The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 8: Poetry and Criticism, 1940-1995

The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 8: Poetry and Criticism, 1940-1995

IVolume 8, concerned with works of poetry and criticism written between 1940 and the present, brings together two different sets of materials and narrative forms: the aesthetic and the institutional. Discarding the traditional synoptic overview of major figures, von Hallberg, Graff, and Carton settle in favor of a history from the inside--a history of interstices and relations, equal to the task of considering the contexts of art, power, and criticism in which it is set. "...no reader can fail to be enormously impressed by the extraordinary amount of challenging, original criticism that this project has yielded....the contributors to The Cambridge History of American Literature have so successfully recontextualized their subjects as not only to have reformulated the kinds of questions that can be asked of such processes of cultural inscription but also to have altered significantly what can sometimes be represented as an answer." Giles Gunn, University of California, Santa Barbara "...a remarkable achievement in the revision of U.S. literary and cultural history. This volume is a work that richly integrates political, social, and economic history into the study of U.S. literature, and it significantly expands the category of 'literature' to include popular writings, oral traditions, music, and even teaching....By virtue of representing many different elements that contribute to a 'literate culture,' the contributors have also produced an extraordinarily readable volume. For those of us familiar with previous reference-type histories, this must be considered the most extraordinary feat of all; virtually every other reference work has failed to be readable and lapsed into a finally mind-numbing listing of dates, names, and titles....This volume....ought to become a rich resource for teaching and curricular redesign at all levels of higher education from high school to graduate school." John Carlos Rowe, University of California, Irvine "...Sacvan Bercovitch's vision and engagement in getting the project of the new Cambridge History under way cannot be praised too highly" Winfried Fluck, American Studies This volume offers a crucial summary of the development of criticism and the history of poetry in the mid to late twentieth century. This book addresses the broad spectrum of new and established directions in all branches of American writing and will include the work of scholars and critics who have shaped, and who continue to shape, what has become a major area of literary scholarship. Used Book in Good Condition