Literary Criticism

Lively and comprehensive analysis of E. B. Whites writings for children, addressing the works themselves, their reception by critics, and Whites views on childrens literature. Beginning with a biographical sketch of White, Agosta looks at the places and events of the authors youth and later life---the wilds of Canada and the Edenic simplicity of Maine---that influenced his creation of Arcadian worlds in his fiction. Agosta also discusses some of Whites theoretical positions as expressed in the essays A Boy I Knew (1940) and Childrens Books (1938), in which White took inventory of a few central concerns that would find their way into his three novels. Agostas portrait of the author and his literary domain is essential reading for student and scholar alike, or for anyone interested in the background of this writer who has so influenced childrens literature.PIM31-MAY-1801

This selected--the first compilation of essays by Hank Lazer following his ground-breaking and much revered two-volume Opposing Poetries--offers twelve years of incisive writing at the intersection of two of the more contentiously debated topics in current letters. Drawing on poetic traditions as seemingly disparate as Language writing and Buddhist poetry, Lazer pursues a way of reading that is rich in the music and spirit of the word, attuning readers to the pleasures and range of possibilities for innovative poetry. In a very accessible writing style, and with flashes of brilliance, Lazer explores and identifies new approaches to the lyric and to the writing of spiritual experience in American poetry of the past one hundred years. In this book of essays, interviews, reflections, and more, Lazer focuses on two topics central to the poetry of our time: the changing nature of beauty in the lyric and the necessity of finding new ways of embodying spirituality. By bringing a wide range of perspectives to his readings--from the jazz of Monk and Coltrane to the philosophy of Heidegger and Derrida--Lazer's essays inspire readers to enter into a renewed and renewing relationship with poetry.