Prose Books Research Articles

The impact of socioeconomic variables on cultural behavior: The case of subscribers to literary magazines

This paper gives the results of a survey held among subscribers to seven important Dutch literary magazines. The vast majority of readers of literature restrict their attention to books. A very small segment of the public also reads literary journals. This choice requires a vast knowledge of literary authors and their work. It is argued that socioeconomic properties such as ‘level of education’ and ‘profession’, which are current in socio-cultural research, contribute little to our understanding of the decision to subscribe to literary magazines. The type of education the respondents received and the type of profession they practice proved to be more effective in analyzing the choice behavior of the respondents and their preference for particular magazines. Evidence was also found for the idea that literary magazines serve other tastes than literary books. Whereas the respondents largely preferred books of narrative prose - as most purchasers of literature do — literary magazines appealed to their taste for poetry or essays. The use of magazines, a medium that is different from books, presupposes that one has developed preferences for literary genres that play a subordinate role on the market for literary books.

It Has Been Said

IT HAS BEEN SAID and collected by DAVID DAVIS* "Doctors do not cry but men do."—Harry Weiss "Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat."—Robert GiRAVES "Curiosity about the private life may be of three kinds: the useful, the harmless , and the impertinent."—T. S. Eliot "The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down."—T. S. Eliot "These docs, they always ask you how you live so long. I tell 'em, 'If I'd known I was gonna live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself "—Eubie Blake "A good doctor should know a little about everything—even medicine."— Baron Montesquieu ' "Methodologists remind me of people who clean their glasses so thoroughly tfiat they never have time to look through them."—Sigmund Freud "Slogans save the expenditure of thinking."—Sigmund Freud "The greatest discoveries of surgery are anesthesia, asepsis, and roentgenology —and none was made by a surgeon."—Martin H. Fischer "I hate reasonable people—the activity of their brains sucks up all the blood out of their hearts. I was once afraid of turning out reasonable myself."—W. B. Yeats ""Address: 1823 Bayou Shore Drive, Galveston, Texas 77551. Material appearing under this title is collected with the aim of making the serious a bit less serious, the ponderous a bit less heavy, and the reading hours a bit more fun. Toward this goal we invite a guest editor of this feature for each issue. Will readers volunteer to share their senses of humor by collecting or recollecting items that have brought smiles to their faces? We invite your participation. Originals are also welcome. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 33, 3 · Spring 1990 \ 375 "The three greatest things in the world—love, beauty, and happiness—have this feature in common, that they are utterly incapable of measurement."—A.J. Balfour "Mind—a mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itselfwith."—Ambrose Bierce "The chief disadvantage of knowing more and seeing farther than others is to be not generally understood."—William Hazlitt "A fool can learn to say all the things a wise man says and to say them on the same occasion."—J. Kekes "Intelligence is the art of good guessing."—Horace Barlow "It doesn't matter that everything has already been said. No one was listening ."—André Gide "All progress is only half as great as it first appears."—J. N. Nestroy "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."—Mark Twain "Praise is like smoking. It is warm and pleasant as long as you don't inhale."— Adolf Meyer "The old men do not grow wise. They grow careful."—Ernest Hemingway "All too often the most exciting of biochemical findings in psychiatry turn out to have the most mundane explanation."—Lancet Editorial "As in a sport, you cannot score every time. There are moments, and many of them, when it is important to pass the ball so that a colleague may eventually score."—Peter Ustinov "Aging is a birth-defect."—Al Rosenthal "If you can walk through life with a smile, you are probably not paying attention ."—Steve Allen "It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself."—La Rochefoucauld 376 It Has Been Said and collected by MICHAEL UHRINt "Productivity in science will thrive only if curiosity is very deep, indeed, insatiable ."—Hans Krebs "Memory is the mother of all wisdom."—Aeschylus "It was only in my 40's that I started to feel young."—Henry Miller "I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."—Marilyn Monroe "... the safest and soundest society is one which is rich in people who are excellent in different ways."—Hans Krebs "A humble man is not disturbed by praise."—Thomas Merton "Only little boys and old men sneer at love...

