AMS Press Research Articles

Factorization of classical characters twisted by roots of unity

For a fixed integer t≥2, we consider the irreducible characters of representations of the classical groups of types A, B, C and D, namely GLtn,SO2tn+1,Sp2tn and O2tn, evaluated at elements ωkxi for 0≤k≤t−1 and 1≤i≤n, where ω is a primitive t'th root of unity. The case of GLtn was considered by D. J. Littlewood (AMS press, 1950) and independently by D. Prasad (Israel J. Math., 2016). In this article, we give a uniform approach for all cases. We also look at GLtn+1 where we specialize the elements as before and set the last variable to 1. In each case, we characterize partitions for which the character value is nonzero in terms of what we call z-asymmetric partitions, where z is an integer which depends on the group. Moreover, if the character value is nonzero, we prove that it factorizes into characters of smaller classical groups. The proof uses Cauchy-type determinant formulas for these characters and involves a careful study of the beta sets of partitions. We also give product formulas for general z-asymmetric partitions and z-asymmetric t-cores. Lastly, we show that there are infinitely many z-asymmetric t-cores for t≥z+2.

Scribleriana

Scribleriana

General Critical Studies of Dickens’s Works and Dickens and Aspects of Fiction; General Specialized Studies of Dickens’s Works, Collected and Selected Editions of Dickens’s Works, and Supplementary Studies by Duane DeVries

Reviewed by: General Critical Studies of Dickens’s Works and Dickens and Aspects of Fiction; General Specialized Studies of Dickens’s Works, Collected and Selected Editions of Dickens’s Works, and Supplementary Studies by Duane DeVries Leon Litvack (bio) Duane DeVries. General Critical Studies of Dickens’s Works and Dickens and Aspects of Fiction; General Specialized Studies of Dickens’s Works, Collected and Selected Editions of Dickens’s Works, and Supplementary Studies. Volumes 3 and 4 of General Studies of Charles Dickens and His Writings and Collected Editions of His Works: An Annotated Bibliography, Brighton: Edward Everett Root Publishers, 2018 and 2019, pp. xxxi + 1146; clxix + 1162. $163.50/£125 (for each of the 4 parts). ISBN: 9781912224159 (vol. 3, part 1); 9781912224425 (vol. 3, part 2); 9781912224166 (vol. 4, part 1); 9781912224432 (vol. 4, part 2). On page clxix of the introduction to the fourth volume of this mammoth, erudite, comprehensive enterprise, Duane DeVries concludes: “We have at last come to the end of a long pilgrimage.” The two volumes, each in two parts, under consideration here represent the conclusion of a publishing project that stretches back to 2004, when the first volume was published by AMS Press.1 However, the Dickens Annotated Bibliography series (of which DeVries was the General Editor) can trace its origins to 1978, when Robert L. Patten first recommended DeVries to Garland Publishing, to produce a series of eighteen volumes, covering each of the novels, the shorter works of fiction, nonfiction, drama and poetry, concluding with a final volume which would collect and annotate general bibliographical, textual, biographical, critical and special studies of Dickens. The work under review here is the latter portion of that eighteenth volume, which stretches to four tomes, each worth its weight in gold. In our digital age, it is all too common for scholars, often guided or pushed by algorithms, to turn to online sources to search for academic studies relevant to their particular research topics. Such facilities abound, and with ever-increasing amounts of information being placed online – not just critical works, but also primary sources, particularly from the Victorian period, for which copyright has expired – there would seem to be no reason to consult hardbound texts to discover all that scholarship has to offer for a particular line of inquiry. Volumes 3 and 4 of this bibliography make it plain that there is so much more to unearth, not just from the period before computers, but right up to 2018, which is where DeVries’s trawl of printed material and digital sources concludes. Volume 3 (in two sequential tomes) covers general critical studies of Dickens’s work. The first part is broken down into studies published between 1836 and 1870 (the year of the author’s death), from 1871 to 1939 (the year Edmund Wilson first espoused the ideas that crystallised in “Dickens: [End Page 79] The Two Scrooges”), and 1940 to date. DeVries categorises “general studies” as those covering three or more of Dickens’s works; his rationale for this classification is that studies of one or two works are generally covered by the Dickens bibliographies devoted to single works, and previously published first by Garland, and then by AMS Press. The second part of volume 3 covers aspects of Dickens’s fiction, including characterization, scene, description, plot, form, structural unity, style, point of view, tone, language, linguistics, speech, themes, allegory, allusions, imagery, symbolism, comic elements, wit, humor, irony, parody and satire. While these classifications may not be absolutely definitive, DeVries maintains that scholars still use these aspects of technique to develop new ways of looking at Dickens’s work; in this sense, the subdivisions go beyond any individual critical approach and still form the basis of how we understand essential aspects of Dickens’s craft. In order to appreciate the value of this part of the work, researchers should move well beyond the taxonomy, and delve into the astute, insightful annotations. DeVries is able to extract expertly the essence of a particular article, book, or doctoral dissertation, and thus save the scholar inordinate amounts of time when considering whether a particular piece will be worthy of further examination. For longer works he provides chapter...

