English Classics Books

Re-Visions Of Shakespeare: Essays In Honor Of Robert Ornstein is an anthology in tribute of one of the most prominent Shakespeareans of the latter half of the twentieth century, Robert Ornstein. Ornstein was a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America; his more notable published works include "The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy" and "A Kingdom for a Stage". The essays provided by a wide variety of literate authors include "Bianca and Petruchio: 'The Veriest Shrew[s] of All", "A Comic Vision of 'Othello'", and "Surprising the Audience in 'The Comedy of Errors'". Enhanced with literate and extensively footnooted selection of cutting-edge thought and wit on Shakespeare's genius, and Ornstein's keen mind, Re-Visions Of Shakespeare is very highly recommended reading.

Re-Visions Of Shakespeare: Essays In Honor Of Robert Ornstein is an anthology in tribute of one of the most prominent Shakespeareans of the latter half of the twentieth century, Robert Ornstein. Ornstein was a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America; his more notable published works include "The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy" and "A Kingdom for a Stage". The essays provided by a wide variety of literate authors include "Bianca and Petruchio: 'The Veriest Shrew[s] of All", "A Comic Vision of 'Othello'", and "Surprising the Audience in 'The Comedy of Errors'". Enhanced with literate and extensively footnooted selection of cutting-edge thought and wit on Shakespeare's genius, and Ornstein's keen mind, Re-Visions Of Shakespeare is very highly recommended reading.

An excellent collection of scholarly essays on the plays of William Shakespeare and a genuine tribute to Robert Ornstein. The feminist essays by Linda Woodbridge on the pastoral/As You Like It and Carolyn Brown on Taming of the Shrew are especially compelling. Other plays analyzed include Titus Andronicus, Othello, Macbeth, Comedy of Errors, Merchant of Venice, All's Well, Cymbeline, the Henry plays and the Richard plays. Other contributors include Barbara Hodgdon, Graham Holderness and Alexander Leggatt. In its breadth and depth, Gajowski's introductory chapter (on the state of Shakespeare studies today and the relationship of Ornstein's work to it) surpasses introductions typical of scholarly essay collections such as this one.

Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the apprentice
or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic
analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self.

In terms of understanding the writings of WB Yeats, this book is a must. It provides insights into otherwised missed subtleties that allows for a greater appreciation of the work of a great artist. (I use the diction of great artist because this truely describes his work). Anyway, this book is well written and recommended by myself.

Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the novice or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self.

Perhaps Professor Godwin ought to have written the novel himself! Certainly, by translating into English the entire text of the "Hypnoerotomachia Poliphilli", he was the condicio sine qua non for "The Rule of Four". I recommend this guide wholeheartedly, it is brilliant.

Joscelyn Godwin has published a number of excellent books, the most important of which is probably his first ever English translation of the famous and mysterious Renaissance epic, the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili". This book, with its clouded origins and hidden meaning, forms the basis of the novel "The Rule of Four" which has managed to work itself onto bestseller lists on the coattails of "The Da Vinci Code", though its obscure esocteric subject is much less controversial. Here Godwin explores the origins and authorship of the "Hypnerotomachia" in detail for the layreader and provides much interesting insight into this most beautiful and strange book.

The "Hypnerotomachia" was published in Venice by the famous Renaissance humanist printer Aldus Manutius in 1499 and has intrigued and confounded readers and scholars alike for 500 years. Godwin first gives an overview of the book's plot and discusses the 172 beautiful woodcut engravings that have made the book so fascinating to five centuries of readers. The book is filled with long and painstakingly detailed descriptions of architecture, statues, parades, ruins, pagan rituals, and beautiful, ethereal, naked nymphs and goddesses. In fact, it is this rather blatant erotic element that has certainly helped to make the book so popular. This scandalous aspect of the book made it so popular in fact, that today it is almost impossible to find original copies with all of its engravings intact or without censorship. Godwin also discusses at length the controversy regarding the authorship of the tome, today largely accepted by scholars and historians as the Venetian monk Francesco Colonna. "The Rule of Four", Godwin points out, makes great use of fictional elements of the famous book, inventing codes and ciphers that are reputed to hide secret knowledge in its voluminous pages. Godwin emphasizes that despite these fictional inventions that help make "The Rule of Four" entertaining, the real Hypnerotomachia is just as interesting without them.

Godwin has written an engaging and accessible book on a difficult and bizarre work. He has helped to clear up many of the mysteries that have clouded the famous book and its author and given fans of "The Rule of Four" more detail and information on the events, places, and people found in that novel. This book is a must for anyone who enjoyed "The Rule of Four" and is looking to delve deeper into the strange world of Poliphilo and his dream quest for the elusive Polia.

Any best-seller nowadays can be expected to generate a side industry of books, films, computer games, plastic toys and so on, trying to capitalize on the success of the original. It would be a great mistake, however, to dismiss Joscelyn Godwin's magnificent guide as just a spin-off from the success of the Rule of Four. For one thing, its author not only follows but also preceded the novel, because as author of the only modern English translation of Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili he provided the best source of knowledge of the inspiration for the Rule of Four available to people who don't read mediaeval Italian.

