David E. Chinitz - Böcker

Which Sin To Bear? mines Langston Hughes's creative work, newspaper columns, letters, and unpublished papers to reveal a writer who faced a daunting array of dicey questions and intimidating obstacles, and whose triumphs and occasional missteps are a fascinating and telling part of his legacy. David E. Chinitz explores Hughes's efforts to negotiate the problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African American professional writer and intellectual, tracing his early efforts to fashion himself as an "authentic" black poet of the Harlem Renaissance and his later imagining of a new and more inclusive understanding of authentic blackness. He also examines Hughes's lasting yet self-critical commitment to progressive politics in the mid-century years and shows how, in spite of ambivalence-and, at times, anguish-Hughes was forced to engage in ethical compromises to achieve his personal and social goals.

This book explores Langston Hughes's efforts to mediate problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African-American professional writer and intellectual. Determined on a literary career at a time when no African American had yet been able to live off his or her writing; constrained by poverty, racism, and lack of opportunity; and pressed by the hopes, expectations, and demands of readers and critics of all stripes, Hughes had to rely on his dexterity as a mediator among competing positions in order to preserve his art, his integrity, and his unique status as the literary voice of ordinary African Americans. Issues treated include Hughes's interventions in the shifting definition of "authentic blackness," his work toward a socially effectual discourse of racial protest, his involvement with liberal politics, his ambivalence toward moral compromise even as he engaged in it, and the imprint of all these matters in texts ranging from his poetry and fiction to his essays and newspaper columns. The conflicting facts, varied experiences, divided impulses, and thorny compromises of his own life led Hughes to develop artistically an inclusive vision of the black community that anticipates by several decades what many cultural critics have come to advocate. The book is also the first to analyze Hughes's executive-session testimony before Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was treated as classified information for fifty years before finally being released to the public in 2003.

For decades T. S. Eliot has been applauded and denounced as a staunch champion of high art and an implacable opponent of popular culture. But Eliot's elitism was never what it seemed. "T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide" represents this great writer as the complex figure he was, an artist attentive not only to literature but also to detective fiction, Vaudeville Theater, jazz, and the songs of Tin Pan Alley. David Chinitz argues that Eliot was productively engaged with popular culture in some form at every stage of his career, and that his response to it, as expressed in his poetry, plays, and essays, was dynamic rather than hostile. He shows that American jazz, for example, was a major influence on Eliot's poetry during its maturation. He discusses Eliot's surprisingly persistent interest in popular culture, both in such famous works as "The Waste Land" and in such lesser-known pieces as "Sweeney Agonistes". And he traces Eliot's long, quixotic struggle to close the widening gap between high art and popular culture through a new type of public art: contemporary popular verse drama.What results is a work that will persuade adherents and detractors alike to return to Eliot and find in him a writer who liked a good show, a good thriller, and a good tune, as well as a "great" poem.

For decades T. S. Eliot has been applauded and denounced as a staunch champion of high art and an implacable opponent of popular culture. But Eliot's elitism was never what it seemed. "T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide" represents this great writer as the complex figure he was, an artist attentive not only to literature but also to detective fiction, Vaudeville Theater, jazz, and the songs of Tin Pan Alley. David Chinitz argues that Eliot was productively engaged with popular culture in some form at every stage of his career, and that his response to it, as expressed in his poetry, plays, and essays, was dynamic rather than hostile. He shows that American jazz, for example, was a major influence on Eliot's poetry during its maturation. He discusses Eliot's surprisingly persistent interest in popular culture, both in such famous works as "The Waste Land" and in such lesser-known pieces as "Sweeney Agonistes". And he traces Eliot's long, quixotic struggle to close the widening gap between high art and popular culture through a new type of public art: contemporary popular verse drama.What results is a work that will persuade adherents and detractors alike to return to Eliot and find in him a writer who liked a good show, a good thriller, and a good tune, as well as a "great" poem.

A COMPANION TO MODERNIST POETRY A Companion to Modernist Poetry A Companion to Modernist Poetry presents contemporary approaches to modernist poetry in a uniquely in-depth and accessible text. The first section of the volume reflects the attention to historical and cultural context that has been especially fruitful in recent scholarship. The second section focuses on various movements and groupings of poets, placing writers in literary history and indicating the currents and countercurrents whose interaction generated the category of modernism as it is now broadly conceived. The third section traces the arcs of twenty-one poets’ careers, illustrated by analyses of key works. The Companion thus offers breadth in its presentation of historical and literary contexts and depth in its attention to individual poets; it brings recent scholarship to bear on the subject of modernist poetry while also providing guidance on poets who are historically important and who are likely to appear on syllabi and to attract critical interest for many years to come. Edited by two highly respected and notable critics in the field, A Companion to Modernist Poetry boasts a varied list of contributors who have produced an intense, focused study of modernist poetry.

Reflecting the surge of critical interest in Eliot renewed in recent years, A Companion to T.S. Eliot introduces the 'new' Eliot to readers and educators by examining the full body of his works and career. Leading scholars in the field provide a fresh and fully comprehensive collection of contextual and critical essays on his life and achievement. It compiles the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment available of Eliot's work and careerIt explores the powerful forces that shaped Eliot as a writer and thinker, analyzing his body of work and assessing his oeuvre in a variety of contexts: historical, cultural, social, and philosophicalIt charts the surge in critical interest in T.S. Eliot since the early 1990sIt provides an illuminating insight into a poet, writer, and critic who continues to define the literary landscape of the last century

Over a dozen new volumes of T. S. Eliot’s poetry, prose, and letters have been published in the past decade. This collection presents unabashedly fresh approaches to Eliot, while simultaneously guiding readers through the new materials that are available for the first time outside of restricted archives. Eliot, the figurehead of literary modernism, continues to be someone whom critics love to hate (Misogynist! Reactionary! Anti-Semite!) and readers love to devour (Profound! Revolutionary! Resonant!). Why does one artist elicit such different responses?Eliot Now collects new and established voices in Eliot studies, integrating contemporary critical approaches with careful attention to the newly published materials. Whether grappling with the controversial new two-volume Poems, narrating the experience of opening Eliot’s letters in the Emily Hale papers (until 2020 the “most famous sealed archive in the world”), or rereading his works through ecocritical or trans studies lenses, Eliot Now shows how this most effusively celebrated and heatedly criticized 20th-century writer continues to change the way we read literature in the 21st century. The collection concludes with six award-winning contemporary poets considering the influence of TheWaste Land on poetry today.

Over a dozen new volumes of T. S. Eliot’s poetry, prose, and letters have been published in the past decade. This collection presents unabashedly fresh approaches to Eliot, while simultaneously guiding readers through the new materials that are available for the first time outside of restricted archives. Eliot, the figurehead of literary modernism, continues to be someone whom critics love to hate (Misogynist! Reactionary! Anti-Semite!) and readers love to devour (Profound! Revolutionary! Resonant!). Why does one artist elicit such different responses?Eliot Now collects new and established voices in Eliot studies, integrating contemporary critical approaches with careful attention to the newly published materials. Whether grappling with the controversial new two-volume Poems, narrating the experience of opening Eliot’s letters in the Emily Hale papers (until 2020 the “most famous sealed archive in the world”), or rereading his works through ecocritical or trans studies lenses, Eliot Now shows how this most effusively celebrated and heatedly criticized 20th-century writer continues to change the way we read literature in the 21st century. The collection concludes with six award-winning contemporary poets considering the influence of TheWaste Land on poetry today.