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The Nineteenth Century Wasteland: the Void in the Works of Byron, Baudelaire, and Melville
The Woman's College of The University of North Carolina LIBRARY COLLEGE COLLECTION cq no. 636 Gift of MARY GATES BRITTAIN BRITTAIN, MARY GATES. The Nineteenth Century Wasteland: The Void In The Works Of Byron, Baudelaire, And Melville. (1969) Directed by: Dr. Arthur W. Dixon. pp. I**1* The theme of the twentieth century "wasteland" began with T. S. Eliot's influential poem, and has reached its present culmination point in the literature of the Absurd. In a wasteland or an Absurd world, man is out of harmony with his universe, with his fellow man, and even with himself. There is Nothingness in the center of the universe, and Noth- ingness in the heart or center of man as well. "God Is Dead" in the wasteland and consequently it is an Iconoclastic world without religion, and without love; a world of aesthetic and spiritual aridity and ster- ility. Most writers, critics, and students of literature are familiar with the concept of the wasteland, but many do not realize that this is not a twentieth century thematic phenomenon. The contemporary wasteland has its parallel in the early and middle nineteenth century with the Romantics; with such writers as Byron, Baudelaire, and Melville. The disillusionment of western man at the end of World War I was similar in many respects to that experienced by the Romantics at the end of the French Revolution. Furthermore, the break-up of the old order, and the disappearance of iod from the cosmos in the closing years of the eighteenth century, along with the shattering of many illusions by the discoveries of science, the loss of both religious and secular values, and the break-down in the political order in the early nineteenth century, left man alienated, isolated, homeless, and friend- less. -
THE Iffilville REVIVAL a Study of Twentieth Century Criticism
THE iffiLVILLE REVIVAL A Study of Twentieth Century Criticism Through its Treatment of Herman Melville DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By BERNARD MICHAEL WOLPERT, B.S. in Ed., M.A. The Ohio State University 1951 Approved by; Adviser CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Backgrounds of Twentieth Century Criticism .......... 1 II. British Origins of the Melville R e v i v a l ............ 22 III. Melville and the Methods of Literary History......... 41 IV. Melville and Sociological Criticism.......... 69 V. Melville and Psychological Criticism.......... 114- VI, Melville and Philosophical Criticism ............. 160 VII. Melville and the New Criticism . ................ IS? VIII. Melville and the Development of Pluralistic Criticism 24-0 CHAPTER I Backgrounds of Twentieth Century Criticism At the time of Melville's death in I89I, the condition of literary criticism in America was amorphous. So dominant had become the demands of a journalism that catered to a flourishing middle-class public de termined to achieve an easy method to "culture," that the literary critic of this period, the eighties and nineties, devised an artificial tradition by which he could protect himself against the democratic so ciety with which he was acutely dissatisfied. This tradition was, therefore, conservative in nature. Its values, based on customary taste and training, were selected primarily as a refuge against both the con temporary American society -
THE EMERGENCE of BUDDHIST AMERICAN LITERATURE SUNY Series in Buddhism and American Culture
THE EMERGENCE OF BUDDHIST AMERICAN LITERATURE SUNY series in Buddhism and American Culture John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff, editors The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature EDITED BY JOHN WHALEN-BRIDGE GARY STORHOFF Foreword by Maxine Hong Kingston and Afterword by Charles Johnson Cover art image of stack of books © Monika3stepsahead/Dreamstime.com Cover art image of Buddha © maodesign/istockphoto Published by STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS ALBANY © 2009 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval systemor transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The emergence of Buddhist American literature / edited by John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff ; foreword by Maxine Hong Kingston ; afterword by Charles Johnson. p. cm. — (Suny series in Buddhism and American culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-2653-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. American literature—Buddhist authors—History and criticism. 2. American literature—20th century—History and criticism. 3. American literature—Buddhist influences. 4. Buddhism in literature. 5. Buddhism and literature—United States. I. Whalen-Bridge, John, 1961– II. Storhoff, Gary, 1947– PS153.B83E44 2009 810.9’382943—dc22 2008034847 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 John Whalen-Bridge would like to dedicate his work on The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature to his two sons, Thomas and William. -
Distribution Agreement
Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. _____________________________ ______________ Claire Laville July 17, 2014 Reading to the Test: Character, Method, and Complicity in U.S. Writing from Emerson to Adorno by Claire Laville Doctor of Philosophy English _____________________________________ Michael Moon Advisor _____________________________________ Walter Kalaidjian Committee Member _____________________________________ Benjamin Reiss Committee Member _____________________________________ Deborah Elise White Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________________ Date Reading to the Test: Character, Method, and Complicity in U.S. Writing from Emerson to Adorno by Claire Laville Hon. B.A., University of Toronto M.A., Emory University Advisor: Michael Moon, Ph.D. An abstract of a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English 2014 Abstract Reading to the Test: Character, Method, and Complicity in U.S. -
MELVILLE at 200 How Columbia Scholars Rescued the Author of Moby-Dick from the Waters of Oblivion
