112-584: Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic , and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man , which won the National Book Award in 1953. Ellison wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). The New York Times dubbed him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus ". A posthumous novel, Juneteenth ,
224-518: A YMCA on 135th Street in Harlem , then "the culture capital of black America". He met Langston Hughes , "Harlem's unofficial diplomat" of the Depression era, and one—as one of the country's celebrity black authors—who could live from his writing. Hughes introduced him to the black literary establishment with Communist sympathies. He met several artists who would influence his later life, including
336-512: A December 1955 essay, "Living With Music", in High Fidelity magazine. Ellison scholar John S. Wright contends that this deftness with the ins-and-outs of electronic devices went on to inform Ellison's approach to writing and the novel form. Ellison remained at Tuskegee until 1936, and decided to leave before completing the requirements for a degree. Desiring to study sculpture, he moved to New York City on July 5, 1936, and found lodging at
448-640: A Journey", "The Voice" and others from this collection "are by general consent regarded as the peak of his poetic achievement". In a 2007 biography on Hardy, Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife Emma, beginning with these elegies, which she describes as among "the finest and strangest celebrations of the dead in English poetry." Many of Hardy's poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and "the perversity of fate", presenting these themes with "a carefully controlled elegiac feeling". Irony
560-454: A better chance of reaching manhood if we grew up in the north." When she did not find a job and her brother lost his, the family returned to Oklahoma, where Ellison worked as a busboy, a shoeshine boy, hotel waiter, and a dentist's assistant. From the father of a neighborhood friend, he received free lessons for playing trumpet and alto saxophone, and would go on to become the school bandmaster. Ida remarried three times after Lewis died. However,
672-533: A close friend of Hardy's for the rest of his life, and introduced him to new scientific findings that cast doubt on literal interpretations of the Bible, such as those of Gideon Mantell . Moule gave Hardy a copy of Mantell's book The Wonders of Geology (1848) in 1858, and Adelene Buckland has suggested that there are "compelling similarities" between the "cliffhanger" section from A Pair of Blue Eyes and Mantell's geological descriptions. It has also been suggested that
784-441: A consensus. Once, when asked in correspondence by a clergyman, Dr. A. B. Grosart , about the question of reconciling the horrors of human and animal life with "the absolute goodness and non-limitation of God", Hardy replied, Mr. Hardy regrets that he is unable to offer any hypothesis which would reconcile the existence of such evils as Dr. Grosart describes with the idea of omnipotent goodness. Perhaps Dr. Grosart might be helped to
896-484: A consultant to the Hudson Institute in an attempt to broaden its scope beyond defense-related research. In 1964, Ellison published Shadow and Act , a collection of essays, and began to teach at Bard College , Rutgers University and Yale University , while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a Book Week poll of 200 critics, authors, and editors was released that proclaimed Invisible Man
1008-537: A form of hermeneutics : knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions – including the interpretation of texts which themselves interpret other texts. In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness
1120-436: A letter to Wright, dated August 18, 1945, Ellison poured out his anger with party leaders: "If they want to play ball with the bourgeoisie they needn't think they can get away with it. ... Maybe we can't smash the atom, but we can, with a few well chosen, well written words, smash all that crummy filth to hell." In the wake of this disillusion, Ellison began writing Invisible Man, a novel that was, in part, his response to
1232-599: A local amateur group, at the time known as the Dorchester Dramatic and Debating Society, but that would become the Hardy Players . His reservations about adaptations of his novels meant he was initially at some pains to disguise his involvement in the play. However, the international success of the play, The Trumpet Major , led to a long and successful collaboration between Hardy and the Players over
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#17327727974371344-609: A novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic...she [Lady Viviette Constantine] is also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings. Fate or chance
1456-423: A provisional view of the universe by the recently published Life of Darwin and the works of Herbert Spencer and other agnostics. Hardy frequently conceived of, and wrote about, supernatural forces, particularly those that control the universe through indifference or caprice, a force he called The Immanent Will. He also showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and spirits. Even so, he retained
1568-617: A rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory , influenced by structuralism , then post-structuralism , and other kinds of Continental philosophy . It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions. Today, approaches based in literary theory and continental philosophy largely coexist in university literature departments, while conventional methods, some informed by
