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Beat Poets Beat Poets is a single-volume reference that contains selected essays from Critical Survey of Poetry, Fourth Edition. The essays in Beat Poets discuss such influential poets as Paul Blackburn, Robert Duncan, Anselm Hollo, Marie Ponsot, and Allen Ginsberg.
Contemporary American Literature, 1945 - Present Focusing on a variety of topics, from the violence of war and the struggle for civil rights to the social impact of technology and the moral significance of money, this colorfully illustrated guide to American literature from the postwar period to the present day has been expanded and fully updated. A new section titled "Into the Future" contains a discussion of the best young writers of recent years. A concise, engaging guide to American contemporary literature, this volume provides information on 21st-century writers; the 1950s, '60s, and beyond; contemporary American poetry; and the postmodern movement. Topics include: Post-World War II and Vietnam War literature New Journalism Beat literature and existentialism The rise of ethnic and minority literature The civil rights movement Postmodernism Confessional poetry and poetry of witness Millennial voices in fiction And more. Writers covered include: Raymond Carver Sandra Cisneros Ralph Ellison Robert Frost Norman Mailer N. Scott Momaday Toni Morrison Sylvia Plath Thomas Pynchon Adrienne Rich J.D. Salinger Kurt Vonnegut Tom Wolfe And many others.
Critical Companion to Arthur Miller Arthur Miller, best known for his works ""The Crucible and Death of a Salesman"", is one of America's most important dramatists. ""Critical Companion to Arthur Miller"" provides a reliable, up-to-date, and encyclopedic source of information on Miller for high school and college-level students, teachers, and the general public. This accessible volume covers his entire canon, including plays, screenplays, fiction, short stories, and poetry, as well as many of his important essays and critical pieces. Also included are detailed entries on literary, theatrical, and personal figures important to Miller; key terms and topics connected to his work; and various theatrical companies and places with which he has been associated. Coverage includes: A concise but comprehensive biography of Miller; Synopses and critical assessments of Miller's major and minor works; Descriptions of Miller's characters, from Willy Loman to John Proctor; Entries on people, places, and topics important to Miller's life and work, including Brooklyn, democracy, Elia Kazan, and Marilyn Monroe; and, Helpful bibliographies and a chronology of Miller's life.
Critical Companion to Flannery O'Connor Widely acclaimed as one of the finest short-story writers and known for her acerbic wit, complex themes, and illuminating portrayal of the American South, Flannery O'Connor is a favorite among students, scholars, and general readers. Known for her stories ""A Good Man Is Hard to Find"" and ""Everything that Rises Must Converge,"" O'Connor's work often appears on class syllabi and in college courses today.""Critical Companion to Flannery O'Connor"" examines her life and works, and includes critical analyses of some of the themes in her writing, as well as entries on related topics and relevant people, places, and influences.
Critical Companion to Maya Angelou Maya Angelou is one of the most beloved poets and memoirists alive today. Her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is among the most popular works of nonfiction in the high school curriculum, and her poems are almost equally famous and influential. Throughout her fascinating life, Angelou has worked as a writer, teacher, streetcar conductor, film and television producer, nightclub singer and dancer, and more. Critical Companion to Maya Angelou is a comprehensive and up-to-date resource for students interested in this prolific poet.
Critical Companion to Toni Morrison Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, is perhaps the most important living American author today, and certainly one of the most popular in college and high school courses. Her novels, including ""Sula"", ""Song of Solomon"", ""Beloved"", and ""Paradise"", have won almost every major award available to them. In addition, her influence as a critic, book editor, and mentor to other writers has been incalculable. ""Critical Companion to Toni Morrison"" examines Morrison's life and writing, featuring critical analyses of her work and themes, as well as entries on related topics and relevant people, places, and influences.
Critical Insights: Beloved Toni Morrison's 1987 tale of Sethe, an escaped slave living in Cincinnati and struggling to overcome her past, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 along with instant international acclaim. Several essays in this volume study major themes of Beloved, including motherhood, the psychological impacts of slavery, and repression of memory, as well as connections to the real-life slave who inspired Morrison's story. Taken together, the essays presented in this volume give special attention to the traumatic horrors of slavery. Indeed, although their authors examine Sethe's act of infanticide from various perspectives, it is evident that the recurring theme throughout the volume is not the question of rightness or the wrongness of the act itself, but the ways in which the characters contend with and survive a dehumanizing and absurd historical movement. Beloved, the narrative, and Beloved the character, become Morrison's conduits for confronting a story that is impossible to tell but needs to be told. Each essay is 2,500 to 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of ""Works Cited,"" along with endnotes. Finally, the volume's appendixes offer a section of useful reference resources: About This Volume Critical Context: Original Introductory Essays Critical Readings: Original In-Depth Essays Further Readings Detailed Bibliography Detailed Bio of the Editor General Subject Index
Critical Insights: Death of a Salesman Includes a consideration of the play in the context of literary naturalism and monetary theory, as well as an analysis of Willy's comparison of Biff to hercules. Other essays look at the differences between dream and reality while also considering the competing dreams of the Loman family.
