Literary Criticism in Perspective – serie

Survey of the criticism devoted to Kafka's The Castle, his final novel.Kafka's final, unfinished novel, The Castle, remains one of the most celebrated yet most impenetrable masterpieces of modernist fiction, and a focus of literary criticsm and theory. In this chronological survey of the critical attention it has attracted, both academic and non-academic, Professor Dowden emphasises the acts of critical imagination which have shaped our image and understanding of Kafka and the novel. He explores the historical and cultural milieus of criticism, from the Weimar Era of Max Brod and Walter Benjamin to Lionel Trilling's Cold War to postmodern multiculturalism and 'cultural studies', showing how and why The Castle has aroused strong opinionsin each generation of criticism; he also accounts for those moments in which the novel escapes from an historically anchored understanding into the realm of the universal.

An examination of the most significant literary criticism on Wilde at the turn of the century.In 1891, Oscar Wilde defined 'the highest criticism' as 'the record of one's own soul, and insisted that only by 'intensifying his own personality' could the critic interpret the personality and work of others. This book exploreswhat Wilde meant by that statement, arguing that it provides the best standard for judging literary criticism about Wilde a century after his death. Melissa Knox examines a range of Wilde criticism in English -- including the work of Lawrence Danson, Michael Patrick Gillespie, Ed Cohen, and Julia Prewitt Brown. Applying Wilde's standards to his critics, Knox discovers that the best of them take to heart Wilde's idea of the aim of criticism -- 'to see theobject as in itself it really is not.' By this, Wilde appreciates Walter Pater's profound observation that everyone sees through a 'thick wall of personality' and that, therefore, objectivity as conceived by Matthew Arnold does not exist. Admiring Pater, Wilde became a prophet for Freud, his exact contemporary. Their intellectual sympathies, made obvious in Knox's exegesis, help to make the case for Wilde as a modern, not a Victorian.Melissa Knox's book Oscar Wilde: A Long and Lovely Suicide was published in 1994. She teaches at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Friedrich Schiller, the dramatist and poet, greatly influenced the development of aesthetics through his essays. He sums up the eighteenth century while anticipating modern ideas; his notions of the naive and the sentimental, of art as play, and of beauty as semblance, have had a lasting impact on aesthetic speculation.Dr Sharpe's book is the first study devoted to tracing the attempts of successive generations of philosophers and literary critics to expound the works and deal with the problems they present. Surveying Anglo-American as well as German-language criticism, she illuminates the impact of critical and political change on their evaluation.

Wide-ranging survey of the critical reaction provoked by Mann's Doctor Faustus.Since its publication in 1947, Thomas Mann's daring treatment of the Faust theme has generated diverse reactions from the critics, and continues to provoke controversies. This volume traces the history of its critical reception. Topics considered include the political stance of the author and the historical dimensions of the novel; the autobiographical background of the novel - especially in the light of the subsequent publication of Mann's diaries and private notebooks; the issue of intertextuality; the way in which the novel exhibits structural features of the music on which the narrative focuses; and the function of mythic prototypes. Of particular importance is the question ofthe precise role played by Goethe's Faust in the conception and execution of Doctor Faustus, in spite of Mann's assertion that the works had `nothing in common'. Finally, the presence of strong visual elements in thenovel leads to an assessment of the critical reception accorded to Franz Seitz's film adaptation of Doctor Faustus (1982).JOHN F. FETZER is Professor of German Emeritus at the University of California, Davis.

This first book-length study of Pound criticism investigates not just what critics have had to say about Pound but also why they have asked the questions they have asked.Forty-five years after his death, and more than seventy years after his indictment for treason, Ezra Pound remains a deeply controversial figure. Today it is hard to imagine a poet sparking national debate, but Pound did just that. His receipt in 1949 of the first-ever Bollingen Award for Poetry started a hue and cry that spread to every US periodical that made even a pretense of following "cultural" issues: even Time weighed in. It took two years for things to simmer down, and when they finally did, literary study looked profoundly different. Everyone engaged in the study of poetry today, professors and students alike, works in an environment shaped by that national crisis of conscience.The present book considers this untold story, and investigates not just what critics have had to say about Pound but also why they have asked the questions they have asked. It is routine for reception histories to distinguish between professional studies and more popular responses; this book encourages us to consider why we make that distinction and what the costs of doing so might be. Unprofessional responses to Pound have often been ideologically and politically embarrassing for Pound scholars, who have in response policed the distinction between professional and popular readings with extraordinary vigilance. As a result, the history of Pound's reception unfolds as a kind of drama-perhaps the last ongoing theater for McCarthyite cultural-political anxieties.

