American Audacity: Literary Essays North and South
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Benfey, Christopher E. G., PUBLISHER: University of Michigan Press, One of the foremost critics in contemporary American letters, Christopher Benfey has long been known for his brilliant <strong>andstrong> incisive <strong>essaysstrong>. Appearing in such publications as the "New York Review of Books," the "New Republic," <strong>andstrong> the "Times Literary Supplement," Benfey's writings have helped us reimagine the American literary canon. In American Audacity, Benfey gathers his finest writings on eminent American authors (including Emerson, Dickinson, Whitman, Millay, Faulkner, Frost, <strong>andstrong> Welty), bringing to his subjects---as the "New York Times Book Review" has said of his earlier work---"a scholar's thoroughness, a critic's astuteness <strong>andstrong> a storyteller's sense of drama." Although Benfey's interests range from art to literature to social history, this collection focuses on particular American writers <strong>andstrong> the various ways in which an American identity <strong>andstrong> culture inform their work. Broken into three sections, "Northerners," "Southerners," <strong>andstrong> "The Union Reconsidered," American Audacity explores a variety of canonical works, old (Emerson, Dickinson, Millay, Whitman), modern (Faulkner, Dos Passos), <strong>andstrong> more contemporary (Gary Snyder, E. L. Doctorow). Christopher Benfey is the author of numerous highly regarded books, including "Emily Dickinson: Lives of a Poet"; "The Double Life of Stephen Crane"; "Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin <strong>andstrong> George Washington Cable"; <strong>andstrong>, most recently, "The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, <strong>andstrong> the Opening of Old Japan"; <strong>andstrong> "A Summer of Hummingbirds." Benfey's poems have appeared in the "Paris Review," "Pequod," <strong>andstrong> "Ploughshares." He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, <strong>andstrong> the American Council of Learned Societies. Currently he is Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College."A gifted literary historian <strong>andstrong> critic." ---"The New York Review of Books" "Longer than book reviews <strong>andstrong> shorter than lengthy reappraisals of a poet or critic, the individual <strong>essaysstrong> exhibit a confident, if modest, touch... His unadorned sentences... will encourage readers to buy books by the bibliographers <strong>andstrong> scholars he reviews as well as return readers to the audacious figures that comprise America's literary history." ---Larry T. Shillock, "Bloomsbury Review" "In its vigorous <strong>andstrong> original criticism of American writers, Christopher Benfey's "American Audacities" displays its own audacities on every page." ---William H. Pritchard