Theodore Dreiser's An American tragedy : a documentary volume /

Theodore Dreiser's An American tragedy : a documentary volume /

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Bio-bibliographical guide covering Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy, presenting material on every major phase in the origin, postpublication history, and meaning of the novel. Includes brief overviews of Dreiser's life and the chronology of An American Tragedy, which provide co...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Pizer, Donald
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Detroit : Gale Cengage Learning, c2011
Detroit : [2011]
Series:Dictionary of literary biography ; v. 361
Dictionary of literary biography ; v. 361
Dictionary of literary biography v. 361
Dictionary of literary biography v. 361
Subjects:
Dreiser, Theodore, > 1871-1945 > American tragedy
Dreiser, Theodore, > 1871-1945 > American tragedy.
American tragedy (Dreiser, Theodore)
Ouvrages de référence
Reference works
Table of Contents:
  • Dreiser and the American tragedy archetype
  • The Horatio Alger myth of success
  • Dreiser and the Alger myth
  • The "miss rich/miss poor" type of crime
  • Murder in the north woods: the Chester Gillette-Grace Brown case
  • The social background
  • The traditional conservative social base
  • The new 1920s ethos
  • New ideas: mechanism and Freudianism
  • Composition, publication, and reviews
  • Composition
  • Publication
  • Reviews
  • Stage and film adaptations
  • Play adaptations
  • Film adaptations
  • The question of Clyde's guilt
  • Dreiser and the American tragedy archetype
  • The Horatio Alger myth of success
  • Dreiser and the Alger myth
  • The "miss rich/miss poor" type of crime
  • Murder in the north woods: the Chester Gillette-Grace Brown case
  • The social background
  • The traditional conservative social base
  • The new 1920s ethos
  • New ideas: mechanism and Freudianism
  • Composition, publication, and reviews
  • Composition
  • Publication
  • Reviews
  • Theater and film adaptations
  • Play adaptations
  • Film adaptations
  • The question of Clyde's guilt
  • The "American tragedy" archetype
  • The social background
  • Composition, publication, and reception
  • Stage and film adaptations
  • Criticism and later history
  • Contents note continued: "An American Tragedy" Scores a Triumph---The New York Times, 12 October 1926
  • Facsimile: Cast list for the Kearney play
  • Facsimile: Synopsis of scenes
  • Facsimile: Script for the prologue
  • "An American Tragedy" Evokes Ovation at First Performance / C. R. Davis
  • "A Great Adventure" / Jack Lait
  • Dreiser Squeezes In / Frank Vreeland
  • "The Shadow of Its Deeper Source" / Stark Young
  • Sidebar: "Technical Difficulties"---The New York Times, 5 December 1926, and Dreiser to Mr. Kohl, 8 February 1927
  • 1936 Piscator Stage Production
  • "A Complex History" / X. Theodore Barber
  • Sidebar: "Counter to Some of My Economic and Sociologic Principles"---Dreiser to Lena Goldschmidt, 25 August 1930
  • "The Staging of Case of Clyde Griffiths" / X. Theodore Barber
  • Facsimile: Erwin Piscator's foreword to An American Tragedy
  • Facsimile: Prelude for the 1935 production of An American Tragedy
  • "Clyde Griffiths" vs. Expressionism / Burns Mantle
  • Sidebar: "A Boy of Cheap and Sniveling Character" / Brooks Atkinson
  • Sidebar: "What the Germans Made Out of It" / Robert Benchley
  • "Giving Point to the Story" / Stanley Burnshaw
  • Dreiser Simplified / Joseph Wood Krutch
  • Dreiser versus Melodrama / John W. Gassner
  • 1930 Eisenstein Scenario for Paramount
  • "Eisenstein and Paramount's Internal Battle" / Oksana Bulgakowa
  • "Collisions with American Realities": The "Inner Monologue" Technique / Sergei Eisenstein
  • "The Surface of Big Bittern Lake": A Sequence from Eisenstein's An American Tragedy / Ivor Montagu