The first thorough study in English of the reception of Döblin's novels, written by one of the foremost Döblin scholars.Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) is one of the major German writers of the twentieth century. His experimental, ever-changing, avant-garde style kept both readers and critics off guard, and although he won the acclaim of critics and hada clear impact on German writers after the Second World War (Günter Grass called him "my teacher"), he is still largely unknown to the reading public, and under-researched by literary scholars. He was a prolific writer, with thirteen novels alongside a great many other shorter fiction works and non-fiction writings to his credit, and yet, paradoxically, he is known to a larger public as the author of only one book, the 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, which sold more copies in the first weeks of publication than all his previous novels combined. Alexanderplatz is known for its depiction of the criminal underground of Berlin and a montage and stream-of-consciousness technique comparable to James Joyce's Ulysses; it became one of the best-known big-city novels of the century and has remained Döblin's one enduring popular success. Döblin was forced into exile in 1933, and the works he wrote in exile were neglected by critics for decades. Now epic works like Amazonas, November 1918, and Hamlet, Oder die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende are finding a fairer critical evaluation. Wulf Koepke tackles the paradox of Döblin the leading but neglected avant-gardist by analysis of contemporary and later criticism, both journalistic and academic, always taking into account the historical context in which it appeared. Wulf Koepke is Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University.

A study of the literary criticism of the famous and influential German play fragment Woyzeck.Although it was never completed, Georg Büchner's drama fragment Woyzeck occupies a pivotal place in the development of modern drama: its stature and influence have been recognized by representatives of naturalism, expressionism, epic theater, the theater of the absurd, and the documentary theater. It provided the libretto for one of the century's greatest operas, Alban Berg's Wozzeck, has been made into a film, and is frequently performed inmany countries. The history of the criticism of Woyzeck is fascinating not only for the diversity of critical approaches but also for the dependence of criticism and interpretation on editors' constructions of a playable text from Büchner's three drafts or complexes of scenes. The debate about an authoritative text is ongoing, and this contributes greatly to the liveliness of the continuing critical dialogue about Büchner's work. This is the first extensive survey and analysis of the criticism of Woyzeck from the nineteenth century to the present.David G. Richards is professor emeritus at SUNY Buffalo and has written extensively about German literature.

The story of the surprisingly fluctuating critical reputation of one of the great writers of the English language.Undoubtedly the best-selling author of his day and well loved by readers in succeeding generations, Charles Dickens was not always a favorite among critics. Celebrated for his novels advocating social reform, for half a century after his death he was ridiculed by those academics who condescended to write about him. Only the faithful band of devotees who called themselves Dickensians kept alive an interest in his work. Then, during the Second World War, hewas resurrected by critics, and was soon being hailed as the foremost writer of his age, a literary genius alongside Shakespeare and Milton. More recently, Dickens has again been taken to task by a new breed of literary theoristswho fault his chauvinism and imperialist attitudes. Whether he has been adored or despised, however, one thing is certain: no other Victorian novelist has generated more critical commentary. This book traces Dickens's reputation from the earliest reviews through the work of early 21st-century commentators, showing how judgments of Dickens changed with new standards for evaluating fiction. Mazzeno balances attention to prominent critics from the late 19th century through the first three quarters of the 20th with an emphasis on the past three decades, during which literary theory has opened up new ways of reading Dickens. What becomes clear is that, in attempting to provide fresh insight into Dickens's writings, critics often reveal as much about the predilections of their own age as they do about the novelist.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Examines the major divisions in criticism of this major African American writer, paying particular attention to the way each critical period defines Baldwin and his work for its own purposes.James Baldwin is a widely taught and anthologized author. His short story "Sonny's Blues" remains a perennial favorite in literature anthologies, and all of his essay collections and novels are still in print. His first essay collection, Notes of a Native Son, is a seminal work that led a new generation of African American writers from beneath the shadow of Richard Wright. The Fire Next Time is widely held as one of the most profound and accurate articulations of black consciousness during the Civil Rights movement. It is difficult to imagine teaching a survey of African American literature or considering the development of black intellectual thought in the twentiethcentury without mentioning Baldwin.For more than half a century, readers and critics alike have agreed that Baldwin is a major African American writer. What they do not agree on is why. Because of his artistic and intellectual complexity, his work resists easy categorization, and Baldwin scholarship, consequently, spans the critical horizon. Conseula Francis's book examines the major divisions in Baldwin criticism, paying particular attention to theway each critical period defines Baldwin and his work for its own purposes.Conseula Francis is Professor of English and Associate Provost for Curriculum and Institutional Resources at the College of Charleston.