1680-842: A scholarship graduate of the University of Iowa who was a founder of the Negro People's Theater in Chicago and a writer for The Chicago Defender . While he wrote Invisible Man , she helped support Ellison financially by working for American Medical Center for Burma Frontiers (the charity supporting Gordon S. Seagrave 's medical missionary work). In 1946, Ellison composed and wrote the lyrics for at least two songs, "Flirty" and "It Would Only Hurt Me If I Knew". From 1947 to 1951, he earned some money writing book reviews but spent most of his time working on Invisible Man . Fanny also helped type Ellison's longhand text and assisted him in editing
1792-439: A small-business owner and a construction foreman, died in 1916, after work-related injury and a failed operation. The elder Ellison loved literature, and doted on his children. Ralph later discovered, as an adult, that his father had hoped he would grow up to be a poet. In 1921, Ellison's mother and her children moved to Gary, Indiana , where she had a brother. According to Ellison, his mother felt that "my brother and I would have
1904-514: A strong emotional attachment to the Christian liturgy and church rituals, particularly as manifested in rural communities, that had been such a formative influence in his early years, and Biblical references can be found woven throughout many of Hardy's novels. Hardy's friends during his apprenticeship to John Hicks included Horace Moule (one of the eight sons of Henry Moule ) and the poet William Barnes , both ministers of religion. Moule remained
2016-412: A three-volume epic closet drama The Dynasts (1904–08), and though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads, he "was never conventional," and "persistently experiment[ed] with different, often invented, stanza forms and metres," and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction". Hardy wrote a number of significant war poems that relate to both
2128-701: A watercolour of the Tudor gatehouse while visiting his father, who was repairing the masonry of the dovecote. He moved to London in 1862 where he enrolled as a student at King's College London . He won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association . He joined Arthur Blomfield 's practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on Christ Church, East Sheen Richmond, London where
2240-477: A year. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate in Dorchester , a house designed by Hardy and built by his brother. Although they became estranged, Emma's death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him and Hardy made a trip to Cornwall after her death to revisit places linked with their courtship; his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale , who
2352-471: Is a matter of some controversy. For example, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. Literary criticism
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#17327727974372464-622: Is an important element in a number of Hardy's poems, including "The Man He Killed" and "Are You Digging on My Grave". A few of Hardy's poems, such as " The Blinded Bird ", a melancholy polemic against the sport of vinkenzetting , reflect his firm stance against animal cruelty, exhibited in his antivivisectionist views and his membership in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . Although his poems were initially not as well received as his novels had been, Hardy
2576-491: Is another important theme. Hardy's characters often encounter crossroads on a journey, a junction that offers alternative physical destinations but which is also symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition, further suggesting that fate is at work. Far from the Madding Crowd is an example of a novel in which chance has a major role: "Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example,
2688-660: Is now recognised as one of the great poets of the 20th century, and his verse had a profound influence on later writers, including Robert Frost , W. H. Auden , Dylan Thomas and Philip Larkin . Larkin included 27 poems by Hardy compared with only nine by T. S. Eliot in his edition of The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973. There were fewer poems by W. B. Yeats . Poet-critic Donald Davie 's Thomas Hardy and English Poetry considers Hardy's contribution to ongoing poetic tradition at length and in creative depth. Davie's friend Thom Gunn also wrote on Hardy and acknowledged his stature and example. Hardy's family
2800-594: Is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals , and more popular critics publish their reviews in broadly circulating periodicals such as The Times Literary Supplement , The New York Times Book Review , The New York Review of Books , the London Review of Books , the Dublin Review of Books , The Nation , Bookforum , and The New Yorker . Literary criticism
2912-537: Is the intensely maturing experience of which Hardy's modern man is most sensible? In my view it is suffering, or sadness, and extended consideration of the centrality of suffering in Hardy's work should be the first duty of the true critic for which the work is still waiting [...] Any approach to his work, as to any writer's work, must seek first of all to determine what element is peculiarly his, which imaginative note he strikes most plangently, and to deny that in this case it
3024-559: Is the sometimes gentle, sometimes ironic, sometimes bitter but always passive apprehension of suffering is, I think, wrong-headed. In Two on a Tower , for example, Hardy takes a stand against these rules of society with a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to reconsider the conventions set up by society for the relationships between men and women. Nineteenth-century society had conventions, which were enforced. In this novel Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against such contemporary social constraints. In
3136-428: Is the study, evaluation , and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory , which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory
3248-686: Is thought to have existed as far back as the classical period. In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics , a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis , which are still crucial in literary studies. Plato 's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. The Sanskrit Natya Shastra includes literary criticism on ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama. Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and
3360-700: The Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980. In 1975, Ellison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters , and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continuing to teach, Ellison published mostly essays, and in 1984, he received the New York City College 's Langston Hughes Medal . In 1985, he
3472-562: The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ; his artistic achievements included work as a sculptor, musician, photographer, and college professor as well as his writing output. He taught at Bard College, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago , and New York University. Ellison was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers . After Ellison's death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in
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3584-558: The Baptist Church . Hardy flirted with conversion, but decided against it. Bastow went to Australia and maintained a long correspondence with Hardy, but eventually Hardy tired of these exchanges and the correspondence ceased. This concluded Hardy's links with the Baptists. The irony and struggles of life, coupled with his naturally curious mind, led him to question the traditional Christian view of God: The Christian God –
3696-593: The Boer Wars and World War I , including "Drummer Hodge", "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" and " The Man He Killed "; his work had a profound influence on other war poets such as Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon . Hardy in these poems often used the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers and their colloquial speech. A theme in the Wessex Poems is the long shadow that the Napoleonic Wars cast over
3808-678: The Civil Rights Movement for his book Who Speaks for the Negro? In 1958, Ellison returned to the United States to take a position teaching American and Russian literature at Bard College and to begin a second novel, Juneteenth . During the 1950s, he corresponded with his lifelong friend, the writer Albert Murray . In their letters they commented on the development of their careers, the Civil Rights Movement , and other common interests including jazz. Much of this material
3920-624: The National Trust . Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady , finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher. He then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith , who felt that The Poor Man and the Lady would be too politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future. So Hardy followed his advice and he did not try further to publish it. He subsequently destroyed
4032-744: The New Critics , also remain active. Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined. Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in nontraditional texts and women's literature , as elaborated on by certain academic journals such as Contemporary Women's Writing , while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp / genre fiction . Ecocritics have drawn connections between literature and
4144-552: The Nobel Prize in Literature . He was nominated again for the prize 11 years later and received a total of 25 nominations until 1927. He was at least once, in 1923, one of the final candidates for the prize, but was not awarded. Hardy's interest in the theatre dated from the 1860s. He corresponded with various would-be adapters over the years, including Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and Jack Grein and Charles Jarvis in
4256-462: The history of the book is a field of interdisciplinary inquiry drawing on the methods of bibliography , cultural history , history of literature , and media theory . Principally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of texts and their material forms, book history seeks to connect forms of textuality with their material aspects. Among the issues within the history of literature with which book history can be seen to intersect are:
4368-530: The "Authors' Declaration", justifying Britain's involvement in the First World War . This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war." Hardy was horrified by the destruction caused by the war, pondering that "I do not think a world in which such fiendishness is possible to be worth
4480-490: The 1820s, and research into these has provided insight into how Hardy used them in his works. The opening chapter of The Mayor of Casterbridge , for example, written in 1886, was based on press reports of wife-selling. In the year of his death Mrs Hardy published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841–1891 , compiled largely from contemporary notes, letters, diaries and biographical memoranda, as well as from oral information in conversations extending over many years. Hardy's work
4592-432: The 19th century, as seen, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and "Leipzig". The Napoleonic War is the subject of The Dynasts . Some of Hardy's more famous poems are from Poems 1912–13 , which later became part of Satires of Circumstance (1914), written following the death of his wife Emma in 1912. They had been estranged for 20 years, and these lyric poems express deeply felt "regret and remorse". Poems like "After
