Author: James A. Schiff
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826208712
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Although many readers are aware of John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, fewer have paid close attention to his other multivolume work, "The Scarlet Letter trilogy." In Updike's Version, James Schiff provides the first full-length critical analysis of Updike's trilogy since the publication of its final volume in 1988. He demonstrates how Hawthorne's classic novel of adulterous love and divided selves has become an American myth, and how Updike, in his trilogy, has sought to expand, update, and satirize that myth. The three volumes that make up the trilogy, A Month of Sundays (1975), Roger's Version (1986), and S. (1988), engage in a dialogue with Hawthorne's novel, commenting upon and altering the original story. To understand the nature of this dialogue, Schiff employs a methodolgy specifically suited to Updike's mythical method, in which special attention is given to reader expectation, parody, point of view, and principles of fragmentation and condensation. Updike's Version covers new ground in Updike's studies, revealing how the intertextual dialogue between Updike and Hawthorne is far more complex and extensive than has yet been acknowledged. Providing close and detailed readings of the novels, Updike's Version will be of major importance to students and scholars of John Updike, Nathaniel Hawthorne's canonical American text, and American literature in general.
Updike's Version
Author: James A. Schiff
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826208712
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Although many readers are aware of John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, fewer have paid close attention to his other multivolume work, "The Scarlet Letter trilogy." In Updike's Version, James Schiff provides the first full-length critical analysis of Updike's trilogy since the publication of its final volume in 1988. He demonstrates how Hawthorne's classic novel of adulterous love and divided selves has become an American myth, and how Updike, in his trilogy, has sought to expand, update, and satirize that myth. The three volumes that make up the trilogy, A Month of Sundays (1975), Roger's Version (1986), and S. (1988), engage in a dialogue with Hawthorne's novel, commenting upon and altering the original story. To understand the nature of this dialogue, Schiff employs a methodolgy specifically suited to Updike's mythical method, in which special attention is given to reader expectation, parody, point of view, and principles of fragmentation and condensation. Updike's Version covers new ground in Updike's studies, revealing how the intertextual dialogue between Updike and Hawthorne is far more complex and extensive than has yet been acknowledged. Providing close and detailed readings of the novels, Updike's Version will be of major importance to students and scholars of John Updike, Nathaniel Hawthorne's canonical American text, and American literature in general.
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826208712
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Although many readers are aware of John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, fewer have paid close attention to his other multivolume work, "The Scarlet Letter trilogy." In Updike's Version, James Schiff provides the first full-length critical analysis of Updike's trilogy since the publication of its final volume in 1988. He demonstrates how Hawthorne's classic novel of adulterous love and divided selves has become an American myth, and how Updike, in his trilogy, has sought to expand, update, and satirize that myth. The three volumes that make up the trilogy, A Month of Sundays (1975), Roger's Version (1986), and S. (1988), engage in a dialogue with Hawthorne's novel, commenting upon and altering the original story. To understand the nature of this dialogue, Schiff employs a methodolgy specifically suited to Updike's mythical method, in which special attention is given to reader expectation, parody, point of view, and principles of fragmentation and condensation. Updike's Version covers new ground in Updike's studies, revealing how the intertextual dialogue between Updike and Hawthorne is far more complex and extensive than has yet been acknowledged. Providing close and detailed readings of the novels, Updike's Version will be of major importance to students and scholars of John Updike, Nathaniel Hawthorne's canonical American text, and American literature in general.
Roger's Version
Author: John Updike
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679645918
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
As Roger Lambert tells it, he, a middle-aged professor of divinity, is buttonholed in his office by Dale Kohler, an earnest young computer scientist who believes that quantifiable evidence of God’s existence is irresistibly accumulating. The theological-scientific debate that ensues, and the wicked strategies that Roger employs to disembarrass Dale of his faith, form the substance of this novel—these and the current of erotic attraction that pulls Esther, Roger’s much younger wife, away from him and into Dale’s bed. The novel, a majestic allegory of faith and reason, ends also as a black comedy of revenge, for this is Roger’s version—Roger Chillingworth’s side of the triangle described by Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter—made new for a disbelieving age.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679645918
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
As Roger Lambert tells it, he, a middle-aged professor of divinity, is buttonholed in his office by Dale Kohler, an earnest young computer scientist who believes that quantifiable evidence of God’s existence is irresistibly accumulating. The theological-scientific debate that ensues, and the wicked strategies that Roger employs to disembarrass Dale of his faith, form the substance of this novel—these and the current of erotic attraction that pulls Esther, Roger’s much younger wife, away from him and into Dale’s bed. The novel, a majestic allegory of faith and reason, ends also as a black comedy of revenge, for this is Roger’s version—Roger Chillingworth’s side of the triangle described by Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter—made new for a disbelieving age.
Imagination and Idealism in John Updike's Fiction
Author: Michial Farmer
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1571139427
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
Frontcover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Hawthorne, Updike, and the Immoral Imagination -- 1: John Updike and the Existentialist Imagination -- Part I. The "Mythic Immensity" of the Parental Imagination -- 2: "Flight," "His Mother Inside Him," and "Ace in the Hole"--3: The Centaur -- 4: Of the Farm, "A Sandstone Farmhouse," and "The Cats"--Part II. Collective Hallucination in the Adulterous Society -- 5: "Man and Daughter in the Cold," "Giving Blood," "The Taste of Metal," and "Avec la Bébé-Sitter" -- 6: Marry Me -- 7: Couples and "The Hillies" -- Part III. Imaginative Lust in the Scarlet Letter Trilogy -- 8: "The Football Factory," "Toward Evening," "Incest," "Still Life," "Lifeguard," "Bech Swings?" and "Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author" -- 9: A Month of Sundays -- 10: Roger's Version -- 11: S. -- Part IV. Female Power and the Female Imagination -- 12: "Marching through Boston," "The Stare," "Report of Health," "Living with a Wife," and "Slippage" -- 13: The Witches of Eastwick -- Part V. The Remembering Imagination -- 14: "In Football Season," "First Wives and Trolley Cars," "The Day of the Dying Rabbit," "Leaving Church Early," and "The Egg Race" -- 15: Memories of the Ford Administration -- 16: "The Dogwood Tree," "A Soft Spring Night in Shillington," and "On Being a Self Forever" -- Conclusion: Updike, Realism, and Postmodernism -- Bibliography -- Index -- Credits
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1571139427
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
Frontcover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Hawthorne, Updike, and the Immoral Imagination -- 1: John Updike and the Existentialist Imagination -- Part I. The "Mythic Immensity" of the Parental Imagination -- 2: "Flight," "His Mother Inside Him," and "Ace in the Hole"--3: The Centaur -- 4: Of the Farm, "A Sandstone Farmhouse," and "The Cats"--Part II. Collective Hallucination in the Adulterous Society -- 5: "Man and Daughter in the Cold," "Giving Blood," "The Taste of Metal," and "Avec la Bébé-Sitter" -- 6: Marry Me -- 7: Couples and "The Hillies" -- Part III. Imaginative Lust in the Scarlet Letter Trilogy -- 8: "The Football Factory," "Toward Evening," "Incest," "Still Life," "Lifeguard," "Bech Swings?" and "Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author" -- 9: A Month of Sundays -- 10: Roger's Version -- 11: S. -- Part IV. Female Power and the Female Imagination -- 12: "Marching through Boston," "The Stare," "Report of Health," "Living with a Wife," and "Slippage" -- 13: The Witches of Eastwick -- Part V. The Remembering Imagination -- 14: "In Football Season," "First Wives and Trolley Cars," "The Day of the Dying Rabbit," "Leaving Church Early," and "The Egg Race" -- 15: Memories of the Ford Administration -- 16: "The Dogwood Tree," "A Soft Spring Night in Shillington," and "On Being a Self Forever" -- Conclusion: Updike, Realism, and Postmodernism -- Bibliography -- Index -- Credits
A Successful Novel Must Be in Want of a Sequel
Author: M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476633274
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
What happened after Mr. Darcy married Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? Where did Heathcliff go when he disappeared in Wuthering Heights? What social ostracism would Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter have faced in 20th century America? Great novels often leave behind great questions, and sequels seek to answer them. This critical analysis offers fresh insights into the sequels to seven literary classics, including Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the Bronte sisters' Jane Eyre, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476633274
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
What happened after Mr. Darcy married Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? Where did Heathcliff go when he disappeared in Wuthering Heights? What social ostracism would Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter have faced in 20th century America? Great novels often leave behind great questions, and sequels seek to answer them. This critical analysis offers fresh insights into the sequels to seven literary classics, including Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the Bronte sisters' Jane Eyre, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.