A study of the controversy-filled scholarship on Poe from the time of his death to the present.Controversies abound in studies of Edgar Allan Poe. From the time of his death well into the twentieth century, partisans debated the issue of his character: was he an alcoholic? drug addict? pathological liar? necrophile? In the1920s and 30s, psychoanalytic critics sought to divorce the study of Poe from Victorian moral concerns but in the process made scandalous claims by linking Poe's dream-like stories to his personality. The status of Poe's literaryproductions was similarly disputed; dismissed by the New Critics but championed by poets such as William Carlos Williams and Allen Tate. Recent scholars have debated the meaning and significance of Poe's representations of race, class, and gender, often returning to the character issue: how racist and misogynist was he, and how important are those questions to understanding his work? Finally, how have the seemingly countless plays, films, novels, comic books, and pop music experiments based on his image and works intertwined with academic study of Poe? This book examines these and other controversies, shedding light on broader issues of canon formation, the role of biography in literary study, and the importance of integrating various, even conflicting interpretations into one's own reading of a literary work. This book will be of great interest to Poe scholars, both those who have been a part of the literary battles described above and newcomers to the field who can use the book as a guide to the field of Poe studies, and to all those interested in Poe and his work. Scott Peeples is Professor of English at the College of Charleston.

The process of Hawthorne's scholarly canonization, and the ongoing critical and cultural discourse on his works.Nathaniel Hawthorne, celebrated in his own day for sketches that now seem sentimental, came only gradually to be fully appreciated for what his friend Herman Melville diagnosed as the "power of blackness" in his fiction - the complex moral grappling with sin and guilt. By the 1850s, Hawthorne had already been accepted into the American canon, and since then, his works - especially The Scarlet Letter -- have remained ubiquitous in American culture. Along with this has come an explosion of Hawthorne criticism, from New Criticism, New Historicism, and Cultural Studies to queer theory, feminist scholarship, and transatlantic criticism, that shows no signs of slowing.This book charts Hawthorne's canonization and the ongoing critical discourse, drawing on two senses of "entanglement." First the sense from quantum physics, which allows us to see what were once seen as strict dualisms in Hawthorne as more complex relations where the poles of the would-be dualities play off of and affect each other; second, the sense of critics being tangled up in, caught up in, Hawthorne the man and his work and in previous critics' views of him. Charting the course of Hawthorne criticism as well as his place in popular culture, this book sheds light also on the culture in which his reception has occurred.Samuel Chase Coale is Professor of American Literature and Culture at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