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4704-500: The 9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan , and by Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi . The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into literary neoclassicism , proclaiming literature as central to culture, entrusting the poet and the author with preservation of a long literary tradition. The birth of Renaissance criticism
4816-570: The Communist Party, he used his new fame to speak out for literature as a moral instrument. In 1955 he traveled to Europe, visiting and lecturing, settling for a time in Rome, where he wrote an essay that appeared in a 1957 Bantam anthology called A New Southern Harvest . Robert Penn Warren was in Rome during the same period, and the two writers became close friends. Later, Warren would interview Ellison about his thoughts on race, history, and
4928-466: The Enlightenment theoreticians so that the business of Enlightenment became a business with the Enlightenment. This development – particularly of emergence of entertainment literature – was addressed through an intensification of criticism. Many works of Jonathan Swift , for instance, were criticized including his book Gulliver's Travels , which one critic described as "the detestable story of
5040-596: The Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians ) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound , W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin . Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in
5152-502: The Native (1878). In 1880, Hardy published his only historical novel, The Trumpet-Major . A further move to Wimborne saw Hardy write Two on a Tower , published in 1882, a romance story set in the world of astronomy. Then in 1885, they moved for the last time, to Max Gate , a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887) and Tess of
5264-548: The Yahoos". The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century introduced new aesthetic ideas to literary studies, including the idea that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime . German Romanticism , which followed closely after the late development of German classicism , emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to
5376-478: The abbey's famous Poets' Corner . A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner. Hardy's estate at death was valued at £ 95,418 (equivalent to £7,300,000 in 2023). Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and notebooks, but twelve notebooks survived, one of them containing notes and extracts of newspaper stories from
5488-531: The age of eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardy's family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect. He worked on the design of the new church at nearby Athelhampton, situated just opposite Athelhampton House where he painted
5600-526: The artist Romare Bearden and the author Richard Wright (with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship). After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wright encouraged him to write fiction as a career. Ellison's first published story was "Hymie's Bull", inspired by his 1933 hoboing on a train with his uncle to get to Tuskegee. From 1937 to 1944, Ellison had more than 20 book reviews, as well as short stories and articles, published in magazines such as New Challenge and The New Masses . Wright
5712-514: The author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader response : together known as Wimsatt and Beardsley's intentional fallacy and affective fallacy . This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselves. In 1957 Northrop Frye published the influential Anatomy of Criticism . In his works Frye noted that some critics tend to embrace an ideology, and to judge literary pieces on
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#17327727974375824-475: The award, he was unsatisfied with the book. Ellison ultimately wrote more than 2,000 pages of this second novel but never finished it. Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of pancreatic cancer and was interred in a crypt at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan . Invisible Man won the 1953 US National Book Award for Fiction . The award
5936-522: The basis of their adherence to such ideology. This has been a highly influential viewpoint among modern conservative thinkers. E. Michael Jones, for example, argues in his Degenerate Moderns that Stanley Fish was influenced by his own adulterous affairs to reject classic literature that condemned adultery. Jürgen Habermas , in Erkenntnis und Interesse [1968] ( Knowledge and Human Interests ), described literary critical theory in literary studies as
6048-399: The book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me". Despite this, Hardy had become a celebrity by the 1900s, but some argue that he gave up writing novels because of the criticism of both Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure . The Well-Beloved , first serialised in 1892,
6160-450: The cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with "old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey , and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. His family and friends concurred; however, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell , insisted that he be placed in
6272-434: The character of Henry Knight in A Pair of Blue Eyes was based on Horace Moule. Throughout his life, Hardy sought a rationale for believing in an afterlife or a timeless existence, turning first to spiritualists, such as Henri Bergson , and then to Albert Einstein and J. M. E. McTaggart , considering their philosophy on time and space in relation to immortality. Sites associated with Hardy's own life and which inspired
