Download or read book The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis written by Martin Light and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensing in Sinclair Lewis's life an endless swordplay between romance and realism, Martin Light proposes here a new perspective, that of quixotism, through which to view his novels. The romantic who schools himself on sentimental novels, who sees himself riding forth to conquer, and who finds a world that is more the projection of his illusions than of a sense of reality is called a quixote, according to the author. He sees this quality in Lewis's approach to life, following the fifteen-year apprenticeship during which Lewis wrote sentimental poems and short stories, and his creation of significant quixotic protagonists -- Provided by the publisher.
Download or read book The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis written by Martin Light and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensing in Sinclair Lewis's life an endless swordplay between romance and realism, Martin Light proposes here a new perspective, that of quixotism, through which to view his novels. The romantic who schools himself on sentimental novels, who sees himself riding forth to conquer, and who finds a world that is more the projection of his illusions than of a sense of reality is called a quixote, according to the author. He sees this quality in Lewis's approach to life, following the fifteen-year apprenticeship during which Lewis wrote sentimental poems and short stories, and his creation of significant quixotic protagonists -- Provided by the publisher.
Download or read book Rise of Sinclair Lewis 1920 1930 written by James M. Hutchisson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rise of Sinclair Lewis examines the making of Lewis's best-selling novels Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, and Elmer Gantry--their sources, composition, publication, and subsequent critical reception. Drawing on thousands of pages of material from Lewis's notes, outlines, and drafts--most of it never before published--James M. Hutchisson shows how Lewis selected usable materials and shaped them, through his unique vision, into novels that reached and remained part of the American literary imagination. Hutchisson also describes for the first time how large a role was played by Lewis's wives, assistants, and publishers in determining the final shape of his books.
Download or read book Sinclair Lewis written by Richard R. Lingeman and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2005 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive biography of Sinclair Lewis (Main Street, Babbitt), Lingeman presents an empathetic, absorbing, and balanced portrait of an eccentric alcoholic-workaholic whose novels and stories exploded shibboleths with a volatile mixture of caricature and realism. Drawing on newly uncovered correspondence, diaries, and criticism, Lingeman gives new life to this prairie Mercutio out of Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
Download or read book Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy written by Steven J. Michels and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-10-28 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinclair Lewis was one of the most astute observers of American social and political life. Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy is a highly readable analysis of his novels. The book examines each of Lewis’s novels on key themes in the history of political thought and democracy including freedom and purpose, success and materialism, and nationalism and race. Lewis is revealed to be an unapologetic individualist and a fierce humanitarian.
Download or read book White Collar Fictions written by Christopher P. Wilson and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In White Collar Fictions Christopher P. Wilson explores how turn-of-the-century literary representations of "white collar" Americans--the "middle" social strata H.L. Mencken dismissed as boobus Americanus--were actually part and parcel of a new social class coming to terms with its own power, authority, and contradictions. An innovative study that integrates literary analysis with social-history research, the book reexamines the life and work of Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis--as well as such nearly forgotten authors as O. Henry, Edna Ferber, Robert Grant, and Elmer Rice. Between 1885 and 1925 America underwent fundamental social changes. The family business faded with the rise of the modern corporation; mid-level clerical work grew rapidly; the "white collar" ranks--sales clerks, accountants, lawyers, advertisers, "middle managers, and professionals--expanded between capital and labor. During this same period, Wilson shows, white collar characters took on greater prominence within American literature and popular culture. Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post idolized "average Americans," while writers such as Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis produced portraits of "middle America" in Winesburg, Ohio and Babbitt. By investigating the material experience and social vocabularies within white collar life itself, Wilson uncovers the ways in which writers helped create a new cultural vocabulary--"Babbittry," the "little people," the "Average American"--That served to redefine power, authority, and commonality in American society.