It would have been easy, and perhaps tempting, for a scholar of Godwin's knowledge and ability to be patronizing about the Rule of Four, concentrating on correcting its errors and misinterpretations and on displaying his own superior understanding of the Hypnerotomachia, but Godwin does not do that. On the contrary, his attitude to the novel is thoroughly generous and positive. He starts by assuring us that the Hypnerotomachia is a real book, not a fictional invention of Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, explains its importance in the history of typography and erotic literature, and describes what it is all about. He goes on to analyse the structure -- unusually complex for a popular novel -- of the Rule of Four, and to examine the evidence for the identity of the real author of the Hypnerotomachia. In this his conclusion is different from that reached in the Rule of Four, but he does not dismiss other possibilities as absurd. He describes the historical context in which the Hypnerotomachia was written, including the famous "bonfire of the vanities" of Savonarola. Finally he analyses what the Hypnerotomachia is really all about, and explains all the literary, historical and geographical name-dropping that occurs in the Rule of Four.

All in all, this is an indispensable guide, written by an outstanding expert, for anyone interested in reading the Rule of Four in more than the most superficial way.

If you want to know what this book is about, read the other reviews, which do a decent job of summarizing the contents. I'll focus on what those other reviews don't tell you.

First, Eric Sams is a remarkable writer, a remarkable mind. His background is in music, and he has two breathtaking abilities: one is the ability to hold in his head large quantities of information, and the other, to sift through that information and spot patterns. In Shakespeare's writing he identifies recurring thoughts, metaphors, associations; he identifies word usages, turns of phrase, images, all of which, taken together, truly seem to be characteristic of Shakespeare and as unique as a fingerprint.

Second, he gives you perspective. If you browse in the works of Shakespeare professionals for long enough, you encounter all sorts of speculations about the conflicting texts, who wrote what, possible collaborators, and how this scene must have been written by somebody else, and this quarto must be "memorial reconstruction" -- the term they use to say that a couple of actors who once played those parts reconstructed the play from their own recollections and then filled in the blanks. These same academics dismiss plays like Edward III and Edmund Ironside as inferior to the works of "the canon" (works they all agree were written by Shakespeare): they couldn't possibly be Shakespeare, the academics say; they're all by "other writers." While academics make frequent references to these other, unknown playwrights, collaborators, and actor-writers, Eric Sams puts all such speculation into perspective. He clarifies two things: first, that there is no real evidence that these playwrights, collaborators, or actor-writers ever existed; they're convenient figments of the academic imagination. Second, these men who lived in and around London and were contemporaries of Shakespeare and writing plays -- these men numbered perhaps two dozen at most. And we already know the names of more than half of them. So if a play like Edward III contains those usages and images and comparisons and types of word play that seem unique to Shakespeare, well, you've got only a handful of possible unknowns to whom you can attribute such a play -- and all those peculiar images, usages, etc. It's not scientific certainty, but for circumstantial evidence, it's pretty telling and the best we're likely to get.

Most of the biographical works I've read are long on speculation and short on facts. Not so with this book. Facets of Shakespeare's life that are touched on and dismissed in other works are thoroughly explored here -- like Shakespeare's Catholic background, his legal experience, poaching, etc. And instead of speculative sentences that begin, "Young Will may have longed for..." or "... may have attended..." or "may have learned about..." -- Eric Sams delivers what facts we have. In one chapter he simply lists ALL of the significant documents from Shakespeare's lifetime (and just before and just after) and summarizes their contents for you. Boom. That's it. That's all there is.

What I never would have guessed from reading other works is that, in fact, it's quite a LOT. Sams speeds through a wealth of information, little clues here, little clues there that, when combined with patterns he uncovers in the plays themselves, form a remarkably coherent picture of Shakespeare.

This book is in large part an attack on the orthodox "Stratfordian" academic 'establishment'; not however from the point of view of someone claiming that a person other than William Shakespeare of Stratford Upon Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare (an impression which the cover picture and title might give at first glance). Rather, Eric Sams accepts that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, so to speak, but claims that the account of the writer's early life and literary development promulgated by 'orthodox" 20th Century British Shakespeare scholars is basically eroneous, and distorted by fashionable, unproved theories. His main claim is that Shakespeare started acting on, and writing for, the stage, much earlier than most modern academics allow, that he wrote plays (and perhaps pamphlets) other than the 'canonical' plays (i.e. those plays included in the First Folio of 1623, plus "Pericles"), and that he frequently revised or rewrote his own plays. In the first few chapters of the book Sams speculates on Shakespeare's early background and upbringing in Stratford. Sams sometimes brings in quotes from the plays to support his view of Shakespeare's early life, and this is perhaps a bit problematic, but on the whole his contentions are pretty convincing, and he persuasively argues that the oral traditions about Shakespeare should be taken seriously, and not simply dismissed as gossip or folk-tales. Sams' main bugbear is probably the 'memorial reconstruction' theory, which holds that the so-called "bad quartos" are the botched piratings of Shakespeare's plays by unscrupulous actors. Sams contends that there is absolutely no evidence for this theory, and instead favours the simpler and more convincing proposition that these "bad quartos" are in fact early versions of these plays by Shakespeare himself, which he later revised. There is much more in this book than I have mentioned above, and it is definitely well worth reading.