Critical Insights: Fahrenheit 451 This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. A classic novel of dystopian science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 also has been adapted for the theatre, film, television, and radio. Bradbury's swift, poetic, elegiac work tells the story of an America of the not-too-distant future, where books are outlawed, citizens in violation are hustled swiftly away to psychiatric prisons, and the offenders' houses are duly burned by kerosene-wielding "firemen." After all, books--and the thoughts and emotions they bring--are a threat to the fast-paced consumer's paradise of four-wall television rooms, jet cars, and tranquilisers. All the while, however, jet bombers circle ominously in the night, violence is endemic in entertainment and on the streets, families are bleakly loveless, and suicide is commonplace. As disenchanted fireman Guy Montag says, "We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing." First published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is more relevant than ever as reading skills decline and attention spans shorten, electronic entertainment grows more ubiquitous, even addictive, and the world seems to speed up. "There is more than one way to burn a book," said Bradbury in 1979, but Fahrenheit 451 helps lead the way back to true humanity. In this volume, introductory essays situate the novel in its historical and cultural context and also survey its critical reception, while subsequent chapters explore Bradbury's creation and reworking of the story, issues such as memory, love and morality, domesticity, intellectual property and censorship, and the appeal of Fahrenheit 451 in other media. Rounding out the volume is a bibliography of other important critical sources for readers seeking to study the novel and its themes further. Salem's Critical Insights series distils the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world's most-studied literature. The series focuses on an individual author's entire body of work, on single works of literature or on a literary theme. Edited and written by some of academe's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights provide authoritative, in-depth scholarship suitable for students and teachers alike.
Critical Insights: Gwendolyn Brooks Four original essays in this set explore how the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement influenced Brooks's work, with close readings of selections from A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, The Bean Eaters, In the Mecca, Riot, and Family Pictures. Essays also survey the major Brooks criticism and Brooks's novel Maud Martha and offer a close reading of "The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock."
Critical Insights: Harlan Ellison Essays discuss Ellison's relationship with the science fiction and fantasy community, his sense that mainstream critics slighted his work, his easy postmodern accommodation of popular culture references and images, and his ambiguous standing in the literary establishment. Also included is a comparison of Ellison's vision of dystopian hell with that of Cormac McCarthy's, and an examination of the underlying mythological and psychological themes of Ellison's works.
Critical Insights: Horton Foote American playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote is most notably known for his 1962 adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, the screenplay for the 1983 film, Tender Mercies, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1995 play, The Young Man From Atlanta. This volume examines these works and more, such as the nine-play Orphans? Home cycle, based on Foote?s own childhood.
Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Edited by Mildred R. Mickle, Assistant Professor of English at Penn State Greater Allegheny, this volume brings together a variety of critical offerings on Angelou's famous autobiography. Mickle's introduction pays tribute to Angelou's achievement and examines the inspiration she drew from Phillis Wheatley's civil rights advocacy as well as the similarities between Caged Bird and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poetry. The Paris Review's Christopher Cox reminds readers of how revolutionary Angelou's autobiography was when it was published and recounts the comments Angelou made on her work in an interview with George Plimpton.
Critical Insights: J. D. Salinger Although J.D. Salinger is especially renowned for his novel The Catcher in the Rye, he has also authored many other noteworthy works, including a number of significant short stories. Salinger is also known for his mysteriously reclusive lifestyle-a lifestyle that only stimulated people's interest in his personality and personal habits. Catcher is one of the most widely-read novels about young people ever written, and today, after 70 years, still remains a celebrated work about alienated youth. This volume examines Salinger and his works from numerous points of view, adopting biographical, historical, sociological, and aesthetic perspectives, among others.
Critical Insights: John Updike John Updike's extensive body of work is the focus of this volume. New essays include a discussion of the social and historical context of Updike's work and a consideration of Updike's recurrent Jewish-American character. The blocked writer Henry Bech is discussed as a vehicle for his creator to treat the relationship between an author and his work. Several republished essays discuss Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom novels, his "Scarlet Letter Trilogy" and the novels featuring Harry Bech.
Critical Insights: Louise Erdrich One of the great Native American novelists of the present day, Louise Erdrich has won over legions of readers with her strong attachment to the people and places of her native North Dakota, her carefully constructed plots, and her wonderfully complex characters. This volume discusses her life and several of her works, including Love Medicine, The Antelope Wife, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, and The Plague of Doves.
Critical Insights: Maya Angelou As an author, poet, actor, singer, dancer, civil rights activist, and more, Maya Angelou lived a life worthy of seven autobiographies. From a troubled childhood in St. Louis to her work with Martin Luther King, Jr. to her vast oeuvre of poetry and prose, this volume profiles one of the most prolific African American voices of the 20th century, highlighting her most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Critical Insights: Philip Roth Philip Roth’s many honors testify to his importance. He won awards for many of his individual novels, including a Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. In 2005, he became the third living author to have his works included in the Library of America.
Critical Insights: Ray Bradbury This title explores the work of a towering figure in American Science Fiction. Essay topics include: Utopian/dystopian robotic technologies; Translocality in The Martian Chronicles; Faith and Reason in Fahrenheit 451.
Critical Insights: Richard Wright Critical Insights: Richard Wright explores the work of this groundbreaking author of Black Boy and Native Son, to place the author's body of work in the canon of American literature, the literature of identity and literature of protest.
Critical Insights: Saul Bellow Essays employ a variety of literary approaches, and all of the full-length novels and two of the most important novellas, Seize the Day and The Bellasrosa Connection, are discussed at length. In addition, Bellow's best collection of shorter works, Him with His Food in His Mouth and Other Stories, is the focus of one essay. Other essays examine Bellow's early story, "Looking for Mr. Green," and "Something to Remember Me By."
