Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature

Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature PDF Author: S.K. Robisch
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 087417774X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 746

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Book Description
The wolf is one of the most widely distributed canid species, historically ranging throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, it has also been one of the most pervasive images in human mythology, art, and psychology. Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature examines the wolf’s importance as a figure in literature from the perspectives of both the animal’s physical reality and the ways in which writers imagine and portray it. Author S. K. Robisch examines more than two hundred texts written in North America about wolves or including them as central figures. From this foundation, he demonstrates the wolf’s role as an archetype in the collective unconscious, its importance in our national culture, and its ecological value. Robisch takes a multidisciplinary approach to his study, employing a broad range of sources: myths and legends from around the world; symbology; classic and popular literature; films; the work of scientists in a number of disciplines; human psychology; and field work conducted by himself and others. By combining the fundamentals of scientific study with close readings of wide-ranging literary texts, Robisch astutely analyzes the correlation between actual, living wolves and their representation on the page and in the human mind. He also considers the relationship between literary art and the natural world, and argues for a new approach to literary study, an ecocriticism that moves beyond anthropocentrism to examine the complicated relationship between humans and nature.

Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature

Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature PDF Author: S.K. Robisch
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 087417774X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 746

Get Book Here

Book Description
The wolf is one of the most widely distributed canid species, historically ranging throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, it has also been one of the most pervasive images in human mythology, art, and psychology. Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature examines the wolf’s importance as a figure in literature from the perspectives of both the animal’s physical reality and the ways in which writers imagine and portray it. Author S. K. Robisch examines more than two hundred texts written in North America about wolves or including them as central figures. From this foundation, he demonstrates the wolf’s role as an archetype in the collective unconscious, its importance in our national culture, and its ecological value. Robisch takes a multidisciplinary approach to his study, employing a broad range of sources: myths and legends from around the world; symbology; classic and popular literature; films; the work of scientists in a number of disciplines; human psychology; and field work conducted by himself and others. By combining the fundamentals of scientific study with close readings of wide-ranging literary texts, Robisch astutely analyzes the correlation between actual, living wolves and their representation on the page and in the human mind. He also considers the relationship between literary art and the natural world, and argues for a new approach to literary study, an ecocriticism that moves beyond anthropocentrism to examine the complicated relationship between humans and nature.

Myth America

Myth America PDF Author: Kevin M. Kruse
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541601408
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
In this instant New York Times bestseller, America’s top historians set the record straight on the most pernicious myths about our nation’s past. The United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making constructive dialogue impossible and imperiling our democracy. In Myth America, Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer have assembled an all-star team of fellow historians to push back against this misinformation. The contributors debunk narratives that portray the New Deal and Great Society as failures, immigrants as hostile invaders, and feminists as anti-family warriors—among numerous other partisan lies. Based on a firm foundation of historical scholarship, their findings revitalize our understanding of American history. Replacing myths with research and reality, Myth America is essential reading amid today’s heated debates about our nation’s past. With Essays By Akhil Reed Amar • Kathleen Belew • Carol Anderson • Kevin Kruse • Erika Lee • Daniel Immerwahr • Elizabeth Hinton • Naomi Oreskes • Erik M. Conway • Ari Kelman • Geraldo Cadava • David A. Bell • Joshua Zeitz • Sarah Churchwell • Michael Kazin • Karen L. Cox • Eric Rauchway • Glenda Gilmore • Natalia Mehlman Petrzela • Lawrence B. Glickman • Julian E. Zelizer

The Myths That Made America

The Myths That Made America PDF Author: Heike Paul
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839414857
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
This essential introduction to American studies examines the core foundational myths upon which the nation is based and which still determine discussions of US-American identities today. These myths include the myth of »discovery,« the Pocahontas myth, the myth of the Promised Land, the myth of the Founding Fathers, the melting pot myth, the myth of the West, and the myth of the self-made man. The chapters provide extended analyses of each of these myths, using examples from popular culture, literature, memorial culture, school books, and every-day life. Including visual material as well as study questions, this book will be of interest to any student of American studies and will foster an understanding of the United States of America as an imagined community by analyzing the foundational role of myths in the process of nation building.