A Time to Heal

In 1959, when Krushchev had temporarily loosened things up in Russia, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, along with Andrei Voznesensky and Belle Akhmadulina, recited impassioned poetry to crowds of 20,000 people in a Moscow square named after a suicidal poet, Mayakovsky. Since then Yevtushenko's career has had its ups and downs but he has never been quiet for long. Now glasnost has given him new breath. His most recent book of prose and verse is Almost at the End. Kindergarten, his autobiographical movie about his experiences as a waif in World War II, has been shown in the U.S. and can be rented on videotape. This article is adapted from a speech Yevtushenko made at the 1987 IPPNW Congress that was published in 20th Century and Peace, a Soviet magazine. Reprinted by permission.

The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose

The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose

Phipps, C. (ed.),<italic>Buckingham: Public and Private Man. The Prose, Poems and Commonplace Book of George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687)</italic>; Myers, W. (ed.),<italic>Restoration and Revolution</italic>

Phipps, C. (ed.),<italic>Buckingham: Public and Private Man. The Prose, Poems and Commonplace Book of George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687)</italic>; Myers, W. (ed.),<italic>Restoration and Revolution</italic>

Gray, D. (ed.), with a Note on Grammar and Spelling in the Fifteenth Century by N. Davis, <italic>The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose</italic>. Pp. xxi + 586. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. £15.00

Journal Article Gray, D. (ed.), with a Note on Grammar and Spelling in the Fifteenth Century by N. Davis, The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose. Pp. xxi + 586. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. £15.00 Get access Siegfried Wenzel Siegfried Wenzel University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 34, Issue 1, March 1987, Pages 64–65, https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/34.1.64 Published: 01 March 1987

A Curriculum for Multiply Disabled Hearing-Impaired Students, Phase 1 (review)

Reviews During a span of 10 years Mrs. Cooper, a deaf housewife living in rural Kansas, has produced 16 books of prose and poetry, most of which she wrote herself. Directed primarily to those who have problems with hearing loss, these two books offer a variety of observations, from everyday rural life to professional articles on medical aspects of hearing loss. Mrs. Cooper expresses in her writings an optimistic viewpoint about handicaps of aU kinds, as well as that of loss of hearing. These books, lavishly provided with photographs of her life and activities, as well as of VIPs around the nation, should be made available to hearing-impaired children, for they provide not only information but encouragement and hope from one who has more than her share of the problems. Howard Quigley 4201 Massachusetts Ave., N. W. Washington, DC 20016 The Education of Deaf Children: Issues, Theory and Practice, Stephen P. Quigley and Robert E. Kretschmer , 127 pp., $12.95, University Park Press, 300 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201. The publisher chaUenged the authors to put the major issues and research activity into one compact book short enough to be read in a single sitting. The reader may not feel the authors have effectively responded to that charge, but he or she must admire their courage for trying. The principal topics they cover are language development; manual communication; educational setting; cognitive development; educational achievement; and personal, social, and occupational adjustments. They cite 265 references to support their contentions that they have chosen the enduring issues in the education of deaf children and have sampled representative research. Aside from making occasional errors (e.g., confusing incidence with prevalence data and not distinguishing between retrospective and prospective research designs), the authors write lucidly. They define many troublesome terms, and the conclusions they have drawn from their reviews of the literature are modest. Teachers of deaf children assessing the text will be unhappy that, despite the subtitle's promise, the text gives almost no attention to educational practices. Teachers might argue that multiple handicaps, speech development, and self-image development should not be completely ignored or given so little attention. These same teachers, however , would probably recommend this book to those for whom educating deaf children has only tangential interest and for whom an introduction to this difficult field is sufficient. Jerome D. Schein, Ph.D. New York University New York, NY10003 A Curriculum for Multiply Disabled Hearing-Impaired Students, Phase 1, Doris Naiman, Ph.D., 179 pp., $13.95, National Association of the Deaf, 814 Thayer Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, 1983. I was very pleased with Phase 1 of this curriculum . Of particular interest to me was the breakdown of the lesson plan. Not being a trained teacher myself, I still found the lesson easy to follow and logical in its steps. It gave me a sense of direction and a starting point on how to teach specific concepts to a challenging population. The plan was also general enough so that teachers could modify it to meet their particular needs and to expand it to other concept areas. The goals of the curriculum are excellent as they are consistent with skills needed by all individuals for virtually every task. With our older students, we have begun to focus more directly on remediating cognitive skills and focusing less on contact. The developmental approach proposed in this curriculum can only help strengthen these cognitive skills. John Snavlin, M.S.W. Maryland School for the Deaf Columbia, MD 21044 A.A.D. I August 1983 443 ...

