Burke and Cowley: Selected Correspondence - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670813362 ISBN 13: 9780670813360

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1988

Synopsis

Chronicles six decades of correspondence between two literary giants in letters discussing politics, literature, and the significant personal events in both of their lives during the course of their ongoing friendship

About this title

Reviews

Cowley and Burke, high-school classmates in Pittsburgh, were young men in a rush to conquer the literary world. Cowley condemned free verse in a 1916 letter; a few pages later, he's off to Paris, cavorting with Dada poet Tristan Tzara. Burke made for New York City, where he ventured in several directions at once as critic, novelist, playwright, essayist, poet. Both men, now in their 90s, won recognition through a long lifetime's work. Surely one of the most remarkable literary correspondences, this moving record of a friendship presents the duo as sparring partners who insult, challenge, prod and test each other. Cowley's editing of Faulkner and Hemingway sparked a dialogue with Burke on the special traits of American (as distinct from European) literature. Burke, on his side, wrote about his difficult synthesis of poetry, speech, linguistics and philosophy. Though each went his separate way, electric sparks flew across the widening gap, and these tremendously articulate, intense, profane and self-critical letters are a joy to read. Jay is a professor of English at Loyola University in Chicago.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Critics Burke and Cowley met as children and have been corresponding for more than six decades. Although they both knew most important American writers since Dreiser, their letters provide only glimpses of the literary scene: Paris in the 1920s, the leftist crusade of the 1930s, and the lives of post-modern poets and novelists. Instead, the two friends focus on their own books, bouncing ideas off each other and criticizing works in progress. Although sometimes demanding, the letters are also funny, affectionate, and moving; and especially valuable in showing the genesis of many of Burke's seminal theories in literary and social criticism. For all literature collections.Michael Edmonds, State Historical Soc. of Wisconsin Lib., Madison
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670813362
• ISBN 13: 9780670813360
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464
• Editor: Jay Paul