How and why Fitzgerald's novel, initially called a failure, has come to be considered a masterwork of American literature and part of the fabric of the culture.Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is widely seen as the quintessential "great American novel," and the extensive body of criticism on the work bears out its significance in American letters. American Icon traces its reception and its canonical status in American literature, popular culture, and educational experience. It begins by outlining the novel's critical reception from its publication in 1925, to very mixed reviews, through Fitzgerald's death, when it had been virtually forgotten. Next, it examines the posthumous revival of Fitzgerald studies in the 1940s and its intensification by the New Critics in the 1950s, focusing on how and why the novel began to be considered a masterpiece of American literature. It then traces the growth of the "industry" of Gatsby criticism in the ensuing decades, stressing how critics of recent decades have opened up study of the economic, sexual, racial,and historical aspects of the text. The final section discusses the larger-than-life status Gatsby has attained in American education and popular culture, suggesting that it has not only risen from the critical ash heaps into which it was initially discarded, but also that it has become part of the fabric of American culture in a way that few other works have.Robert Beuka is Professor of English at Bronx Community College, City University of New York.

A comprehensive look at the academic criticism of Jane Austen from her time down to the present.Among the most important English novelists, Jane Austen is unusual because she is esteemed not only by academics but by the reading public. Her novels continue to sell well, and films adapted from her works enjoy strong box-officesuccess. The trajectory of Austen criticism is intriguing, especially when one compares it to that of other nineteenth-century English writers. At least partly because she was a woman in the early nineteenth century, she was longneglected by critics, hardly considered a major figure in English literature until well into the twentieth century, a hundred years after her death. Yet consequently she did not suffer from the reaction against Victorianism thatdid so much to hurt the reputation of Dickens, Tennyson, Arnold, and others. How she rose to prominence among academic critics - and has retained her position through the constant shifting of academic and critical trends - is a story worth telling, as it suggests not only something about Austen's artistry but also about how changes in critical perspective can radically alter a writer's reputation.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Comprehensive survey and analysis of the scholarship and criticism on perhaps the greatest American writer.Although some of Henry James's contemporary critics deemed him just short of a great writer, history has elevated him to indisputable preeminence in the American canon. Linda Simon chronicles and analyzes James criticism beginningwith contemporary newspaper and magazine reviews and ending with current academic criticism. The story begins in the 1870s, when critics saw James's works as mirrors of American identity and sought to establish him in the nation's evolving canon. James himself worked to secure that place with his prefaces to the standard edition of his works; Simon analyzes criticism about those prefaces. She also shows how James's reputation became contested after his death: praised by some critics for psychological insight and stylistic innovation, he was dismissed by others as socially and politically irrelevant. But beginning in the 1940s, such critics as Trilling, Rahv, Leavis, and, most influentially, Leon Edel secured James's place at the forefront of the American canon. More recently, James scholarship has focused on sexuality and gender, race and morality, and the nature of consciousness; critical trends Simon also considers. This book, the only comprehensive overview of James criticism over the past 140 years, helps readers understand the paths that that criticism has taken and how scholars and critics have built upon past work. Linda Simon is Professor Emerita of English at Skidmore College and Editor-in-Chief of William James Studies. Her books include Genuine Reality: A Life of William James, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1998.

An examination of the past half-century's critical reassessments of one of the most-studied American poets.When Klaus Lubbers's meticulously detailed Emily Dickinson: The Critical Revolution appeared in 1968, examining Dickinson criticism up to 1962, a second revolution in Dickinson criticism was already gathering force, as a new generation of scholars representing a wide spectrum of critical perspectives began reassessing the poet's life and work. In the intervening forty years, approximately 100 books about Dickinson and her oeuvre have appeared, making her one of the most extensively studied American poets in history. Approaching Emily Dickinson provides an objective examination of that vast body of scholarship. It gives detailed attention to the principal trends in Dickinson scholarship during the past half-century: biographical studies; feminist perspectives on the poet's life and work; rhetorical and stylistic analyses; textual studies of the bound and unbound fascicles and the so-called worksheet drafts; studies of Dickinson's social and cultural milieu, including influences on her spirituality, and of her theories of poetry. Fred White also examines Dickinson's artistic reception -- an area of ever-growing fascination, not only among Dickinson scholars but among artists, creative writers, dramatists, and musicians for whom Dickinson's genius has proven to be a powerful conduit for insights into the human condition. A fundamental research tool for both scholars and students, Approaching Emily Dickinson also enables fruitful comparisons both among and within the different critical and artistic perspectives.Fred D. White is Professor of English at Santa Clara University. His studies of Emily Dickinson have been published in College Literature and in the Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson.