Download or read book Sinclair Lewis Remembered written by Gary Scharnhorst and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2012-09-28 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinclair Lewis Remembered is a collection of reminiscences and memoirs by contemporaries, friends, and associates of Lewis that offers a revealing and intimate portrait of this complex and significant Nobel Prize–winning American writer. After a troubled career as a student at Yale, Sinclair Lewis turned to literature as his livelihood, publishing numerous works of popular fiction that went unnoticed by critics. With the 1920s, however, came Main Street, Lewis’s first critical success, which was soon followed by Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and Dodsworth—five of the most influential social novels in the history of American letters, all written within one decade. Nevertheless, Lewis’s Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 led to controversy. Writers such as Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, and Thomas Mann expressed their dissent with the decision. Unable to match his previous success, Lewis suffered from alcoholism, alienated colleagues, and embraced unpopular political positions. The nadir for Lewis’s literary reputation was Mark Schorer’s 1961 biography, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, which helped to legitimize the dismissal of Lewis’s entire body of work. Recent scholarly research has seen a resurgence of interest in Lewis and his writings. The multiple and varied perspectives found in Sinclair Lewis Remembered, edited by Gary Scharnhorst and Matthew Hofer, illustrate uncompromised glimpses of a complicated writer who should not be forgotten. The more than 115 contributions to this volume include reminiscences by Upton Sinclair, Edna Ferber, Alfred Harcourt, Samuel Putnam, H. L. Mencken, John Hersey, Hallie Flanagan, and many others.
Download or read book Small Town Dreams written by John E. Miller and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live these days in a virtual nation of cities and celebrities, dreaming a small-town America rendered ever stranger by purveyors of nostalgia and dark visionaries from Sherwood Anderson to David Lynch. And yet it is the small town, that world of local character and neighborhood lore, that dreamed the America we know today—and the small-town boy, like those whose stories this book tells, who made it real. In these life-stories, beginning in 1890 with frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner and moving up to the present with global shopkeeper Sam Walton, a history of middle America unfolds, as entrepreneurs and teachers like Henry Ford, George Washington Carver, and Walt Disney; artists and entertainers like Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Carl Sandburg, and Johnny Carson; political figures like William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, and Ronald Reagan; and athletes like Bob Feller and John Wooden by turns engender and illustrate the extraordinary cultural shifts that have transformed the Midwest, and through the Midwest, the nation--and the world. Many of these men are familiar, icons even—Ford and Reagan, certainly, Ernie Pyle, Sinclair Lewis, James Dean, and Lawrence Welk—and others, like artists Oscar Micheaux and John Steuart Curry, economist Alvin Hansen and composer Meredith Willson, less so. But in their stories, as John E. Miller tells them, all appear in a new light, unique in their backgrounds and accomplishments, united only in the way their lives reveal the persisting, shaping power of place, and particularly the Midwest, on the cultural imagination and national consciousness. In a thoroughly engaging style Miller introduces us to the small-town Midwestern boys who became these all-American characters, privileging us with insights that pierce the public images of politicians and businessmen, thinkers and entertainers alike. From the smell of the farm, the sounds and silences of hamlets and county seats, the schoolyard athletics and classroom instruction and theatrical performance, we follow these men to their moments of inspiration, innovation, and fame, observing the workings of the small-town past in their very different relationships with the larger world. Their stories reveal in an intimate way how profoundly childhood experiences shape personal identity, and how deeply place figures in the mapping of thought, belief, ambition, and life's course.
Download or read book Babbitt written by Sinclair Lewis and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1922 publication of Babbitt, its eponymous antihero—a prosperous real estate broker and relentless social climber inhabiting a Midwestern town called Zenith—has become a symbol of stultifying values and middle-class hypocrisy. At once a conformist and a rebel, George F. Babbitt represents an ordinary man whose life turns upside down during one of the most profound sea changes in American cultural history: the mechanization and hucksterism of the Roaring Twenties. Babbitt, his family, and his social circle are the very essence of the American Dream in all its glory and emptiness, and their story is a stirring portrait of a way of life in profound flux. Babbitt remains one of Sinclair Lewis’s most widely read novels. Contemptible and touching, frivolous and tragic, Babbitt is a rich, complex character whose legacy carries an eerie resonance to this day. Includes a new afterword by Azar Nafisi Introduction by Sally E. Parry
Download or read book George Babbitt written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of critical essays concerning varying interpretations of the devil through literature and history.
