Roman Triumphs New Books about Ancient Poetry

Abstract

where does scholarship on Rash’s work stand beyond the books reviewed here? In April 2014 I attended the Society for Southern Literature conference to participate on a panel celebrating the literary achievements of the late Louis D. Rubin, Jr., who, with Cleanth Brooks, founded that particular organization. While perusing the rest of the conference program, I noted that out of more than fifty panels and nearly two hundred individual presentations, only one paper had anything to do with Rash’s work. It is surprising that the significantly larger Appalachian Studies Association conference, which had convened a month earlier, provided only slightly greater recognition. I have commented elsewhere on the lag time between authorial achievements and what contemporary writers generally read and know, versus the time necessary for that knowledge to seep slowly into academia and the monographs of literary scholars. Yet, given the range and volume of Rash’s work and the international success it has enjoyed over the past decade, to repeat, it is surprising more has not been written about it already, but also inevitable that it will receive the scholarly attention it richly deserves sooner or later. It follows then that the University of South Carolina Press is ahead of its peer publishers in offering, all at once, several incarnations of Rash’s work and criticism about it. In fact, it well may mark the beginning of a critical recognition that soon will bloom into much more—for which many of us have been waiting.