Critical Insights: Sherman Alexie Noticed initially as a Native American author, Sherman Alexie has since achieved a reputation as a significant figure in the American literary landscape. The essays in this volume have been chosen to address the interests and needs of a broad range of readers, from students seeking further insights to teachers who hope to deepen their understanding to scholars who wish to join a conversation among their peers. In his citation of War Dances as the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, poet Al Young said that the book ""taps every vein and nerve, every tissue, every issue that quickens the current blood-pulse,"" lauding Alexie for ""the caring, eye-opening beauty of this rollicking, bittersweet gem of a book."" The intention and purpose of this volume is to provide critical insights worthy of that achievement. Alexie's work is the imaginative expression of his eventful life. This volume, therefore, includes an insightful biographical sketch of Alexie which provides a guide to many of the most noteworthy incidents and circumstances of his life. The combination of controversy, compelling writing, and a dynamic personality has projected Alexie into a unique position in contemporary American culture, and his work has reached a much wider range of readers than would have been anticipated by readers of his first poems. The course of critical scrutiny that followed the publication of Alexie's books is ably assessed in an essay that reaches back to Alexie's early life to lead into the beginning of his appearance in print. It continues as he becomes a part of a visible literary landscape and then a prominent point in its topography. A continuing controversy, highlighted by Alexie's refusal to be restricted to any projection of American Indian reality other than his own, is given expression by an essay that asks, ""What right does Alexie have to share with general readers our most painful realities of poverty and social dysfunction?"" The exploration of this question is an illustration of one of the most provocative and persistent issues that Alexie's work has emphasised. Other essays explore impact of atrocities on his writing, the identity of the American Indian in modern writing and the author's broadening perspective on the human condition. Alexie's poetry receives specific attention in a number of essays. His poetry, the genre acknowledged by the author as the ""original fire"" that ignited his creative flame, is central to understanding his other work. For instance, Alexie ""modifies the English sonnet"" to negotiate ""between his cultural inheritances,"" one essayist stresses the ways Alexie restructures the sonnet to ""upset the reader's expectation of resolution and thus promote the idea that the Indian dilemma is never a matter that can be easily or hastily solved."" His contemporary critical reception is explored. The role of music in his prose is examined. Storytelling and oral traditions are investigated in his work and his work in films is discussed.
Also available in print: PS3551.L35774 Z85 2012
Critical Insights: Short Fiction of Flannery O'Connor This volume examines and closely analyzes O’Connor’s best and least-known works, such as “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Good Country People,” and “Temple of the Holy Ghost.”
Critical Insights: Slaughterhouse-Five Published at the height of the Vietnam War protests, Slaughterhouse-Five seized the imaginations of thousands of young people and made Vonnegut into an overnight sensation. Now, more than forty years after its publication, scholars are only beginning to assess Vonnegut's unique achievement with this stoic yet compassionate treatment of what remains one of the most deadly military strikes in European history.
Critical Insights: Southern Gothic Literature American Southern Gothic Literature presents one of the few book-length surveys of the genre available today, in a diverse collection of representative texts from a group of international critics. In addition to exemplary novels from established writers, such as Edora Welty, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, and Cormac McCarthy, works explored here include poetry, a play, and a fairy tale novella. this volume, part of the Critical Insights series, offers a collection of original essays that will establish for students and their teachers an exemplary representation of the genre Southern Gothic as a field of study within American literature.
Critical Insights: Stephen King For nearly forty years, King has fed our imaginations with a panoply of spooks and monsters, from telekinetic teenagers, vampires, and malevolent clowns to space aliens, crazed fans, haunted hotels, and our own psyches. Moreover, he is one of the country's most commercially successful writers. Yet for all of King's popular success, critics have long been hesitant to welcome him into the pantheon of American literature. Still, the National Book Foundation awarded King its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003.
Critical Insights: Sylvia Plath Talented from the very beginning of her life, Sylvia Plath published her first poem at the age of eight in the "children’s section" of the Boston Herald. She said of her childhood: "I want to work at putting together the complex mosaic of my childhood; to practice capturing feelings and experiences from the nebulous seething of memory and yank them out into black-and-white on the typewriter."
Critical Insights: Tennessee Williams This volume brings together a variety of old and new essays on Williams's life and works. Murphy's introduction considers Williams's concept of the 'fugitive kind' and the recurring figure of the persecuted artist, concluding that, as piecemeal as these characters' lives may be, they are still granted respite in the temporary homes afforded by love. A brief biography of Williams follows, along with a new essay by Paris Review contributor Sasha Weiss.
Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye The essays in this volume offer an examination of the iconic novel's impact over time, and include discussions of the reach of Salinger's influence, Catcher's tumultuous history, and the culture and politics of the post-war era.
Critical Insights: The House on Mango Street Easily one of the most critically and commercially successful novels by a Mexican American writer. Since its publication in 1984, more than one million copies have been sold, and it regularly appears on high school and college reading lists. In deceptively simple prose, it tells the stories of a young Mexican American girl's family and friends and of her coming-of-age within an impoverished Chicago neighborhood.
Critical Insights: The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is, according to the Modern Language Association, the most taught text on U.S. campuses, featured in Literature, Asian American Studies, Asian Studies, Women's Studies, and Anthropology, as well as other departments. Coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of publication of The Woman Warrior, this volume features international scholars revisiting long-standing debates about authenticity, genre, and identity in the text, as well as pushing forward into little explored contexts, such as transnationalism, mythopoesis, diaspora, and relational self-hood.
Critical Insights: Tim O'Brien This collection brings together a selection of recent representative critical essays on O’Brien from a variety of perspectives. After opening with several short introductory essays, the volume moves on to consider O’Brien’s semi-autobiographical coverage of his experience in Vietnam and discusses O’Brien’s most famous work, The Things They Carried.
Critical Insights: To Kill a Mockingbird Overview essays consider the cultural contexts surrounding the novel and the critical reception of Lee's work. Other essays offer an examination of the novel as wisdom literature. Also included in this collection are character studies of Atticus Finch; a consideration of narrative strategies in both the novel and the film version of Mockingbird; and studies of sexuality, race, and ethics as found in the novel.
Critical Insights: Toni Morrison Toni Morrison has pinpointed the 'trauma of racism' as 'the severe fragmentation of the self' (Morrison, Unspeakable 214), and her works are dedicated to envisioning for African Americans ways of defining and developing identity for themselves, their community, and their literary tradition. As towering and daunting as this tripartite purpose may be, Morrison has achieved even more.Writing within the African American vernacular tradition and creating literature about and for African Americans (for she writes Without the White Gaze; qtd. in Houston 4), Morrison gifts us with works (novels, essays, a play) that speak to and for all humankind, earning her a global audience as well as international accolades, awards, and ever-expanding critical study.