COLLEGE WALK MELVILLE AT 200 How Columbia scholars rescued the author of Moby-Dick from the waters of oblivion 919 was a big year for a book, Moby-Dick, which long before Stein or Joyce; and also Melville, whose literary centenaries. involved a crazed sea captain he acknowledged America’s seventy-year-old whaling 1James Russell Lowell, hell-bent on destroying the predatory power as well as its masterpiece Van Doren and poet, critic, and diplo- whale that tore off his leg. great promise; he defied con- Weaver were now raising mat, was feted at Columbia The book sold poorly. After vention in writing about sex; like a lost ship. Van Doren University and the Ritz- two more failed novels, and perhaps most shocking wrote of “the extraordinary Carlton, and Walt Whitman Melville, a father of four, of all, he took seriously the mixture in Moby Dick of vivid was toasted by two hundred ditched prose for poetry, possibility of a godless uni- adventures, minute details, at the Hotel Brevoort, near grew ever more melancholic verse. In his time, there was cloudy symbolisms, thrilling Washington Square. Both and insolvent, and became a a limited market for these pictures of the sea in every insights and innovations.” mood, sly mirth and cosmic But in 1919, one American ironies, real and incredible critic knew of the buried characters, wit, speculation, treasure. Carl Van Doren humor, color.” 1911GSAS, a professor of After this, Moby-Dick English at Columbia and became a celebrated main- literary editor of the Nation, stay of the American canon. -
Thomas Merton and the Beat Generation: a Subterranean Monastic Community
79 Thomas Merton and the Beat Generation: A Subterranean Monastic Community D AVID B ELCASTRO Y FEBRUARY OF 1967 Merton's concerns regarding monasticism in B the modern world had come to the point where he believed significant change was necessary. A journal entry dated the sixth of that month reads: Monasticism. I see more and more the danger of identifying the monastic vocation and spirit with a particular kind of monastic consciousness-a particular tradition, h owever authen ti c. A monasticism limited to the medieval western - or worse still Byzantine - tradition cannot survive. It is utterly finished. I very much wonder how much the Rule of St Benedict can survive in practice. This is a very serious question. Maybe monasticism needs to be stated all over again in a new way. I have no knowing how to tackle this idea. It is just beginning to dawn on me.1 After reading Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art,2 I began to explore the possibility of understanding Merton's efforts to redefine monasticism in light of the trickster tradition. In 'An Inquiry into Merton as Trickster,' 3 I demonstrated that the primary characteristics of the trickster are present in Merton, not as marginal but as essential qualities of his person, in particular, the inclination to redefine established institutions. At the end of that paper, I suggested several lines of inquiry for further study, one of which was his place within the American tradition of tricksters, specifically, his relation to Beat writers, a connection that has long been recognized but not as yet fully explored.4 A study of Merton's relationship to the Beat generation provides insight into his effort to find ways to redefine monasticism in and for the modern world. -
“Some Men Ride on Such Space”: Olson's Call Me
49th Parallel, Vol. 31 (Spring 2013) Tally ISSN: 1753-5794 (online) “Some men ride on such space”: Olson’s Call Me Ishmael, the Melville Revival, and the American Baroque Robert T. Tally Jr. * Texas State University Call Me Ishmael, Charles Olson’s 1947 study of Herman Melville and Moby-Dick, is an anomalous book. On the one hand, it is a foundational text of Melville Studies, establishing Melville as an American Shakespeare and helping to solidify Melville’s elevated position in a canon of American literature.1 On the other hand, Call Me Ishmael also offers a bizarre recasting of Melville’s entire oeuvre, transforming the image of the nineteenth-century writer at a moment in which early practitioners of American Studies were consolidating a specifically “national imaginary” with respect to literature and history. Call Me Ishmael is simultaneously a key document of an emerging American Studies and a proleptic critique of the nationalist project of the disciplinary field. Blurring the lines between literary artist and scholarly critic, Olson sought to rethink Melville’s leviathan by reimagining Melville’s own imaginative reshaping of the world system in * Robert T. Tally Jr. is an associate professor of English at Texas State University. He is the author of Melville, Mapping and Globalization: Literary Cartography in the American Baroque Writer (2009), Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography (2011), Spatiality (2012), and Utopia in the Age of Globalization: Space, Representation, and the World System (2013). The translator of Bertrand Westphal’s Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces (2011), Tally is also the editor of Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (2011) and Kurt Vonnegut: Critical Insights (2013). -
Beat Writers and Asian Religion
the counterculture looks east beat writers and asian religion carl jackson It has become customary to date the birth of the so-called "Beat Generation" to an evening in March 1955, marked by an unforgettable poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. The postcard announcement of the watershed event proclaimed: Six poets at the Six Gallery, Kenneth Rexroth, M.C. Remarkable col lection of angels all gathered at once in the same spot. Wine, music, dancing girls, serious poetry, free satori. Small collection for wine and postcards. Charming event1 The promise of an experience marked by inspired poetry, uninhibited pleasure, and easy enlightenment would become identifying marks of the new generation. Though the emphasis on "free satori" would alarm serious students of Zen Buddhism, the reference may be seen as an early indication of one of the Beat Generation's major preoccupations. Asian thought was an essential element in the Beat view of the world.2 FIGURE ONE (above): Elephant mandata used during an LSD experience, described in Ginsberg's poem "Lysergic Acid." Reproduced from Evergreen Review, May- June, 1961. 51 Like many other such designations, the term "Beat Generation" has been badly misused. Rather than a generation, it might be better applied to a small group of poets and writers active in the late 1940s and 1950s in New York and San Francisco, whose countercultural lifestyles and denunciations of American culture caught the eye of the media. The names include Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Philip Lamantia, Gregory Corso, Philip Whalen, Brother Antonius (William Everson), Peter Orlovsky and Michael McClure—to mention only the best known. -
