By Jess Mendes | On May 28, 2021 | Updated February 29, 2024 | Comments (0)
Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle “One Art” was one of the first poems I read and analyzed at a college level. It’s also one of my favorites. Here is an analysis of “One Art” that can be interpreted from the perspective of wherever the reader is in their own life.
We’ve all, in our unique ways, experienced loss. Countless poems attempt to capture the nature of loss. Elizabeth Bishop was a detail-oriented writer, and the particularity of “One Art” makes the experience of reading it all the more sensitive and meaningful. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind poem.
“One Art” intimately captures the feeling of loss for the reader. Although the poem is mostly autobiographical, it simultaneously acts as a mirror, forcing the reader to reflect on their own losses. This is perhaps why “One Art” is so valuable and memorable. Its relatability makes it difficult to forget. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On May 24, 2021 | Updated September 22, 2024 | Comments (2)
Before there was a designated Young Adult category in publishing, Rosamond du Jardin (1902 – 1963) was known for her novels for the teen reader. Once dismissed as formulaic and dated, her novels are getting a second look, especially in gender studies.
Literary critic Claudia Mills wrote that “they are illuminating as cultural documents, revealing how the values of their decade were transmitted to young readers via the vehicle of story.”
This re-introduction to du Jardin’s books and heroines is excerpted from Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-20th Century Woman’s Novel by Francis Booth, reprinted by permission. Read More→
By Susan Bailey | On May 23, 2021 | Updated August 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
Susan Bailey of Louisa May Alcott is My Passion describes Diana and Persis, Louisa May Alcott‘s unfinished novel, as compelling, revealing, biographical, and thus, tragically incomplete:
By the 1870s, Louisa May Alcott and her baby sister May had become close companions. Although quite different in temperament, both shared that burning ambition to become the artists they were meant to be – Louisa as a best-selling author, and May as an acclaimed painter, exhibiting at the Paris Salon. Read More→
By Melanie P. Kumar | On May 20, 2021 | Updated March 14, 2023 | Comments (1)
Revisiting a book many years after the first reading and still being able to connect is one of the greatest joys of rediscovering great authors. It’s no surprise that Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth and contributed to her receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature.
This novel, published in 1931, was the first in her House of Earth trilogy, followed by Sons and A House Divided. It made it to the bestselling lists in the United States, both in 1931 and 1932.
The author, as the daughter of missionaries, grew up in China and based this work of historical fiction on her personal observations of village life around her. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On May 14, 2021 | Updated June 17, 2023 | Comments (0)
The Road Through the Wall was Shirley Jackson’s first novel (1948). That was also the year when her short story, “The Lottery,” was published, making her instantly famous (as well as infamous). This plot summary and analysis of The Road Through the Wall focuses on its young heroine, Harriet Merriam.
Jackson claimed that the novel was loosely based on her childhood growing up in a well-to-do neighborhood in California. Admitting that this book was somewhat of a revenge novel, she asserted that a first novel’s purpose, after all, was to get back one’s parents.
Excerpted from Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-20th Century Woman’s Novel by Francis Booth, reprinted by permission.
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