Encyclopedia of Beat Literature Since the 1950s, the experimental style, bohemian life and rebellious attitudes of the Beats have influenced literature and culture. The deaths at the end of the 20th century of such Beat figures as Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs renewed interest in the lives and work of writers who have held underground appeal for generations of young adults. Some Beat writers and their associates, such as Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), and Denise Levertov, are now included in classroom anthologies; others have popular appeal for their unorthodox writing style and anti-authoritarian point of view. In an A-to-Z format, this work covers the literary origins and key figures of the Beat movement. More than 500 entries cover: synopses of fiction, poetry and essays by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and other major Beat writers, with notes on background and critical reception.
From Modernism to Postmodernism : American Poetry and Theory in the Twentieth Century In this overview of twentieth-century American poetry, Jennifer Ashton examines the relationship between modernist and postmodernist American poetics. Ashton moves between the iconic figures of American modernism - Stein, Williams, Pound - and developments in contemporary American poetry to show how contemporary poetics, specially the school known as language poetry, have attempted to redefine the modernist legacy. She explores the complex currents of poetic and intellectual interest that connect contemporary poets with their modernist forebears. The works of poets such as Gertrude Stein and John Ashbery are explained and analysed in detail. This major account of the key themes in twentieth-century poetry and poetics develops important ways to read both modernist and postmodernist poetry through their similarities as well as their differences. It will be of interest to all working in American literature, to modernists, and to scholars of twentieth-century poetry.
From Modernism to Postmodernism : Concepts and Strategies of Postmodern American Fiction This systemic study discusses in its historical, cultural and aesthetic context the postmodern American novel between the years of 1960 and 1980. A general overview of the various definitions of postmodernism in philosophy, cultural theory and aesthetics provides the framework for the inquiry into more specific problems, such as: the broadening of aesthetics, the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, the transformation of the artistic tradition, the interdependence between modernism and postmodernism, and the change in the aesthetics of fiction. Other topics addressed here include: situationalism, montage, the ordinary and the fantastic, the subject and the character, the imagination, comic modes, and the future of the postmodern strategies. Among the authors whose fiction is treated in some detail under the various aspects thematized are John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan, Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Raymond Federman, and William Gaddis.
Heroism and the Black Intellectual : Ralph Ellison, Politics, and Afro-American Intellectual Life Before and after writing Invisible Man, novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison fought to secure a place as a black intellectual in a white-dominated society. In this sophisticated analysis of Ellison's cultural politics, Jerry Watts examines the ways in which black artists and thinkers attempt to establish creative intellectual spaces for themselves. Using Ellison as a case study, Watts makes important observations about the role of black intellectuals in America today. Watts argues that black intellectuals have had to navigate their way through a society that both denied them the resources, status, and encouragement available to their white peers and alienated them from the rest of their ethnic group. For Ellison to pursue meaningful intellectual activities in the face of this marginalization demanded creative heroism, a new social and artistic stance that challenges cultural stereotypes. For example, Ellison first created an artistic space for himself by associating with Communist party literary circles, which recognized the value of his writing long before the rest of society was open to his work. In addition, to avoid prescriptive white intellectual norms, Ellison developed his own ideology, which Watts terms the 'blues aesthetic.' Watts's ambitious study reveals a side of Ellison rarely acknowledged, blending careful criticism of art with a wholesale engagement with society.
A History of American Literature : 1950 to the Present A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 1950 TO THE PRESENT Featuring works from notable authors as varied as Salinger and the Beats to Vonnegut, Capote, Morrison, Rich, Walker, Eggers, and DeLillo, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present offers a comprehensive analysis of the wide range of literary works produced in the United States over the last six decades and a fascinating survey of the dramatic changes during America's transition from the innocence of the fifties to the harsh realities of the first decade of the new millennium. Author Linda Wagner-Martin - a highly acclaimed authority on all facets of modern American literature - covers major works of drama, poetry, fiction, non- fiction, memoirs, and popular genres such as science fiction and detective novels. Viewing works produced during this fertile literary period from a wide-ranging perspective, Wagner-Martin considers literature in relation to such issues as the politics of civil rights, feminism, sexual preferences, and race- and gender-based marketing. She also places a special emphasis on works produced during the twenty-first century, and writings influenced by recent historic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial crisis. With its careful balance of scholarly precision and accessibility, A History of American Literature: 1950 to the Present provides readers of all levels with rich and revealing insights into the diversity of literary forms and influences that characterize postmodern America. "A monumental distillation of an enormous range of material, Wagner-Martin's rich book should be required reading for anyone grappling with making sense of the prolific, broad-spectrum, and diverse writing in the US since 1950." Thadious M. Davis, University of Pennsylvania "Linda Wagner-Martin's history impressively and judiciously surveys all fields of American writing over the past sixty years, taking full account of significant cultural and historical contexts and the major critical commentaries that have helped shape our understanding of developments in the second half of the last century and the dozen years following the millennium. Balanced, informative, and always highly readable there is much here for general readers, students, and specialists alike." Christopher MacGowan, the College of William and Mary
Introduction to Literary Context: American Post-Modernist Novels This volume introduces literary contexts as they apply to American novels written post 1960, by American and Canadian authors.
The Joy Luck Club Surveys the critical reception of Tan's works, particularly Joy Luck. Also considers the mechanics of Tan's novel, including structure, narration, style, and themes; and compares and contrasts Tan's book with Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Includes an examination of the traditional Chinese beliefs found in the novel, a comparison of The Joy Luck Club to The Kitchen God's Wife, and two interviews with the author
Make It the Same : Poetry in the Age of Global Media Jacob Edmond examines the turn toward repetition in poetry, using the explosion of copying to offer a deeply inventive account of modern and contemporary literature. Make It the Same explores how poetry is increasingly made from other texts through sampling, appropriation, and other forms of repetition.
