Confessions of the Critics: North American Critics' Autobiographical Moves

by Veeser,H. Aram; Veeser,H. Aram

• ISBN13: 9780415914109
• ISBN10: 0415914108
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-01-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Confessions of the Criticsshatters a certain silence. Autobiographical criticism has until now skated relatively free from the challenges that usually assail a new literary critical method. It has had this immunity from critique largely because feminists and third-world liberation fighters--such as Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich and Jane Gallop--ushered it to the North American academic stage. Other women and men, including Rigoberta Menchu, Nawal al-Sadawi, Mahasweta Devi and Malcolm X, wrote in the tradition and genre oftestimonio. These and other unimpeachably militant backgrounds gave confessional criticism a certain cache among the largely liberal community of literary scholars. We have hesitated to express misgivings about a form that seemed intrinsically tied to the most vital, powerful strivings. "Telling stories about one's own past is probably our culture's richest way of characterizing the effects of social injustice and developing what ittakes to resist various kinds of victimage," writes contributor Charles Altieri.Confessions of the Criticsprovides a revealing look into the thoughts and experiences of some of the most influential and important critics of the 20th century. The writers included avoid pretention and gross self-misrepresentation, giving way to raw, sometimes embarrassing, always wholly believable emotion. Describing cumulative literary shocks and episodes of self-recognition, contributors offer insights to their ruling passions and works. Powerful sensations, emotions, recognitions and revelations make up the heart ofConfessions of the Critics.It is a book that none will put aside or easily forget. Contributors:Charles Altieri, William Andrews, Michael F. Berube, Timothy Brennan, Gillian Brown, Cathy Davidson, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Diane Freedman, Marjorie Garber, Gerald Graff, Stephen J. Greenblatt, Michael Hill, Marianne Hirsch, Alice Yeager Kaplan, AmitavaKumar, Candace Lang, Louis Menand, Judith Lowder Newton, Linda Orr, Vincent Pecora, David Simpson, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Madelon Sprengnether, Jane Tompkins, Marianna Torgovnick, H. Aram Veeser, Jeffrey Williams, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Case for Confessional Criticism
Autobiographical Literary Criticism as the New Belletrism: Personal Experience	p. 3
Mourning Shakespeare: My Own Private Hamlet	p. 17
Interrupted Reading: Personal Criticism in the Present Time	p. 29
Autocritique	p. 40
What Is at Stake in Confessional Criticism	p. 55
Confession versus Criticism, or What's the Critic Got to Do with It?	p. 68
Through the Academic Looking Glass	p. 76
Speaking Personally: The Culture of Autobiographical Criticism	p. 82
Self-Interview	p. 97
Critical Personifications	p. 103
Overcoming "Auction Block": Stories Masquerading as Objects	p. 110
Pictures of a Displaced Girlhood	p. 121
The MLA President's Column	p. 141
Me and Not Me: The Narrator of Critical and Historical Fiction	p. 148
Writing in Concert: An Interview with Cathy Davidson, Alice Kaplan, Jane Tompkins, and Marianna Torgovnick	p. 156
White-Boy Authenticity	p. 177
Life as We Know It	p. 187
Lives	p. 205
Laos Is Open	p. 221
Damaged Goods	p. 235
Junctions on the Color Line	p. 241
"Why Am I Always the Bad Guy?": A Reverie on the Virtues of Confession	p. 256
Let's Get Lost	p. 268
Contributors	p. 283
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