The 'Right English' of Charles M. Doughty

I have a story to tell here, the story of a devotion. But first must come a historical preamble, since most who will be drawn to try their interest in the story will have little acquaintance with Doughty's work, his work as a whole, and the course of his life and thought in relation to his work -and there will be some who will have no, or hardly any, acquaintance with the fact of Doughty. The name of this English poet (who was born in 1843 and died in 1926) was once, and not very long ago, familiar to the literarily informed, and, generally, to a small but distinguished readership, as that of an author of a prose book to be thought of as a work of grand rank-it was, indeed, in a limited way, if not a famous book, instantly, an agreed-on candidate for fame. The title was Travels in Arabia Deserta. The merit of the writing and the interest of the subject were solidly one. There was a strangeness in the writing that made it forbidding for some, the language used being an older English; it was used with scrupulous effort for rightness. 'My chaste and right English of the best time!' Doughty called his language, believing it one that by its nature was itself a guide to the good in language.

Defusion of Menace in the Plays of Sam Shepard

FOR SEVERAL YEARS Sam Shepard has been acknowledged as the most talented and promising playwright to emerge from the Off-off Broadway movement. Now, more than a decade after his work was first performed, he is increasingly recognized as one of the more significant dramatists in the English-speaking world. Praised by Edward Albee and Elizabeth Hardwick, he has been called "One of the three or four most gifted playwrights alive" and "the most talented of his generation." Catherine Hughes rightfully acknowledges that "there is no young American playwright who can match Shepard in his ability to employ language." Ren Frutkin in an article in Yale Theatre asserts that "he has brought the word back into the theatre," and London director Kenneth Chubb believes that Shepard's "perspective on his material has a relevance and universality that earmarks great writers." Granted the tendency of some reviewers to exaggerate in the enthusiasm of the moment, the body of positive opinion regarding Shepard's work is impressive. At least twenty- seven of his plays have been performed, not only in the United States and the United Kingdom, but in Canada and Australia as well. At least twelve plays have been performed in London alone, where he has been living for the past four years. Nineteen of his plays, as well as a book of poetry and prose, are in published form, and he has several screenplays to his credit.

Reviews

Reviews Get access THE PELICAN BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE : Vol. I, From the Beginnings to 1800, edited by Roger Sharrock , 1970 ; pp. 708 ; 60p. Vol. II, From 1780 to Present, edited by Raymond Williams , 1970 ; pp. 506 ; 50p. STYLE: WRITING AS THE DISCOVERY OF OUTLOOK , by Richard M. Eastman . Oxford University Press , 1970 ; pp. viii, 280 ; £1.40. ELEMENTS OF THE ESSAY , by Robert Scholes and Carl H. Klaus . Oxford University Press , 1969 ; pp. viii, 86 ; 47½p. STEPHEN GILL STEPHEN GILL Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 19, Issue 8, August 1972, Pages 310–311, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/19-8-310 Published: 01 August 1972