6384-484: The d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman", and initially it was refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented , was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes. Jude the Obscure , published in 1895, met with an even stronger negative response from the Victorian public because of its controversial treatment of sex, religion and marriage. Its apparent attack on
6496-409: The development of authorship as a profession, the formation of reading audiences, the constraints of censorship and copyright, and the economics of literary form. Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot , he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism , including
6608-595: The external personality – has been replaced by the intelligence of the First Cause...the replacement of the old concept of God as all-powerful by a new concept of universal consciousness. The 'tribal god, man-shaped, fiery-faced and tyrannous' is replaced by the 'unconscious will of the Universe' which progressively grows aware of itself and 'ultimately, it is to be hoped, sympathetic'. Scholars have debated Hardy's religious leanings for years, often unable to reach
6720-425: The family life was precarious, and Ralph worked various jobs during his youth and teens to assist with family support. While attending Douglass High School , he also found time to play on the school's football team. He graduated from high school in 1931. He worked for a year, and found the money to make a down payment on a trumpet, using it to play with local musicians, and to take further music lessons. At Douglass, he
6832-406: The first full-fledged crisis in modernity of the core critical-aesthetic principles inherited from classical antiquity , such as proportion, harmony, unity, decorum , that had long governed, guaranteed, and stabilized Western thinking about artworks. Although Classicism was very far from spent as a cultural force, it was to be gradually challenged by a rival movement, namely Baroque, that favoured
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#17327727974376944-618: The first novel by John Cowper Powys , who was a contemporary of Lawrence, was "Dedicated with devoted admiration to the greatest poet and novelist of our age Thomas Hardy". Powys's later novel Maiden Castle (1936) is set in Dorchester , which was Hardy's Casterbridge , and was intended by Powys to be a "rival" to Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge . Maiden Castle is the last of Powys's so-called Wessex novels, Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932) and Weymouth Sands (1934), which are set in Somerset and Dorset. Hardy
7056-464: The importance of Hardy for him, even though this work is a platform for Lawrence's own developing philosophy rather than a more standard literary study. The influence of Hardy's treatment of character, and Lawrence's own response to the central metaphysic behind many of Hardy's novels, helped significantly in the development of The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920). Wood and Stone (1915),
7168-453: The institution of marriage caused strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and Walsham How , the Bishop of Wakefield , is reputed to have burnt his copy. In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of
7280-437: The institution was no less class-conscious than white institutions generally were. Ellison's outsider position at Tuskegee "sharpened his satirical lens," critic Hilton Als believes: "Standing apart from the university's air of sanctimonious Negritude enabled him to write about it." In passages of Invisible Man , "he looks back with scorn and despair on the snivelling ethos that ruled at Tuskegee." Tuskegee's music department
7392-492: The literary life." Through Sprague, Ellison became familiar with Fyodor Dostoevsky 's Crime and Punishment and Thomas Hardy 's Jude the Obscure , identifying with the "brilliant, tortured anti-heroes" of those works. As a child, Ellison evidenced what would become a lifelong interest in audio technology, starting by taking apart and rebuilding radios, and later moving on to constructing and customizing elaborate hi-fi stereo systems as an adult. He discussed this passion in
7504-543: The manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work. In his recollections in Life and Work , Hardy described the book as "socialistic, not to say revolutionary; yet not argumentatively so." After he abandoned his first novel, Hardy wrote two new ones that he hoped would have more commercial appeal, Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), both of which were published anonymously; it
7616-523: The marriage was over. The couple officially divorced in 1945. As of April 2023, Poindexter remains alive at 111 years old. At the start of World War II, Ellison was classed 1A by the local Selective Service System , and thus eligible for the draft. However, he was not drafted. Toward the end of the war, he enlisted in the United States Merchant Marine . In 1946, he married Fanny McConnell, an accomplished person in her own right:
7728-406: The more controversial criteria of the author's religious beliefs. These critical reviews were published in many magazines, newspapers, and journals. The commercialization of literature and its mass production had its downside. The emergent literary market, which was expected to educate the public and keep them away from superstition and prejudice, increasingly diverged from the idealistic control of
7840-475: The most important novel since World War II. In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his summer home in Plainfield, Massachusetts , in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. A perfectionist regarding the art of the novel, Ellison had said in accepting his National Book Award for Invisible Man that he felt he had made "an attempt at a major novel" and, despite
