American Audacity

by Benfey, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780472033997
• ISBN10: 0472033999
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-10
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

One of the foremost critics in contemporary American letters, Christopher Benfey has long been known for his brilliant and incisive essays. Appearing in such publications as theNew York Review of Books, theNew Republic, and theTimes 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, and Welty), bringing to his subjects---as theNew York Times Book Reviewhas said of his earlier work---"a scholar's thoroughness, a critic's astuteness and 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 and the various ways in which an American identity and culture inform their work. Broken into three sections, "Northerners," "Southerners," and "The Union Reconsidered," American Audacity explores a variety of canonical works, old (Emerson, Dickinson, Millay, Whitman), modern (Faulkner, Dos Passos), and more contemporary (Gary Snyder, E. L. Doctorow). Christopher Benfey is the author of numerous highly regarded books, includingEmily Dickinson: Lives of a Poet;The Double Life of Stephen Crane;Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable; and, most recently,The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan. Benfey's poems have appeared in theParis Review,Pequod, andPloughshares. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Currently he is Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. Jacket cover photo Jim Gipe/Pivot Media "In its vigorous and original criticism of American writers, Christopher Benfey'sAmerican Audacitiesdisplays its own audacities on every page." ---William H. Pritchard Read more about the author at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/cbenfey.shtml