Studies in Classic American Literature (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)

I guess I was looking for something different. I haven't found much use for it, but I think it would probably be useful in for the right needs.

I needed this book for a class. It is a great commentary on American literature. I would not recommend it for a fun read but it is quite informative

Outstanding critique of classic American Literature.Lawrence riffs like he's writing liner notes for a Bob Dylan album.Merciless criticism and parodies of Benjamin Franklin.Respect and admiration for Poe and Whitman, but no less critical.

DH Lawrence Still has a rock inside his snowball. These opinion still entertain and challenge us after the man has been dead 70 some years.

If you are focusing on american literature beeing an american or a foreigner this book is absolutely necesary.Moby Dick comment is vivid as the book itself

Important book

As expected and advertised.

Exactly as expected

Horrible print off. Worse than a xerox. A paragraph chopped off - see photo above or a sentence cut off and finished for no apparent reason in next page. Must be computerized print off. A torment to read

In this analysis of (not always) well-known classic US authors D. H. Lawrence gives his personal, but very revealing, view on the heart of the American soul, the old and the new moralities and the cardinal aspects of the gender battle. These brilliant essays tell also a lot about the author himself and the backgrounds of his life vision.David Herbert LawrenceThis world-class author was highly influenced by Nietzsche (rejection of the Christian slave and anti-senses morality, his anti-democratic stance and his misogyny) and Freud (the un- and subconscious).The old and the new moralitiesIn the old morality, the `soul' of man stands above the `flesh'. In the new morality, the `soul' `sits in the dark limbs, in the body of the prostitute, in the sick flesh of the syphilitic'.American soul`The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer'.The essential American action is destruction.The spirit of the place is freedom to lynch anybody who is not one of them (racism).The labor class is obedient because of the continual influx of more servile Europeans.American literatureBENJAMIN FRANKLIN `doesn't let me have a soul of my own. He says that I am nothing but a servant of mankind, a galley-slave.' But he was also a destroyer: `Extirpate the savages to make room for the cultivators of the earth.'HECTOR ST JOHN DE CREVECOEUR (`Letters from an American Farmer') shows that there are no `Sweet Children of Nature. All fraternity and equality go up in smoke and his ideal of pure sweet goodness along with it.'For FENIMORE COOPER, there can be no blood-mixing between the white and the red race. His world is a paradise for killers (`The Deerslayer', `The Last of the Mohicans').EDGAR ALLAN POE is fascinated by inquisition, torture and murder. For him, a woman is `a vulture of stern passion'. `Drugs, women, self-destruction are adventurers in the horrible passages of the human soul.'In NATHANAEL HAWTHORNE's `The Scarlet Letter', the male protagonist is `a spiritual fornicator and a liar'. The female protagonist is the destroyer of the white consciousness, of the old moral, of spiritual love.DANA's `Two Years before the Mast' depicts the sea as the cosmic enemy, as the great disintegrating force, leaving the human nerves blank.HERMAN MELVILLE hated the white world and searched for a savage Eden (`Typee'). But, he came to understand that `civilized' people can't go back. `Moby Dick', the white whale, represents `the deepest blood-being of the white race', `that lonely phallic monster of the individual you.' The whale is hunted by our old consciousness. His death is a suicide.WALT WHITMAN is the first author to break down the old morality. He gives the soul its own life, a life of sympathy. But he misinterprets sympathy as a feeling `for', not as a feeling `with'. His individual self leaked out of him into the universe (`Democracy', `En Masse', `No Identity').These remarkable interpretations and insights are a must read of all lovers of world and US literature.

This is D H Lawrence's revealing the American soul from reading the great American classics convinced thatAmericans represent an entirely different kind of human - and not a very sympathetic one at that.Whether you agree with his perspective or not there is not a boring moment in the company of the grandiose outbursts from this roaring anti-American volcano, very different from the inventor of Lady Chatterly.

This is one of the master pieces of Lawrence's thought. In this profound analysis of America's history and meaning, Lawrence develops his inner-most intuitions about the fate of man, his destiny and his duty towards life. A must.

I live it for its content.