1.Eric Sams' The Real Shakespeare constitutes a determined attempt to reconstruct the early part of the playwright's life. It shows Shakespeare not as a late developer but as an early starter who assiduously revised his work and who, in fact, was responsible for early dramas, including apparent source texts, not usually accepted as part of the conventional canon. Clearly the result of much work and contemplation of extant records and other details, The Real Shakespeare looks initially at biographical issues: a Roman Catholic Shakespeare leaves school, probably at the age of thirteen, to help with family farm chores, becomes involved (as a clerk) with the legal profession (hence the character of his hand-writing), marries Anne Hathaway (already pregnant), and departs soon after for London to escape the consequences (whipping, at the least) of poaching deer owned by the influential, anti-catholic Sir Thomas Lacy. In London, Sams asserts, Shakespeare makes his connection with the Shoreditch Theatre, working his way up the proverbial ladder as ostler, call-boy, prompter and soon becomes a Queen's Man far earlier than Schoenbaum et al. are inclined to allow (58). 2.Biographical issues, however, cannot be detached from literary matters (which particularly dominate the second part of the book), and Sams, in looking at the Bard's young life, also takes into account the work and comments of contemporaries (e.g., Marlowe, Greene, Nashe, Spenser, et al.), the Parnassus plays, and Willobie his Avisa (1594) before turning to the Sonnets, the association with the 3rd Earl of Southampton, and the problem of the dedication in the first edition. He then moves to a consideration of the "early style" and ascription of both the 1589 and 1603 (Q1) Hamlet to Shakespeare, as well as A Shrew (c.1588), The Troublesome Reign of King John (c.1588), the first part of the Contention...(1594), and The True Tragedies of Richard... (1595); also offered as possible candidates for canonical authority are Faire Em and Locrine (of which there is, indeed, pace Sams, p.166, a modern edition). Attention is also given to bad quartos and the matter of memorial reconstruction, source-plays, derivative plays, dating, "collaboration," so-called "stylometry," and handwriting (a script, Sams suggests, of a law clerk suggesting links to the hand of Edmund Ironside [c.1588]). Curiously, for this strongly argued book, which contends in a detailed way with the conclusions of much twentieth-century scholarship (references to contrary opinion are carefully included), there is no concluding chapter, and the reader is left to pull the threads together. However, by way of addendum, Sams provides a section headed "The Documents 1500-1594," 205 biographical details and citations in chronological order, which under-pin especially the reconstruction of the early (Schoenbaum's "lost") years; and a bibliography (with + and * marks denoting items which support or counter Sam's arguments). An index concludes the volume. 3.It is always important to review evidence for conventional knowledge, to challenge the validity of accepted views, and to suggest plausible solutions to bothersome problems. Yet, at times, the greater wisdom, unfortunately, lies in uncertainty, in being sure of what one can and cannot know, and in Shakespearean scholarship, the fields of speculation are rather broad. Given the available documentation, many readers will find some of Sams' arguments, while intriguing, still unconvincing and will prefer to rest with the more cautious approach of Schoenbaun, Vickers, Wells, and others. The academic community has not blindly or wilfully rejected solid evidence, and should not be reproached for what might appear, to some critics, to be tradition-bound precepts or unduly conservative empiricism. 4.Could Shakespeare have known about ostlers and law-clerks without being an ostler or a law-clerk? Probably? Did he write Locrine? Almost certainly not -- given the style, and if he did, why did he not revise it? If Shakespeare was the dedicated reviser Sams claims that he was, why did he not rework the questionable scenes in Titus and Pericles? Were all the source plays (e.g., King Lear and Famous Victories) really by Shakespeare? Doubt could enter here. Does revision necessarily or "normally" mean that the resulting work will manifest two separate styles? No, it does not; though the reference to the Brahms' piano trio (Op.8) on p.187 is interesting, it does not, I think sufficiently support the general point. And what is the difference between an "ordinary" reader of Shakespeare and other kinds of readers (105)? Is one to infer that academic readers and textual editors lose some sensitivity? 5.Certainly, Sams' The Real Shakespeare will shake the scholarly stage a little, which is not a bad thing. But I should guess that, when the tremors have subsided, many -- perhaps most -- of the props will be more or less where they were before and others, which would be nice to have -- some certainty about the early years, for instance -- will still be absent.

Here is a collection of essays (mostly from _Galileo_, _Amazing_, and _Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine_) that Robert Silverberg describes as "pontifications." They may be placed alongside John W. Campbell's _Collected Editorials From Analog_ (1966). But my approach in analyzing the books is a little bit different. With Campbell, part of my task is to separate editorials with which I agree from editorials with which I disagree. With the Silverberg collection, no sifting is needed. I find myself in agreement with Silverberg on virtually every topic that he tackles: creationism, political correctness, gay gene research, holocaust deniers, genetic hysteria, the importance of spelling, definitions of words, children's books, a sense of wonder, and writing techniques.