ASECS at 50: Interview with Maximillian Novak

ASECS at 50:Interview with Maximillian Novak Rebekah Mitsein (bio) and Maximillian Novak Reflecting on his early days of graduate school at UCLA in an article for the launch issue of Digital Defoe in 2009, Maximillian Novak observed that he was "far from your single minded, professionally oriented graduate student," unsure what field to specialize in and absorbed by a range of writers and critical questions.1 "My favorite author was Swift," he wrote, but it was the topic of "Defoe and economics" that ultimately grabbed Novak's attention. At the time "it seemed as if ideas were swirling around Defoe's work and reputation, as if studies in Defoe were becoming possible in a way they had not been before." Novak entered that conversation with a dissertation that became his first book, Economics and the Fiction of Daniel Defoe (Univ. of California Press, 1962), in which he pushed back against the tendency to read Defoe as a champion of economic individualism, instead presenting Defoe's fiction through the lens of his mercantilist sensibilities and arguing for the moral and social complexity of Defoe's characters. Several monographs and a compendious biography (Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions, Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) followed, covering topics ranging from Defoe's engagement with natural law (Defoe and the Nature of Man, Oxford Univ. Press, 1963), to the intersections among Defoe's fiction, journalism, historical writing, and interest in painting (Realism, Myth, and History in Defoe's Fiction, Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1983). In the introduction to Transformations, Ideology, and the Real in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Other Narratives (Univ. of Delaware Press, 2015), Novak wrote that he first began publishing on Defoe with an aim "to establish Defoe as a significant thinker both outside and inside his fiction."2 Across a six-decade career, Novak has done that and more, not only rendering Defoe's protean oeuvre more approachable and meaningful for subsequent scholars, but also making significant [End Page 379] contributions to the study of the eighteenth-century novel by scrupulously situating it within the era's cultural, political, and economic networks. Nevertheless, Novak never left the broad curiosity of his early days in graduate school behind. Interspersed with his research on Defoe are several volumes of John Dryden's Works (Univ. of California Press, 1956–2000), a book on William Congreve (William Congreve, Twayne, 1971), an overview of eighteenth-century literature that examined the contradictions and conflicts within the period's literary ideals (Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Macmillan, 1983), a book on the twentieth-century Jewish American writer I.J. Singer written with Estelle Gershgoren Novak (The Writer as Exile: Israel Joshua Singer, AMS Press, 2016), and numerous essays on Dryden and Jonathan Swift, among other eighteenth-century literary luminaries. Novak received a Ph.D. from UCLA in 1958 and a D.Phil. from Oxford in 1961. He taught at the University of Michigan from 1958–1962. He then returned to UCLA where he remains, continuing to bring eighteenth-century literature to life for newcomers and old hands alike. Rebekah Mitsein: You've been a part of ASECS for much of its history, first appearing on an ASECS program as an organizer in 1971, when UCLA hosted the society's 3rd annual meeting, and serving on its executive board from 1978–1981. What are your most noteworthy recollections of ASECS? How has the organization influenced the study of the eighteenth century? Maximillian Novak: I recall the formation of ASECS at an MLA. The meetings of that organization were arranged around a few plenary sessions—none of the many seminars that exist now, and there were few such sessions allotted to the Restoration and eighteenth century. Donald Greene, who was one of the early organizers of ASECS, expressed his dissatisfaction to me and the need for an organization such as ASECS. There was so much important scholarship and criticism that needed to be discussed. The founding of ASECS helped to reveal the centrality of the period to the literature, arts, history, and philosophy of later periods. This may seem obvious now, but nineteenth-century writers had made a conscious effort to deny the importance of the previous century. Mitsein: Do...

