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Stephen
Vincent Benét
Essays on His Life and Work
Edited
by David Garrett Izzo and Lincoln Konkle
Published
in early 2002 by McFarland Publishing www.mcfarlandpub.com
or http://www.amazon.com
When
Stephen Vincent Benét died in 1943 at the age of
44, all of America mourned the loss. Benét was one
of the country’s most well known poets of the first half
of the twentieth century and as a fiction writer, he had
an even larger audience. |
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This
book is a collection of essays celebrating Benét
and his writing. The first group of essays addresses Benét’s
life, times, and personal relationships. Thomas Carr Benét
reminisces about his father in the first essay, and others
consider Benét’s marriage to his wife Rosemary; Archibald
MacLeish, Thornton Wilder and Benét as friends, liberal
humanists and public activists; and his friendships with
Philip Barry, Jed Harris, and Thornton Wilder.
The second group contains essays about Benét’s poetry,
fiction, and drama. They discuss Benét’s role in
the development of historical poetry in America, John Brown’s
Body and the Civil War, Hawthorne, Benét and historical
fiction, Benét’s Faustian America, the adaptation
of “The Devil and Daniel Webster” to drama and then to film,
Benét’s use of fantasy and science fiction, and Benét
as a dramatist for stage, screen and radio.
This
volume of 11 pro-Benet essays successfully covers all aspects
of his life: Benet as member of a Yale Group that also
included Thornton Wilder, Philip Barry, Archibald MacLeish,
and Jed Harris (who later made a career on Broadway); as
husband to Rosemary Carr (who later acted as his collaborator);
and as father to Thomas (who later edited the San Francisco
Examiner).... Perhaps Benet has lost favor with the reading
public because of his irrepressible optimism, his faith
that, in spite of horrible setbacks, humanity is making
progress.
If we can ever recapture that faith in ourselves and our
country, Benet's writings will be waiting.
Charles Nash, Library Journal
Izzo
and Konkle have put together a nice collection of 11 essays,
four on Benet's life and seven on his work. Despite having
died at 45, Benet achieved popular acclaim for his long
poem John Brown's Body (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1930), his story "The Devil and Daniel Webster,"
and other works. He was also the first editor of the "Yale
Younger Poets" series. In recent years, Benet has been
decanonized, and Izzo and Konkle want readers to rethink
Benet's place in literary history. The Benet who emerges
in this collection is highly conscious of the US's past,
specifically its Civil War, and contemplates the US's role
in the world in the 1930s and 1940s. In this regard, he
deserves attention, given his long poem, as an American
modernist alongside Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. And yet Benet's
popular appeal in his own time separates him from his expatriate
contemporaries. If the purpose of literary criticism is
to encourage a renewed interest in primary works, this collection
succeeds. Although little of Benet's work remains in print,
readers should be thankful for the dusty corners of libraries.
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through
faculty; general readers.
R.
T. Prus, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Choice
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Thornton
Wilder: New Essays
Edited
by Izzo, Martin Blank, Dalma Hunyadi Brunauer
Published in 1999 by Locust Hill Press
locusthill@snet.net
or http://www.amazon.com
Reviewed
by J.J. Bernadette, Choice
“This group of 27 original essays, occasioned by the 1997-98
centennial of Wilder’s birth, confirms the paradox of his
reputation. Critically acclaimed in his own time (“the only
American to win Pulitzer Prizes for both drama … and fiction”)
and enduringly popular with some audiences (Our Town “is
performed more often than any other American play”)…. Overall
this collections seeks to demonstrate that Wilder’s works,
both his novels and plays, are more problematic—less simplistic
and optimistic—than is sometimes suggested. These essays
focus on his wide-ranging erudition, his interest in the
long tradition of Western European drama, his implementation
of minimalist techniques (derived from German expressionism
and Japanese Noh plays), and his reinterpretation of mythic
themes. As a modernist and contemporary of Fitzgerald, Hemingway,
and Sinclair Lewis, Wilder reappears as an individualist
and innovator who traced his own path and yet responded
to the injunction to “make it new.”