Silverberg,like Campbell, may be described as a "libertarian/conservative" (xviii). But there are differences between Campbell and Silverberg:

I am not such a doctrinaire libertarian that I favor the abolition of government inspection of food products or an end to government regulation of medicines; I am not such a doctrinaire conservative that I look kindly on government attempts to legislate morality, or favor manditory religious instruction in state schools. (xviii)

Perhaps Silverberg might best be described as a moderate rationalist using his essays as a means of urging a sense of sanity on an increasingly radical world.

Another difference between the essays of Campbell and those of Silverberg is their style. Campbell's essays are assertive; he wants to grab you by the lapels and shake you into thought. Silverberg's essays are more gentlemanly-- the writings of a man who used to be an arrogant little pisher, but who gradually learned (sometimes painfully) that there was more to writing and life than he once believed. The style is polite-- the mark of a man who somewhere along the line learned that other people's feelings matter. But none of this style prevents Silverberg from being honest about his positions.

Here he is on the proposal to teach creationism as an alternate hypothesis to evolution:

Why not, you say? Shouldn't all viewpoints be given equal opportunity for testing?
Well, actually, no... If we teach Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden to our children at school, should we not also teach the Creation myths-- pardon me, Creation theories-- of other all cultures? (110)

And here he is on the hypersensitivity of minority goups in political correctness criticism:

And-- minority sensitivities or no-- _it is not the job of the artists to be nice to people_. We are not social workers. We are not therapists. We are not crusaders. We are tellers of tales, inventers of fiction. What we offer is not comfort but vision. Not all the visions are cuddly ones. (353)

Of particular interest are a number of portraits of science fiction writers and editors, including John Campbell ["Not only did he know what went into a good sf tale, he understood how the universe worked"(264)], Robert A. Heinlein ["The word that comes to mind for him was _essential_"(248)], and Isaac Asimov ["He was... more unique than any of us"(247)]. But my favorite was his portrait of Lester del Rey: "My feelings for Lester went beyond metaphor. I was one of his sons; he was one of my fathers, with all the complexities and turbulance that such a relationship implies" (261).

I have read all of the essays in this book at least three or four times, and I expect to reread them many more times in the future. I can think of no higher praise.

This is a good book for anybody who reads a lot of science fiction/fantasy and has a real interest in the people who write it. Robert Silverberg is an author who will be given the Grand Master award from SFWA in the future. His novels like Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and A Time of Changes are classics of the field. Even some of his later works like The Face of the Waters and The Alien Years show signs of greatness.

But, this book is a collection of essays that RS has written over the years. They show us inside his thinking process. He also tells us about the world of an SF writter and about the other personalities who make up the field.

Good book for people interested in the author and his work.

I discovered Robert Silverberg's work while browsing the library. I was a book called The Book of Skulls. I thought it looked interesting so I took it home and read it. I haven't looked back since. I have read nearly everything I can find by this wonderful man. That brings me to this book. When I finished this book, I had reached a turning point in my life. I began reading Golden Age SF. It really bothers me when younger people say why should I read that? A bunch a dead guys wrote that smelly stuff (since most/nearly all SF was in the pulps). I have read Cliff Simak, Lewis Padgett (who is really C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner), Robert A. Heinlein, Lester del Rey, John W. Campbell (Night is beautiful), A.E. van Vogt, and many others, and I must say, though some is extremely corny (The Vault of the Beast by van Vogt..."Ha! We're going to take over mankind!), it provided much of the richness that is now in the field. Before reading Reflections and Refractions, I had no idea about this other world. Now I have begun reading about the authors themselves, and the editors, and definitely believe my life is fuller because the great Golden Age.

It is very nearly the end of his book before Professor Richard Slotkin justifies the "violence" in his title Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600 - 1860. His final thesis is that the myth that the best Americans are violent is partial at best and has been misused by politicians to justify imperialist adventures from our own western plains to the 1898 war with Spain to Viet-Nam.

Most of the book is about the literary foundations behind the myth of the quintessential American being a hunter who enters a wilderness (the early American forests, the depths of his own dark mind) to endure an initiation of hunting, fishing, captivity, rescues and the "Eucharistic" union of hunter and a prey (the hunted) that is respected, killed and devoured.

Herman Melville's MOBY-DICK was not (like John Filson's Colonel Boone) initially popular. But in time it became "The American National Epic" (p. 538). Slotkin's ultimate conclusion is that there must be something to these intertwined myths of America but they are either inadequate to the real American character or false -- and certainly harmful as guides to behavior.

The search for American myths culminates before 1860 in the deep probings of Henry Thoreau and Herman Melville and the more fervid but less cerebral expressions by Walt Whitman. Thoreau took from Cooper and other myth-embellishers a notion of literary creativity as a bloody seizure of truth held by a foe or by prey.