7952-399: The natural sciences. Darwinian literary studies studies literature in the context of evolutionary influences on human nature. And postcritique has sought to develop new ways of reading and responding to literary texts that go beyond the interpretive methods of critique . Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies . Related to other forms of literary criticism,
8064-587: The new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism , and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and in the United States, came to dominate the study and discussion of literature in the English-speaking world. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of
8176-443: The parish church at Puddletown, close to his home at Max Gate. He became a frequent visitor at Athelhampton House , which he knew from his teenage years, and in his letters he encouraged the owner, Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, to conduct the restoration of that building in a sensitive way. In 1914, Hardy was one of 53 leading British authors—including H. G. Wells , Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle —who signed their names to
8288-753: The party's betrayal. In 1938, Ellison met Rose Araminta Poindexter, a woman two years his senior. Rose Araminta Poindexter was an actress, starring in films such as The Upright Sinner (1931). Poindexter and Ellison were married in late 1938. Rose was a stage actress, and continued her career after their marriage. In biographer Arnold Rampersad 's assessment of Ellison's taste in women, he was searching for one "physically attractive and smart who would love, honor, and obey him—but not challenge his intellect." At first they lived at 312 West 122nd Street, Rose's apartment, but moved to 453 West 140th Street after her income shrank. In 1941 he briefly had an affair with Sanora Babb , which he confessed to his wife afterward, and in 1943
8400-470: The poetry of William Wordsworth . He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England . While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from
8512-477: The protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see" him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel also contains taboo issues such as incest and the controversial subject of communism . In 1962, the futurist Herman Kahn recruited Ellison as
8624-401: The protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff. Elements of Hardy's fiction reflect the influence of the commercially successful sensation fiction of the 1860s, particularly the legal complications in novels such as Desperate Remedies (1871), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Two on a Tower (1882). In Far from the Madding Crowd , Hardy first introduced the idea of calling
8736-461: The publication of Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999, his second novel, Juneteenth , was published under the editorship of John F. Callahan , a professor at Lewis & Clark College and Ellison's literary executor . It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2,000 pages written by Ellison over a period of 40 years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively on January 26, 2010, by Modern Library , under
8848-447: The reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the serious Anglophone Romanticism. The late nineteenth century brought renown to authors known more for their literary criticism than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold . However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from
8960-461: The region in the west of England, where his novels are set, Wessex . Wessex had been the name of an early Saxon kingdom, in approximately the same part of England. Far from the Madding Crowd was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next 25 years, Hardy produced 10 more novels. Subsequently, Hardy moved from London to Yeovil , and then to Sturminster Newton , where he wrote The Return of
9072-716: The remaining years of his life. Indeed, his play The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) was written to be performed by the Hardy Players. From the 1880s, Hardy became increasingly involved in campaigns to save ancient buildings from destruction, or destructive modernisation, and he became an early member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings . His correspondence refers to his unsuccessful efforts to prevent major alterations to
9184-514: The same decade. Neither adaptation came to fruition, but Hardy showed he was potentially enthusiastic about such a project. One play that was performed, however, caused him a certain amount of pain. His experience of the controversy and lukewarm critical reception that had surrounded his and Comyns Carr 's adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd in 1882 left him wary of the damage that adaptations could do to his literary reputation. So, in 1908, he so readily and enthusiastically became involved with
9296-589: The saving" and "better to let western 'civilization' perish, and let the black and yellow races have a chance." He wrote to John Galsworthy that "the exchange of international thought is the only possible salvation for the world." Shortly after helping to excavate the Fordington mosaic , Hardy became ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and died at Max Gate just after 9 pm on 11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed;
9408-470: The semi-fictional region of Wessex ; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south-west and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd , were listed in the top 50 on the BBC 's survey The Big Read . Thomas Hardy
