This book is the first to consider the work of Herman Melville's later years as a whole, in the light of his life and reading during those years and of the intellectual and artistic ambience of the later nineteenth century. With the exception of Billy Budd, almost all of the writing Melville produced between 1857 and 1891 is poetry. Until now little attention has been given to the poetry and it has been customary to view Melville's final masterpiece, Billy Budd, against the background of the earlier fiction—almost as if the writing of the intervening thirty-four years had not existed. William H. Shurr, who has studied the poems with close attention to the Melville manuscripts in the Houghton Library at Harvard University, contends that Melville's poetry merits more attention and appreciation than has hitherto been accorded it. Concerned principally with the maturation of Melville's darker themes, he has been the first to study the carefully designed sequences in which Melville published his poems. He has also discovered in the poems thematic patterns—among them Melville's heterodox Christology and his concept of a particular kind of individualism found in what he calls the "transcendent act"—that shed new light on the complexities of Billy Budd.
William H. Shurr presents here a reading of Dickinson's poems in the order in which she herself arranged them, based upon the recent reconstruction of the manuscript fascicles. In this new fascicle sequence - love, marriage, and separation - there is also recorded a growing erotic attraction, an initial refusal of sexual intimacy, and then the full enjoyment of sexual union. There follows poems which contain images of pregnancy and childbearing, possibly of a painful abortion, and of subsequent shame, guilt, disillusion, and isolation. The Emily Dickinson revealed here is a warmer, more human poet, whose intensely compacted poems sprang from an immediate, deeply felt experience of love and loss. The reasons for her reclusive separation from the world after 1861, her refusal to publish her work, the story of her closely held secrets - all are among the subjects explored in this book, which opens Dickinson's life and poetry to a new understanding.
This book is the first to consider the work of Herman Melville's later years as a whole, in the light of his life and reading during those years and of the intellectual and artistic ambience of the later nineteenth century. With the exception of Billy Budd, almost all of the writing Melville produced between 1857 and 1891 is poetry. Until now little attention has been given to the poetry and it has been customary to view Melville's final masterpiece, Billy Budd, against the background of the earlier fiction—almost as if the writing of the intervening thirty-four years had not existed. William H. Shurr, who has studied the poems with close attention to the Melville manuscripts in the Houghton Library at Harvard University, contends that Melville's poetry merits more attention and appreciation than has hitherto been accorded it. Concerned principally with the maturation of Melville's darker themes, he has been the first to study the carefully designed sequences in which Melville published his poems. He has also discovered in the poems thematic patterns—among them Melville's heterodox Christology and his concept of a particular kind of individualism found in what he calls the "transcendent act"—that shed new light on the complexities of Billy Budd.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Rappaccini's Daughter" tells of a beautiful girl who has, from birth, absorbed the poison from the flowers of her father's garden. In this allegorical tale of the fallen Garden of Eden, William H. Shurr finds a metaphor for the fate of many American writers, for whom the heritage of calvinism has been the poisoned fruit of the Garden of the New World. For many American writers, the legacy of the Puritan Fathers has been a pervasive sense of sinfulness and guilt in a violent and unforgiving universe. In this new study Shurr examines how these writers have coped with this heritage.
Researching can be a daunting task, but once one learns efficient research techniques and proper format and documentation, the process becomes much easier. This book teaches both these techniques and formats. This user-friendly book continues to be a leading book for teaching research techniques and current practices in research documentation. Spiral-bound, the book is structured to correspond to the step-by-step process of writing research papers, from the initial research to the documentation of sources Its description of library use illustrates both print and electronic sources, including more than 50 examples of proper documentation. Discussions of computer catalogs, the Internet, and CD-ROM bring readers up to date on the most recent innovations in library research techniques. While stressing the MLA style throughout, the author also discusses APA style in depth, and includes a sample paper in that style. The major chapters contain exercises to reinforce the most important points, and the bibliography serves as a reliable reference source for 24 different fields. Anyone who needs to write and research.
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