The John Updike Encyclopedia
Author: Jack De Bellis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313007209
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 584
Book Description
John Updike is one of the most seminal American writers of the 20th century and one of the most prolific as well. In addition to his best-selling novels, he has written numerous poems, short stories, reviews, and essays. His writing consistently reveals stylistic brilliance, and through his engagement with America's moral and spiritual problems, his works chronicle America's hopes and dreams, failures and disappointments. Though he is an enormously popular writer, the complexity and elegance of his works have elicited growing scholarly attention. Through several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, this book provides both casual and serious readers an exceptional guide to his life and writings. Whether the reader is seeking a novel summary, an authoritative analysis of subjects, elucidation of an allusion, or a point about Updike's life or manner of composition, the encyclopedia is indispensable. A chronology summarizes the major events in Updike's career, while an introductory essay examines his progress as a writer, from his crafted light verse and informed reviews to his innovative novels and stories. The entries that follow summarize Updike's books, describe all major characters, explain allusions, identify major images and symbols, analyze principal subjects, discuss his life and career, and draw on the most significant scholarship. Entries include bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313007209
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 584
Book Description
John Updike is one of the most seminal American writers of the 20th century and one of the most prolific as well. In addition to his best-selling novels, he has written numerous poems, short stories, reviews, and essays. His writing consistently reveals stylistic brilliance, and through his engagement with America's moral and spiritual problems, his works chronicle America's hopes and dreams, failures and disappointments. Though he is an enormously popular writer, the complexity and elegance of his works have elicited growing scholarly attention. Through several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, this book provides both casual and serious readers an exceptional guide to his life and writings. Whether the reader is seeking a novel summary, an authoritative analysis of subjects, elucidation of an allusion, or a point about Updike's life or manner of composition, the encyclopedia is indispensable. A chronology summarizes the major events in Updike's career, while an introductory essay examines his progress as a writer, from his crafted light verse and informed reviews to his innovative novels and stories. The entries that follow summarize Updike's books, describe all major characters, explain allusions, identify major images and symbols, analyze principal subjects, discuss his life and career, and draw on the most significant scholarship. Entries include bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.
Updike and Politics
Author: Matthew Shipe
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498575617
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Presenting the first interdisciplinary consideration of his political thought, Updike and Politics: New Considerations establishes a new scholarly foundation for assessing one of the most recognized and significant American writers of the post-1945 period. This book brings together a diverse group of American and international scholars, including contributors from Japan, India, Israel, and Europe. Like Updike himself, the collection canvases a wide range of topics, including Updike’s too often overlooked poetry and his single play. Its essays deal with not only political themes such as the traditional aspects of power, rights, equality, justice, or violence but also the more divisive elements in Updike’s work like race, gender, imperialism, hegemony, and technology. Ultimately, the book reveals how Updike’s immense body of work illuminates the central political questions and problems that troubled American culture during the second half of the twentieth century as well as the opening decade of the new millennium.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498575617
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Presenting the first interdisciplinary consideration of his political thought, Updike and Politics: New Considerations establishes a new scholarly foundation for assessing one of the most recognized and significant American writers of the post-1945 period. This book brings together a diverse group of American and international scholars, including contributors from Japan, India, Israel, and Europe. Like Updike himself, the collection canvases a wide range of topics, including Updike’s too often overlooked poetry and his single play. Its essays deal with not only political themes such as the traditional aspects of power, rights, equality, justice, or violence but also the more divisive elements in Updike’s work like race, gender, imperialism, hegemony, and technology. Ultimately, the book reveals how Updike’s immense body of work illuminates the central political questions and problems that troubled American culture during the second half of the twentieth century as well as the opening decade of the new millennium.
