Author: Craig White
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1567509991
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
The Student Companion to James Fenimore Cooper At the dawn of America's continental empire, James Fenimore Cooper in the early 1800s became the new nation's first major novelist, inaugurating a great period in American literature and bequeathing a number of classic texts including the Leather-Stocking Tales. This Companion to Cooper's writings appeals to high school and college students by outlining Cooper's most frequently assigned novels and establishing their historical backgrounds concerning American Indians and the early United States. Two opening chapters review the author's life and accomplishments, and another offers tips for managing Cooper's style and subject matter. Cooper's breakthrough novel The Spy (1821), which features George Washington as a major actor, has a chapter of its own. The second half of the Companion highlights the Leather-Stocking Tales, with one chapter on the overall saga and five chapters devoted to the individual novels in the series: The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie. Altogether this Companion shares the spirit of adventure that made Cooper a pioneer of American Romantic literature and his writings a perennial source for ideas and images of Native America, the frontier, and the early modern USA.
Author: Timothy Parrish
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107013135
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
This volume provides newly commissioned essays from leading scholars and critics on the social and cultural history of the novel in America. It explores the work of the most influential American novelists of the past 200 years, including Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Cather, Faulkner, Ellison, Pynchon, and Morrison.
Author: John Dennis Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313088241
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
One of America's greatest writers, William Faulkner wrote fiction that combined spellbinding Southern storytelling with modernist formal experimentation to shape an enduring body of work. In his fictional Yoknapatawpha County—based on the region around his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi—he created an entire world peopled with unforgettable characters linked into an intricate historical and social web. An introduction to the Nobel-Prize-winning author's life and work, this book devotes opening chapters to his biography and literary heritage and subsequent chapters to each of his major works. The analytical chapters start with his most accessible book, The Unvanquished, a Civil-War-era account of a boy's coming of age. The following chapters orient readers to elements of plot, character, and theme in Faulkner's masterpieces: The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! Also analyzed and discussed are some of Faulkner's most often anthologized short stories, including A Rose For Emily and Barn Burning, and the longer stories The Bear, Spotted Horses, and The Old Man that were incorporated in the novels Go Down, Moses, The Hamlet, and If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem. Clear, insightful analyses of the elements of Faulkner's fiction are supplemented with alternative readings from a variety of critical approaches including gender, rhetorical, performance, and cultural studies perspectives.
Author: Rosemarie Morgan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313088330
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
In the mid- late 1800s and early 1900s, Thomas Hardy produced a plethora of eclectic works that were considered too candid and even sacrilegious for their time. Hardy's publishing of fiction, drama, poetry, and the short story ranks him with Shakespeare, one of few other authors in the English language to write major works in more than one literary genre. Growing up, Hardy apprenticed as an architect but soon realized his true calling was writing. He based much of his work on his homeland and local culture in England, creating the fictional county of Wessex, the setting for most of his works. This companion explores the life of Hardy, examining his career and most important works. Ideal for high school and undergraduate students, as well as readers with a general interest in Hardy's life and works, this book takes a close look at Hardy's unconventional works and why he ultimately decided to abandon novel-writing in favor of his first love-poetry.
Author: Sharon Talley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1573569984
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Student Companion to Herman Melville provides a critical introduction to the life and literary works of Herman Melville, the nineteenth-century American author of Moby-Dick, as well as nine other novels and numerous short stories and poems. In addition to providing an overview of Melville's life in relation to his literary works, the book places his writings within their historical and cultural contexts, and then examines each of his major works fully, at the level of the nonspecialist and generalist reader. The chapters that address major works by Melville feature close readings of the literary texts that include analysis of point of view, setting, plot, characters, symbolism, themes, and historical contexts when appropriate. In addition, the four chapters devoted to individual novels, as well as the chapter on Melville's poetry, feature alternate readings to introduce the reader to postcolonial, feminist, genre, reader response, and deconstructionist approaches to literary criticism. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography that includes lists of Melville's published works, biographies, contemporary reviews, and recent critical studies. -Early Narratives, from Typee to White Jacket -Moby Dick -Pierre -The Piazza Tales -Other magazine tales: I and My Chimney, The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids, and Israel Potter -The Confidence-Man -Poetry, including
Author: Steven F. Bloom Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313049092
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
Eugene O'Neill is the only American dramatist ever to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He wrote over 50 plays; a number are virtually unknown by the general public; several are considered classics of the American stage; all of them demonstrate, in one way or another, how O'Neill challenged the conventional boundaries of the drama of his time and thereby paved the way for modern American theatre. This volume will provide guides to eight of O'Neill's plays that are most often studied in schools and colleges: The Hairy Ape, Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, Desire Under the Elms, Ah, Wilderness!, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. More than almost any other author in any fictional genre, O'Neill's works are highly autobiographical. The love/hate relationships he had with the members of his own family resonate throughout his dramatic works. The son of an alcoholic and a morphine addict, he struggled with chemical dependency throughout his life, but determined to be an artist or nothing, he eventually gave up drinking and fulfilled his artistic ambitions, transforming the traumatic experiences of his life into compelling drama. O'Neill's drama provides insights into the complexities of human behavior and raises questions about the forces, both external and internal, that shape human lives.