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Advocates
and Activists Between the Wars
Published in early 2003 by Locust Hill Press
locusthill@snet.net
or http://www.amazon.com
David
Garrett Izzo, editor and contributor*
Advocates
and Activists....
This superb work of scholarship features individually
authored biographical essays about 35 people who were
witnesses to one of the most turbulent and important
times in recorded history and who changed the world
in profound ways. All but two are Americans. The biographies
have been organized into seven categories: "Labor,
Social, and Political Activists" (e.g., Margaret
Sanger, William Z. Foster); "Educators, Philosophers,
Cultural Theorists and Critics" (e.g., V.F. Calverton,
Joel E. Spingarn); "Stage and Film Professionals"
(e.g., D.W. Griffith, Orson Welles); "Artists"
(e.g., Thomas Hart Benton, Aaron Douglas); "African-American
Advocates and Activists" (e.g., Arthur Alfonso
Schomburg, Alain Locke); "Writers and Poets"
(e.g., Jack Conroy, Meridel Le Sueur); and "Journalists"
(e.g., Albert J. Nock, George Seldes). Concluding
each essay is a bibliography of both primary and secondary
sources. While each essay emphasizes the people themselves,
taken as a whole this fine book also illuminates the
entire world-changing period between World War I and
World War II, reflecting how these individuals both
influenced and were infuenced by it. The focus, scope,
and scholarship of this book make it worthy of inclusion
in academic and public collections alike.--G. Douglas
Meyers (from American Reference Books Annual)
Review
from Choice:
The period 1919-1941 was one of significant social
adjustment as the US shifted from an agrarian to a
fully industrialized society. Izzo has assembled a
collection of well-written and thoughtful biographical
essays on the activists who influenced American society
during this period and who brought about change in
widely varied fields--art, philosophy, literature,
education, motion pictures, theater, labor and political
activism, journalism. Some are well known and have
been written about extensively (e.g., Orson Welles,
Margaret Sanger), while others are lesser known (Joseph
Freeman, Marya Zaturenska), hence not easily found
elsewhere. In all cases, these activists devoted their
lives to affecting change, were passionate about their
work, and were influential in the direction of change
in Americaduring these years. Researchers will appreciate
the bibliographies, whichidentify the activists' books,
articles, pamphlets, and other originalworks, the
libraries holding unpublished papers, and secondary
sources. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division
undergraduates through faculty. --C.W. Bruns, California
State University-Fullerton
All
of the subjects in Activists and Activists Between
the Wars represent an era, 1919-1941, that became
the most world changing in history and thus influenced
the rest of the twentieth century. Some of the subjects
began to be movers and shakers before the year 1919
and some continued to be long after 1941. Many subjects
overlap the years 1919-1941, but all of the subjects
were active during those years and contributed to
the overall prevailing attitude that linked these
subjects together: a need for change. Clarence Darrow
will open the volume and while most of his career
preceded 1919, his role as a defender of labor carried
over to inspire others. Moreover, Darrow's most famous
case was the Scopes trial, which took place early
in the period here emphasized. Orson Welles closes
Volume II and most of his career occurred after 1941;
yet, his innovative work with the Mercury Theater
and the landmark film Citizen Kane close the era.
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W.H.
Auden: A Legacy
A collection of twenty-six essays on Auden covering
his life and art.
Published
in 2002 by Locust Hill Press
locusthill@snet.net
or http://www.amazon.com
Reviewed
in Choice:
A poet's reputation, like the stock market, tends
to be unstable. Since Auden's death in 1973, his reputation
has gone from a facile poet whose best work was done
in the 1930s to--as Izzo says--"the first or
second most important twentieth-century poet in English."
In this volume of essays,
observations, and insights ... Auden's legacy is examined
in ways both academic and popular. The academic pieces
... prove most useful.... the nonacademic pieces are
both interesting and enlightening. This is a book
for young poets to read, as well as those interested
in 2Oth-century literature.
D.A. Barton
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