Bernard Koloski – författare

In the decade prior to her landmark novel, "The Awakening", Kate Chopin wrote about 90 short stories, a selection of which appeared in "Bayou Folk", and "A Night in Acadie", both reproduced in this text.

One of the most often repeated anecdotes about the direction of literary studies over the past three decades concerns a graduate student who complained of reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening in three classes and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick in none. But Chopin has not always been featured in the literary curriculum. Though she achieved national success in her lifetime (1850-1904) as a writer of Louisiana ""local color"" fiction, after her death her work fell into obscurity until 1969, when Norwegian literary scholar Per Seyersted published The Complete Works of Kate Chopin and sparked a remarkable American literary revival. Chopin soon became a major presence in the canon, and today every college textbook surveying American literature contains a Chopin short story, her novel The Awakening, or an excerpt from it.In this unique work, twelve prominent Chopin scholars reflect on their parts in the Kate Chopin revival and its impact on their careers. A generation ago, against powerful odds, many of them staked their reputations on the belief - now fully validated - that Chopin is one of America's essential writers. These scholars energetically sponsored Chopin's works in the 1970s and 1980s and encouraged reading, studying, and teaching Chopin. They wrote books and articles about her, gave talks about her, offered interviews to newspapers and magazines, taught her works in their classes, and urged their colleagues to do the same, helping to build a network of teachers, students, editors, journalists, librarians, and others who continue to promote Chopin's work. Throughout, these essays stress several elements vital to the revival's success. Timing proved critical, as the rise of the women's movement and the emergence of new sexual norms in the 1960s helped set an ideal context for Chopin in the United States and abroad in the 1970s and 1980s. Seyersted's biography of Chopin and his accurate texts of her entire oeuvre allowed scholars to quickly publish their analyses of her work. Popular media - including Redbook, New York Times, and PBS - took notice of Chopin and advanced her work outside the scholarly realm. But in the final analysis, as the contributors point out, Kate Chopin's irresistible writing itself made her revival possible.Highly personal, at times amusing, and always thought provoking, these revealing recollections and new critical insights offer a fascinating firsthand account of a decisive moment in American literary history.

In one volume, the two short-story collections that established Kate Chopin as one of America''s best-loved realist writers.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Historian's Awakening is a full commentary on the text (included) that provides social and cultural history context, discussions of the author and her times as well as valuable insight into historical forces that shaped people's lives.Kate Chopin's classic novel about a modern woman who desires to break free from tradition endures, in part, due to its critical and thought-provoking themes about society. While many editions of Kate Chopin's classic novel are in print, only The Historian's Awakening deals exclusively with the 19th-century social and cultural environment from which the novel emerged. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin portrays a modern woman who seeks autonomy, subjected to intense social and cultural conventions that first draw her out of her lifelong solitude but ultimately leave her feeling even more alone. This newly annotated edition focuses on how 19th-century ideas about class, gender, ethnicity, and modernity affect a courageous woman's life. Challenging prevailing scholarship by situating the novel within a rich historical context, it examines the social and cultural realities of the 1890s and explains how, in the novel, these forces combine with an emerging modernity to liberate and unsettle its female protagonist.

The Historian's Awakening is a full commentary on the text (included) that provides social and cultural history context, discussions of the author and her times as well as valuable insight into historical forces that shaped people's lives.Kate Chopin's classic novel about a modern woman who desires to break free from tradition endures, in part, due to its critical and thought-provoking themes about society. While many editions of Kate Chopin's classic novel are in print, only The Historian's Awakening deals exclusively with the 19th-century social and cultural environment from which the novel emerged. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin portrays a modern woman who seeks autonomy, subjected to intense social and cultural conventions that first draw her out of her lifelong solitude but ultimately leave her feeling even more alone. This newly annotated edition focuses on how 19th-century ideas about class, gender, ethnicity, and modernity affect a courageous woman's life. Challenging prevailing scholarship by situating the novel within a rich historical context, it examines the social and cultural realities of the 1890s and explains how, in the novel, these forces combine with an emerging modernity to liberate and unsettle its female protagonist.