  • "Cinematic Appeal": Eisenstein's Reading of An American Tragedy / Keith Cohen
  • "A Legitimate Interpretation" / Lawrence E. Hussman
  • 1931 Paramount Production
  • Dreiser to Jesse L. Lasky, 10 March 1931
  • Dreiser to Harrison Smith, 25 April 1931
  • Dreiser's Attorneys to Paramount, 26 June 1931
  • Facsimile: Opening and closing of Dreiser's attorneys' 26 June 1931 letter to Paramount
  • Court Refuses Dreiser's Suit against Film---New York Herald, 2 August 1931
  • Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" Ponderous as Film Attraction / Regina Crewe
  • Sidebar: "Summed Up in an Eleven-Reel Picture" / Mordaunt Hall
  • Dreiser, Reluctant, in the Films / Matthew Josephson
  • "Not a `Whodunit' but a `Hedunit'" / Hussman
  • 1951 George Stevens Production
  • "An Honest Job of Picture-Making"---G. A., New York Herald-Tribune, 29 August 1951
  • Facsimile: Opening pages of the screenplay for A Place in the Sun
  • Sidebar: "Rich and Rewarding" / A. H. Weiler
  • Dreiser's Place on the Screen / George Barbarow
  • Sidebar: "Insight without Inventories"---Time, 10 September 1951
  • "Diminishes Its Source" / Hussman
  • 5 Criticism and Later History
  • "A Profoundly Tragic Sense of Man's Fate" / F. O. Matthiessen
  • Sidebar: American and Foreign Editions of An American Tragedy
  • "A Difference of Emphasis:" Dreiser's Socialism and An American Tragedy / Charles C. Walcutt
  • "The Poetry of Destiny:" Dreiser's Creation of Clyde's Story / Robert Penn Warren
  • Theodore Dreiser and the Tragedy of the Twenties / Robert H. Elias
  • "New Territory of the Self" / Philip Fisher
  • Crime and Punishment in Dreiser's An American Tragedy: The Legal Debate / Donald Pizer.
  • Reynolds
  • Facsimile: Revised typescript pages for a passage intended for Book Two
  • Facsimile: Revised typescript pages for the passage describing Roberta's death at Big Bittern Lake
  • "Roberta's Cries Still in His Ears": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XLVII
  • Facsimile: Opening of a deleted chapter initially concluding Book One
  • Facsimile: Ending of the deleted chapter
  • Facsimile: Omitted section initially intended for Book Three
  • Publication
  • "The Big Novel": The Publication of An American Tragedy / Walker Gilmore
  • "Banned in Boston" / Gilmore
  • Early Reviews
  • Mr. Dreiser in Tragic Realism / Stuart P. Sherman
  • Theodore Dreiser Writes Another Novel / E. F. Edgett
  • Sidebar: "Demands Attention" / Robert Duffus
  • "An Unforgettable Experience" / Donald Davidson
  • Second Wave of Reviews
  • Crime and Punishment / Joseph Wood Krutch
  • Dreiser in 840 Pages / H. L. Mencken
  • "A Kind of Greatness" / T. K. Whipple
  • Beyond Good or Evil / Carl Van Doren
  • "A Colossal Derelict on the Ocean of Literature" / William Lyon Phelps
  • "Spawned of a Vast Industrialism" / E. M. Kayden
  • English Reviews
  • "A Very Great and Very Portentous Novel"---The Spectator, 9 October 1926
  • "One of the Most Remarkable Writers of Our Time"---Edwin Muir, The Nation and Athenaeum, 16 October 1926
  • 4 Stage and Film Adaptations
  • Sidebar: "With a Signed Contract in Hand": The Negotiation for the Film Rights of An American Tragedy / Tom Dardis
  • 1926 Kearney Stage Production
  • Brief Life of Theodore Dreiser
  • American Tragedy Chronology
  • 1 "American Tragedy" Archetype
  • Horatio Alger Myth of Success
  • "The Alger Hero" / John G. Cawelti
  • Sidebar: Alger's "Emphasis on Luck" / Richard Weiss
  • Sidebar: "A Watch and a New Suit" / Gary Scharnhorst
  • Dreiser and the Alger Myth
  • "A Petty and Wholly Material Viewpoint": Excerpts from Three Memoirs / Theodore Dreiser
  • Sidebar: "A World Such as He Had Never Known": Clyde Embraces the Alger Myth---from An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapters III and X