The Myth of the American Dream

The Myth of the American Dream PDF Author: D. L. Mayfield
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 083084824X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Affluence, autonomy, safety, and power—the central values of the American dream. But are they compatible with Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves? In essays grouped around these four values, D. L. Mayfield asks us to pay attention to the ways they shape our own choices, and the ways those choices affect our neighbors.

The King Arthur Myth in Modern American Literature

The King Arthur Myth in Modern American Literature PDF Author: Andrew E. Mathis
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786411719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In American fiction, two forms of the Arthurian myth are commonly found: the use of the myth for political reasons, and the use of the myth for the continuation of an aesthetic tradition that can be traced back to the earliest use of the Arthurian cycle by writers in the British Isles. This work traces the use of the legend from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to Donald Barthelme's novel The King. It discusses how Twain used the myth to take a stand against England, how it served cultural and aesthetic purposes in John Steinbeck's writing, how Raymond Chandler used it in complex texts with less obvious Arthurian allusions that carried strong cultural and even political associations, how John Gardner used aspects of the myth to embellish already existing narrative structures and to underscore philosophic debates, and how Donald Barthelme suggests the continuing interest of American writers in the Arthurian legend today in his novels. Also discussed is the effect of World War II on American literature and the Arthurian myth and the Camelot image surrounding the Kennedys.

The American Myth of Success

The American Myth of Success PDF Author: Richard Weiss
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252060434
Category : Success
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
From the introduction: "Tradition has it that every American child receives, as part of his birthright, the freedom to mold his own life. . . . However inaccurate as a description of American society, the success myth reflects what millions believe that society is or ought to be. The degree to which opportunity has or has not been available in our society is a subject for empirical investigation. It rests within the realm of verifiable fact. The belief that opportunity exists for all is a subject for intellectual analysis and rests within the realm of ideology. This latter dimension of the success myth is the primary focus of this book."

American Fiction, American Myth

American Fiction, American Myth PDF Author: Philip Young
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271038780
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Few experts in American literature have written as insightfully and brilliantly as did Philip Young, renowned Hemingway critic and scholar at large. His unique work bursts with a joy in the humanities, with a sensibility, a humor, and a style that communicate to academics and general readers alike. Although Young died in 1991, he survives in his remarkable prose. American Fiction, American Myth features nineteen groundbreaking essays in which Young masterfully reveals the &"so what?&" that he insisted all literary studies ought to have. In the first section, he demonstrates his fascination with such American myths as Pocahontas and Rip Van Winkle, reaching powerful conclusions about America and its people. In the second section, he becomes &"Our Hemingway Man,&" explaining his germinal and still provocative theory that Hemingway's severe wounding in World War I so traumatized the novelist that his fiction was to a great degree unwitting self-psychoanalysis. Young's book on Hemingway was the first of its kind, but Young was more than a one-author critic, as his essays demonstrate in the third section, exploring such diverse topics as Hawthorne's secret love, the Lost Generation that was never lost, F. Scott Fitzgerald&’s debt to T. S. Eliot, and the relationship between American fiction and American life. What Hemingway once said about himself can be equally applied to Young: &"I am a very serious but not a solemn writer.&" The reader comes away from these essays dazzled by the power of Young's observations and the grace with which he expresses them.

The Myth of the American Superhero

The Myth of the American Superhero PDF Author: John Shelton Lawrence
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802825737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
As the nation seems to yearn for redemption from the evils that threaten its tranquility, the authors maintain that Joseph Campbell's monomythic hero is alive and well, but significantly displaced, in American popular culture.

American Myth, American Reality

American Myth, American Reality  PDF Author: James Oliver Robertson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description


Not So!

Not So! PDF Author: Paul F. Boller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195109726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This study explores a number of myths and misconceptions about the American past. The book covers events throughout American history, from whether Columbus knew the world was round when he went off to discover America, to contemporary media attacks of the presidency.