Allen Ginsberg's Genius
Allen Ginsberg’s genius for public life should not obscure his genius as an artist or his study of his art. —ROBERT PINSKY, 1997 U.S. POET LAUREATE Allen Ginsberg’s PREFACE Genius The Secret or Hermetic Tradition In 1957, at the age of fifteen, I bought for seventy-five cents a copy of the City Lights paperback edition of Howl and Other Po- ems with the trademark black-and-white cover. It was the first book of poetry I ever bought, and it made me feel as cool as any- one in my high school. Howl was underground poetry, outlawed poetry. Ginsberg made it seem as though it was cool to be a teen and that teens, not adults, knew what was cool. To those of us— I wasn’t the only teenage beatnik in suburbia—who owned a copy, Howl conferred a strange power. Reading it brought initi- ation into a secret society. It bound us together and gave us a sense of identity as members of a new generation that had come of age in the wake of World War II and the atomic bomb, a gen- eration that lived in the shadow of nuclear apocalypse. There was something wonderfully subversive about Howl, something the poet had hidden in the body of the poem because it was too dan- gerous to say openly, something we had to uncover and decode. xi xii / Preface Ginsberg didn’t want to be too easily understood. As he himself would explain, Howl was meant to appeal “to the secret or her- metic tradition of art.” Of course, as a teenager I didn’t know there was a secret tradition of art. -
Herman Melville Have Been Invaluable.2
University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Winter 1984 THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN AUTHOR: MELVILLE AND THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE DANIEL WARE REAGAN University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation REAGAN, DANIEL WARE, "THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN AUTHOR: MELVILLE AND THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE" (1984). Doctoral Dissertations. 1443. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1443 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this document, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help clarify markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1.The sign or “target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is “Missing Page(s)”. If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an indication of either blurred copy because of movement during exposure, duplicate copy, or copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed. -
VISIONS of TOM - JACK KEROUAC's MONASTIC ELDER BROTHER a Preliminary Exploration by Angus Stuart
VISIONS OF TOM - JACK KEROUAC'S MONASTIC ELDER BROTHER A preliminary exploration by Angus Stuart Introduction The phrase 'Visions of Tom' deliberately echoes the titles of some of Jack Kerouac's books, in turn reflecting something of his own way of thinking and his view of the world - his own visions. Visions of Gerard is based on the experience of losing his older brother in 1926, when Jack was four and Gerard was nine, and Visions of Cody (originally Visions of Neal) is a collection of writings concerning his relationship with Neal Cassady who referred to Jack as his 'blood brother' - and this was Jack's own understanding of their relationship. The term 'visions' is typical of the outlook of Kerouac and other 'beat writers' which was essentially 'apocalyptic' - other common words in their vocabulary include 'angels,' 'holy,' 'ghost,' and 'dream' - a sense of standing on the brink and mediating revelations of the Golden Eternity beyond the veil of reality. Kerouac once wrote a friend, 'I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money ... I want to fish as deep as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.'(1) The 'Beats' were heavily influenced by Romantic literature notably that of William Blake, who was also the subject of Merton's Masters thesis at Columbia. The meaning of the term 'vision' is ambiguous: it refers both to the visions we have of a particular person and the visions that person experiences himself or herself. -
Proquest Dissertations
HERMAN MELVILLE'S VISION OF CONFLICT by Rev. Francis X. Canfield A dissertation presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ottawa in par tial fulfillment of the re quirements for the degree of floator of philosophy. Ottawa, Canada, 1951 UMI Number: DC53916 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform DC53916 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter page INTRODUCTION iii I— EXPOSITION OF THE PROBLEM 1 II— MELVILLE AND HIS AGE 22 III.- CONFLICT WITHIN SOCIETY 63 IV.- CONFLICT WITHIN MAN 105 V.- CONFLICT BETWEEN MAN AND GOD 135 VI.- ACCEPTANCE OF CONFLICTS 178 CONCLUSION 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 209 INTRODUCTION For the outstanding non-fiction book published in the United States in 1950, Newton Arvin was awarded the National Book Award in March of 1951 for his Herman Melville, published by William Sloane Associates. The conferring of this award upon Newton Arvin f©r a work about Melville is as much an indi cation of current interest in Melville as it is an acknowledge ment of Newton Arvin's achievement in scholarship and inter pretation.