  • Plot as Parody: Dreiser's Attack on the Alger Theme in An American Tragedy / Paul A. Orlov
  • "Miss Rich/Miss Poor" Type of Crime
  • "A Typically American Tragedy"---Dreiser interview, Denver Post, 28 November 1926
  • "Clyde's Malady"---Dreiser interview, Philadelphia Public Ledger, 3 July 1927
  • I Find the Real American Tragedy / Dreiser
  • Facsimile: First page of Dreiser's unpublished essay "American Tragedies"
  • Sidebar: "The American National Heart" / Dreiser
  • Dreiser's Real American Tragedy / Kathryn M. Plank
  • Sidebar: "A Young Dealer in Perfumes" / Dreiser
  • Sidebar: "His True American Ideal" / Dreiser
  • Early Attempts to Write about "Miss Poor" and "Miss Rich"
  • Gardiner's Terrible Arraignment of Molineux---unidentified newspaper clipping
  • Introduction to The "Rake"---Plank
  • Facsimile: The first manuscript page of The "Rake"
  • "Rake" / Dreiser
  • Sidebar: "A Truly Pathetic Tragedy" / Dreiser
  • Murder in the North Woods: The Chester Gillette-Grace Brown Case
  • Tragedy of the "North Woods" / Eleanor W. Franz
  • Sidebar: The Murder Case and the Novel
  • New York World as a Source
  • Eye Witness of the Murder of Grace Brown---New York World, 18 November 1904
  • Sidebar: "All the Data I Could Find"---Dreiser to W. Randall Whitman, 23 August 1930
  • "Mason's Opening Charge": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XX
  • Gillette Tells His Story; Says Girl Was Suicide---New York World, 29 November 1906
  • "Clyde, Pointer in Hand": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XXIV
  • Admitting Guilt, Gillette Calmly Goes to Chair---New York World, 31 March 1908
  • "Before Governor Waltham": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XXXIV
  • Love Letters of Grace Brown
  • Grace Brown to Chester Gillette, 11 April 1906
  • Sidebar: "Peanuts!" "Popcorn!"---excerpt from An American Tragedy, Book Three, Chapter XIX
  • Roberta Alden to Clyde Griffiths, 10 June: Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XLII
  • Grace Brown to Chester Gillette, 20 June 1906
  • Roberta Alden to Clyde Griffiths, 14 June: Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XLIV
  • Roberta Alden to Clyde Griffiths, 30 June: Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XLV
  • Trip to Upstate New York
  • "A First-Hand Look" / Craig Brandon
  • Sidebar: Cortland at the Turn of the Century / James M. Milne
  • Sidebar: Dreiser's Lycurgus---An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter V
  • Dreiser's Use of the Gillette-Brown Case
  • "More Imagination Than History" / Brandon
  • "The Shapelessness of Fact and the Form of Fiction": Dreiser's Transformation of the Gillette Case / Donald Pizer
  • Sidebar: The Gillette Skirt Company / Milne
  • Sidebar: "Lonely and Bare"---An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter XL
  • "A Fresh Look at Aspects of American Life" / Shelley Fisher Fishkin
  • Sidebar: "The Lock-Lock of His Own Oars"---An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter XLVII
  • Sidebar: "Rough and Strange Faces"---An American Tragedy, Book Three, Chapter XIX
  • 2. Social Background
  • Traditional Conservative Base
  • Americans Are Still Interested in Ten Commandments
  • -For the Other Fellow, Says Dreiser---New York Call, 13 March 1921
  • "Still a Long Way from The Enlightenment" / H. L. Mencken
  • "Conklin and His Wife"---Dreiser, Dawn
  • "The Sheer Force of Her Youth"---Helen Dreiser, My Life with Dreiser
  • Sidebar: "Wrapped Up in the Notion of Evangelizing the World"---An American Tragedy, Book One, Chapter II
  • "Many Young Girls Like You"---Dreiser, Dawn
  • Sidebar: "Even Taboo as a Subject"---Dreiser, Birth Control Review, 2 April 1921
  • Crime of Abortion / Leslie J. Reagan
  • Sidebar: "Found Herself Pregnant"---An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter XXXIII