The story of the surprisingly fluctuating critical reputation of one of the great writers of the English language.Undoubtedly the best-selling author of his day and well loved by readers in succeeding generations, Charles Dickens was not always a favorite among critics. Celebrated for his novels advocating social reform, for half a century after his death he was ridiculed by those academics who condescended to write about him. Only the faithful band of devotees who called themselves Dickensians kept alive an interest in his work. Then, during the Second World War, hewas resurrected by critics, and was soon being hailed as the foremost writer of his age, a literary genius alongside Shakespeare and Milton. More recently, Dickens has again been taken to task by a new breed of literary theoristswho fault his chauvinism and imperialist attitudes. Whether he has been adored or despised, however, one thing is certain: no other Victorian novelist has generated more critical commentary. This book traces Dickens's reputation from the earliest reviews through the work of early 21st-century commentators, showing how judgments of Dickens changed with new standards for evaluating fiction. Mazzeno balances attention to prominent critics from the late 19th century through the first three quarters of the 20th with an emphasis on the past three decades, during which literary theory has opened up new ways of reading Dickens. What becomes clear is that, in attempting to provide fresh insight into Dickens's writings, critics often reveal as much about the predilections of their own age as they do about the novelist.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.

A pathbreaking consideration of the intertwined critical responses to Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass, giants of abolitionist literature.Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass represent a crucial strand in nineteenth-century American literature: the struggle for the abolition of slavery. Yet there has been no thoroughgoing discussion of the critical receptionof these two giants of abolitionist literature. Reading Abolition narrates and explores the parallels between Stowe's critical reception and Douglass's. The book begins with Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, considering its initial celebration as a work of genius and conscience, its subsequent dismissal in the early twentieth century as anti-Southern and in the mid-twentieth century as racially stereotypical, and finally its recent recovery as a classic of women's, religious, and political fiction. It also considers the reception of Stowe's other, less well-known novels, non-fictional works, and poetry, and how engaging the full Stowe canon has changed the shape of Stowe studies. The second half of the study deals with the reception of Douglass both as a writer of three autobiographies that helped to define the contours of African American autobiography for later writers and critics and as an extraordinarily eloquent and influential orator and journalist. Reading Abolition shows that Stowe's and Douglass's critical destinies have long been intertwined, with questions about race, gender, nationalism, religion, and thenature of literary and rhetorical genius playing crucial roles in critical considerations of both figures.Brian Yothers is Frances Spatz Leighton Endowed Distinguished Professor and Associate Chair of the Department ofEnglish at the University of Texas at El Paso.

An examination of how Faulkner's work has been analyzed, elucidated, and promoted by a massive body of scholarly work spanning over seven decades.William Faulkner seems to have sprung a full-blown genius from a remote part of the American South. Yet Faulkner spent much of his life striving to emulate and overshadow - both as a writer and as a person - his great-grandfatherand namesake, Colonel William Falkner, a dueling, railroad-building, soldiering figure who loomed not just as a legend in Faulkner's family and community but also as a literary forebear, a published novelist, travel writer, and poet. Looking back on his career, Faulkner would mention that early on he had ridden his great-grandfather's coattails, but by the mid-twentieth century it was clear that it was the great-grandson who was leading the literary world:readers, young writers of fiction, and literary critics were following him as one who had found extraordinary ways to capture and express the most challenging aspects of modern life. Taylor Hagood's book centers on the concept of following to examine how Faulkner's work has been analyzed, elucidated, and promoted by a massive body of scholarly work spanning over seven decades. It narrates the development of Faulkner criticism, taking as its premisethe idea that Faulkner forges a fiery path through modernism and into postmodernism that literary critics have been constantly rushing to follow.Taylor Hagood is Associate Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University. His book Faulkner: Writer of Disability (LSU Press, 2014) won the C. Hugh Holman Award for Best Book in Southern Literary Studies in 2015.