A Map of Mexico City Blues : Jack Kerouac as Poet In this pioneering critical study of Jack Kerouac s book-length poem, "Mexico City Blues "a" "poetic parallel to the writer s fictional saga, the Duluoz Legend James T. Jones uses a rich and flexible neoformalist approach to argue his case for the importance of Kerouac s rarely studied poem. After a brief summary of Kerouac s poetic career, Jones embarks on a thorough reading of "Mexico City Blues "from several different perspectives: he first focuses on Kerouac s use of autobiography in the poem and then discusses how Kerouac s various trips to Mexico, his conversion to Buddhism, his theory of spontaneous poetics, and his attraction to blues and to jazz influenced the theme, structure, and sound of "Mexico City Blues." Jones s multidimensional explication suggests the formal and thematic complexity of Kerouac s long poem and demonstrates the major contribution "Mexico City Blues "makes to post World War II American poetry and poetics."
On the Road Jack Kerouac's On the Road is one of the most famous works produced by a so-called ""beat"" writer-one of a group of nonconformists who shocked many of their contemporaries not only because of the works they produced but also because of the lives they lived. Initially attacked for its celebration of seemingly free-spirited attitudes and behavior, On the Road has lately been increasingly criticized for its allegedly outdated views, especially involving women. This volume examines, among many other topics, why On the Road remained popular for decades after it was published, and why it has been the target of strong criticism, and how that criticism has changed, over the years.
On the Road - Jack Kerouac - Presents the most important 20th century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature. - The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism. - Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index. - Introductory essay by Harold Bloom
The Philosophy of the Beats The phrase "beat generation" -- introduced by Jack Kerouac in 1948 -- characterized the underground, nonconformist youths who gathered in New York City at that time. Together, these writers, artists, and activists created an inimitably American cultural phenomenon that would have a global influence. In their constant search for meaning, the Beats struggled with anxiety, alienation, and their role as the pioneers of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The Philosophy of the Beats explores the enduring literary, cultural, and philosophical contributions of the Beats in a variety of contexts. Editor Sharin N. Elkholy has gathered leading scholars in Beat studies and philosophy to analyze the cultural, literary, and biographical aspects of the movement, including the drug experience in the works of Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, feminism and the Beat heroine in Diane Di Prima's writings, Gary Snyder's environmental ethics, and the issue of self in Bob Kaufman's poetry. The Philosophy of the Beats provides a thorough and compelling analysis of the philosophical underpinnings that defined the beat generation and their unique place in modern American culture.
The Politics of Richard Wright A pillar of African American literature, Richard Wright is one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in American history. His work championed intellectual freedom amid social and political chaos. Despite the popular and critical success of books such as Uncle Tom's Children (1938), Black Boy (1945), and Native Son (1941), Wright faced staunch criticism and even censorship throughout his career for the graphic sexuality, intense violence, and communist themes in his work. Yet, many political theorists have ignored his radical ideas. In The Politics of Richard Wright, an interdisciplinary group of scholars embraces the controversies surrounding Wright as a public intellectual and author. Several contributors explore how the writer mixed fact and fiction to capture the empirical and emotional reality of living as a black person in a racist world. Others examine the role of gender in Wright's canonical and lesser-known writing and the implications of black male vulnerability. They also discuss the topics of black subjectivity, internationalism and diaspora, and the legacy of and responses to slavery in America. Wright's contributions to American political thought remain vital and relevant today. The Politics of Richard Wright is an indispensable resource for students of American literature, culture, and politics who strive to interpret this influential writer's life and legacy.
Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope : A Political Companion to Invisible Man An important new collection of original essays that examine how Ellison's landmark novel, Invisible Man (1952), addresses the social, cultural, political, economic, and racial contradictions of America. Commenting on the significance of Mark Twain's writings, Ralph Ellison wrote that "a novel could be fashioned as a raft of hope, perception and entertainment that might help keep us afloat as we tried to negotiate the snags and whirlpools that mark our nation's vacillating course toward and away from the democratic ideal." Ellison believed it was the contradiction between America's "noble ideals and the actualities of our conduct" that inspired the most profound literature--"the American novel at its best." Drawing from the fields of literature, politics, law, and history, the contributors make visible the political and ethical terms of Invisible Man, while also illuminating Ellison's understanding of democracy and art. Ellison hoped that his novel, by providing a tragicomic look at American ideals and mores, would make better citizens of his readers. The contributors also explain Ellison's distinctive views on the political tasks and responsibilities of the novelist, an especially relevant topic as contemporary writers continue to confront the American incongruity between democratic faith and practice. Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope uniquely demonstrates why Invisible Man stands as a premier literary meditation on American democracy.
Sexual Politics in the Work of Tennessee Williams Michael S. D. Hooper reverses the recent trend of regarding Tennessee Williams as fundamentally a social writer following the discovery, publication and/or performance of plays from both ends of his career - the 'proletarian' apprentice years of Candles to the Sun and Not About Nightingales and the once overlooked final period of, amongst many other plays, The Red Devil Battery Sign. Hooper contends that recent criticism has exaggerated the political engagement and egalitarian credentials of a writer whose characters and situations revert to a reactionary politics of the individual dominated by the negotiation of sexual power. Directly, or more often indirectly, Williams' writing expresses social disaffection before glamorising the outcast and shelving thoughts of political change. Through detailed analysis of canonical texts the book sheds new light on Williams' work, as well as on the cultural and social life of mid-twentieth-century America.
Shirley Jackson's American Gothic Argues that Jackson's anticipation of postmodernism ranks her among the most significant writers of her time.