National Hawthorne in the College Classroom: Contexts, Materials, and Approaches, by Diller, Christopher, and Samuel Coale, editors.

<i>National Hawthorne in the College Classroom: Contexts, Materials, and Approaches</i>, by Diller, Christopher, and Samuel Coale, editors.

Homeward Bound or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea

Homeward Bound or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea

Letter from the Editors

Other| November 01 2017 Letter from the Editors Resources for American Literary Study (2017) 39 (1): vii–viii. https://doi.org/10.5325/resoamerlitestud.39.2017.vii Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Letter from the Editors. Resources for American Literary Study 1 November 2017; 39 (1): vii–viii. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/resoamerlitestud.39.2017.vii Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search We are sorry to announce that the owner and director of AMS Press, Gabriel Hornstein, passed away in Westport, Connecticut, on February 17, 2017, at the age of 81. Gabe was a courtly gentleman who loved literature and literary scholarship. He was a strong supporter of Resources for American Literary Study from the time he took it on in 2003. We are grateful for his belief in the importance of the journal—and for his friendship. He will be missed.We are now entering a new phase of the development of the journal—new but familiar all the same. RALS is returning to Penn State University Press. We are grateful to Patrick Alexander, Director of the Press, and Diana Pesek, Journals Manager, for their interest and their encouragement. We look forward to working together to continue offering a substantial journal of archival scholarship and bibliographical analysis for all aspects of American literary... You do not currently have access to this content.

Preface

“To transmit is more important than to innovate.”—Eli Wiesel, Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters Eli Wiesel's assertion, evidently intended not to be limited to Hasidism, may at times seem an overstatement, but it reminds us of the essential need to safeguard what we have inherited. The preservation of literary art depends on teachers and librarians, scholars and critics, editors and translators, adapters and archivists, publishers and booksellers, readers and students. The essays in this volume attempt to guide and assist us in responding to the fiction written and valued in a past era that is rapidly becoming ever more unfamiliar to us, but nevertheless offers enlightenment about enduring human concerns.We are grateful to all of the writers who have submitted their work to us and also to the specialists who have reviewed these studies and provided detailed assessments helpful to the editors and our contributors alike.We extend special thanks to Sarah Gates for preparing a perceptive, extremely comprehensive survey of Dickens-related materials published in 2015.For important practical assistance, we thank the following administrators at CUNY's Graduate Center: Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Joy Connolly; Ph.D. Program in English Executive Officer Mario DiGangi; and Nancy Silverman, Assistant Program Officer, Ph.D. Program in English.We are grateful to John O. Jordan and Renee A. Fox, Co-Directors of The Dickens Project at the University of California, Santa Cruz; Courtney Mahaney, Assistant Director of The Dickens Project; and Jon Michael Varese, the Project's Director of Digital Initiatives, for their cooperation. We especially appreciate Ms. Mahaney's placing on the Project's website the tables of contents for volumes 1-27 of DSA, as well as abstracts for subsequent volumes. (These items can be found on the Project's website: &lt;http://dickens.ucsc.edu&gt;. Look under “Resources” to find Dickens Studies Annual.)We appreciate the reliable, skillful assistance of Jack Hopper, retired Editor-in-Chief at AMS Press; and the frequent help and encouragement from Albert Rolls, recently Editor-in-Chief at AMS Press. We also express our appreciation to the three doctoral students at the Graduate Center who have served at different times as our very capable editorial assistants for this volume: Julia Fuller for her assistance with the early work, Wei Wu for his contribution to most of the volume, and Christine Choi for her help with the final stage.We wish to note, too, our deep gratitude to the late Gabriel Hornstein. As President of AMS Press, he was an enthusiastic, generous enabler of DSA for over thirty-six years. Even in difficult times for scholarly publishing in the humanities, he remained entirely consistent in his support. We dedicate this volume to his memory.Following the loss of Mr. Hornstein, his family decided to close AMS Press. We have therefore reached a new publishing agreement with Penn State University Press, and we are grateful to its director, Patrick Alexander, for his consideration and assistance in arranging this transition. We also appreciate the warm welcome offered by Diana L. Pesek, Journals Manager at Penn State University Press, and the helpful guidance of Julie Lambert, Production Coordinator. Our next issue, Volume 49, will be published in two parts in 2018.

