Books
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature
The Encyclopedia of American Literature gathers together 350 essays from over 190 leading scholars on the whole of American literature, from European discovery to the present. At the core of the Encyclopedia lie 250 essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. Figures such as Whitman, Melville, Faulkner, Frost, and Morrison are discussed in detail with each examined in the context of his or her times, an assessment of the writer's current reputation, a bibliography of major works, and a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer. Fifty entries on major works such as Moby Dick, Song of Myself, Walden, The Great Gatsby, The Waste Land, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Death of a Salesman, and Beloved place the work in its historical context and offer a range of possibilities with regard to critical approach. The Encyclopedia also contains essays on literary movements, periods, and themes, pulling together a broad range of information and making connections between them.
Call Number: PS21 .E537 2004 Reference (4 volumes)ISBN: 0195156536Publication Date: 2004
American Fiction, American Myth by
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.
Call Number: PS121 .Y64 2000ISBN: 0271020369Publication Date: 2000
The Harlem Renaissance by
This fascinating historical overview of a significant but sometimes overlooked era will serve as a valuable reference for librarians, teachers, and students in grades 7 through 12. While not standardized in the social studies curriculum, this era is one of the more commonly studied periods in multicultural units, and until now little material has been available about it. This information-packed book covers the years 1917-1933 and is organized by theme (e.g., historical and biographical references, notable contributors, literature and writing). Each section includes an overview of the topic, brief biographical sketches, and an annotated list of pertinent nonfiction references. Intended as a supplement to social studies textbooks and instruction, this work gives educators and students the information they need about this major cultural movement and the achievements of African Americans during an important era
Call Number: EbookISBN: 0585172617Publication Date: 1998
Native American Literatures: An encyclopedia of works, characters, authors, and themes by
An encyclopedia of Native American literatures featuring articles on individual authors, on individual works, on important characters in works, and on terms and events of historical significance that figure in many of the works.
Call Number: PS 153.I52 W47 1999 ReferenceISBN: 0874369320Publication Date: 1999
Books Speaking to Books by
Stafford introduces the rich interpretive possibilities in a contextual analysis of literature. He finds inMoby Dick,The Wings of the Dove, andAbsalom, Absalom! three symbolic Americas linked through images of whiteness that are collectively prophetic. Three novels of the 1920s (by Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald) are linked by themes of innocence; three of the 1970s (by Bellows, Malamud, and Updike), by black-white pairs. His flexible method also examines film. Originally published in 1981. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Call Number: PS371 .S68ISBN: 0807814695Publication Date: 1981
Ebooks
Encyclopedia of American Literature
4 volumes
Susan Clair Imbarrato, Carol Berkin, Brett Barney, Lisa Paddock, Matthew J. Bruccoli, George Parker Anderson, Judith S. Baughman, Carl Rollyson, and Marshall BoswellAdvisory Board:Emory Elliott, University of California, Irvine; Wendy Martin, Harvey Mudd Graduate College; Sandra Adell, University of Wisconsin; Matthew J. Bruccoli, University of South Carolina; Richard Layman, Bruccoli Clark Layman Publishers and Manly, Inc.; and Park Bucker, University of South Carolina-SumterPraise for the print edition:Booklist/RBB Editors' Choice Reference Source...an excellent source for students...and its chronological arrangement offers a different slant. Recommended...--BooklistThe articles are well-written and provide readers with a clear understanding of the topic.--School Library JournalThe writing is clear and direct...useful...