| Description |
1 online resource (xvi, 335 pages) |
| Contents |
Boston, from Winthrop to Hawthorne -- Boston and the American Renaissance -- Post-Civil War Boston -- "Viewed in Boston Light": Turn-of-the-Century Boston -- The "Other" Bostonians: New Voices and Visions -- "There it Was": Boston, City of Self and Spirit |
| Summary |
"New England was founded consciously, and in no fit of absence of mind," observed historian Samuel Eliot Morison on the establishment of the Bay Colony in 1630. Since then, Boston has been shaped and sustained by observation, imagination, and interpretation, yielding a compelling literary record. In this wide-ranging anthology, Shaun O'Connell offers a generous sampling of those who have recorded, revised, and redefined the vision of Boston, including preachers, politicians, poets, novelists, essayists, and diarists. From John Winthrop's "city upon a hill" sermon, delivered aboard the Arbella before the first settlers landed, to Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead," a poem delivered in Boston's Public Garden in 1960, writers have continued to invoke the high purposes for which the city was founded, sometimes in praise, but often by calling attention to the city's failures to fulfill its promises. In the twenty-first century some writers continue to celebrate or to castigate the city, while others look back to Boston's origins to reassess its founders and renew its covenant of high purpose."This excellent anthology brings together a broad, diverse, and well-chosen collection of primary readings, with substantial introductory essays for each of the six sections. New voices such as Michael Patrick MacDonald, Roland Merullo, and Eve LaPlante join familiar Boston literary luminaries. O'Connell's introductions are informed, well written, and effectively frame the varied voices and selections."--Joseph A. Comforti, author of Imaging New England |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-335) |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from e-book title screen (JSTOR platform, viewed October 21, 2016) |
| Subject |
American literature -- Massachusetts -- Boston
|
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American literature -- 21st century
|
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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American literature
|
| SUBJECT |
Boston (Mass.) -- Literary collections
|
| Subject |
Massachusetts -- Boston
|
| Genre/Form |
Literature
|
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Literary collections
|
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Literature.
|
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Littérature.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| Author |
O'Connell, Shaun, editor.
|
| ISBN |
9781613760338 |
|
1613760337 |
|