William Carlos Williams' "The Great American Novel"

William Carlos Williams was first of all a writer-not a poet, essayist, or novelist. "Life isn't any more poetry than prose," he mused in a late essay,' looking back on a career that included over twenty collections of poems and an equal number of books in prose. During the Twenties, years of personal and artistic ferment for Williams, he wrote seven books of prose to one of poetry. His interest in the experimental, the new as a means of communicating, is nowhere more evident than in The Great American Novel (1923). Williams' experiments with the reciprocity between poetry and prose would culminate in Paterson, the five-book epic poem appearing between 1943 and 1958. But already in the Twenties he was an eager critic of contemporary proseHemingway, Ford, McAlmon, Stein, Joyce, Anderson. By 1923 he had voiced dissatisfaction with his own first prose collection, Kora in Hell: Improvisations (1920): "their fault is their dislocation of sense, often complete."2 He disliked the weak structure of the improvisations, the incomplete transitions; but he admired the dominant themes in the book: "I began there and then to revalue experience, to understand what I was at." In Spring and All (1923) Williams continued his search for an effective mode, this time a reasonably conventional prose mixed with poems. That he was fascinated by the differences in poetry and prose is clear from his many distinctions between the two. His interest in prose as a viable-a forceful-writing form had been evident as early as 1921 when he wrote admiringly of the work of James Joyce,

Focus, a Book of College Prose

Focus, a Book of College Prose

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; The Land of Words; Junior School Poetry; A Selection of Narrative Verse; A Selection of Great Poetry; A Book of Prose

Journal Article Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; The Land of Words; Junior School Poetry; A Selection of Narrative Verse; A Selection of Great Poetry; A Book of Prose Get access Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde . Arranged and edited by R. C. Goffin . Oxford University Press . 2 s . 6 d . The Land of Words (Books I–IV). R. K. and M. I. R. Polkingthorne . G. Bell & Sons . Book I, 6 d .; II, 8 d .; III, 10 d .; IV, I s . 0 d ., Paper. Book I, 8 d .; II, 10 d .; III, I s .; IV I s . 2 d ., Cloth. Junior School Poetry, A Selection of Narrative Verse, A Selection of Great Poetry . Compiled by C. J. Power . Rivington's . 2 s . A Book of Prose . Compiled by C. J. Power . Rivington's . 2 s . English: Journal of the English Association, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1936, Page 70, https://doi.org/10.1093/english/1.1.70 Published: 01 April 1936

A Book of Latin Prose and Latin Verse - A Book of Latin Prose and Latin Verse, from Cato and Plautus to Bacon and Milton. Selected by F. A. Wright. London : Routledge, 1929. 5s. net.

A Book of Latin Prose and Latin Verse - A Book of Latin Prose and Latin Verse, from Cato and Plautus to Bacon and Milton. Selected by F. A. Wright. London : Routledge, 1929. 5s. net.

Book Review: The College Book of Prose. 1400–1929

Book Review: The College Book of Prose. 1400–1929

The Oxford book of English prose

The Oxford book of English prose

THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE

Journal Article THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE Get access R. W. CHAPMAN R. W. CHAPMAN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume os-II, Issue 7, July 1926, Pages 348–349, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/os-II.7.348 Published: 01 July 1926

The Cambridge Book of prose and ferse

The Cambridge Book of prose and ferse

The Departing of Chaucer

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Departing of ChaucerEleanor P. HammondEleanor P. Hammond Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 1, Number 2Oct., 1903 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/386603 Views: 93 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

. A Treatise on the Accentuation of the Twenty-One So-Called Prose Books of the Old Testament, with a Facsimile of a Page of the Codex Assigned to Ben Asher in Aleppo

. A Treatise on the Accentuation of the Twenty-One So-Called Prose Books of the Old Testament, with a Facsimile of a Page of the Codex Assigned to Ben Asher in Aleppo