Traces Hemingway's critical fortunes over the ninety years of his prominence, telling us something about what we value in literature and why scholarly reputations rise and fall.Hemingway burst on the literary scene in the 1920s with spare, penetrating short stories and brilliant novels. Soon he was held as a standard for modern writers. Meanwhile, he used his celebrity to create a persona like the stoic,macho heroes of his fiction. After a decline during the 1930s and 1940s, he came roaring back with The Old Man and the Sea in 1952. Two years later he received the Nobel Prize.While his popularity waxed and waned during his lifetime, Hemingway's reputation among scholars remained strong as long as traditional scholarship dominated. New approaches beginning in the 1960s brought a sea change, however, finding grave fault with his work and making him a figure ripe for vilification. Yet during this time scholarship on him continued to appear. His works still sell well, and several are staples on high-school and college syllabi. A new scholarly edition of his letters is drawing prominent attention, and there is a resurgence in scholarly attention to - and approbation for - his work. Tracing Hemingway's critical fortunes tells us something about what we value in literature and why reputations rise and fall as scholars find new ways to examine and interpret creative work.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University. Among other books, he has written volumes on Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, Updike,and Matthew Arnold for Camden House's Literary Criticism in Perspective series.

The first book to trace the critical reception of the great African American woman writer, attending not only to her fiction but to her nonfiction and critical writings.Winner of the Toni Morrison Society Book Prize for Best Single-Authored Book, 2019-2022Toni Morrison (1931-2019) is the most important American novelist since Faulkner, the most significant American woman writer since Dickinson, and the most widely read African American public intellectual of the last half century. Her influence as a writer, critic, editor, teacher, and scholar is profound: she changed the face of literature and literary criticism in the US, if not worldwide. Yet despite the ever-expanding field of Morrison scholarship, no book tracing her critical reception has existed, until now. The book is as much a cultural history of America as a reception history of an American writer.Morrison worked brilliantly in many genres - fiction, of course (novels and short stories); drama/staged performance; poetry; non-fiction on historical, social, and political issues; and critical writings on the work of others and on her own work. She generated a literary-critical methodology that recognizes and embraces rather than ignores the African American presence in US literature, and thus transformed American academics' attitude toward American letters. The story of Morrison's achievement in making a home for herself - and for other women and people of color - in the stony bedrock of "white male" American literature is the subject of this book.

A study of the journalistic and academic reception of the writings of one of the great American writers of the late twentieth century.When John Updike died in 2009, tributes from the literary establishment were immediate and fulsome. However, no one reading reviews of Updike's work in the late 1960s would have predicted that kind of praise for a man who was known then as a brilliant stylist who had nothing to say. What changed? Why? And what is likely to be his legacy? These are the questions that Becoming John Updike pursues by examining the journalistic and academic response tohis writings.Several things about Updike's career make a reception study appropriate. First, he was prolific: he began publishing fiction and essays in 1956, published his first book in 1958, and from then on, brought out atleast one new book each year. Second, his books were reviewed widely - usually in major American newspapers and magazines, and often in foreign ones as well. Third, Updike quickly became a darling of academics; the first book about his work was published in 1967, less than a decade after his own first book. More than three dozen books and hundreds of articles of academic criticism have been devoted to Updike. The present volume will appeal to the continuing interest in Updike's writing among academics and general readers alike.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University. Among other books, he has written volumes on Austen, Dickens, Tennyson,and Matthew Arnold for Camden House's Literary Criticism in Perspective series.

Examines the major divisions in criticism of this major African American writer, paying particular attention to the way each critical period defines Baldwin and his work for its own purposes.James Baldwin is a widely taught and anthologized author. His short story "Sonny's Blues" remains a perennial favorite in literature anthologies, and all of his essay collections and novels are still in print. His first essay collection, Notes of a Native Son, is a seminal work that led a new generation of African American writers from beneath the shadow of Richard Wright. The Fire Next Time is widely held as one of the most profound and accurate articulations of black consciousness during the Civil Rights movement. It is difficult to imagine teaching a survey of African American literature or considering the development of black intellectual thought in the twentiethcentury without mentioning Baldwin.For more than half a century, readers and critics alike have agreed that Baldwin is a major African American writer. What they do not agree on is why. Because of his artistic and intellectual complexity, his work resists easy categorization, and Baldwin scholarship, consequently, spans the critical horizon. Conseula Francis's book examines the major divisions in Baldwin criticism, paying particular attention to theway each critical period defines Baldwin and his work for its own purposes.Conseula Francis is Professor of English and Associate Provost for Curriculum and Institutional Resources at the College of Charleston.