  • "I Must Get Out of It": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XXXVII
  • Factory and Town as Conservative Social Institutions
  • "One Had to Have Castes": Excerpt from An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter IV
  • Sidebar: The Coolidge Years / Ronald Allen Goldberg
  • From Low Cost Detachable Collars to American High Culture: Dreiser's Rhetoric of Cloth / Roark Mulligan
  • "Employees, First, Last and All the Time": Excerpt from An American Tragedy, Book Two, Chapter XI
  • "A `Good-Bad' Girl Syndrome" / Richard Lingeman
  • "Local Taboos and Restrictions": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XIV
  • "A City Seducer and Betrayer": Excerpts from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter IV
  • Youth, Class, and Consumerism in Dreiser's An American Tragedy / Michael Spindler
  • "In a Double Bind": Representations of Grace Brown / Nancy M. Donovan
  • Press and Prison
  • "Yellow Ideas and Features" / Frank L. Mott
  • "A Crime Sensation": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XII
  • "That Dreadful, Ghastly Chair": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XXVI
  • Sidebar: "The Grandest Success of the Age" / Scott Christianson
  • "Indefinable Terrors and Despairs": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Three, Chapter XXIX
  • New Twenties Ethos: Automobiles, Flappers, and Resorts
  • "A Central Factor in the Everyday Lives of Ordinary Americans" / David E. Kyvig
  • Sidebar: Dreiser and the Automobile / Douglas Brinkley
  • "Conflicts between Parents and Children" / James J. Flink
  • "Frankness and Freedom": The "Flapper-on-the-Loose Effect" / J. C. Furnas
  • "Everybody Dances These Days": Excerpts from An American Tragedy---Book One, Chapter XI; Book Two, Chapter XVIII; and Book Two, Chapter XXVI
  • "The Magnificence of a Palace": Excerpt from Jennie Gerhardt---Chapter I
  • "Through the Gates of Paradise": Excerpts from An American Tragedy---Book One, Chapters IV, VI, and IX
  • "The Cave of Wonders" / Ellen Moers
  • "The First Full Revelation of Heaven" / Paul A. Orlov
  • "All That He Had Dreamed Of": Excerpt from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapter XLIII
  • Sidebar: "The American Summer Resort Scene"---Dreiser, A Hoosier Holiday and Dawn
  • Mechanism and Freudianism
  • "The Root of Our Ethics" / Jacques Loeb
  • "Every Waan Ave Us"---Dreiser, The Hand of the Potter
  • Sidebar: "I Read Your Book"---Dreiser to Jacques Loeb, 29 May 1919
  • It---Dreiser
  • Sidebar: "It Has Been Shown Experimentally"---Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Chapter XXXIII
  • Sidebar: "The Appeal of Great Tragedy"---Dreiser to A. A. Brill, 20 January 1919
  • "A Strong, Revealing Light"---Dreiser, Psychoanalytical Review, July 1931
  • "To Explain Life by Physico-Chemical Laws" / Moers
  • "Between Loeb and Brill" / Moers
  • "The Impulses of the Id" / Louis J. Zanine
  • "The Efrit Emerging": Excerpts from An American Tragedy---Book Two, Chapters XLIV, XLV, and XLVII
  • 3. Composition, Publication, and Reception
  • Sidebar: A Day in L.A
  • -25 January 1921
  • Los Angeles Beginning
  • Facsimile: The first two pages of Dreiser's initial draft of An American Tragedy
  • Sidebar: The Kubitz Typescript---An American Tragedy, Book One, Chapter I
  • Facsimile: The opening paragraphs of the Kubitz typescript
  • Facsimile: Passage describing Clyde Griffiths in the Kubitz typescript
  • New York, 1923-1925
  • "Steady Progress" and "Constant Backtracking": The Composition of An American Tragedy / Donald Pizer
  • Sidebar: A Day in New York---6 April 1924
  • Sidebar: "A Deal of Labor Ahead"---Dreiser to Louise Campbell, 2 May 1924
  • Sidebar: "I Write and Rewrite"---Dreiser to Helen, 18 June 1924
  • Sidebar: "A Prolific and Voluminous Writer" / John W.

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