The research into American myths begins with the Pilgrim/Puritan experiences of the 1620s to 1690s in hostile, wilderness New England, moves into literary comings to terms with those experiences in narratives and sermons and then into increasingly secular and decidedly fictional conceptions by writers like Parson Weems (on George Washington), John Filson (on Daniel Boone) and James Fenimore Cooper (on Natty Bumppo, the Leatherstocking).

A sickness entered popular American culture when Davy Crockett, hunter-wastrel, supreme waster of natural resources, became a mythic hero. Crockett, as America's Aeneas, was not a builder, but a destroyer, a conquistador (p. 555). When a mythic male hunter is hero and dark wilderness is his stage, then left behind are woman, family, civilization and towns. All a Boone, Crockett or Bumppo can do is hunt, kill, eat then resume hunting, killing and eating. This becomes the recommended American mythic cycle. And often, as with Captain Ahab and the white whale, the prey is simply unhuntable (p. 557) but is nonetheless pursued to the end of time.

As for the captivity/rescue/reassimilation into society dimension of America's myths, "...rescue from dark events is never complete" (564). Our foe was always the Indian or the pristine forest. And we only recognized and appreciated him when we slew him.

Lovers of James Fenimore Cooper will naturally linger over Slotkin's Chapter 13 "Man Without a Cross: The Leatherstocking Myth (1823 - 1841," pp. 466 - 516). Cooper skillfully blended materials from English and Scottish (Sir Walter Scott) romanticism with popular literature from New England and the new West (p. 468). Sir Walter in his introduction to ROB ROY had compared the famous Scot outlaw Rob Roy McGregor to red Indians for readers surprised that "a character like his, blending the wild virtues, the subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan age of Queen Anne and George I." William Wordsworth's poem "Rob Roy's Grave" also catches a likeness to the future Leatherstocking. Cooper did much more than mechanically flesh or draw out the Boone myths and others, though he did make them his point of departure before probing their metaphors of the dark human heart.

Professor Slotkin credits Moravian missionary to the Delawares, Rev. J. G. Heckewelder, for the inspiration of the scene in THE PIONEERS where Natty, Chingachgook and Uncas pursue and kill a deer swimming in a lake. This captured a well known creation myth. Slotkin also gives Cooper much credit for hard literary pioneering which made possible even deeper insights of Hawthorne, Melville and Thoreau.

Professor Slotkin absolves the typical American from being the stoic killer detected by D. H. Lawrence. But Slotkin also blames at least some of America's myths for glorifying anti-environmental, destructive hunter-killers.

This long book is a pleasure to read, is a well-written historical review. Some of its final conclusions do not, however, seem firmly entailed by 99% of the well-chosen words that preceded them. -OOO-

1999 marked an "average year" for North American fixation on violence, sexual imagery, and an added combination of technological paranoia as a result of the new millennium. For the most part, television screens tuned in to the daily media circus showcasing the latest "experts" on youth violence, gang activity, and the Psychic Friends Network. The student shooting at Colorado's Columbine high school, however, gripped the nation and left the "experts" scrambling for explanations, counselors, and an array of gun-control measures.

Of all the propositions these so-called experts put forth, none discussed the historical culture of violence that has become the foundation of our country's consciousness. Instead of real explanations and solutions, we endured Senator Diane Feinstein and other "politicians" anxious to defend their domain at the public dole. Many failed to connect the bullets flying in American classrooms with the bombs dropping on civilians in Kosovo. Indeed, they missed the forest for the trees when instead of searching for the root cause of the problem (the culture of violence), they resorted to simplistic cosmetic trimming (more gun control). Richard Slotkin's monograph on the mythology of the American frontier examines the origins of this "frontier mentality" and the making of our national character.

In Regeneration through Violence, Richard Slotkin argues that the North American frontier mythology is a major force in shaping the national character of the country. By building on the theoretical constructs of Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis," Slotkin argues that the frontier was not so much a "regeneration" of democratic principles as much as it was one of violence. Unlike Turner's notion of the frontier as a European and Socialist cleanser, Slotkin offers a more palatable thesis by incorporating the influence and conflict with various Native American populations. The conclusions, nonetheless, are not that simple. American settlers were "not simply an idiosyncratic offshoot of English civilization" but became "Americanized" or "Indianized" in their contact with the indigenous peoples of the continent. By tracing the origins of violence and freedom Slotkin concludes that various European and North American mythologies influenced the early settlers before, during, and after Native American contact.[1] Europeans who settled on the North American continent disembarked with an assortment of adopted ideas and mythologies from their native homeland(s). In this particular context, Slotkin's analysis on European cultural baggage is worth quoting at length:



"The Europeans who settled the New World possessed at the time of their arrival a mythology derived from the cultural history of their home countries and responsive to the psychological and social needs of their old culture. Their new circumstances forced new perspectives, new self-concepts, and new world concepts on the colonists and made them see their cultural heritage from angles of vision that non-colonists would find peculiar. The internal tension between the Moira and Themis elements in their European mythologies (and the psychological tensions that is the source of this myth-duality) found an objective correlative in the racial, religious, and cultural opposition of the American Indians and colonial Christians. This racial-cultural conflict pointed up and intensified the emotional difficulties attendant on the colonists' attempt to adjust to life in the wilderness. The picture was further complicated for them by the political and religious demands made on them by those who remained in Europe, as well as by the colonists' own need to affirm-for themselves and for the home folks-that they had not deserted European civilization for American savagery." [pg. 15]