A Child's Calendar
Author: John Updike
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
ISBN: 1430129883
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
"...This read-along is a richly sensory experience.... sound effects of chirping birds, tromping feet, lowing cows, whirring insects, exploding fireworks, pounding surf, buzzing bees, barking dogs, honking geese, and tolling bells create their own aural metaphors that echo the poet's verse and clearly reflect the seasons." -Booklist
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
ISBN: 1430129883
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
"...This read-along is a richly sensory experience.... sound effects of chirping birds, tromping feet, lowing cows, whirring insects, exploding fireworks, pounding surf, buzzing bees, barking dogs, honking geese, and tolling bells create their own aural metaphors that echo the poet's verse and clearly reflect the seasons." -Booklist
Becoming John Updike
Author: Laurence W. Mazzeno
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 1571135111
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
When John Updike died in 2009, tributes from the literary establishment were immediate and fulsome. However, no one reading reviews of Updike's work in the late 1960s would have predicted that kind of praise for a man who was known then as a brilliant stylist who had nothing to say. What changed? Why? And what is likely to be his legacy? These are the questions that Becoming John Updike pursues by examining the journalistic and academic response to his writings. Several things about Updike's career make a reception study appropriate. First, he was prolific: he began publishing fiction and essays in 1956, published his first book in 1958, and from then on, brought out at least one new book each year. Second, his books were reviewed widely - usually in major American newspapers and magazines, and often in foreign ones as well. Third, Updike quickly became a darling of academics; the first book about his work was published in 1967, less than a decade after his own first book. More than three dozen books and hundreds of articles of academic criticism have been devoted to Updike. The present volume will appeal to the continuing interest in Updike's writing among academics and general readers alike. Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University. Among other books, he has written volumes on Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold for Camden House's Literary Criticism in Perspective series.
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 1571135111
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
When John Updike died in 2009, tributes from the literary establishment were immediate and fulsome. However, no one reading reviews of Updike's work in the late 1960s would have predicted that kind of praise for a man who was known then as a brilliant stylist who had nothing to say. What changed? Why? And what is likely to be his legacy? These are the questions that Becoming John Updike pursues by examining the journalistic and academic response to his writings. Several things about Updike's career make a reception study appropriate. First, he was prolific: he began publishing fiction and essays in 1956, published his first book in 1958, and from then on, brought out at least one new book each year. Second, his books were reviewed widely - usually in major American newspapers and magazines, and often in foreign ones as well. Third, Updike quickly became a darling of academics; the first book about his work was published in 1967, less than a decade after his own first book. More than three dozen books and hundreds of articles of academic criticism have been devoted to Updike. The present volume will appeal to the continuing interest in Updike's writing among academics and general readers alike. Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University. Among other books, he has written volumes on Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold for Camden House's Literary Criticism in Perspective series.
Telephone Poles and Other Poems
Author: John Updike
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307961966
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 95
Book Description
This second collection of John Updike's poetry is equally divided between poems that, in their verbal jugglery and humorous bias, seem to qualify as “light” and poems that, one way or other, cross the problematic border into the general realm of poetry. The distinction cannot be clear-cut. The poet is consistently concerned with Man’s cosmic embarrassment, and the same vision illuminates the creatures of “The High Hearts” and “Seagulls.” Science and religion, so frequently and variously invoked, frame a single paradox, the paradox of the mundane; and each poem, whether inspired by an antic headline or a suburban landscape, rejoices in the elusive surface of created things. When The Carpentered Hen, John Updike’s first collection of verse, was published, Phyllis McGinley wrote: “I have been happily reading Mr. Updike in The New Yorker for some time and am happy, now, to own him collected. When he first appeared in that magazine, I was so elated to see a new name in light verse that I felt like crying with the Ancient Mariner ‘A Sail, A Sail!’ His is what poetry of this sort exactly out to be—playful but elegant, sharp-eyed, witty.” In the Saturday Review, David McCord wrote: “Furthermore, he is a graceful border-crosser (light verse to poem) as Auden has been; as Betjeman and McGinley frequently are.”
