WRITERS IN TRANSITION: Seven Americans

by Wayne H. Morgan ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Professor Morgan's essays are a cultural novelty: they're all enthusiastic, warmly expressive, earnest appreciations of writers really mattering to man writing about them. Thus they're also ""old fashioned"". Of the seven Americans eulogized none is particularly modish; some opted for the best of the Old Order, others for just the best in man; all had a certain degree of schizophrenia; they rejected the present, but dreaded a mechanistic future; each set the mirror up to ""democratic"" nature and each was a humanist of sorts. Stephen Crane's repertorial naturalism flows into Sherwood Anderson's denunciation of industrial dehumanization; Thomas Wolfe and Hart Crane followed as the Great American Search Boys, both self-intoxicated singers, both Whitmanesque; while Misses Wharton, Glasgow and Cather were concerned with the complex of manners, morals and the majestic vision. A very un-New Criticism appraisal; sometimes soggy, generally fluent and heartfelt.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1962

Categories: NONFICTION