Much like Reginald Horsman's monograph on the origins of American racial Anglo-Saxonism, Slotkin understands that European settlers did not approach the New World with a cultural clean slate; or as Professor Buzzanco would say: tabula rasa. Europeans carried with them centuries of cultural baggage and transported those ideas to the American continent, particularly the concept of Volkgeist.[Horsman, 25-42]
The new settlers underwent the logical process of a cultural tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis, or "times change and we change with them." Racial prejudice, however, was not the only cultural and social "element" present at the time of contact. Religious nuances and distorted comparisons between Catholicism and Native American blood rites provided an added cultural wedge between the two. Slotkin believes that many of the above mentioned traits found fertile ground in North American literature, specifically in the accounts of Indian wars and captivity narratives. According to Slotkin,

"The cultural anxieties and aspirations of the colonists found their most dramatic and symbolic portrayal in the accounts of the Indian wars. The Indian war was a uniquely American experience. Moreover, it pitted the English Puritan colonists against a culture that was antithetical to their own in most significant aspects. They could emphasize their Englishness by setting their civilization against Indian barbarism; they could suggest their own superiority to the home English by exalting their heroism in battle, the peculiar danger of their circumstances, and the holy zeal for English Christian expansion with which they preached to or shot at the savages. It was within this genre of colonial Puritan writing that the first American mythology took shape-a mythology in which the hero was the captive or victim of devilish American savages and in which his (or her) heroic quest was for religious conversion and salvation. As their experience in and love for America grew, however--and as non-Puritans entered the American book-printing trade-the early passion for remaining "non-American" (or non-Indian) became confused with the love the settlers bore the land and their desire to gain intimate knowledge of and emotional title to it. If the first American mythology portrayed the colonist as a captive or a destroyer of Indians, the subsequent acculturated versions of the myth showed him growing closer to the Indian and the wild land. New versions of the hero emerged, characters whose role was that of mediating between civilization and savagery, white and red. The yeoman farmer was one of these types, as were the explorer or surveyor and. later, the naturalist."[pg. 21]

The European contrast between civilization and nature found other outlets to vent differences between "civility" and "savagery." Myths such as the ones mentioned above facilitated the aggressive westward expansion of the nineteenth century, particularly during the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848). Additionally, questions regarding early captivity narratives and the fictitious nuances that they engender pose interesting comparisons between those of the early Spanish settlers in New Mexico.

Placed against Hietala's monograph on "manifest design," however, Slotkin's study on the mythology of the American frontier is complimented by additional factors absent from his own book: diplomacy, politics, partisanship, economics, divisions between free labor and slave labor, and logistics. In defense of Slotkin, however, the author is primarily interested in excavating the origins of North American frontier mythology whereas Hietala's interest focuses on the question of "Manifest Destiny" during the Jacksonian period.

The benefit of Slotkin, in my opinion, has more to do with his understanding of the North American mentality and how those psychological underpinnings influence decisions outside of our own cultural distinctions, i.e. political, economic, diplomatic, and otherwise. More importantly, and like I've mentioned before, the question over mythology is, in my estimation, one of the fundamental obstacles obscuring our peregrino (peregrinate) to an open-minded discussion regarding many of our current social, economic, and political issues. The question over how mythology becomes part of our national character requires a crucial understanding of not only the origins of North American mythology itself, but also the ability to propose an alternative, practical model to take its place. The latter, in my opinion, is much harder than the former.

Slotkin analyzes the popular texts of early American life--"capitivity narratives" of women abducted by Native Americans, dime novels, etc.--to show how early Americans came to rationalize the gap between their religious ideology and the reality of the wilderness they were meant to transform into the "city on the hill." His careful study of the documents seems almost academic at first, and is sometimes rough going, but when I let his argument sink in (as a student in Slotkin's undergraduate class which used this book as its text), it profoundly and permanently transformed the way I saw American culture and history. This book is revelatory for anyone interested in "American Studies," the creation of our national mythology, and in what makes America America.

If you truly want to understand American culture this book is essential. It's erudite, detailed, patient, yet lively, examination of the themes of early American life and literature are revelatory. I have no doubt it will become a "classic" of American scholarship.

The Conclusion which crowns this, the most perfect book in the English language should be memorised and chanted sutra-like on a daily basis.