A contextualizing overview of the polarized critical reception of Willa Cather, one of the pre-eminent US authors of the twentieth-century.The ever-growing body of criticism on Willa Cather and her fiction is indicative of her enduring position as a pre-eminent figure of twentieth-century American literature. It has been spurred by the challenge of situating Cather in relation to established critical approaches. Since the 1920s, Cather's work has been praised by critics for its realism, innovative form, and diversity; simultaneously, it has been derided as nostalgic, anti-modern, and narrow. Drawing on monographs, edited collections, journal articles, and society publications, Willa Cather: The Critical Conversation provides Cather scholars and students at the graduate and undergraduate levels with an accessible overview of Cather's critical reception through the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In addition to providing a valuable resource for research and teaching on Cather, the book also speaks to broader issues such as canon formation and historical trends in literary criticism that are relevant to American literature and culture as a whole. This book provides a solid understanding of the major issues in Cather criticism over time, with an eye toward how the conversation may continue for decades to come.

A comprehensive look at the academic criticism of Jane Austen from her time down to the present.Among the most important English novelists, Jane Austen is unusual because she is esteemed not only by academics but by the reading public. Her novels continue to sell well, and films adapted from her works enjoy strong box-officesuccess. The trajectory of Austen criticism is intriguing, especially when one compares it to that of other nineteenth-century English writers. At least partly because she was a woman in the early nineteenth century, she was longneglected by critics, hardly considered a major figure in English literature until well into the twentieth century, a hundred years after her death. Yet consequently she did not suffer from the reaction against Victorianism thatdid so much to hurt the reputation of Dickens, Tennyson, Arnold, and others. How she rose to prominence among academic critics - and has retained her position through the constant shifting of academic and critical trends - is a story worth telling, as it suggests not only something about Austen's artistry but also about how changes in critical perspective can radically alter a writer's reputation.Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Tracks the genesis and evolution of Twain's reputation as a writer, revealing how and why the writer has been "under fire" since the advent of his career.Threatened by a rival editor brandishing a double-barreled shotgun, young Samuel Clemens had his first taste of literary criticism. Clemens began his long writing career penning satirical articles for his brother's newspaper in Hannibal, Missouri. His humor delighted everyone except his targets, and it would not be the last time his writing provoked threats of "dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his head shot off." Clemens adopted the name Mark Twain while living in the Nevada Territory, where his caustic comedy led to angry confrontations, a challenge to a duel, and a subsequent flight. Nursing his wounded ego in California, Twain vowed to develop a reputation that would"stand fire" and in the process became the classic American writer.Mark Twain under Fire tracks the genesis and evolution of Twain's reputation as a writer: his reception as a humorist, his "return fire" on genteel critics, and the development of academic criticism. As a history of Twain criticism, the book draws on English and foreign-language scholarship. Fulton discusses the forces and ideas that have influenced criticism, revealinghow and why Mark Twain has been "under fire" from the advent of his career to the present day, when his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn remains one of America's most frequently banned books.Joe B. Fulton is Professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He has published four previous books on Mark Twain.