9520-534: The settings of his novels continue to attract literary tourists and casual visitors. For locations in Hardy's novels see: Thomas Hardy's Wessex , and the Thomas Hardy's Wessex research site, which includes maps. Hardy corresponded with and visited Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell at Wenlock Abbey and many of Lady Catherine's books are inspired by Hardy, who was very fond of her. D. H. Lawrence 's Study of Thomas Hardy (1914, first published 1936) indicates
9632-416: The several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts. This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions : Jewish literature , Christian literature and Islamic literature . Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval Arabic literature and Arabic poetry from
9744-450: The story would have taken an entirely different path." Indeed, Hardy's main characters often seem to be held in fate's overwhelming grip. In 1898, Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems , a collection of poems written over 30 years. While some suggest that Hardy gave up writing novels following the harsh criticism of Jude the Obscure in 1896, the poet C. H. Sisson calls this "hypothesis" "superficial and absurd". In
9856-716: The title Three Days Before the Shooting... On February 18, 2014, the USPS issued a 91¢ stamp honoring Ralph Ellison in its Literary Arts series. A park on 150th Street and Riverside Drive in Harlem (near 730 Riverside Drive, Ellison's principal residence from the early 1950s until his death) was dedicated to Ellison on May 1, 2003. In the park stands a 15 by 8-foot bronze slab with a "cut-out man figure" inspired by his book Invisible Man . Literary critic A genre of arts criticism , literary criticism or literary studies
9968-681: The tower collapsed in 1863, and All Saints' parish church in Windsor, Berkshire , in 1862–64. A reredos , possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints' in August 2016. In the mid-1860s, Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part of the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church before its destruction when the Midland Railway was extended to a new terminus at St Pancras . Hardy never felt at home in London, because he
10080-613: The transgressive and the extreme, without laying claim to the unity, harmony, or decorum that supposedly distinguished both nature and its greatest imitator, namely ancient art. The key concepts of the Baroque aesthetic, such as " conceit ' ( concetto ), " wit " ( acutezza , ingegno ), and " wonder " ( meraviglia ), were not fully developed in literary theory until the publication of Emanuele Tesauro 's Il Cannocchiale aristotelico (The Aristotelian Telescope) in 1654. This seminal treatise – inspired by Giambattista Marino 's epic Adone and
10192-513: The twentieth century Hardy published only poetry. Thomas Hardy published Poems of the Past and the Present in 1901, which contains " The Darkling Thrush " (originally titled "The Century's End"), one of his best known poems about the turn of the century . Thomas Hardy wrote in a great variety of poetic forms, including lyrics , ballads , satire, dramatic monologues and dialogue, as well as
10304-609: The typescript as it progressed. Published in 1952, Invisible Man explores the theme of a person's search for their identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of the first-person narrator, an unnamed African American man, first in the Deep South and then in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin , Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate, and self-aware. Through
10416-435: The university library, where he read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein . Librarian Walter Bowie Williams enthusiastically let Ellison share in his knowledge. A major influence upon Ellison was English teacher Morteza Drexel Sprague, to whom Ellison later dedicated his essay collection Shadow and Act . He opened Ellison's eyes to "the possibilities of literature as a living art" and to "the glamour he would always associate with
10528-535: The work of the Spanish Jesuit philosopher Baltasar Gracián – developed a theory of metaphor as a universal language of images and as a supreme intellectual act, at once an artifice and an epistemologically privileged mode of access to truth. In the Enlightenment period (1700s–1800s), literary criticism became more popular. During this time literacy rates started to rise in the public; no longer
10640-429: Was Anglican , but not especially devout. He was baptised at the age of five weeks and attended church, where his father and uncle contributed to music. He did not attend the local Church of England school, instead being sent to Mr Last's school, three miles away. As a young adult, he befriended Henry R. Bastow (a Plymouth Brethren man), who also worked as a pupil architect, and who was preparing for adult baptism in
10752-511: Was 39 years his junior. He remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In his later years, he kept a Wire Fox Terrier named Wessex, who was notoriously ill-tempered. Wessex's grave stone can be found on the Max Gate grounds. In 1910, Hardy had been appointed a Member of the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for
10864-427: Was acutely conscious of class divisions and his own feelings of social inferiority. During this time he became interested in social reform and the works of John Stuart Mill . He was introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte . Mill's essay On Liberty was one of Hardy's cures for despair, and in 1924 he declared that "my pages show harmony of view with" Mill. He
10976-527: Was admired by many younger writers, including D. H. Lawrence , John Cowper Powys and Virginia Woolf . In his autobiography Good-Bye to All That (1929), Robert Graves recalls meeting Hardy in Dorset in the early 1920s and how Hardy received him and his new wife warmly, and was encouraging about his work. Hardy's birthplace in Bockhampton and his house Max Gate , both in Dorchester, are owned by