Honorary Membership Citations

Honorary Membership Citations

Pursuing “the Unhappiest Idea Possible” in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Tales

Pursuing “the Unhappiest Idea Possible” in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Tales Keat Murray (bio) Leather-Stocking Redux; or, Old Tales, New Essays Edited by jeffrey walker New York: AMS Press, 2011 284 pp. The Deerslayer (1841) Introduction by ezra tawil Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013 638 pp. The Pathfinder (1840) Introduction by wayne franklin Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015 558 pp. The Prairie (1827) Introduction by domhnall martin mitchell Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014 515 pp. It is the unhappiest idea possible, to suppose that politics can be associated, in any effective way, with romance or fiction. —The Knickerbocker, August 1835 When James Fenimore Cooper published The Pathfinder in 1840, the New York Review was jubilant: “We hail the reappearance of Mr. Cooper in his [End Page 477] old and true sphere, with deeper regret than ever that he should so long have been unfaithful to his proper vocation” (Rev. of The Pathfinder 479). It wasn’t that Cooper had been unproductive in the 1830s but that he had abandoned “his proper vocation” of writing historical fiction, so often set on the sea and on the frontier, to hazard his reputation on a variety of genres imbued with social and political commentary. In this regard, what marked the “true work of genius” in the author’s “reappearance” in The Pathfinder was actually his disappearance. In the new book, continued the reviewer, “our pleasure is marred by scarcely a false feeling and disgusting self-obtrusion of his two or three last productions; on the contrary, the person of the author is lost in his works,” which is to say that as long as Cooper is not detected in his fiction he stands a chance of winning approval (480). Rather than tolerating the “disgusting self-obtrusion” of the author’s more overtly critical publications, the reviewer prefers his virtual self-negation. The sentiment so forcefully expressed in the New York Review was not new to Cooper in 1840, for he had faced similar charges in the 1830s when he published his European novels, travel books, and other nonfiction. In 1835, for instance, the Knickerbocker deemed his political satire, The Monikins, clear evidence that “an evil genius [had] prompted him to shoot from his sphere” (Rev. of The Monikins 152). Defiling “the sturdy American feelings” and the “love of country” he had so masterfully engendered in his old “sphere” of historical fiction, Cooper was turning against his countrymen to rouse “social and political strife” with the vile “pugnacious spirit” he had acquired during his extended travel in Europe (152–53). To the New York Review Cooper’s “reappearance” in The Pathfinder hinged not only on authorial self-removal but also on the “inimitable” presence of Natty Bumppo, who after thirteen years in the grave was resuscitated in the “absolute identity of person” that “nobody but he could be” (480). To the delight of the Review, The Pathfinder demonstrated the author’s ability to remove his polemical self from his writings for the purpose of recreating “a personage more vividly and truly real … than nineteen twentieths of the living men of flesh and blood” (480). Presenting Bumppo so “clearly and freshly” in the pages of The Pathfinder signified that the ruckus swirling around Cooper’s writings in the 1830s had had no effect on him when he finally decided to exhume Natty Bumppo for his readers in 1840. His pen no longer obstructed by intrusive politics, Cooper [End Page 478] had reset himself in his proper sphere, ostensibly conceding the advice the Knickerbocker had offered five years earlier: “It is the unhappiest idea possible, to suppose that politics can be associated, in any effective way, with romance or fiction” (152). To what degree Cooper pursued “the unhappiest idea possible” by infusing politics, explicitly or implicitly, into his thirty-two novels remains a lively issue in Cooper studies. Relevant to this review are recent critical inquiries into the political dimensions of Cooper’s five Leather-Stocking Tales and the animated discussion they have generated about the author’s presence, and absence, in the viewpoints expressed by his famous frontiersman and the...

