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Studies in Classic American Literature

Part of Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin

Author D. H. Lawrence
Paperback
$17.00 US
| $23.00 CAN
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics
On sale Dec 01, 1990 | 192 Pages | 9780140183771
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“Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times

A Penguin Classic

Lawrence asserted that 'the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it'. In these highly individual, penetrating essays he has exposed 'the American whole soul' within some of that continent's major works of literature. In seeking to establish the status of writings by such authors as Poe, Melville, Fenimore Cooper and Whitman, Lawrence himself has created a classic work. Studies in Classic American Literature is valuable not only for the light it sheds on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American consciousness, telling 'the truth of the day', but also as a prime example of Lawrence's learning, passion and integrity of judgement.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
“Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . With its one-sentence paragraphs (“Flop goes spiritual love.”), jabbing exclamations (“Freedom!”), semi-rhetorical questions (“But what of Walt Whitman?”) and heavy use of italics and all-caps, the book can read like a scroll of social-media rants. Its manner is neither respectable nor respectful. . . . Lawrence’s bristling, inflamed, impertinent language provides a reminder that criticism is not just the work of the brain, but of the gut and the spleen as well. The intellectual refinement of his argument—fine-grained evaluations of style and form that still startle with their incisiveness; breathtaking conceptual leaps from history to myth and back again—is unthinkable without the churn of instinct and feeling beneath it. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times
The son of a miner, the prolific novelist, poet, and travel writer David Herbert Lawrence was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in 1885. He attended Nottingham University and found employment as a schoolteacher. His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911, the same year his beloved mother died and he quit teaching after contracting pneumonia. The next year Lawrence published Sons and Lovers and ran off to Germany with Frieda Weekley, his former tutor’s wife. His masterpieces The Rainbow and Women in Love were completed in quick succession, but the first was suppressed as indecent and the second was not published until 1920. Lawrence’s lyrical writings challenged convention, promoting a return to an ideal of nature where sex is seen as a sacrament. In 1928 Lawrence’s final novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was banned in England and the United States for indecency. He died of tuberculosis in 1930 in Venice. View titles by D. H. Lawrence
1. The Spirit of Place
2. Benjamin Franklin
3. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
4. Fenimore Cooper's White Novels
5. Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Novels
6. Edgar Allan Poe
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter
8. Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance
9. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast
10. Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo
11. Herman Melville's Moby Dick
12. Whitman

About

“Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times

A Penguin Classic

Lawrence asserted that 'the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it'. In these highly individual, penetrating essays he has exposed 'the American whole soul' within some of that continent's major works of literature. In seeking to establish the status of writings by such authors as Poe, Melville, Fenimore Cooper and Whitman, Lawrence himself has created a classic work. Studies in Classic American Literature is valuable not only for the light it sheds on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American consciousness, telling 'the truth of the day', but also as a prime example of Lawrence's learning, passion and integrity of judgement.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Reviews

“Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . With its one-sentence paragraphs (“Flop goes spiritual love.”), jabbing exclamations (“Freedom!”), semi-rhetorical questions (“But what of Walt Whitman?”) and heavy use of italics and all-caps, the book can read like a scroll of social-media rants. Its manner is neither respectable nor respectful. . . . Lawrence’s bristling, inflamed, impertinent language provides a reminder that criticism is not just the work of the brain, but of the gut and the spleen as well. The intellectual refinement of his argument—fine-grained evaluations of style and form that still startle with their incisiveness; breathtaking conceptual leaps from history to myth and back again—is unthinkable without the churn of instinct and feeling beneath it. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times

Author

The son of a miner, the prolific novelist, poet, and travel writer David Herbert Lawrence was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in 1885. He attended Nottingham University and found employment as a schoolteacher. His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911, the same year his beloved mother died and he quit teaching after contracting pneumonia. The next year Lawrence published Sons and Lovers and ran off to Germany with Frieda Weekley, his former tutor’s wife. His masterpieces The Rainbow and Women in Love were completed in quick succession, but the first was suppressed as indecent and the second was not published until 1920. Lawrence’s lyrical writings challenged convention, promoting a return to an ideal of nature where sex is seen as a sacrament. In 1928 Lawrence’s final novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was banned in England and the United States for indecency. He died of tuberculosis in 1930 in Venice. View titles by D. H. Lawrence

Table of Contents

1. The Spirit of Place
2. Benjamin Franklin
3. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
4. Fenimore Cooper's White Novels
5. Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Novels
6. Edgar Allan Poe
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter
8. Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance
9. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast
10. Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo
11. Herman Melville's Moby Dick
12. Whitman

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