11088-662: Was also attracted to Matthew Arnold 's and Leslie Stephen 's ideal of the urbane liberal freethinker. After five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth , and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford , whom he married on 17 September 1874, at St Peter's Church, Paddington , London. The couple rented St David's Villa, Southborough (now Surbiton ) for
11200-479: Was awarded the National Medal of Arts . In 1986, his Going to the Territory was published; this is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern novelist William Faulkner and Ellison's friend Richard Wright, as well as the music of Duke Ellington and the contributions of African Americans to America's national identity. In 1992, Ellison was awarded a special achievement award from
11312-504: Was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas (1811–1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder. His parents had married at Melbury Osmond on 22 December 1839. His mother, Jemima (née Hand; 1813–1904), was well read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at
11424-888: Was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W. Somerset Maugham 's novel Cakes and Ale (1930). Thomas Hardy's works also feature prominently in the American playwright Christopher Durang 's The Marriage of Bette and Boo (1985), in which a graduate thesis analysing Tess of the d'Urbervilles is interspersed with analysis of Matt's family's neuroses. A number of notable English composers, including Gerald Finzi , Benjamin Britten , Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst set poems by Hardy to music. Others include Holst's daughter Imogen Holst , John Ireland , Muriel Herbert , Ivor Gurney and Robin Milford . Orchestral tone poems which evoke
11536-481: Was his ticket into the American literary establishment. He eventually was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters , received two President's Medals (from Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan ) and a State Medal from France. He was the first African-American admitted to the Century Association and was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Harvard University . Disillusioned by his experience with
11648-434: Was in 1498, with the recovery of classic texts, most notably, Giorgio Valla 's Latin translation of Aristotle 's Poetics . The work of Aristotle, especially Poetics , was the most important influence upon literary criticism until the late eighteenth century. Lodovico Castelvetro was one of the most influential Renaissance critics who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics in 1570. The seventeenth-century witnessed
11760-455: Was influenced by principal Inman E. Page and his daughter, music teacher Zelia N. Breaux . Ellison applied twice for admission to Tuskegee Institute , the prestigious all-black university in Alabama founded by Booker T. Washington . He was finally admitted in 1933 for lack of a trumpet player in its orchestra. Ellison hopped freight trains to get to Alabama, and was soon to find out that
11872-413: Was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by composer William L. Dawson . Ellison also was guided by the department's piano instructor, Hazel Harrison . While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent his free time in the library with modernist classics. He cited reading T. S. Eliot 's The Waste Land as a major awakening moment. In 1934, he began to work as a desk clerk at
11984-461: Was published after being assembled from voluminous notes Ellison left upon his death. Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson , was born in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913. He was the second of three sons; firstborn Alfred died in infancy, and younger brother Herbert Maurice (or Millsap) was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison,
12096-474: Was published in 1897. Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England , and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Such unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poet Philip Larkin as central in Hardy's works: What
12208-536: Was published in the collection Trading Twelves (2000). Writing essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work. In 1969, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom ; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France and became a permanent member of the faculty at New York University as
12320-407: Was reading exclusive for the wealthy or scholarly. With the rise of the literate public, the swiftness of printing and commercialization of literature, criticism arose too. Reading was no longer viewed solely as educational or as a sacred source of religion; it was a form of entertainment. Literary criticism was influenced by the values and stylistic writing, including clear, bold, precise writing and
12432-551: Was then openly associated with the Communist Party , and Ellison was publishing and editing for communist publications, although his "affiliation was quieter", according to historian Carol Polsgrove in Divided Minds . Both Wright and Ellison lost their faith in the Communist Party during World War II, when they felt the party had betrayed African Americans and replaced Marxist class politics with social reformism. In
12544-515: Was while working on the latter that he met Emma Gifford, who would become his wife. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes , a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of Emma, was published under his own name. A plot device popularised by Charles Dickens , the term " cliffhanger " is considered to have originated with the serialised version of A Pair of Blue Eyes (published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of
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