A New Literary History of America – What are you reading?

I’ve been reading A New Literary History of America for the last few weeks. Today I am reading about Leslie Fielder, a literary critic who spent much of his career living and working in Montana.

I have never heard of him until now, and he has just two citations in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism ; he doesn’t have a chapter.

He was controversial because of his insolent style. However, what I like about the article in the book, written by Carrie Tirado Bramen, is how Fielder left the stogy east and could be more open about his thoughts and disagreements with the establishment out west. He wrote to the common reader and thumbed his nose at formality. [Perhaps why he didn’t have more written about him in Norton.]

I am going to look for Fielder’s books including “Love and Death” and read some of DH Lawrence’s books such as “Studies in Classic American Literature” and “Love and Death in the American Novel”.

I have so much to read and the list keeps growing while reading A New Literary History of America. The list now includes the ones above and I still have to read Moby Dick and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.