--ChoiceAn Extensive Reference That Spans the Entire Scope of American LiteratureEncyclopedia of American Literature, Third Edition is an extensive reference work that spans the entire scope of American literature, from the colonial period to the present. This updated and comprehensive encyclopedia includes entries on writers, works, literary movements, and a variety of other topics.Regionally and culturally inclusive, entries on writers describe key life events, provide thumbnail descriptions of and critical reactions to their works, and discuss the writer's significance in the literary period. Volume I: Settlement to the New Republic, 1607-1815Explores America's literary beginnings and the connections between early American history and the nation's emerging literary tradition--covering the Puritans and their Bay Psalm Book, the Federalists and the United States Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, and more.Volume II: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816-1895Discusses the writers, works, genres, literary movements, and related historical events of 19th-century America, from the romanticism of Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to the realism of Mark Twain, Henry James, and William Dean Howells.Volume III: Into the Modern, 1896-1945Defines the evolution of a new American sensibility and brings the modern literary world alive, with entries on Frank Norris; Stephen Crane; Booker T. Washington; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Zora Neale Hurston; The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains; Absalom, Absalom!; and The Waste Land.Volume IV: The Contemporary World, 1946 to the PresentExamines the emergence of new writers and voices and describes the evolving movements that encompass today's literary history--covering Deconstruction, the Beats, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, gay and lesbian literature, New Journalism, science fiction and fantasy, and more.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781438140773Publication Date: 2013
The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature represents a collaborative effort, involving 300 contributors from across the United States and Canada. Composed of more than 1,100 signed biographical-critical entries, this Encyclopedia serves as both guide and companion to the study and appreciation of American literature. There are 70 topical essays in this volume, among them: African American Literature, Children's Literature, Expatriates, Feminism, Film And Literature, History And Literature, Humor, Jewish American Literature, Latino/A Literature, Literary Criticism (before and since 1914), Modernism, Politics And Literature, Religion and Literature, Science Fiction, The Short Story, The South, The Supernatural, Utopia, And Young Adult Literature.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780826415172Publication Date: 2003
A to Z of Women: American Women Writers by
Profiles more than 190 women, among them poets, essayists, journalists, editors, novelists, memoirists, and numerous other types of writers. This engaging resource examines the stories of women from a wide array of cultures and generations who share a love of writing. Profiles include:
Judy Blume, author of young adult and children's books
Erma Bombeck, humorist whose column At Wit's End explored domestic life
Amy Clampitt, poet and MacArthur Fellowship recipient
Patricia Cornwell, mystery writer who draws on her experience as a medical examiner for inspiration
Barbara Ehrenreich, whose work explores social and economic issues in the U.S.
Katherine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post
Jhumpa Lahiri, whose debut book of short stories won the Pulitzer Prize
Nella Larson, novelist and winner of a Guggenheim fellowshipBobbie Ann Mason, author and literary critic
Annie Proulx, who describes isolated locales in such places as Canada, New England, and Wyoming
Sonia Sanchez, poet and playwright whose work promotes social and racial justice
Esmeralda Santiago, memoirist who writes of her childhood in Puerto Rico and New York City
Elizabeth Strout, novelist, short story writer, and Pulitzer Prize winner.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781438150086Publication Date: 2016
Notable American Novelists by
This volume features articles on over 100 American writers and novelists who are the most widely read in American Schools and colleges. The essays are subdivided into sections that summarize the author's achievements, present a biographical sketch and analyze the individual's work.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 0893561614Publication Date: 2000
Black Literature Criticism: Classic and emerging black authors since 1950
3 volumes
Focuses on writers and works published since 1950. The majority of the authors surveyed are African American, but representative African and Caribbean authors are also included.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781414431741Publication Date: 2008
Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
Encyclopedia of African-American Literature, Second Edition covers the entire spectrum of the African-American literary tradition, from the 18th-century writings of pioneers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley, to 20th-century canonic texts, to the finest of today's best-selling authors and rap artists.
Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2013
A Companion to the American Novel by
Featuring 37 essays by distinguished literary scholars, A Companion to the American Novel provides a comprehensive single-volume treatment of the development of the novel in the United States from the late 18th century to the present day. Represents the most comprehensive single-volume introduction to this popular literary form currently available Features 37 contributions from a wide range of distinguished literary scholars Includes essays on topics and genres, historical overviews, and key individual works, including The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Beloved, and many more.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781405101196Publication Date: 2012
Modern Minority by
Since the late nineteenth century, the concept of everyday life has been the subject of increasing scrutiny. The familiar events, routine actions, and ordinary objects that comprise modernity's daily life have been studied by Georg Simmel, Sigmund Freud, Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, and others. Informed by this theoretical tradition, Modern Minority argues that Asian American literary realism is defined by a focus on the everyday, which allows Asian Americans to comprehend their minority status and negotiate their historically vexed place in modern American culture. Yoon Sun Lee's study offers new ways to think about an expansive range of literature. Issues of scale, size, and frequency emerge as the key to reading for the everyday. Questions of animation and of surface also become crucial to thinking about everyday forms. In its first section, novels by Younghill Kang and Carlos Bulosan precede letters and diaries depicting the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Despite their differences, these texts rely on repetition and focus on ordinary objects to overcome as well as to express feelings of meaningless and stagnation wrought by industrialization, racism, and war. Modern Minority's subsequent section features memoirs by Jade Snow Wong and Maxine Hong Kingston, along with fiction by Joy Kogawa, Nora Okja Keller, Ha Jin, Lan Samantha Chang, and others. These works expose the everyday's shifting role in relation to concepts such as ethnic history, self-knowledge, and thingness. The final section traces the everyday as it underpins notions of political modernity and at times undermines a sense of Asian American identity in writing by Chang-rae Lee, Frank Chin, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Marked by attentive close readings and creative juxtapositions, Modern Minority situates Asian American writing not only in relation to ethnicity or nationhood, but within the context of a modern sense of time.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780199915835Publication Date: 2013
Literary Movements
American Naturalistic and Realistic Novelists by
Realistic writers seek to render accurate representations of the world, and their novels contain authentic details and descriptions of their characters and settings. Like Realistic authors, Naturalistic ones similarly try to portray the world accurately, but they tend to depict the darker side of life. Realism was born in Europe in the nineteenth century and soon became popular in the United States, while Naturalism became prominent at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both traditions have continued in one form or another to the present day, and Realistic and Naturalistic novelists include some of America's most significant authors, such as Sherwood Anderson, Saul Bellow, Ambrose Bierce, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Ralph Ellison, and Jack London. This reference includes biographical and critical entries for more than 120 American Naturalistic and Realistic novelists. An introductory essay discusses the history of the Realistic and Naturalistic traditions, points to the difficulty of defining them, and surveys the many authors who have been associated with the two movements. The entries that follow are arranged alphabetically to facilitate use. Each includes basic biographical information and a narrative overview of the writer's educational background, professional career, and published works. The writer's works are briefly discussed in relation to the Realistic and Naturalistic traditions. Entries include primary and secondary bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 0313315728Publication Date: 2002
Documents of American Realism by
Donald Pizer presents the major critical discussions of American realism and naturalism from the beginnings of the movement in the 1870s to the present. He includes the most often cited discussions ranging from William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Frank Norris in the late nineteenth century to those by V. L. Parrington, Malcolm Cowley, and Lionel Trilling in the early twentieth century. To provide the full context for the effort to interpret the nature and significance of realism and naturalism during the periods when the movements were live issues on the critical scene, however, he also includes many uncollected essays. His selections since World War II reflect the major recent tendencies in academic criticism of the movements. Through introductions to each of the three sections, Pizer provides background, delineating the underlying issues motivating attempts to attack, defend, or describe American realism and naturalism. In particular, Pizer attempts to reveal the close ties between criticism of the two movements and significant cultural concerns of the period in which the criticism appeared. Before each selection, Pizer provides a brief biographical note and establishes the cultural milieu in which the essay was originally published. He closes his anthology with a bibliography of twentieth-century academic criticism of American realism and naturalism.
