Phillip Lopate Bücher

A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith—selected by acclaimed essayist Phillip Lopate "Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves—sometimes critically—to American values. We see the Puritans, the Founding Fathers and Mothers, and the stars of the American Renaissance struggle to establish a national culture. A grand tradition of nature writing runs from Audubon, Thoreau, and John Muir to Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard. Marginalized groups use the essay to assert or to complicate notions of identity. Lopate has cast his net wide, embracing critical, personal, political, philosophical, literary, polemical, autobiographical, and humorous essays. Americans by birth as well as immigrants appear here, famous essayists alongside writers more celebrated for fiction or poetry. The result is a dazzling overview of the riches of the American essay.

The Art of the Personal Essay is a comprehensive anthology celebrating the personal essay's rich history over four centuries. Edited by Phillip Lopate, it features over seventy-five essays that explore daily life and human experiences, showcasing influential works from ancient times to modern masterpieces.

"The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the rise of public intellectuals, and breakthroughs in the arts inspired a flowering of literary culture. At the same time, the many problems that confronted mid-century America--racism, sexism, nuclear threat, war, poverty, and environmental degradation among them--proved fruitful topics for America's best minds. In The Golden Age of the American Essay, Phillip Lopate assembles a dazzling array of famous writers, critics, sociologists, theologians, historians, activists, theorists, humorists, poets, and novelists. Here are writers like James Agee, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Randall Jarrell, and Mary McCarthy, pivoting from the comic indignities of daily life to world peace, consumerism, and restaurants in Paris. Here is Norman Mailer on Jackie Kennedy, Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Here are Gore Vidal, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, John Updike, Joan Didion, and many more, in a treasury of brilliant writing that has stood the test of time." -Amazon

Included are all seven of Max Beerbohm's major early essays. Though these essays were justly acclaimed in their time, their magnificence is such that they also demand the highest accolades in ours, replete as they are with undiminished colour and spectacle, humour and barbed excellence.--From back cover.

Facsimile of colour illustrated 1918 ed. of The Happy Hypocrite.

"Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." --Rivka Galchen A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith. The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves--sometimes critically--to American values. Even in those that don't, one can detect a subtext about being American. The Founding Fathers and early American writers self-consciously struggle to establish a recognizable national culture. The shining stars of the mid-nineteenth-century American Renaissance no longer lack confidence but face new reckonings with the oppression of blacks and women. The New World tradition of nature writing runs from Audubon, Thoreau, and John Muir to Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard. Marginalized groups in all periods use the essay to assert or to complicate notions of identity. Lopate has cast his net intentionally wide, embracing critical, personal, political, philosophical, humorous, literary, polemical, and autobiographical essays, and making room for sermons, letters, speeches, and columns dealing with a wide variety of subjects. Americans by birth as well as immigrants appear here, famous essayists alongside writers more celebrated for fiction or poetry. The result is an extensive overview of the endless riches of the American essay.

In 1909, ten years had elapsed since Max Beerbohm's last volume of essays. In the time which had passed, his style had evolved to become a little more elegiac, a little less over-consciously clever. Yet Again gave full voice to his new mode, moulded by constant journalism into a superb clear flow. Still present are trenchantly funny criticism of banality, gorgeous erudition, countered expectations and, most of all, delicious irony. In ​Seeing People Off we are asked to examine the terrible truth behind awkward goodbyes; in A Club in Ruins the strange and lugubrious magnetism of dying buildings is surveyed; in Ichabod​ the author shamefacedly asks himself why he should mind that all the labels have been cleaned from his luggage; in The House of Commons Manner he bemoans the surprising lack of skill in speaking of the august members of that house; and in Dulcedo Judiciorum a full account is rendered of the superiority of the entertainment provided by the law courts over that of the theatre. Alongside seventeen other brilliant essays, there is here also a special section of nine imaginative depictions inspired by famous artworks.

Phillip Lopate shares a collection of essays and reviews that reflect his passionate engagement with art house cinema over the past twenty-five years. Through his insightful commentary, readers are invited to explore a range of films that he found both exhilarating and frustrating, showcasing his unique perspective on the cinematic experience. This compilation reveals not just his favorites but also the complexities of his relationship with film, making it a compelling read for cinema enthusiasts.