An accessible and highly readable guide to the story of Melville criticism as it has developed over the past century and a half.Herman Melville is among the most thoroughly canonized authors in American literature, and the body of criticism dealing with his writing is immense. Until now, however, there has been no standard volume on the history of Melville criticism. That a volume on this subject is timely and important is shown by the number of introductions and companions to Melville's work that have been published during the last few years (none of which focuses on the critical reception of Melville's works), as well as the steady stream of critical monographs and scholarly biographies that have been published on Melville since the 1920s. Melville's Mirrors provides Melville scholars and graduate and undergraduate students with an accessible guide to the story of Melville criticism as it has developed over the years. It is a valuable reference for research libraries and for the personal libraries of scholars of Melville and of nineteenth-century American literature in general, and it is also a potential textbook for major-author courses on Melville, which are offered at many universities.BRIAN YOTHERS is the Frances Spatz Leighton Endowed Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso and associate editor of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies. He is the author of Reading Abolition: The Critical Reception of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass (Camden House, 2016).

The story of the critical reception of Crane's great Civil War novel from its publication to the present, with particular attention to the effects of later wars on that reception.Stephen Crane's masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage was a sensation when it first appeared in 1895: many readers were astonished that this upstart, born after the Civil War, had written the single best novel on the subject. It remains one of the best books on the experience of war in American literature. Since its publication, The Red Badge has been repeatedly subjected to new scrutiny - not only by the passing of time and the changing of critical trends, but by every new war - to see if Crane's story still holds its power. So far, it has done so, not just in the eyes of literary critics but also among soldiers. The two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: all these have shaped the book's critical reception; and veterans, many of whom have commended Crane's insight into the experience of battle, have significantly affected how it has been read and understood. After World War I, Red Badge was closely associated with modernist novels written by those with wartime experience, Ernest Hemingway most importantly. After World War II and Korea, the book resonated with the manyveterans the G.I. Bill brought into the classroom to study American literature, some of whom became critics themselves. And during and after Vietnam and the other controversial wars that have followed, Crane's book has continuedto call forth a steady stream of critical response. Kevin J. Hayes's book is the story of the critical reception of The Red Badge both in and out of war.

Traces Hemingway's critical fortunes over the ninety years of his prominence, telling us something about what we value in literature and why scholarly reputations rise and fall.Hemingway burst on the literary scene in the 1920s with spare, penetrating short stories and brilliant novels. Soon he was held as a standard for modern writers. Meanwhile, he used his celebrity to create a persona like the stoic,macho heroes of his fiction. After a decline during the 1930s and 1940s, he came roaring back with The Old Man and the Sea in 1952. Two years later he received the Nobel Prize.While his popularity waxed and waned during his lifetime, Hemingway's reputation among scholars remained strong as long as traditional scholarship dominated. New approaches beginning in the 1960s brought a sea change, however, finding grave fault with his work and making him a figure ripe for vilification. Yet during this time scholarship on him continued to appear. His works still sell well, and several are staples on high-school and college syllabi. A new scholarly edition of his letters is drawing prominent attention, and there is a resurgence in scholarly attention to - and approbation for - his work. Tracing Hemingway's critical fortunes tells us something about what we value in literature and why reputations rise and fall as scholars find new ways to examine and interpret creative work.

Examines both academic and popular assessments of Conan Doyle's work, giving pride of place to the Holmes stories and their adaptations, and also attending to the wide range of his published work.Twenty-first-century readers, television viewers, and moviegoers know Arthur Conan Doyle as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the world's most recognizable fictional detective. Holmes's enduring popularity has kept Conan Doyle in the public eye. However, Holmes has taken on a life of his own, generating a steady stream of critical commentary, while Conan Doyle's other works are slighted or ignored. Yet the Holmes stories make up only a small portion of Conan Doyle's published work, which includes mainstream and historical fiction; history; drama; medical, spiritualist, and political tracts; and even essays on photography. When Doyle published - whatever the subject - his contemporaries took note. Yet, outside of the fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes, until recently relatively little has been done to analyze the reception Conan Doyle's work received during his lifetime and since his death.This book examines both academic and popular assessments of Conan Doyle's work, giving pride of place to the Holmes stories and their many adaptations for print, visual, and online media, but attending to his other contributions to turn-of-the-twentieth-century culture as well. The availability of periodicals and newspapers online makes it possible to develop an assessment of Conan Doyle's (and Sherlock Holmes's) reputation among a wider readership and viewership, thus allowing for development of a broader and more accurate portrait of Doyle's place in literary and cultural history.