Bloom's biocritiques

"Known by many as the "poet laureate of the American Negro" and by others as "Shakespeare in Harlem," Langston Hughes is one of America's most read and quoted poets. In the Preface to this important and unique collection of reviews and essays, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., writes: "Between 1926, when he published his pioneering The Weary Blues, to 1967, the year of his death, when he published The Panther and the Lash, Hughes would write sixteen books of poems, two novels, seven collections of short stories, two autobiographies, five works of nonfiction, and nine children's books; he would edit nine anthologies of poetry, folklore, short fiction, and humor." He also published translations of various international writers' works and wrote more than thirty plays." "Critically acclaimed authors Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K.A. Appiah selected reviews and essays for Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present representing the key critical perspectives on Hughes's work. It includes critiques by Countee Cullen and Jessie Fauset of The Weary Blues and Richard Wright of The Big Sea, Carl Van Vechten's reaction to Simple Takes a Wife and James Baldwin's scathing review of Selected Poems." ""Here is a poet with whom to reckon, to experience, and here and there, with that apologetic feeling of presumption that should companion all criticism, to quarrel," wrote Countee Cullen in Opportunity magazine (February 1926). "What has always struck me forcibly in reading Mr. Hughes' poems has been their utter spontaneity and expression of unique personality."" "Among Hughes's peers and readers who had occasion to quarrel with him are J. Saunders Redding, who reviewed One-Way Ticket in 1949: "It is not easy to say that a favorite poet's latest book is a sorry falling off. It is not easy to declare that 'One-Way Ticket' is stale, flat, and spiritless."" "Praised not only for his contribution to literature, Hughes was also acknowledged as socially committed. Raymond Smith wrote that "Hughes viewed the poet's role as one of responsibility: the poet must strive to maintain his objectivity and artistic distance, while at the same time speaking with passion through the medium he has selected for himself." Hughes lovingly brought to life the menial workers, the street culture, and the disenchanted folk who were his brothers and sisters - while demonstrating the struggles of African Americans for first-class citizenship. Both Hughes's "day jobs" and his writings led him to explore his surroundings; he was multilingual and a world traveler, but he managed to stay connected to his own people and culture." "Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, one of six volumes of literary criticism that launch the Amistad Literary Series, offers more than a glimpse of Hughes as a man, a writer, and a poet. It digs deep with astute observations and analyses of one of America's most important writers by some of the world's most important scholars and writers."--Jacket.

Emily Dickinson introduces children to the works of poet Emily Dickinson. Poet, professor, and scholar Susan Snively has carefully chosen 38 poems of interest to children and their families. Each poem is beautifully illustrated by Christine Davenier and thoroughly explained by an expert.

"Anton Chekhov's life was short, intense, and dominated by battles - both with his dependents and with the tuberculosis that was to kill him at age forty-four. He was one of the greatest playwrights and short-story writers ever born, but he was torn between medicine and literature, as he was between family and friends, between a longing for solitude and a need for company. When he was a child, his family life was at times made a hell by a monstrous father, a possessive sister, and delinquent elder brothers; his own adult life was tortuously balanced between the affections of a series of mistresses and a marriage to an actress that was not as idyllic as it has traditionally been painted." "Donald Rayfield's biography strips the whitewash from the image of Chekhov and shows us what lay behind his restrained, ironic facade. The result does not denigrate him but shows him in the full heroism of his brief, prodigiously creative life. Rayfield has spent more than three years combing the Chekhov archives all over Russia (Chekhov was a restless traveler for the whole of his life, going from Siberia to the Cote d'Azur) and has uncovered thousands of documents and letters from Chekhov's lovers, friends, and family, most of them never published before, which cumulatively tell of a life far more entangled and turbulent than we ever previously suspected. The many cuts made in Soviet and foreign editions of Chekhov's and his wife's letters have been restored; what once was hidden is now revealed."--Jacket.

Illuminates the themes that have found moving dramatic expression in All my sons, Death of a salesman, The crucible, and The price.