Student Companion to Arthur Miller This critical introduction to Arthur Miller provides an indispensable aid for students and general readers to understand the depth and complexity of some of America's most important dramatic works. Beginning with a discussion of his life, this work traces not only Miller's theatrical career, but his formulative experiences with the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Detailed discussions of eight important plays are organized around the social and moral themes Miller derived from such events; these themes are evident in such works as Death of A Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, and All My Sons. By placing Miller, within the context of his times, this discussion reveals how he was influenced by and reacted to the major events in his own life and in American culture. Analysis of his more recent works such as The American Clock, Broken Glass and The Ride Down Mt. Morgan illustrate the consistency of Miller's strong moral vision, and his continuing innovative contributions to American theatre. A fascinating biographical chapter takes readers from Miller's childhood, through the Depression years, through three marriages; and from his theatrical apprenticeship, to eventual fame and critical acclaim for his plays and other literary and cinematic projects. The literary heritage chapter outlines Miller's literary and dramatic precursors, and considers the major aspects of his dramatic impact. The six chapters discussing his major plays are systematically presented to allow the reader to easily grasp the intricacies of their plots, characterizations, stylistic devices, and themes. In addition, each chapter offers a view of the social and/or historical context that influenced the plays' thematic development, as well as an alternate critical reading that demonstrates the richness of Miller's work. Lastly, the bibliography provides information on Miller's published works, including his screenplays and essays, biographical information, selected general criticism, and both contemporary reviews and critical studies of the plays discussed.
Tennessee Williams This text, as part of a series of research and study guides, is an introduction to the critical analysis of popular dramatists. Each guide covers three to six plays, offering a variety of viewpoints by different critics on aspects of each work.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Published in 1960 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, To Kill a Mockingbird is required reading for many middle and high school students. The coming-of-age tale of its young narrator, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, of Maycomb, Alabama, is interwoven with explorations of the issues of prejudice, innocence, compassion, and hypocrisy.
Ursula K. le Guin Beyond Genre This book critically examines Le Guin's fiction for all ages, and it will be of great interest to her many admirers and to all students and scholars of children's literature.
Vonnegut and Hemingway : Writers at War In this original comparative study of Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway, Lawrence R. Broer maps the striking intersections of biography and artistry in works by both writers, and he compares the ways in which they blend life and art. Broer views Hemingway as the "secret sharer" of Vonnegut's literary imagination and argues that the two writers--while traditionally considered as adversaries because of Vonnegut's rejection of Hemingway's emblematic hypermasculinism--inevitably address similar deterministic wounds in their fiction: childhood traumas, family insanity, deforming wartime experiences, and depression. Rooting his discussion in these psychological commonalities between Vonnegut and Hemingway, Broer traces their personal and artistic paths by pairing sets of works and protagonists in ways that show the two writers not only addressing similar concerns, but developing a response that in the end establishes an underlying kinship when it comes to the fate of the American hero of the twentieth century.Hemingway provided frequent fodder for Vonnegut, inspiring a cadre of characters who celebrate war and death. In his sardonic response to this vision of a Hemingwayesque world, Vonnegut espoused kindness and restraint as moral imperatives against the more violent yearnings of human nature, which Hemingway in turn embraced as stoic, virile, and heroic. Though their paths were radically different, Broer finds in both an overarching obsession with the scars of war as chief adversary in a personal quest for understanding and wholeness. He locates in each writer's canon moments of spiritual awaking leading to literary evolution--if not outright reinvention. In their later works Broer detects an increasing recognition of redemptive feminine aspects in themselves and their protagonists, pulling against the destructively tragic fatalism that otherwise dominates their worldviews.Broer sees Vonnegut and Hemingway as fundamentally at war--with themselves, with one another's artistic visions, and with the idea of war itself. Against this onslaught, he asserts, they wrote as a mode of therapy and achieved literary greatness through combative opposition to the shadows that loomed so large around them.

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Alice Walker Critical Perspectives - Past and Present Alice Walker is considered by many to be a feminist and literary 'giant'. Now, this provocative collection of essays delves into the work of this bestselling and critically acclaimed writer. Contributors include bell hooks, Griel Marcus, Barbara Christian and J M Coetzee.
Alice Walker : A Critical Companion Alice Walker, born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944, overcame a disadvantaged sharecropping background, blindness in one eye, and the tense times of the Civil Rights Movement to become one of the world's most respected African American writers. While attending both Spelman and Sarah Lawrence Colleges, Walker began to draw on both her personal tragedies and those of her community to write poetry, essays, short stories, and novels that would tell the virtually untold stories of oppressed African and African American women, providing readers with hope and inspiring activisim. Perhaps best known for her novel "The Color Purple" (1982), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and became a controversial film three years later, Walker has introduced and developed womanist theory, criticism and practice, and continues to champion the causes of women of color by encouraging their strength and liberation in her life and her writings. Literary works analyzed in this volume: "The Third Life of Grange Copeland," "Meridian," "The Color Purple," "The Temple of My Familiar," "Possessing the Secret of Joy," "By the Light of My Father's Smile," "The Way Forward Is With a Broken Heart," "Now is the Time to Open Your Heart."
Amy Tan : A Literary Companion In the mid-1980s, Amy Tan was a successful but unhappy corporate speechwriter. By the end of the decade, she was perched firmly atop the best-seller lists with The Joy Luck Club, with more popular novels to follow. Tan's work--once pigeonholed as ethnic literature--resonates with universal themes that cross cultural and ideological boundaries, and prove wildly successful with readers of all stripes.
Anne Sexton's Confessional Poetics Given the amount of scholarship on twentieth-century poetry, there has been remarkably little published about Anne Sexton, even though her work is considered to be as important as that of such contemporaries as Sylvia Plath and W. H. Auden. By offering new and provocative readings of her entire oeuvre, Jo Gill provides a long overdue critical appreciation of Anne Sexton and presents a radical rethinking of the confessional mode of poetry and a recuperation of Sexton's place in it.