Call Number: PS374.N29 D63 1998ISBN: 0809320967Publication Date: 1998
The Cambridge Introduction to American Literary Realism by
Between the Civil War and the First World War, realism was the most prominent form of American fiction. Realist writers of the period include some of America's greatest, such as Henry James, Edith Wharton and Mark Twain, but also many lesser-known writers whose work still speaks to us today, for instance Charles Chesnutt, Zitkala-Sa and Sarah Orne Jewett. Emphasizing realism's historical context, this introduction traces the genre's relationship with powerful, often violent, social conflicts involving race, gender, class and national origin. It also examines how the realist style was created; the necessarily ambiguous relationship between realism produced on the page and reality outside the book; and the different, often contradictory, forms 'realism' took in literary works by different authors. The most accessible yet sophisticated account of American literary realism currently available, this volume will be of great value to students, teachers and readers of the American novel.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780521897693Publication Date: 2011
American Realism by
A variety of critical articles that analyze important literary works within [the] genre or historical era. The articles... are edited to improve clarity and accessibility for young adult readers, and each is introduced by a helpful summarization of the author's main arguments
Call Number: PS169.R43 A55 2000ISBN: 0737703245Publication Date: 2000
The Vast and Terrible Drama by
A broad treatment of the cultural, social, political, and literary under-pinnings of an entire period and movement in American letters. The Vast and Terrible Drama is a critical study of the context in which authors such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London created their most significant work. In 1896 Frank Norris wrote: "Terrible things must happen to the characters of the naturalistic tale. They must be twisted from the ordinary . . . and flung into the throes of a vast and terrible drama." There could be "no teacup tragedies here." This volume broadens our understanding of literary naturalism as a response to these and other aesthetic concerns of the 19th century. Themes addressed include the traditionally close connection between French naturalism and American literary naturalism; relationships between the movement and the romance tradition in American literature, as well as with utopian fictions of the 19th century; narrative strategies employed by the key writers; the dominant naturalist theme of determinism; and textual readings that provide broad examples of the role of the reader. By examining these and other aspects of American literary naturalism, Link counters a century of criticism that has perhaps viewed literary naturalism too narrowly, as a subset of realism, bound by the conventions of realistic narration.
Call Number: PS217.N42 L56 2004ISBN: 0817313850Publication Date: 2004
Naturalism in American Fiction by
In this closely reasoned study, John J. Conder has created a new and more vital understanding of naturalism in American literature. Moving from the Hobbesian dilemma between causation and free will down through Bergson's concept of dual selves, Conder defines a view of determinism so rich in possibilities that it can serve as the inspiration of literary works of astonishing variety and unite them in a single, though developing, naturalistic tradition in American letters. At the heart of this book, beyond its philosophic discussion, is Conder's reading of key works in the naturalistic canon, beginning with Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" and "The Blue Hotel." The special character of determinism in Crane is, Conder holds, the source of his complexity and striking originality. He finds a stricter determinism in Norris's McTeague. In Dreiser, however, the naturalistic tradition develops toward a fusion of determinism and freedom in a single work, and this fusion in a different guise operates in Dos Passos's view of self in Manhattan Transfer. With Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath the uniting of determinism and freedom finds its fullest realization in the concept of dual selves, one determined, one free. In Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! the concept of the dual self appears in its most complex form. The developments in the work of Steinbeck and Faulkner, Conder believes, bring the classic phase of American literary naturalism to a close. Naturalism in American Fiction illuminates a group of major literary works and revives a theoretic consideration of naturalism. It thus makes a fundamental contribution to American studies.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780813151762Publication Date: 1984Twentieth-Century American Literary Naturalism by Scorned by critics since birth, decreed dead by many, naturalism, according to Donald Pizer, is "one of the most persistent and vital strains in American fiction, perhaps the only modern literary form in America that has been both popular and significant." To define naturalism and explain its tenacious hold throughout the twentieth century on the American creative imagination, Pizer explores six novels: James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan, John Dos Passos's U.S.A., John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness, and Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March. Pizer's approach to these novels is empirical; he does not wrench each novel awkwardly until it fits his framework of generalizations and principles; rather, he approaches the novels as fiction and arrives at his definition through his close reading of the works. Establishing the background of naturalism, Pizer explains that it comes under attack because it is "sordid and sensational in subject matter," it challenges "man's faith in his innate moral sense and thus his responsibility for his actions," and it is so full of "social documentation" that it is often dismissed as little more than a photographic record of a life or an era; thus the "aesthetic validity of the naturalistic novel has often been questioned." Pizer posits the 1890s, the 1930s,and the late 1940s as the decades when naturalism flourished in America. He concentrates on literary criticism, not on the philosophy ofnaturalism, to show that literary criticism can make a contribution to a particularly muddled area of literary history--a naturalism that is alive and changing, thus resisting the neat definitions reserved for the dead.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 0809310279Publication Date: 1982
Literary Criticism Compilations
Full text access to the complete holdings of these Gale criticism collections is available through the opens new windowGale Literary Sources database, accessible through the Tulsa City County Library. All ORU students opens new windowmay apply for a TCCL card which entitles access to this and other databases through the opens new windowTCCL web site.