WHY WE LEFT: UNTOLD STORIES AND SONGS OF AMERICA'S FIRST IMMIGRANTS

Book Review| January 01 2015 WHY WE LEFT: UNTOLD STORIES AND SONGS OF AMERICA'S FIRST IMMIGRANTS WHY WE LEFT: UNTOLD STORIES AND SONGS OF AMERICA'S FIRST IMMIGRANTSBrooks, Joanna Randi Lynn Tanglen Randi Lynn Tanglen Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 303–306. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367572 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Randi Lynn Tanglen; WHY WE LEFT: UNTOLD STORIES AND SONGS OF AMERICA'S FIRST IMMIGRANTS. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 303–306. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367572 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

FRANK NORRIS REMEMBERED

Book Review| January 01 2015 FRANK NORRIS REMEMBERED FRANK NORRIS REMEMBEREDCrisler, Jesse S.; McElrath, Joseph R.Jr. Jessica Schubert McCarthy Jessica Schubert McCarthy Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 326–329. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367578 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Jessica Schubert McCarthy; FRANK NORRIS REMEMBERED. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 326–329. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367578 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

JULIAN HAWTHORNE: THE LIFE OF A PRODIGAL SON

Book Review| January 01 2015 JULIAN HAWTHORNE: THE LIFE OF A PRODIGAL SON JULIAN HAWTHORNE: THE LIFE OF A PRODIGAL SONScharnhorst, Gary Jason Courtmanche Jason Courtmanche Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 319–322. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367576 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Jason Courtmanche; JULIAN HAWTHORNE: THE LIFE OF A PRODIGAL SON. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 319–322. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367576 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

ONCE I TOO HAD WINGS: THE JOURNALS OF EMMA BELL MILES, 1908–1918

Book Review| January 01 2015 ONCE I TOO HAD WINGS: THE JOURNALS OF EMMA BELL MILES, 1908–1918 ONCE I TOO HAD WINGS: THE JOURNALS OF EMMA BELL MILES, 1908–1918Cox, Steven Rachel Wise Rachel Wise Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 339–343. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367581 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Rachel Wise; ONCE I TOO HAD WINGS: THE JOURNALS OF EMMA BELL MILES, 1908–1918. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 339–343. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367581 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

POLITICAL ANTISLAVERY DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE 1850s

Book Review| January 01 2015 POLITICAL ANTISLAVERY DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE 1850s POLITICAL ANTISLAVERY DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE 1850sGrant, David Nicole Gray Nicole Gray Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 322–326. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367577 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Nicole Gray; POLITICAL ANTISLAVERY DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE 1850s. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 322–326. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367577 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

