Writing Revolution (English, Peter J. Bellis)

Product description Review Bellis has a compelling subject, aesthetics and politics, and a fascinating selection of writers, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Thoreau. The book is well written and well researched; discussions of the individual writers are smart and rich.--Betsy Erkkila "Northwestern University"Bellis is deeply at home in the texts he discusses. When he dives in, he brings back long-buried treasure.--Philip F. Gura "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"In this ambitious study, Bellis revisits three 19th-century American literary masters. Looking at these writers through a revisionist lens, he examines how each explores the dynamic relationship between literature and politics in a unique and instructive way . . . Although the subject of this book is not a new one--critics including F.O. Matthiessen, Larzer Ziff, Irving Howe, David Reynolds, and Walter Benn Michaels and Donald Pease have examined writers of the American renaissance at length--Bellis makes it his own by arguing that Hawthorne, Whitman, and Thoreau viewed their texts as forums for the testing of alternative cultural and intellectual possibilities . . . Bellis makes a compelling argument for the extent to which these 19th-century writers engaged matters of political, cultural, and social significance. Summing Up: Highly recommended.--ChoiceOne comes away from Writing Revolution with a strong impression that Bellis is an exceptional teacher. Clear, sharp, and passionate throughout, Bellis manages to bring new life and urgency to some well-traveled texts and concerns.--New England Quarterly About the Author Peter J. Bellis is a professor and department chair at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of No Mysteries out of Ourselves: Identity and Textual Form in the Novels of Herman Melville.