Download or read book Sinclair Lewis written by James M. Hutchisson and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinclair Lewis, the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, dominated the decade of the 1920s with novels that attacked corruption in American business, medicine and religion. He published several other novels, before and after the 1920s, that were meant to tweak the sensibilities of the complacent middle-class. Today, as social issues are gaining prominence again in literary theory and criticism, Lewis is attracting renewed attention as a progressive and a reform novelist. In Sinclair Lewis: New Essay in Criticism, the first collection of original essays about Lewis, Hutchisson has gathered a sampling of the divergent approaches to Lewis studies that have appeared in the past several years.
Download or read book Main Street written by Sinclair Lewis and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-10-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first of Sinclair Lewis’s great successes, Main Street shattered the sentimental American myth of happy small-town life with its satire of narrow-minded provincialism. Reflecting his own unhappy childhood in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis’s sixth novel attacked the conformity and dullness he saw in midwestern village life. Young college graduate Carol Milford moves from the city to tiny Gopher Prairie after marrying the local doctor, and tries to bring culture to the small town. But her efforts to reform the prairie village are met by a wall of gossip, greed, conventionality, pitifully unambitious cultural endeavors, and—worst of all—the pettiness and bigotry of small-town minds. Lewis’s portrayal of a marriage torn by disillusionment and a woman forced into compromises is at once devastating social satire and persuasive realism. His subtle characterizations and intimate details of small-town America make Main Street a complex and compelling work and established Lewis as an important figure in twentieth-century American literature.
Download or read book The Jazz Age written by Linda De Roche and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intriguing study examines the truth behind the myths and misconceptions that defined the Roaring Twenties, as portrayed through the popular literary works of the time. This one-stop reference to the "Jazz Age"—the period that began after the First World War and ended with the stock market crash of 1929—digs into the cultural, historical, and literary contexts of the era. Author Linda De Roche examines the writing of the time to look beyond the common conceptions of the Roaring Twenties and instead reflect on the era's complexities and contradictions, including how gender and race influenced social mores. The book profiles key American literature of the time, including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Sinclair Lewis's Babbit, Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Nella Larsen's Passing. Filled with essays that offer historical explorations of each work as well as suggested learning activities, chapters also feature study questions, primary source documents, and chronologies. Support materials include activities, lesson plans, discussion questions, topics for further research, and suggested readings.
Download or read book Bestseller written by Robert McParland and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether curled up on a sofa with a good mystery, lounging by the pool with a steamy romance, or brooding over a classic novel, Americans love to read. Despite the distractions of modern living, nothing quite satisfies many individuals more than a really good book. And regardless of how one accesses that book—through a tablet, a smart phone, or a good, old-fashioned hardcover—those choices have been tallied for decades. In Bestseller: A Century of America’s Favorite Books, Robert McParland looks at the reading tastes of a nation—from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Through extensive research, McParland provides context for the literature that appealed to the masses, from low-brow potboilers like Forever Amber to Pulitzer-Prize winners such as To Kill a Mockingbird. Decade by decade, McParland discusses the books that resonated with the American public and shows how current events and popular culture shaped the reading habits of millions. Profiles of authors with frequent appearances—from Ernest Hemingway to Danielle Steel—are included, along with standout titles that readers return to year after year. A snapshot of America and its love of reading through the decades, this volume informs and entertains while also providing a handy reference of the country’s most popular books. For those wanting to learn more about the history of American culture through its reading habits, Bestseller: A Century of America’s Favorite Books is a must-read.
Download or read book The 20th Century Go N written by Frank N. Magill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 1407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.
Download or read book New Americans written by Glen A. Love and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the fiction of five early modern novelists -- Frank Norris, Hamlin Garland, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis -- who reflect the conflicting values of a western past and an urban-industrial present.
Download or read book Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds Fourth Edition written by Dawn Sova and published by Infobase Holdings, Inc. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 844 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds, Fourth Edition discusses the many works that have been banned over the centuries because they offended or merely ignored official truths; challenged widely held assumptions; or contained ideas or language unacceptable to a state, religious institution, or private moral watchdog. Entries include: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) Beloved (Toni Morrison) The Color Purple (Alice Walker) Drama (Raina Telgemeier) Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Howl and Other Poems (Allen Ginsberg) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey) Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) and more.