Author: Frederick William Dame
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3735746284
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Volume III of America's Indomitable Character concerns itself with: American character identity as represented by ten selected Colonial female authors, among them the early Colonial authors of religious freedom Anne Hutchinson and Anne Dudley Bradstreet; the Colonial adventuress Sarah Kemble Knight; Anne Cotton and her eye-witness accounts of the history of Virginia; Mercy Otis Warren, a contemporary historian of the American Revolutionary Period; Abigail Adams who gave her husband John Adams, the second President, political advice; Judith Sargent Murray, a Colonial feminist; the African-American poet Phillis Wheatley; Hannah Webster Foster, an early advocate of female education; and Susanna Haswell Rowson, America's first professional female novelist. How the Thirteen Original Colonies became states. The American Constitution and American character identity. Attempts to destroy the American Constitution. The Monroe Doctrine and American character identity. The origin and essence of Romanticism and its importance in America. A presentation of Nature, human nature, society, the social contract, and education in selected works of William Hill Brown, Philip Morin Freneau, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, David Crockett, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe. The Bill of Rights. David Crockett's Not Yours to Give Speech. Why Colonists and immigrants came to America and how they became Americans. Individualism and anti-elitism in America's character. America as a place where individuals form and decide of their own destiny; where, as Don Fredrick says, society "means nothing more than a collection of many individual citizens in the same place; where there exist not many rules telling a person what he is permitted to do, but only a few rules telling him what he cannot do. Or, at least, that is what America was when the aforementioned authors wrote about the nation."
Author: Signe O. Wegener
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476649847
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Although often overlooked today, James Fenimore Cooper's novels represent the very beginnings of American literature. Singlehandedly, the gentleman farmer from upstate New York created the American historical, spy, sea, frontier, science fiction, and courtroom novels. His books became both national and international bestsellers, were quickly translated into other languages, and impacted the development of the American publishing industry. This literary companion is a useful resource covering the major themes, characters, settings and more found in Cooper's works. It includes an overview of his fiction; a brief biography; a chronological list of his major publications; and topics for discussion, research, and study.
Author: Mª Teresa Gibert Maceda
Publisher: Editorial Universitaria Ramon Areces
ISBN: 8480049359
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
Los veinticinco años de experiencia como profesora de la autora en la UNED, hacen que este libro esté orientado fundamentalmente a la educación a distancia. Los capítulos mantienen prácticamente la misma estructura a lo largo de toda la obra. Cada tema se divide en cuatro partes: - Una primera donde se analizan individualmente los autores a través de sus biografías y contextos históricos. - Un texto, en prosa o verso, con notas al pie sobre las palabras o giros gramaticales que presentan más dificultad en su traducción del inglés. - Cuestiones de autoevaluación. - Otras cuestiones preparatorias más amplias. En algunos casos se añaden recuadros con sugerencias de estudio
Author: Stephen Marino
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443896152
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255
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Book Description
Arthur Miller was one of the major American dramatists of the twentieth century, clearly ranking with other truly great American playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee. The centennial of Miller’s birth in New York City on October 17, 1915 was celebrated around the world with a panoply of staged productions, theatrical events, media documentaries, and academic conferences. Miller earned his reputation during a career of more than seventy years, in which he achieved critical success in the 1940s and 1950s with the dramas All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. He was also notable for his refusal to “name names at his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee”, his marriage to the film actress Marilyn Monroe, and his spell as president of the literary organization, International P.E.N. Arthur Miller was not only a literary giant, but also one of the more significant political, cultural, and social figures of his time. He was a man of conviction and integrity who frequently took stands, popular and unpopular, on the ethical issues that engaged societies throughout the world. This collection includes eclectic essays from Miller scholars who provide detailed discussions of text and performance, of Miller as a political and cultural figure, and of his connection to other playwrights. The contributions explore the trajectory of Miller’s career, his most famous and frequently produced works, such as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, the dramas of his later career, and his fiction. The collection appeals to a broad American and international audience and a cross-section of readers, including undergraduates, graduates, emerging scholars, drama and theatre specialists, as well as theatre-goers who flock to revivals of Miller’s plays.
