Literary Awakenings: Personal Essays from the Hudson Review,New

ReviewThe collection makes a strong case for the centrality of reading to human life . . . to argue for literatures importance in an increasingly postliterate age. Jeff Porter, associate professor of English, University of IowaThis wideranging collection of essays refreshes one's faith in highly personal criticism and in the joy of reading. They are a reaffirmation that literature is not meant to be a selfenclosed domain, and that there is no unbridgeable gap between life and art. There is humor in these pages, and passionas well as the authentic sound of strong personal voices. Victor Brombert, Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Languages emeritus at Princeton University and author of the wartime memoir Trains of ThoughtProduct DescriptionDuring the past thirty years, the editors of the Hudson Review have observed a trend among some of the best literary essayists and reviewers to situate their criticism in a deeply personal manner as opposed to the theoretical, technocratic work being produced in many literary and academic publications. Over time, the Hudson Review became a home for this kind of accessible, memoirist writing. Literary Awakenings collects eighteen essays published over the last three decades that celebrate the writers relationship with literature, one that is deeply shaped by experience and remembrance. The essays gathered here recall disparate awakenings to the influence of literature and discoveries of the many ways in which it enriches nearly every aspect of our lives. Antonio Muoz Molina describes his education as a writer and a citizen as a form of protest against Francos totalitarian regime in Spain. Drawing upon Huckleberry Finn, Wendell Berry meditates on the impulse to escape that literature often invokes, and Judith Pascoes tribute to Clarissa confesses to the appeal of reading select literature that initiates one into an exclusive coterie of people. What unites these diverse contributions is the joy of appreciation, the pleasures of engaging with literature.Book DescriptionA collection of deeply personal essays musing on literature from the Hudson Review.About the AuthorRonald Koury has been managing editor of the Hudson Review since 1985.Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Contents Preface Ronald Koury ix Introduction William H. Pritchard xi Listening to Virginia Jeffrey Harrrrison 1 Part One. Awakening to Literature A Double Education Antonio Muoz Molina 5 Apt Admonishment Wordsworth as an Example Seamus Heaney 18 The Poem and the Path Andrew Motion 34 Waterloo, the Story of an Obsession Louis Simpson 58 Writer and Region Wendell Berrrry 67 The Poetry of Life and the Life of Poetry David Mason 84 Part Two. Students and Teacher Talking Back to the Speaker Clara Claiborne Park 103 Before I Read Clarissa I Was Nobody Aspirational Reading and Samuel Richardsons Great Novel Judith Pascoe 128 Learning from Robert Fitzgerald Dana Gioia 144 A Pilgrimage to Santayana IrIrving Singer 164 Koury 1st pages.indd 7 11/4/2016 9:37:14 AM Part Three. Tributes Last Days of Henry Miller Barbrbara Kraft 177 Prophet Against God William Empson (190684) Georgrge Watson 191 Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? A Memoir Richard Hornby 204 Horatio Hornblower IgIgor Webb bb 215 Part Four. Facing the Text Nell and I Joyce Zonana 239 My Roommate Lord Byron ThThomas M. Disch 258 Flannery OConnor Resurrected Susan Bale 264 The Pleasures of Reading Josephph EpEpstein 28