This work by Walter Pater, published in 1873, as
a volume of collected (previously published) essays
along with an essay on "Winckelmann", a Preface, and
a Conclusion was [and perhaps still is] an extremely
influential work of aesthetic criticism. The volume
helped shape [influence] the perceptions, the
attitudes, and the approaches of many youthful readers
in the late 1880's and 1890's. It is very interesting
to read, immensely engaging to consider and muse about,
but also offers cautions to the overenthusiastic,
easily influenced [or persuaded] disciple.
This volume consists of an Introduction [by the
editor, Adam Philips], a Preface [by Pater], 9 chapters,
and a Conclusion (in this particular edition
by Oxford Classics there is also a chronology, a
Selective Bibliography, an Appendix titled "Diaphaneite,"
and Explanatory Notes in the back. The chapter titles
(after Pater's Preface) are: Two Early French Stories;
Pico Della Mirandola; Sandro Botticelli; Luca Della
Robbia; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Leonardo da Vinci;
The School of Giorgione, Joachim Du Bellay; Winckelmann;
and Conclusion.
* * * * * * * * * *
What's the problem here? Well, unfortunately, Pater
is not completely reliable as an objective perceiver
or critic. He tends to be a bit eccentric in his
individualistic perceptions and interpretations of
the art works, but he goes ahead and defends this
approach in a very "modern" sounding fashion --
which seems to include a bit of "situational perceptions,"
subjective impressions of perception and response,
and subjective criticism. Which makes for extremely
engaging [sometimes irritating] reading, but leaves
something to be desired as far as objective and
judicious thoughtfulness and truthfulness. Pater
seems to believe that it is acceptable to "bend"
or even create facts to further his own it-pleases-
me-to-think-that-this-is-or-should-be-so desires.
We know that we are on a slippery critical slope
[though it will sound all too familiar to modern
ears and modern apologetics] when the editor Phillips
informs us: "In Pater's first published writing, his
essay on Coleridge of 1866, he had suggested that --
'Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its
cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the
"absolute" ... To the modern spirit nothing is, or
can be rightly known, except relatively and under
conditions." It doesn't take much time to realize
that such a critical position is going to lead to
an end-position of aesthetic, critical, and moral
relativism ("You can't tell me I'm wrong, because
there is no one set way of seeing, analyzing,
believing, or evaluating."-- the spoiled, indulged child's
self-justification for the validity of its own
ego supremacy and authority against that of any
parental or adult restrictions. Such a position usually
means a lack of any meaningful in-depth self questioning
or objective evaluating of personal motives, and a
welcoming of lack of restraints in the pursuit of
pleasure and non-self discipline. And this, of course,
is the critical negative refrain that often comes
against the decadent followers of Pater's credo.]
The second fall-out effect of Pater's evaluations
and pronouncements is that some of his disciples
[self-styled] went farther than even he was willing
to approve with their hedonism and purposefully
shocking lifestyles and "decadent" behaviors and
aesthetic appetites.
But it came from statements like this, which Pater
may have meant one way, but which their subjective,
individualistic perceptions took another way: "The
aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with
which he has to do, all works of art, and the fairer
forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces
producing PLEASURABLE SENSATIONS [caps are mine], each
of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. [We value
them --he says] for the property each has of affecting
one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure.
Our education becomes complete in proportion as our
SUSCEPTIBILITY to these impressions increases -- in
depth and VARIETY."
Let the perceiver and the critic -- and the
experiencer -- proceed with extreme caution and good
judgment.
* * * * * * * * *

This book has changed many lives in a very
peculiar way: although its evaluations are
quite wrong at times, particularly the chapter
on the School of Giorgione(if you care, check
out the edition with an introduction by
Kenneth Clark), Pater's Renaissance still
shines with the very same light that made it a
cult among Victorian youngmen.

The "gemstone flame", the pervasive feelings
of which Pater invited us to share have not
vanished (in spite of the attempts of the
so-called modern art), and the book's
invaluable lesson is that you simply
do not need a fancy objet d'art to see
what true beauty is all about.

So basically this is what I have to say: if
you have ever derived aesthetic pleasure from
anything at all in life, you should read this
little book tomorrow. If you never felt any
such pleasure, you must read The Renaissance
right now, or you'll simply let the good
things pass you by. I mean it.

Many books and articles have been written about the poetry of Robert Frost, but this book, astonishingly, makes almost all of them obsolete. Frost's critics have found him haunted by a dark vision but they have been hard pressed to say exactly what it was. They have struggled to find the real context of his thinking, but the poems, in spite of many melancholy readings, have remained elusive. What are these elegant meditations really about? Where does the impetus for these disturbing dramatic monologues and stark dialogues come from? Faggen's brilliantly researched and forcefully written book finally tells us the answer: Frost was obsessed with Darwin and his vision of the natural world. He said so many times (though none of his critics was willing to listen). And once you have recognized this fact, the grave, witty, tender, and frightful poems acquire a new clarity and force. Frost was no "spiritual drifter," no vague perveyor of "metaphysical terror," as earlier writers have thought, but the most sophisticated and tough-minded poet of science that modern culture has produced--the nearest thing we have to a Lucretius. This book takes a figure who has seemed conservative or even backward to his readers and shows him to be the most forward-looking artist of his generation. And it accomplishes this task with an easy mastery of detail that removes all doubt. "Never again would bird's song be the same," Frost wrote--never the same after reading Darwin, that is, nor will this poem be the same after reading Faggen. The romantic Frost is dead, and a new Frost is afoot. Some will mourn, some will rejoice at the news, but scholarship is seldom as conclusive as this and hardly ever as exciting.

