An edition of Equivocal spirits (1987)

Equivocal spirits

alcoholism and drinking in twentieth-century literature

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 21, 2024 | History
An edition of Equivocal spirits (1987)

Equivocal spirits

alcoholism and drinking in twentieth-century literature

  • 1 Want to read

"Of the eight American Nobel Prize winners in literature, three--Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill and William Faulkner--were alcoholic drinkers, and two--Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck--were hard drinkers. Almost all critical comment about these writers has treated their drinking habits a somehow separate from their work. Thomas Gilmore argues that the result is neither good biography nor good literary criticism. He shows how the drinking and the work can each shed light on the other. Although readers and critics acknowledge that many modern writers tend to be heavy drinkers, [title] is the first full-length study of drinking as it is depicted in literature, both by writers who have had drinking problems and those who have not. This interdisciplinary study of science and literature explores the ways scientific knowledge of alcoholism may enlighten the reader as well as the means by which literature may confirm, intensify, dramatize, extend, and occasionally even challenge empirical studies. Examining the work of Malcom Lowry, Evelyn Waugh, Eugene O'Neill, John Cheever, Saul BEllow, F. Scot Fitzgerald, John Berryman, Kingsley Amis, and George Orwell, Gilmore evaluates the major genres of modern literature--drama, poetry, the short story, the novel--for the distinctive portrayals of drinking or alcoholism. He argues that good literature resists stereotyping the alcoholic and portrays instead a figure divided into a welter of conflicting feelings. Gilmore shows that literature conveys the complex struggle in a fictional character or in a real person in a way that science--which must be diagnostic, analytical, and objective--cannot."--Cover [p. 4].

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
226

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Equivocal spirits
Equivocal spirits: alcoholism and drinking in twentieth-century literature
1987, University of North Carolina Press
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Bibliography: p. [201]-216.
Includes index.

Published in
Chapel Hill

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
810/.9/355
Library of Congress
PS228.A58 G55 1987, PS228.A58G55 1987

The Physical Object

Pagination
xi, 226 p. ;
Number of pages
226

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL2725607M
Internet Archive
equivocalspirits00gilm
ISBN 10
0807817260, 0807841749
LCCN
86019355
OCLC/WorldCat
14187674
Library Thing
2235841
Goodreads
5092542
2676945

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History

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July 21, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 11, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
November 4, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
October 12, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record