An American Procession: The Major American Writers from 1830-1930 - Softcover

Kazin, Alfred

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394729234 ISBN 13: 9780394729237

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1985

Synopsis

The eminent literary critic presents a searching study of the major American writers of the crucial century from 1830 to 1930, proceeding from Emerson and Hawthorne to Faulkner and Fitzgerald

About this title

Review

With "An American Procession, Alfred Kazin confirms a reservation in the front tier of the reviewing stand, next to his eminent predecessors Van Wyck Brooks and Edmund Wilson. I have nothing but praise for "An American Procession. Alfred Kazin himself can write brilliantly, catching the 'very essence' of an author in an epithet or a phrase...He is a first-rate comprehender, explainer, and savorer. The power of his book lies, in the last analysis, in Mr. Kazin's profound instinct for style.

A sense of caring intimacy lifts Kazin's survey above the usual inventory of masterworks..."An American Procession" is a refresher in the best sense...It vivaciously refreshes our awareness.

With "An American Procession," Alfred Kazin confirms a reservation in the front tier of the reviewing stand, next to his eminent predecessors Van Wyck Brooks and Edmund Wilson. I have nothing but praise for "An American Procession." Alfred Kazin himself can write brilliantly, catching the 'very essence' of an author in an epithet or a phrase...He is a first-rate comprehender, explainer, and savorer. The power of his book lies, in the last analysis, in Mr. Kazin's profound instinct for style. -- Marcus Cunliffe "New York Times Book Review"

The "Procession" is wonderfully exciting to read...An authentic entrance, as Whitman called the self, to all facts.--Richard Howard "New Republic "

With "An American Procession, " Alfred Kazin confirms a reservation in the front tier of the reviewing stand, next to his eminent predecessors Van Wyck Brooks and Edmund Wilson. I have nothing but praise for "An American Procession." Alfred Kazin himself can write brilliantly, catching the 'very essence' of an author in an epithet or a phrase...He is a first-rate comprehender, explainer, and savorer. The power of his book lies, in the last analysis, in Mr. Kazin's profound instinct for style.--Marcus Cunliffe "New York Times Book Review "

Kazin is one of the most seasoned and subtle critics of American literature. He has always balanced an awareness of the pressure of external circumstances with a sense that books are also a series of private meetings between authors and ink bottles. He sees writers as at once facing the world and facing their desks.--Richard Ellmann "The Atlantic "

From the Back Cover

In this illuminating study of the "crucial century" (1830-1930), Alfred Kazin views the major figures in American writing, beginning when Ralph Waldo Emerson left the church and inspired a national literature on the basis of a religious revolution, and ending with the triumph of modernism - Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - and with the revelation after World War I of the "postponed power" of those who had been modern before their time: Henry Adams, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0394729234
• ISBN 13: 9780394729237
• Binding: Paperback