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Genre/Form: | Electronic books Criticism, interpretation, etc |
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Named Person: | Ralph Waldo Emerson; Henry David Thoreau; Herman Melville; Walt Whitman; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Herman Melville; Henry David Thoreau; Walt Whitman |
Material Type: | Document, Government publication, Internet resource |
Document Type: | Internet Resource, Computer File |
ISBN: | 9780300127195 0300127197 |
OCLC Number: | 1024054893 |
Language Note: | In English. |
Description: | 1 online resource : 3 diagrams |
Contents: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- 1. The Literary List -- 2. Emerson -- 3. Whitman -- 4. Melville -- 5. Thoreau -- Extracts -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
Responsibility: | Robert E. Belknap. |
More information: |
Abstract:
"I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house," wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. In creating this list, and many others that appear in his writings, Thoreau was working within a little-recognized yet ancient literary tradition: the practice of listing or cataloguing. This beautifully written book is the first to examine literary lists and the remarkably wide range of ways writers use them.Robert Belknap first examines lists through the centuries-from Sumerian account tablets and Homer's catalogue of ships to Tom Sawyer's earnings from his fence-painting scheme-then focuses on lists in the works of four American Renaissance authors: Emerson, Whitman, Melville, and Thoreau. Lists serve a variety of functions in Emerson's essays, Whitman's poems, Melville's novels, and Thoreau's memoirs, and Belknap discusses their surprising variety of pattern, intention, scope, art, and even philosophy. In addition to guiding the reader through the list's many uses, this book explores the pleasures that lists offer.
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Related Subjects:(13)
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, -- 1803-1882 -- Technique.
- Thoreau, Henry David, -- 1817-1862 -- Technique.
- Melville, Herman, -- 1819-1891 -- Technique.
- Whitman, Walt, -- 1819-1892 -- Technique.
- American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
- Lists in literature.
- Catalogs in literature.
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, -- 1803-1882.
- Melville, Herman, -- 1819-1891.
- Thoreau, Henry David, -- 1817-1862.
- Whitman, Walt, -- 1819-1892.
- American literature.
- Technique.