This book helped me see Frost in a new light, as a thinker grappling with the problems science poses to religion and to poetry. There is an enormous amount of scholarship brought to many poems, and we see the ways Frost thought not only about Darwin but about Lucretius, Milton, James, Bergson, Emerson, and Thoreau. The Frost that emerges is both dark and complex--a subversive and subtle pastoralist. Though the book is written in clear prose with very little jargon, it is a heavy read. But well worth it.

Professor Faggen has written a remarkable book. We might have considered Frost a sentimental, a provincial poet, but in this volume we discover that Frost (far from the potato-hoeing grandpa of our collective memories) is a poet of the first order and among the most challenging of the moderns. Frost's revaluations of the Romantic and the Miltonic myths in Darwinian terms place him as our chief poet of the scientific, the skeptical turn of mind. The evidence amassed for his argument is daunting and Faggen has contributed to our understanding of the place of Darwin--biological and social--in modern poetry. Faggen's individual readings are acute and original. We will from now on see "The Road Not Taken," "The Oven Bird," and "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," in a different way. We will see them not as melancholy mood poems, but as tough and riddling explorations of human and animal existence. We may now begin to see Frost's place in American literature, and that a high position indeed! We may thank Robert Faggen for deepening our understanding and broadening our view.

AThis is a fabulous book, of special interest to women and sensitive thinkers of all cultures. Padma Hejmadi writes with a clarity and compactness unrivaled in today's literature. She explores the world from her special vantage point, bringing it alive with her gift of visual as well as written language. The scenes imprint themselves on one's memory forever. The gift of this courageous woman is not to be ignored. Read and enjoy!

This is a soaring, remarkable exploration of human consciousness, seen through the filters of time, place, and language. Hejmadi captures the intricacies of human awareness with precision, clarity, wit, and grace. Whether the setting is East or West, Delhi or Taos, Hejmadi's truths about love, life, work & family are reverberant and universal. She has the gift of making you walk her extraordinary path along with her. A wonderful gift for any booklover in your life.

this small book contains a huge amount of living, thinking and writing. Please read it and buy it. Your view of the world will expand and your faith in humanity andthe ablilty to think will be greatly enlarged.

I love this book. It was as good as "Moll Flanders" and has a very happy and satisfying ending.

I read "Robinson Crusoe" as a young boy, and never forgot it (55 years later); then, as a mature adult I read "A Journal of the Plague Year" and "Moll Flanders", both of which were execellent reads; and a few days ago I finished "Roxana", so let me share a few thoughts about the book.
First off, when you read Defoe, it is essential to realize that you are dipping into the very beginnings of English literature. Anything that is three centuries removed from the present has to be put into its historical context in order to make sense of it, and contemporary values must be held in abeyance. If you are capable of doing that, you are in for a heck of a good story, as are all of the books mentioned above.
"Roxana" concerns the rise and fall (mostly rise) of a woman left destitute, along with her five children, by her fool of a husband. Circumstances eventually lead her to prostitution as a means of survival, and as luck would have it, her "gentlemen protectors" are uniformly wealthy, and by means of careful marshalling of her earnings Roxana becomes independently wealthy. But what she lacks is social status, which leads her to her final alliance with a Dutch merchant who knows nothing of her past.
Along the way, Roxana begets and abandons about nine offspring here and there(this being the days before birth control), and one of them, Susan, figures in the downfall of Roxana. This novel pays great attention to the psychological aspects of living a life that is generally condemned by society. Defoe shapes Roxana's psychological health around his own ethical views, and, as such, makes Roxana suffer for her choices in the long run. Thus, the novel does not end happily for its central character, an interesting fact, in that this is the only novel of Defoe's that does not end happily for the protagonist.
All told, "Roxana" is a great read. Defoe certainly reflects his ethical biases, but at the same time does a good job of objectively fleshing out charaters who forcefully express points of view that differ from his own.
For me, everything worked beautifully in the novel until the last paragraph, but that happens a lot in literature.

This novel is about how the desperations brought on by poverty can lead not only to crime but to a moral vacuum within an individual. Roxana is left a penniless widow with five children at age 22. In order to survive she becomes the mistress of her landlord and eventually bears him a son. Greed replaces need, and she determines to become a "woman of Wealth." After the landlord is murdered in a robbery, she becomes the mistress of an even wealthier prince, refusing to marry him because that would mean having to share her wealth. Eventually, after guilt and repentance set in over her squandered life, she decides to marry the prince, but all does not turn out well: she moves to Holland with him where "I fell into a dreadful Course of Calamities ... and I was brought so low again." One of the most interesting characters in the book is Roxana's faithful maid Amy, who sticks by Roxana through all her tribulations, even once offering her body to the landlord when Roxana appears to be barren. But for the life of me, after reading the ending a dozen times, I can't tell for sure whether Amy actually kills Roxana's menacing daughter or merely threatens to do so. This edition retains all the original spellings and punctuations, so it's a little hard reading at first, but with a little perseverance the eye and mind adjust and the difficulty wanes. Worth the effort.