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman An inquiry into the meaning of the American Dream, ""Death of a Salesman"" is Arthur Miller's most famous play and won him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. 'Attention must be paid' to its lead character, Willy Loman (played over time by Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, and Brian Dennehy, among others), who has come to represent the middle-class struggle. Readers seeking in-depth analysis of this affecting drama will appreciate this fully updated ""Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations"" study.
Bishop - Poems, Prose, and Letters James Merrill described Elizabeth Bishop's poems as "more wryly radiant, more touching, more unaffectedly intelligent than any written in our lifetime" and called her "our greatest national treasure." Robert Lowell said, "I enjoy her poems more than anybody else's." Long before a wider public was aware of Bishop's work, her fellow poets expressed astonished admiration of her formal rigor, fiercely observant eye, emotional intimacy, and sometimes eccentric flights of imagination.
The Cambridge Companion to David Mamet This collection of specially written essays offers both student and theatregoer a guide to one of the most celebrated American dramatists working today. Readers will find the general and accessible descriptions and analyses provide the perfect introduction to Mamet's work. The volume covers the full range of Mamet's writing, including now classic plays such as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, and his more recent work, Boston Marriage, among others, as well as his films, such as The Verdict and Wag the Dog.
Critical Essays on Galway Kinnell The full range of literary traditions comes to life in the Twayne Critical Essays Series. Volume editors have carefully selected critical essays that represent the full spectrum of controversies, trends and methodologies relating to each author's work. Essays include writings from the author's native country and abroad, with interpretations from the time they were writing, through the present day.
Critical Insights: Tennessee Williams By turns delicately lyrical and shockingly violent, Tennessee Williams burst onto the American stage with The Glass Menagerie in 1944, and over the course of his career continued to write some of the twentieth century's most enduring plays. This book gives In-depth critical discussions of his life and works.
Critical Insights: the Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, a late work in this important writer's long career, has often been examined not only in relation to his previous works but also as a new departure. An unusually brief novel, this book has been discussed not only in relation to the novella genre but also in connection to Hemingway's own life, with the author himself often being compared to the ""old man"" of the title. This volume offers a wide range of approaches to the text, exploring it in terms of history, psychology, sociology, and-last but not least-artistic achievement.
A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty Mississippi author Eudora Welty, the first living writer to be published in the Library of America series, mentored many of today's greatest fiction writers and is a fascinating woman, having lived the majority of the twentieth century (1909-2001). Her life reflects a century of change and is closely entwined with many events that mark our recent history.
Eudora Welty : A Biography Eudora Welty's works are treasures of American literature. When her first short-story collection was published in 1941, it heralded the arrival of a genuinely original writer who over the decades wrote hugely popular novels, novellas, essays, and a memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, that became a national bestseller.
Eudora Welty : A Study of the Short Fiction In Eudora Welty: A Study of the Short Fiction, Carol Ann Johnston provides a first-rate guide to the writer's canon of short stories. Emphasizing the influence on Welty's literary craft of her work as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, Johnston presents a compelling appraisal of the writer's unique contributions to the tradition of the short story.
Everybody's America: Thomas Pynchon, Race, and the Cultures of Postmodernism Everybody's America reassesses Pynchon's literary career in order to explain the central role played by the racialization of American culture in the postmodernist deconstruction of subjectivity and literary authority and in the crisis in white liberal culture. It charts the evolution of both these cultural transformations from Pynchon's early short stories, composed in the late 1950s, through Gravity's Rainbow, published in 1973.
Flannery : A Life of Flannery O'Connor The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others--and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester.
A Good Man Is Hard to Find "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is Flannery O'Connor's most famous and most discussed story. O'Connor herself singled it out by making it the title piece of her first collection and the story she most often chose for readings or talks to students. It is an unforgettable tale, both riveting and comic, of the confrontation of a family with violence and sudden death.
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five This series presents the most important criticism on major 20th century poems, novels and dramas of the Western literary tradition. Each book contains numerous critical essays on the work by noted scholars and critics.
Maya Angelou Though she has received little critical acclaim, this inspirational writer has a large popular following. Numerous works by Angelou, best-known for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, are analyzed here.
On Writing : A Memoir of the Craft "If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."In 1999, Stephen King began to write about his craft -- and his life. By midyear, a widely reported accident jeopardized the survival of both. And in his months of recovery, the link between writing and living became more crucial than ever.
Ralph Ellison Ellison's Essays / R.W.B.Lewis -- Nightmare of a Native Son / Jonathan Baumbach -- American Nightmare / Allen Guttmann -- The Music of Invisibility / Tony Tanner -- Literacy and Hibernation: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man / Robert B. Stepto -- Ritual and Rationalization: Black Folklore in the Works of Ralph Ellison / Susan L.Blake -- The Mixed Heritage of the Modern Black Novel / Charles T. Davis -- Creativity and Commerce in the Trueblood Episode / Houston A.Baker,Jr -- Solitude / Michael G.Cooke -- Call me Jonah / Douglas Robinson -- Anthropology, Modernism, and Jazz / Berndt Ostendorf.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man : A Casebook This volume offers students and scholars a rich variety of interpretations from which to fashion their own views of the novel and the man who created it. Both Ellison's comments, a number of which appear in print here for the first time, and those of ten distinguished scholars of American andAfrican-American literature take the position that there can be no last word on Invisible Man. Different as they are, the essays share a respect for the novel's fluidity and for every reader's encounter with its narrator, story, and meanings.
Ralph Ellison : A Biography The definitive biography of one of the most important American writers and cultural intellectuals of the twentieth century, Ralph Ellison, author of the masterpiece Invisible Man.
Readings on "To Kill a Mockingbird" Includes an examination and criticism of Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," as well as in-depth biographical information.
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and American Culture It's been nearly fifty years since Jack Kerouac took to the road, but Beat culture continues to be a popular and influential force in today's writing, music, and art. With more than 75 contributors, this celebratory potpourri of words, illustrations, and photography contains original and previously published essays by Richard Miller, Ann Douglas, Johnny Depp, Michael McClure, Hettie Jones, Hunter S.