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307961966
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 95
Book Description
This second collection of John Updike's poetry is equally divided between poems that, in their verbal jugglery and humorous bias, seem to qualify as “light” and poems that, one way or other, cross the problematic border into the general realm of poetry. The distinction cannot be clear-cut. The poet is consistently concerned with Man’s cosmic embarrassment, and the same vision illuminates the creatures of “The High Hearts” and “Seagulls.” Science and religion, so frequently and variously invoked, frame a single paradox, the paradox of the mundane; and each poem, whether inspired by an antic headline or a suburban landscape, rejoices in the elusive surface of created things. When The Carpentered Hen, John Updike’s first collection of verse, was published, Phyllis McGinley wrote: “I have been happily reading Mr. Updike in The New Yorker for some time and am happy, now, to own him collected. When he first appeared in that magazine, I was so elated to see a new name in light verse that I felt like crying with the Ancient Mariner ‘A Sail, A Sail!’ His is what poetry of this sort exactly out to be—playful but elegant, sharp-eyed, witty.” In the Saturday Review, David McCord wrote: “Furthermore, he is a graceful border-crosser (light verse to poem) as Auden has been; as Betjeman and McGinley frequently are.”
Understanding John Updike
Author: Frederic Svoboda
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611178630
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 141
Book Description
A close look at the extraordinary literary achievements of a popular and prolific American author The winner of every major American literary prize, John Updike (1932-2009) was one of the most popular and prolific novelists of his time and a major cultural figure who traced the high point and fall of midcentury American self-confidence and energy. A superb stylist with sixty books to his credit, he brilliantly rendered the physical surfaces of the nation's life even as he revealed the intense longings beneath those surfaces. In Understanding John Updike, Frederic Svoboda elucidates the author's deep insights into the second half of the twentieth century as seen through the lives of ordinary men and women. He offers extended close readings of Updike's most significant works of fiction, templates through which his entire oeuvre may be understood. A small-town Pennsylvanian whose prodigious talent took him to Harvard, a staff position at the New Yorker, and ultimately a life in suburban Massachusetts, where the pace of his literary output never slowed, Updike was very much in the American cultural tradition. His series of Rabbit Angstrom novels strongly echo Sinclair Lewis's earlier explorations of middle America, while The Witches of Eastwick and related novels are variations on Nathaniel Hawthorne's nineteenth-century classic The Scarlet Letter. His number-one best seller Couples examines what Time magazine called "the adulterous society" in the last year of the Kennedy administration, following the nation's fall from idealism into self-centeredness. Understanding John Updike will give both new readers and those already familiar with the author a firm grasp of his literary achievement. This outline of Updike's professional career highlights his importance in the life of the nation—not only as a novelist but also as a gifted essayist, reviewer, cultural critic, and poet.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611178630
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 141
Book Description
A close look at the extraordinary literary achievements of a popular and prolific American author The winner of every major American literary prize, John Updike (1932-2009) was one of the most popular and prolific novelists of his time and a major cultural figure who traced the high point and fall of midcentury American self-confidence and energy. A superb stylist with sixty books to his credit, he brilliantly rendered the physical surfaces of the nation's life even as he revealed the intense longings beneath those surfaces. In Understanding John Updike, Frederic Svoboda elucidates the author's deep insights into the second half of the twentieth century as seen through the lives of ordinary men and women. He offers extended close readings of Updike's most significant works of fiction, templates through which his entire oeuvre may be understood. A small-town Pennsylvanian whose prodigious talent took him to Harvard, a staff position at the New Yorker, and ultimately a life in suburban Massachusetts, where the pace of his literary output never slowed, Updike was very much in the American cultural tradition. His series of Rabbit Angstrom novels strongly echo Sinclair Lewis's earlier explorations of middle America, while The Witches of Eastwick and related novels are variations on Nathaniel Hawthorne's nineteenth-century classic The Scarlet Letter. His number-one best seller Couples examines what Time magazine called "the adulterous society" in the last year of the Kennedy administration, following the nation's fall from idealism into self-centeredness. Understanding John Updike will give both new readers and those already familiar with the author a firm grasp of his literary achievement. This outline of Updike's professional career highlights his importance in the life of the nation—not only as a novelist but also as a gifted essayist, reviewer, cultural critic, and poet.