STEPHEN CRANE: A LIFE OF FIRE

Book Review| January 01 2015 STEPHEN CRANE: A LIFE OF FIRE STEPHEN CRANE: A LIFE OF FIRESorrentino, Paul John Casey John Casey Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 329–335. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367579 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation John Casey; STEPHEN CRANE: A LIFE OF FIRE. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 329–335. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367579 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

THE SELECTED LETTERS OF ROBERT CREELEY

Book Review| January 01 2015 THE SELECTED LETTERS OF ROBERT CREELEY THE SELECTED LETTERS OF ROBERT CREELEYSmith, Rod; Baker, Peter; Harris, Kaplan Merrill Leffler Merrill Leffler Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2015) 38: 374–380. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367588 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Merrill Leffler; THE SELECTED LETTERS OF ROBERT CREELEY. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2015; 38 374–380. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367588 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2016 AMS Press, Inc.2016AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Corpus Christi Plays at York: A Context For Religious Drama. By Clifford Davidson. AMS Studies in Middle Ages, No. 30. Brooklyn, N.Y.: AMS Press, 2013. xii + 242 pp. $84.50 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Corpus Christi Plays at York: A Context For Religious Drama . By Clifford Davidson . AMS Studies in Middle Ages, No. 30. Brooklyn, N.Y. : AMS Press , 2013. xii + 242 pp. $84.50 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesClifford Davidson's latest book, Corpus Christi at York: A Context for Religious Drama , challenges preconceived notions regarding the York cycle plays and delves into new and exciting contexts for understanding them. His latest work sets out to contextualize York medieval drama in a variety of ways that may, at first glance, seem incongruous. As the study proceeds each chapter comes together to create a larger picture of these enduring plays. He seeks to answer why the York plays were continually produced over 200 years in the midst of pressures from multiple arenas to end them. Davidson argues that through the analysis of various disciplinary theories and considering social, political and religious viewpoints the reader will find that the cycle plays of York survived a lengthy history because they provided the city, guilds and people of York with a way in which to safely test the boundaries of their world. He makes use of literary, social, psychological, aesthetic, and spatial theory to lead the reader through a vibrant picture of the production of these plays in the world of medieval York.Beginning with the social history of the plays and York itself, Davidson tackles the various demographic and historical landscapes of this period in York. He builds a strong case for why these plays continued, not least of all as a means by which the Corporation and the guilds sought to affirm the identity of the city while tackling various crises. Citing population fluctuations, disease, harvest shortfalls, and economic distress, Davidson sets the scene for a York that experienced great trials during the 200-year history of these plays. He proves to the reader that the York plays were in fact a means of reinforcing cultural memory through salvation history, stating that even in difficult times these plays reinforced the collective memory of times past and made them relevant to contemporaries (32).The following chapters each tackle a different area of context for these plays: visual piety, color, the pageant route, the soundscape, charity, and bullying. Most interesting are the chapters on visual piety and the soundscape, each introducing unique ways of considering the original means of production of these plays. Focusing on visual theory, the chapter on visual piety brings to light many interesting ideas emphasizing the correlation in medieval visual thought between and touching. Davidson utilizes this visual theory to conclude that audiences were not simply passive watchers of these plays but instead active participants in the narrative, stating that, seeing also could be a channel that, through faith, might lead one to access God's grace (37). His interweaving of classical and medieval thought on vision and touch are quite interesting and develop a number of new areas for research and consideration. …

Writer in Motion: The Major Fiction of Stephen Crane: Collected Critical Essays by Donald Pizer (review)

