Description
In most of his half century of writing, John Dos Passos consistently tried to capture and define the American character. The complete range of his work builds to Dos Passos' concept of "contemporary chronicle," his own name for his fiction. In this first study of all Dos Passos' writing, Linda W. Wagner examines his fiction, poetry, drama, travel essays, and history-a body of work that evokes a vivid image of America meant to be neither judgmental nor moralistic.
From Manhattan Transfer to U. S. A. to District of Columbia to The Thirteenth Chronicle and Mid-century, Wagner illuminates Dos Passos' work with fresh readings and new interpretations. She makes extensive use of unpublished manuscript material so that this is a casebook of Dos Passos' interest in craft and method as well as a thematic study. In addition, this volume chronicles the years during which Dos Passos wrote-the immediate post-World War I period through the twenties and thirties and well into the fifties. This is an important book both in literary criticism and in American social history.
About the Author
Linda W. Wagner-Martin is Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Reviews
. . . a first-rate evocation of the man-as-artist... * New York Times Book Review *
Linda Wagner remains one of the more lucid and perceptive of our literary critics, so it should come as no surprise that her study of the career of John Dos Passos offers a thorough, sympathetic treatment of that writer's evolution into a crucial innovative artist . . . * Booklist *
Book Information
ISBN 9780292741966
Author Linda W. Wagner
Format Paperback
Page Count 244
Imprint University of Texas Press
Publisher University of Texas Press
Weight(grams) 454g
