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Includes indexes. Part 2 American journalism 1969-1975.
"Previous scholarship has established that American storytellers turned Vietnam into a landscape of American myth. Bates's lucid and judicious study . . . is a valuable addition to the conversation regarding the legacy of Vietnam."—John Hellmann, author of American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam "An absolutely stunning achievement. Milton Bates presents an incisively accurate analysis of the attitudes that shaped and controlled Americans' perceptions during the 1960s and '70s. He fuses literary analysis with historical scholarship to offer a comprehensive study of American thought and writing before, during, and after the war years. This is a book to be read carefully—and savored."—John Clark Pratt, author of The Laotian Fragments
Using a canoe trip down a small river in southeastern Wisconsin as its narrative thread, The Bark River Chronicles blends history, archeology, natural science, and analysis of current environmental issues to tell the story of the state, the region, and ultimately much of the country.
In this study of the life and works of Wallace Stevens, Bates sets out to show how one poet transcended biography by transforming it into fables of identity. He presents a fascinating and persuasive account of Stevens's inner life -- the life he lived through his poetry. He examines the significant biographical influences on the poet's work: his relationship with his parents and wife, the ambience of Harvard College at the turn of the century, the New York avant-garde that flourished during World War I, political pressure from the Left during the '30s, his reading of Nietzsche and genealogical research in the '40s, and his late accommodation with traditional religious belief. Bates makes the poet seem not an isolated figure but part of a rich environment that includes politics, business and aesthetic speculation. ISBN 0-520-04909-8 : $26.95.
The work of Wallace Stevens has been read most widely as poetry concerned with poetry, and not with the world in which it was created; deemed utterly singular, it seems to resist being read as the record of a life and times. In this critical biography Alan Filreis presents a detailed challenge to this exceptionalist view as he traces two major periods of Stevens's career from 1939 to 1955, the war years and the postwar years. Portraying Stevens as someone whose alternation between cultural comprehension and ignorance was itself characteristically American, Filreis examines the poet's impulse to disguise and compress the very fact of his debt to the actual world. By actual world Stevens meant...
Wallace Stevens is a major American poet and a central figure in modernist studies and twentieth-century poetry. This Companion introduces students to his work. An international team of distinguished contributors presents a unified picture of Stevens' poetic achievement. The Introduction explains why Stevens is among the world's great poets and offers specific guidance on how to read and appreciate his poetry. A brief biographical sketch anchors Stevens in the real world and illuminates important personal and intellectual influences. The essays following chart Stevens' poetic career and his affinities with both earlier and contemporary writers, artists, and philosophers. Other essays introduce students to the peculiarity and distinctiveness of Stevens' voice and style. They explain prominent themes in his work and explore the nuances of his aesthetic theory. With a detailed chronology and a guide to further reading, this Companion provides all the information a student or scholar of Stevens will need.
This book aims to provide an in-depth introduction to the multifaceted life and times of Wallace Stevens, who is generally considered one of the great twentieth-century American poets. In thirty-six short essays, an international team of distinguished scholars have created a comprehensive overview of Stevens' life and the world of his poetry. Individual chapters relate Stevens to important contexts such as the large Western movements of romanticism and modernism; particular American and European philosophical traditions; contemporary and later poets; the professional realms of law and insurance; the parallel art forms of painting, music, and theater; his publication history, critical reception, and his international reputation. Other chapters address topics of current interest such as war, politics, religion, race and the feminine. Informed by the latest developments in the field, but written in clear, jargon-free prose, Wallace Stevens in Context is an indispensable introduction to this great modern poet.
Phillip Caputo, Larry Heinemann, Tim O’Brien, and Robert Olen Butler: four young midwestern Americans coming of age during the 1960s who faced a difficult personal decision—whether or not to fight in Vietnam. Each chose to participate. After coming home, these four veterans became prizewinning authors telling the war stories and life stories of soldiers and civilians. The four extended conversations included in Writing Vietnam, Writing Life feature revealing personal stories alongside candid assessments of each author’s distinct roles as son, soldier, writer, and teacher of creative writing. As Tobey Herzog's thoughtful interviews reveal, these soldier-authors have diverse upbringings,...
William Poole recounts Milton's life as England’s self-elected national poet and explains how the greatest poem of the English language came to be written. How did a blind man compose this staggeringly complex, intensely visual work? Poole explores how Milton’s life and preoccupations inform the poem itself—its structure, content, and meaning.
Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, set a new standard for Milton criticism and established its author as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. How Milton works "from the inside out" is the foremost concern of Fish's book, which explores the radical effect of Milton's theological convictions on his poetry and prose. For Milton the value of a poem or of any other production derives from the inner worth of its author and not from any external measure of excellence or heroism. Milton's aesthetic, says Fish,...