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies. Features a new Afterword by Malcolm. From the Trade Paperback edition.
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams Published in 1947, ""A Streetcar Named Desire"" garnered Tennessee Williams the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Considered a lyrical masterpiece, the drama reveals the destructive impact that ensues when romantic impulse encounters animal vitalism. This new volume in the acclaimed ""Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations"" series offers fresh insight into one of the greatest American plays of the 20th century.
Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath's short life and intense poetry continue to draw considerable critical and popular attention. Among her more recognizable works are the poetry collection ""Ariel"" and the novel ""The Bell Jar"".
Sylvia Plath: An Introduction to the Poetry Sylvia Plath is one of the best-known and most widely-studied writers of the twentieth century. Since her death in 1963, critics have presented different images of Plath: the 'suicidal' poet, the frustrated wife and mother, the feminist precursor.In this lively and approachable introduction to the author's poetry, Susan Bassnett offers a balanced view of Plath as one of the finest contemporary poets, and shows the diversity of her work.
Thomas Pynchon More than any other living American novelist, Thomas Pynchon demands comparison with the likes of Joyce, Kafka, and Conrad. Pynchon draws on the entire history of Western culture as he questions its ideas of order. This text has been revised and expanded to include essays on Vineland and Mason & Dixon.
Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers This collection is the first to focus on the transgressive and transformative power of American female humorists. It explores the work of authors and comediennes such as Carolyn Wells, Lucille Clifton, Mary McCarthy, Lynne Tillman, Constance Rourke, Roz Chast, Amy Schumer and Samantha Bee, and the ways in which their humor challenges gendered norms and assumptions through the use of irony, satire, parody, and wit. The chapters draw from the experiences of women from a variety of racial, class, and gender identities and encompass a variety of genres and comedic forms including poetry, fiction, prose, autobiography, graphic memoir, comedic performance, and new media. Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers will appeal to a general educated readership as well as to those interested in women's and gender studies, humor studies, urban studies, American literature and cultural studies, and media studies.
Understanding Eudora Welty This work offers close readings of Eudora Welty's novels and short stories (including One Writer's Beginnings). At the same time, it sifts through contemporary reviews and recent criticism. The author suggests that understanding the critical history of Welty's canon is vital.
Understanding Sam Shepard Understanding Sam Shepard investigates the notoriously complex and confusing dramatic world of Sam Shepard, one of America's most prolific, thoughtful, and challenging contemporary playwrights. During his nearly fifty-year career as a writer, actor, director, and producer, Shepard has consistently focused his work on the ever-changing American cultural landscape.
Understanding Sherman Alexie In this first book-length examination of Native American poet, novelist, filmmaker, and short story writer Sherman Alexie, Daniel Grassian offers a comprehensive look at a writer immersed in traditional Native American, as well as mainstream American, culture. Grassian takes readers through Alexie's career, from his first collections of poetry, The Business of Fancydancing and Old Shirts and New Skins, through such novels as Reservation Blues and Indian Killer, to the recent short story collection Ten Little Indians. Grassian suggests that Alexie's oeuvre reflects his primary artistic challenge: how to write about Indians in a predominantly televisual country that distorts and complicates the importance and nature of ethnicity itself. Drawing comparisons with such established Native American writers as N. Scott Momaday and James Welch as well as with Generation X peers, Grassian presents Alexie's work as equally informed by Native American culture and generic, mainstream influences. lives of Native Americans as his art transforms the conventional tools of cultural colonization into a means of Native American empowerment. Grassian explores Alexie's ability to counteract lingering stereo-types of Native Americans, his challenges to the dominant American history, and his suspicion of the New Age movement. The picture of Alexie that emerges from Grassian's text is one of a writer who is fiercely talented, intelligent, witty, and honest, a writer committed to helping readers understand contemporary Native American lives, even if his work sometimes portrays both Native Americans and non-Natives in an unfavorable light.
The Vampire in Contemporary Popular Literature Prominent examples from contemporary vampire literature expose a desire to re-evaluate and re-work the long-standing, folkloristic interpretation of the vampire as the immortal undead. This book explores the "new vampire" as a literary trope, offering a comprehensive critical analysis of vampires in contemporary popular literature and demonstrating how they engage with essential cultural preoccupations, anxieties, and desires. Drawing from cultural materialism, anthropology, psychoanalysis, literary criticism, gender studies, and postmodern thought, Piatti-Farnell re-frames the concept of the vampire in relation to a distinctly twenty-first century brand of Gothic imagination, highlighting important aesthetic, conceptual, and cultural changes that have affected the literary genre in the post-2000 era. She places the contemporary literary vampire within the wider popular culture scope, also building critical connections with issues of fandom and readership. In reworking the formulaic elements of the vampiric tradition ¿ and experimenting with genre-bending techniques ¿ this book shows how authors such as J.R. Ward, Stephanie Meyers, Charlaine Harris, and Anne Rice have allowed vampires to be moulded into enigmatic figures who sustain a vivid conceptual debt to contemporary consumer and popular culture. This book highlights the changes ¿ conceptual, political and aesthetic ¿ that vampires have undergone in the past decade, simultaneously addressing how these changes in "vampire identity" impact on the definition of the Gothic as a whole.
The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac A groundbreaking portrait of Kerouac as a young artist--from the award-winning author of Minor Characters In The Voice is All, Joyce Johnson, author of her classic memoir, Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac, brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities.
Why Kerouac Matters : The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think) Legions of youthful Americans have taken On the Road as a manifesto for rebellion and an inspiration to hit the road. But there is much more to the book than that. In Why Kerouac Matters, John Leland embarks on a wry, insightful, and playful discussion of the novel, arguing that it still matters because it lays out an alternative road map to growing up.