Jewish Writing and the Deep Places of the Imagination
by Mark Krupnick edited by Jean K. Carney and Mark Shechner
University of Wisconsin Press, 2005 Cloth: 978-0-299-21440-1 | eISBN: 978-0-299-21443-2 Library of Congress Classification PS153.J4K78 2005 Dewey Decimal Classification 810.98924
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
When he learned he had ALS and roughly two years to live, literary critic Mark Krupnick returned to the writers who had been his lifelong conversation partners and asked with renewed intensity: how do you live as a Jew, when, mostly, you live in your head? The evocative and sinuous essays collected here are the products of this inquiry. In his search for durable principles, Krupnick follows Lionel Trilling, Cynthia Ozick, Geoffrey Hartman, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and others into the elemental matters of life and death, sex and gender, power and vulnerability.
The editors—Krupnick’s wife, Jean K. Carney, and literary critic Mark Shechner—have also included earlier essays and introductions that link Krupnick’s work with the “deep places” of his own imagination.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mark Krupnick (1939-2003) was professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, editor of Displacement: Derrida and After, and author of Lionel Trilling and the Fate of Cultural Criticism and more than two hundred essays and reviews.
REVIEWS
“Mark Krupnick’s great gift as a critic was his knack for cutting through the elaborate disguises writers throw up and seeing those writers as struggling human beings like the rest of us. This gift is beautifully on display in Mark’s wonderful and amazing final book.”—Gerald Graff, University of Illinois at Chicago
“Krupnick’s style is subtle and resists simple description. It is clear and unadorned, even when he writes about raucous texts like Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater. He was someone who did not feel the need for flashy effect; yet he reaches some invigorating heights.”—Eric Homberger, University of East Anglia
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments 000
Foreword by Jean K. Carney 000
<LINE SPACE>
Preface by Mark Shechner 000
Introduction 000
<LINE SPACE>
I. Jewish Writers and "The Deep Places of the Imagination"
"A Shit-Filled Life": Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater 000
"We Are Here to Be Humiliated": Philip Roth's Recent Fiction 000
Geoffrey Hartman, Wordsworth, and Holocaust Testimonies 000
Cynthia Ozick: Embarrassments 000
<LINE SPACE>
II. Lionel Trilling and the Ordeal of Civility
Lionel Trilling and "The Deep Places of the Imagination" 000
The Trillings: A Marriage of True Minds? 000
Lionel Trilling and the Politics of Style 000
<LINE SPACE>
III. Critics and Polemics
Philip Rahv: "He Never Learned to Swim" 000
Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe 000
The Two Worlds of Cultural Criticism 000
Edmund Wilson and Gentile Philo-Semitism 000
<LINE SPACE>
IV. Portraits and Obits
Listmania in Humboldt's Gift 000
Assimilation in Recent American Jewish Autobiographies 000
Revisiting Morrie: Were His Last Words Too Good To Be True? 000
The Art of the Obituary 000
<LINE SPACE>
V. Last Words
Why Are English Departments Still Fighting the Culture Wars? 000
Upon Retirement 000
<LINE SPACE>
Biographical Summary 000
Publications 000
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Jewish Writing and the Deep Places of the Imagination
by Mark Krupnick edited by Jean K. Carney and Mark Shechner
University of Wisconsin Press, 2005 Cloth: 978-0-299-21440-1 eISBN: 978-0-299-21443-2
When he learned he had ALS and roughly two years to live, literary critic Mark Krupnick returned to the writers who had been his lifelong conversation partners and asked with renewed intensity: how do you live as a Jew, when, mostly, you live in your head? The evocative and sinuous essays collected here are the products of this inquiry. In his search for durable principles, Krupnick follows Lionel Trilling, Cynthia Ozick, Geoffrey Hartman, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and others into the elemental matters of life and death, sex and gender, power and vulnerability.
The editors—Krupnick’s wife, Jean K. Carney, and literary critic Mark Shechner—have also included earlier essays and introductions that link Krupnick’s work with the “deep places” of his own imagination.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mark Krupnick (1939-2003) was professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, editor of Displacement: Derrida and After, and author of Lionel Trilling and the Fate of Cultural Criticism and more than two hundred essays and reviews.
REVIEWS
“Mark Krupnick’s great gift as a critic was his knack for cutting through the elaborate disguises writers throw up and seeing those writers as struggling human beings like the rest of us. This gift is beautifully on display in Mark’s wonderful and amazing final book.”—Gerald Graff, University of Illinois at Chicago
“Krupnick’s style is subtle and resists simple description. It is clear and unadorned, even when he writes about raucous texts like Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater. He was someone who did not feel the need for flashy effect; yet he reaches some invigorating heights.”—Eric Homberger, University of East Anglia
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments 000
Foreword by Jean K. Carney 000
<LINE SPACE>
Preface by Mark Shechner 000
Introduction 000
<LINE SPACE>
I. Jewish Writers and "The Deep Places of the Imagination"
"A Shit-Filled Life": Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater 000
"We Are Here to Be Humiliated": Philip Roth's Recent Fiction 000
Geoffrey Hartman, Wordsworth, and Holocaust Testimonies 000
Cynthia Ozick: Embarrassments 000
<LINE SPACE>
II. Lionel Trilling and the Ordeal of Civility
Lionel Trilling and "The Deep Places of the Imagination" 000
The Trillings: A Marriage of True Minds? 000
Lionel Trilling and the Politics of Style 000
<LINE SPACE>
III. Critics and Polemics
Philip Rahv: "He Never Learned to Swim" 000
Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe 000
The Two Worlds of Cultural Criticism 000
Edmund Wilson and Gentile Philo-Semitism 000
<LINE SPACE>
IV. Portraits and Obits
Listmania in Humboldt's Gift 000
Assimilation in Recent American Jewish Autobiographies 000
Revisiting Morrie: Were His Last Words Too Good To Be True? 000
The Art of the Obituary 000
<LINE SPACE>
V. Last Words
Why Are English Departments Still Fighting the Culture Wars? 000
Upon Retirement 000
<LINE SPACE>
Biographical Summary 000
Publications 000
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE