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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sine qua non of literary criticism,
By matthewgabrielson@netscape.net (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Studies in Classic American Literature (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
I first learned of this delightful little work as a college freshman. My professor, a remarkably learned fellow with a tremendous knowledge of American literature, would occasionally reference it with amused appreciation. In our discussion of the Last of the Mohicans, I can still recall his enjoyment in recounting Lawrence's description of Cooper, sitting in a hotel room in a European city, with his gentleman's finery, surrounded by all of the trappings of a genteel aristocrat, living a sort of Walter Mitty life through his virtual antithesis -- Natty Bumpo, the protagonist of the Leatherstocking tales. To this day, I am amazed whenever I read this little tome, since Lawrence captures, in a few short essays, the essence of such authors as Franklin, Whitman, Cooper, and Melville. His style, so cheeky and incisive, is a joy to read. Lawrence had an astonishing grasp of what it is that makes American literature so fundamentally different from that which was composed by his own countrymen. He brings a pschoanalytic, Jungian perspective to bear on these great works, and sees in Natty Bumpo, Ishmael, and other heroes of American literature the archetypes of our collective American unconscious. Of course, this work tells us as much about Lawrence as it does about great American writers, which is why it makes such great reading. Lawrence is well known for being a novelist, but his corpus contains much else besides: travel literature, criticism, poetry, essays. This one is highly recommended.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sweatin' To The Oldies with D.H. Lawrence,
By
This review is from: Studies in Classic American Literature (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
There are three reasons to read STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE by D.H. Lawrence. First: to better understand Lawrence and his themes. Second: to be entertained. Criticism is rarely rendered with so much passion, wit and clarity. Third: to experience American culture from an outsider's perspective, a very knowledgeable though albeit highly opinionated perspective (which makes for that entertainment value).DHL's prevailing theory is that to emerge as a distinct cultural, as well as distinct political entity free from Europe, America had to go through some growing pains before arriving at its authentic self. America had to kill off the European in its heart. He starts out with Ben Franklin, whom he gives a real trouncing for the overly self-conscious act of assigning an American character with a shopping list of virtues. (It should come as no surprise that DHL especially has trouble with "chastity.") Ben may be generating a fake, a lie, but he marks the beginning of an effort to break with the old homeland, Europe. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur is next in line for a beating. He moved his unfortunate family to the frontier, wrote the letters glowing with the accounts of the American Dream amongst the nature and the "savages" and then went back to France to revel in literary salons. When he returned, the wife and farm had met brutal ends in that American dream in which he had left them, so he settled in New York City. DHL screams, "Fake!" But Crevecoeur did announce the concept of an ideal tied to the unique attributes of the new world. DHL takes us through Cooper, Poe and Hawthorne, who begin to make progress (and also give DHL space to expound in ways that have annoyed his feminist critics), and onto Dana (TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST) and Melville, who go to sea to find themselves and their American consciousness. It is Melville who smashes the old mold forever and makes way for Whitman to plow through with a new road, singing that song of self. We get the tour of the past; we get, obliquely, a tour of post World War I intellectual preoccupations; and we get DHL being DHL at full throttle.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a great kiterary masterpiece,
By Luis Méndez (Republica Dominicana) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Studies in Classic American Literature (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)
this is a masterpiece, and you do not have to know much about books to notice the expertise of the author, his sense of what he is writing.he has really given me an orientation into the vast lands of american letters.he has set me going into a different direction and has made me read some books again. i recommend this book to anybody with a deep interest in american letters, but please keep reading this author, he is wonderful. LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do
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