Seven Contemporary Authors: Essays on Cozzens, Miller, West, Golding, Heller, Albee, and Powers

Published by University of Texas Press 1966

Seven Contemporary Authors

Essays on Cozzens, Miller, West, Golding, Heller, Albee, and Powers

Edited by: Thomas B. Whitbread

https://doi.org/10.7560/736337

Overview
Contents

About this book

These seven critical essays, each on a twentieth-century novelist, are disparate in content, but all are concerned with the problem of evil and inhumanity and with the paradoxes of human existence.

Each essay discusses a different author, but this independence of subject is resolved into a central theme through the interpretive approach followed by the seven critics. Each of the contributors presents his subject against the background of the current disillusionment and frustration of our age. Underlying each essay are undertones of the "absurdity" of life today for those who consider it thoughtfully, and the contrast between what men would like reality to be and what they actually find.

This unity of theme—the problem of evil, of inhumanity, of meaninglessness, the concern for the human being and his future—is developed in an interesting manner. It was exploited in different ways by the seven modern novelists discussed in the essays, and it is presented with different analytical techniques by the seven critics. Yet the reader senses the unity of feeling and purpose amid the diversity of fictional content and critical evaluation.

Besdies the interpretive Introduction by Thomas B. Whitbread, the book contains the following essays:

R. W. Lewis, "The Conflicts of Reality: Cozzens' The Last Adam"
Alan Friedman, "The Pitching of Love's Mansion in the Tropics of Henry Miller"
Roger D. Abrahams, "Androgynes Bound: Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts"
George Clark, "An Illiberal Education: William Golding's Pedagogy"
Vance Ramsey, "From Here to Absurdity: Heller's Catch-22"
Anthony Channell Hilfer, "George and Martha: Sad, Sad, Sad"
Robert G. Twombly, "Hubris, Health, and Holiness: The Despair of J. F. Powers"

Author / Editor information

Thomas B. Whitbread is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
The Conflicts of Reality: Cozzens' The Last Adam R. W. Lewis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
The Pitching of Love's Mansion in the Tropics of Henry Miller Alan Friedman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Androgynes Bound: Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts Roger D. Abrahams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
An Illiberal Education: William Golding's Pedagogy George Clark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
From Here to Absurdity: Heller's Catch-22 Vance Ramsey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
George and Martha: Sad, Sad, Sad Anthony Channell Hilfer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Hubris, Health, and Holiness: The Despair of J. F. Powers Robert G. Twombly Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Copyright year: 1966
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 192

eBook

Published: September 12, 2014
ISBN: 9781477303474