Interpretations of American Literature [antikvár]

Preface This is a collection of interpretive essays on major works, major writers, and a few major strains of American literature. It is designed to serve the student and the inquiring reader as a running commentary on the basic texts. In choosing essays for this volume, we have had a bias in favor of the contemporary: all these discussions are of relatively recent date; the earliest was first published in 1932, and most are from the 'fifties and 'forties. Usually (though by no means invariably) we have preferred less familiar and less easily available materials to selections that have been frequently reprinted or have already become critical classics. On the theory that arguments have an integrity that should be respected, we have tried as much as possible to avoid extracts from books and from articles too long to reprint. But our main purpose has been to provide a series of substantial essays on substantial topics. We have not wished to emphasize any particular mode of interpretation; nor, on the other hand, have we attempted to illustrate the full range of methods and preoccupations in contemporary discussion of American writing. Primarily, we have had in mind the immediate needs of the student, who is presumably less interested in criticism as such than in particular