Studies in Classic American Literature

by D. H. Lawrence, Jon Thompson (Introduction)

Overview

Lawrence asserted that 'the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it'. In these highly individual, penetrating essays he has exposed 'the American whole soul' within some of that continent's major works of literature. In seeking to establish the status of writings by such authors as Poe, Melville, Fenimore Cooper and Whitman, Lawrence himself has created a classic work.

Studies in Classic American Literature is valuable not only for the light it sheds on eighteenth- and nineteenth-cetntury American consciousness, telling 'the truth of the day', but also as a prime example of Lawrence's learning, passion and integrity of judgement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848611580
Publisher:	Shearsman Books
Publication date:	05/15/2011
Series:	Shearsman Classics
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.45(d)

About the Author

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), English novelist, storywriter, critic, poet and painter, one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature. Among his works, Sons and Lovers appeared in 1913, The Rainbow in 1915, Women In Love in 1920, and many others.

Date of Birth:

September 11, 1885

Date of Death:

March 2, 1930

Place of Birth:

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England

Place of Death:

Vence, France

Education:

Nottingham University College, teacher training certificate, 1908

Table of Contents

1. The Spirit of Place
2. Benjamin Franklin
3. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
4. Fenimore Cooper's White Novels
5. Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Novels
6. Edgar Allan Poe
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter
8. Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance
9. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast
10. Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo
11. Herman Melville's Moby Dick
12. Whitman

Editorial Reviews

Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . With its one-sentence paragraphs (“Flop goes spiritual love.”), jabbing exclamations (“Freedom!”), semi-rhetorical questions (“But what of Walt Whitman?”) and heavy use of italics and all-caps, the book can read like a scroll of social-media rants. Its manner is neither respectable nor respectful. . . . Lawrence’s bristling, inflamed, impertinent language provides a reminder that criticism is not just the work of the brain, but of the gut and the spleen as well. The intellectual refinement of his argument—fine-grained evaluations of style and form that still startle with their incisiveness; breathtaking conceptual leaps from history to myth and back again—is unthinkable without the churn of instinct and feeling beneath it. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times

From the Publisher