Reviewed by: Writer in Motion: The Major Fiction of Stephen Crane: Collected Critical Essays by Donald Pizer Nicole de Fee Pizer, Donald. Writer in Motion: The Major Fiction of Stephen Crane: Collected Critical Essays. Brooklyn, New York: AMS Press, 2013. 153 pp. $76.50. At first blush, Donald Pizer’s Writer in Motion: The Major Fiction of Stephen Crane: Collected Critical Essays is a greatest hits album, if you will, of Pizer’s scholarship on Crane. The author readily admits in his preface: “[I] am offering a book on Crane’s major fiction which is a collection of my previously published essays on the subject” (viii). Like a greatest hits album, the work showcases some of Pizer’s [End Page 270] finest work on three of Crane’s major pieces of fiction, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, George’s Mother, and The Red Badge of Courage. However, Pizer’s book is much more nuanced. His design for his project is to examine “two related major strands” in Crane’s work (viii). The first is that Crane was indeed a writer in motion “who continually grew as an interpreter of the human condition and as an imaginative artist” (viii). Pizer asserts that any critical undertaking of Crane needs to involve studying both the development of Crane’s work and artistry as a whole and over time. The second strand Pizer pursues is “the usefulness of naturalism as a means by which to understand the dynamic of Crane’s changing ideas” (ix). Pizer is successful in both endeavors. The first section of the book focuses on Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Pizer argues that Crane’s use of naturalism allows him to successfully “interpret the human condition” in Maggie. This holds true not just for Maggie, but, according to Pizer, for Crane’s other major works: George’s Mother and The Red Badge of Courage. The primary example Pizer calls attention to in this section surrounds the inclusion/exclusion of the “huge fat man” at the end of Maggie. We can look at the presence or absence of the “huge fat man” as being important in and of itself, but, for Pizer, a specific example like this within the context of naturalism gives us a more complete understanding and appreciation of the nuances of the work. The second section of Pizer’s study mirrors the trajectory of Crane’s major fiction. As Pizer argues that George’s Mother is a bridge between Maggie and The Red Badge of Courage, so does Pizer’s brief section on George’s Mother serve as the bridge between his in-depth studies of Maggie and Red Badge. While the focus here primarily is on a gendered coding of experience for George, as Pizer explains, “George’s defeat also expresses one of Crane’s central ideas about the human condition in any social context, since George’s fall results from his effort to establish his selfhood and find satisfaction in life within the limited possibilities of the false and even self-destructive codes of belief which society has presented him” (62). This observation links George’s fate to both Maggie’s and Henry Fleming’s. For if “the critic is required to grasp both the individuality of a specific work and its role as a bridge from the immediate past to the near future” (57), then this brief section accomplishes what it should. Like the section on Maggie, the chapters on The Red Badge of Courage focus on the controversies surrounding the text, primarily having to do with self/censorship and editing. As in the chapters devoted to Maggie, Pizer places these issues within the broader context of naturalism. In the chapter “Naturalism: An Essay in Definition,” Pizer states “that the naturalistic novel usually contains tensions or contradictions, and that the two in conjunction comprise both an interpretation of experience and a particular aesthetic recreation of experience” (92). This is the crux of Pizer’s argument and what this compilation of essays, collectively, defines for Crane’s work. To separate naturalism from Crane’s form is to miss the point of Crane’s (and Pizer’s for that matter) work entirely. [End Page 271] Nicole...

ENGLISH LETTERS AND INDIAN LITERACIES: READING, WRITING, AND NEW ENGLAND MISSIONARY SCHOOLS, 1750–1830

Book Review| January 01 2014 ENGLISH LETTERS AND INDIAN LITERACIES: READING, WRITING, AND NEW ENGLAND MISSIONARY SCHOOLS, 1750–1830 ENGLISH LETTERS AND INDIAN LITERACIES: READING, WRITING, AND NEW ENGLAND MISSIONARY SCHOOLS, 1750–1830Wyss, Hilary E. Siobhan Senier Siobhan Senier Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Resources for American Literary Study (2014) 37: 299–302. https://doi.org/10.2307/26367696 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Siobhan Senier; ENGLISH LETTERS AND INDIAN LITERACIES: READING, WRITING, AND NEW ENGLAND MISSIONARY SCHOOLS, 1750–1830. Resources for American Literary Study 1 January 2014; 37 299–302. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/26367696 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressResources for American Literary Study Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2014 AMS Press, Inc.2014AMS Press, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.