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THE KENYON CRITICS by John Crowe- Ed. Ranson

THE KENYON CRITICS

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Pub Date: Feb. 23rd, 1951
Publisher: World

Caviar criticism of books, literary trends and movies, culled from the issues of The Kenvon Review, this collection is much in the Edmund Wilson vein of unusual and occasionally rarefied literary reviewing. Among the entries are John Peale Bishop's The Sorrows of Thomas Wolfe, Philip Rahv's comparison of James and Whitman as embodiments of the two diverse trends in American literature, Eliseo Vivas' Kafka's Distorted Mask, Austin Warren on the later novels of James, Robert Penn Warren's articles on Pure and Impure Poetry. Richard Chase's The Stone and the Crucifixion: Faulkner's Light in August, and Robie Macauley on Ford Madox Ford. There are also Eric Bentley's evaluation of the controversial Chaplin film, Monsteur Verdoux, and Parker Tyler's of the acclaimed All the King's Men. The second and smaller section of the book is given over to very brief reviews of books and plays that also first appeared in the Kenyon College magazine. The appeal here will be definitely restricted to the unusual reader and follower of literary trends and to college students and classes, though the level of content is high.