can know. Before Minny's correspondence was sent to James, it was meticulously copied in longhand by William James's widow and daughter, Alice H. James and Margaret Mary. These copies appear to be literal transcriptions of what Minny wrote, even reproducing certain accidentals. The copies were at some point deposited in the Houghton Library, where I turned them up in January i985.2 They not only indicate that James's omissions and alterations were far more extensive than anyone could have dreamed, but they raise some disturbing questions about his use of

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: RelReligion et politique sous la democratie jacksonienne| la reception du ''D.S.A.'', le milieu transcendantalisme and l'universalisme de K
Abstract: Religion et politique sous la democratie jacksonienne| la reception du ''D.S.A.'', le milieu transcendantalisme et l'universalisme de K

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In a seminal study, The American Negro: His History and Literature, Sterling Brown, an influential professor and poet identified with the Harlem Renaissance, singles out teachers for praise and reserves particular contempt for those who ridicule them, burn schoolhouses, or deny that blacks want or need much education at all as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A AINST all odds, Free People of Color struggled for an education in the mid-seventeenth century from New Orleans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. After Emancipation substantial numbers of freed slaves combed the counties for Yankee schoolmarms, or failing that, any possible way to literacy and what lay beyond. Debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois focused on which type of education the white establishment should be or could be persuaded to set up to best serve blacks entering the twentieth century-vocational training or the traditional university curriculum-but education itself was the goal. In a seminal study, The American Negro: His History and Literature, Sterling Brown, an influential professor and poet identified with the Harlem Renaissance, singles out teachers for praise and reserves particular contempt for those who ridicule them, burn schoolhouses, or deny that blacks want or need much education at all. The white novelist, Mrs. Julia Peterkin for instance, wrote in RollJordan, Roll (I 933): "Since Negro school-children will come into their legacy of 'ancient earthly wisdom' it is no tragedy that Negro schools are open only from harvest to planting time" (p. I22). Brown scorns: Mrs. Peterkin "advances trite generalizations." There is a tendency among some educators and employers, who define themselves as realists, to say straight out that lower-class blacks have rejected education in favor of welfare benefits. It depends on whom you talk to. The proletarian Malcolm X describes his program of selfeducation and formulates a conclusion: "Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." The Black is Beautiful movement holds education a prime component in the effort to recover for black Americans the sense of


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The ultimate problem of a Frost biographer is to see if the biographer can be enough of a psychologist to get far enough back into the formative years of Robert Frost to try to understand and explain what forces were operative, back there, to create the curious forms of neurosis.
Abstract: The ultimate problem of a Frost biographer is to see if the biographer can be enough of a psychologist to get far enough back into the formative years of Robert Frost to try to understand and explain what forces were operative, back there, to create the curious forms of neurosis which Robert Frost had to struggle with throughout most of his life. Of course such an approach, on the part of the biographer, is dangerous-very dangerous. -Lawrance Thompson, notes for a lecture to the Literary Fellowship in October I968

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: This paper read Dickinson's words as a cultural text that attempts to explore and resolve on an aesthetic level pressing ideological conflicts of her social class and found that her voice stands beyond culture in the lyric landscape of mythic yearning.
Abstract: THE writings of Emily Dickinson are often interpreted as a pristine expression of individual consciousness or a narrative of the autonomous self bent on an ever-deepening quest for power and freedom. As such, her voice stands beyond culture in the lyric landscape of mythic yearning. Instead, this study presumes to read Dickinson's words as a cultural text that attempts to explore and resolve on an aesthetic level pressing ideological conflicts of her social class.1 Dickinson's Amherst, no matter how disembodied we would like to perceive her participation, was marked by the fervor of evangelical Christianity, the ethos of the Christian Gentleman and Lady, and the determined desire for social order and class stability, emerging from the Protestant vision of industrial capital-