Crumbling Idols
   HOME
*





Crumbling Idols
''Crumbling Idols'' is a collection of 12 essays written and completed by Hamlin Garland in 1894. Garland was one of the most prominent American authors of the early 20th century, and contributed heavily to the literary movement known as American Realism. His work, ''Crumbling Idols'', expresses his views and manifesto as a veritist ( realist) artist. In it, he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of a uniquely American literature, one that breaks away from tradition and the past and focuses on the present in order to depict reality through the artists own eyes. ''Crumbling Idols'' was decreed a controversial work by the general population and critics during the time of its publication as it attacked many of the features and ideas of nineteenth century literature. Three of his essays, "Provincialism", "Literary Centres", and "Literary Masters", were especially controversial and criticized as they heavily attacked the "imitated" literature of the east coast as well as the lack of in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Hamlin Garland
Hannibal Hamlin Garland (September 14, 1860 – March 4, 1940) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer, Georgist, and psychical researcher. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. Biography Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garland of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock. The boy was named after Hannibal Hamlin, the vice-president under Abraham Lincoln. He lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. He read diligently in the Boston Public Library. There he became enamored with the ideas of Henry George, and his Single Tax Movement. George's ideas came to influence a number of his works, such as '' Main-Travelled Roads'' (1891), ''Prairie Folks'' (1892), and his novel '' Jason Edwards'' (1892). ''Main-Travelled Roads'' was his ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Realism (arts)
Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding speculative and supernatural elements. The term is often used interchangeably with naturalism, although these terms are not synonymous. Naturalism, as an idea relating to visual representation in Western art, seeks to depict objects with the least possible amount of distortion and is tied to the development of linear perspective and illusionism in Renaissance Europe. Realism, while predicated upon naturalistic representation and a departure from the idealization of earlier academic art, often refers to a specific art historical movement that originated in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1848. With artists like Gustave Courbet capitalizing on the mundane, ugly or sordid, realism was motivated by the renewed interest in the common man and the rise of leftist politics. The Realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells (; March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', as well as for his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novels '' The Rise of Silas Lapham'' and '' A Traveler from Altruria''. Biography Early life and family William Dean Howells was born on March 1, 1837, in Martinsville, Ohio (now known as Martins Ferry, Ohio), to William Cooper Howells and Mary Dean Howells, the second of eight children. His father was a newspaper editor and printer who moved frequently around Ohio. In 1840, the family settled in Hamilton, Ohio,Lynn, 36 where his father oversaw a Whig newspaper and followed Swedenborgianism. Their nine years there were the longest period that they stayed in one place. The family had to live frugally, although the young Howells was enc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. The ninth surviving child of Methodist parents, Crane began writing at the age of four and had several articles published by the age of 16. Having little interest in university studies though he was active in a fraternity, he left Syracuse University in 1891 to work as a reporter and writer. Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale '' Maggie: A Girl of the Streets'', generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim in 1895 for his Civil War novel '' The Red Badge of Courage'', which he wrote without having any battle experience. In 1896, Crane endured a high ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Provincialism
Parochialism is the state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context. More generally, it consists of being narrow in scope. In that respect, it is a synonym of " provincialism". It may, particularly when used pejoratively, be contrasted to cosmopolitanism. The term insularity (related to an island) may be similarly used to connote limited exposure. Parish order The term originates from the idea of a parish (Late Latin: ''parochia''), one of the smaller divisions within many Christian churches such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches. Events, groups and decisions within a parish are based ''locally'' — sometimes taking little heed of what is going on in the wider Church. A parish can sometimes be excessively focused on the local scale (thus within a particular point of view), by having (too) little contact with the broader outside, showing meager interest for and possibly knowledge about the unive ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include ''Brand'', '' Peer Gynt'', ''An Enemy of the People'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', '' A Doll's House'', '' Hedda Gabler'', ''Ghosts'', '' The Wild Duck'', ''When We Dead Awaken'', ''Rosmersholm'', and ''The Master Builder''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play ''Peer Gynt'' has strong surreal elements. After ''Peer Gynt'' Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ''Commedia'') and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, which was accessible only to the most educated readers. His ''De vulgari eloquentia'' (''On Eloquence in the Vernacular'') was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as ''La Vita Nuova, The New Life'' (1295) and ''Divine Comedy'' helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His work set a precedent that important Italian write ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Main-Travelled Roads
''Main-Travelled Roads'' is a collection of short stories by the American author Hamlin Garland. First published in 1891, the stories are set in what the author refers to as the "Middle Border," the northwestern prairie states of Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. In the book's eleven stories, Garland portrays the hardships of agrarian life, deconstructing the conventional myth of the American prairie while highlighting the economic and social conditions that characterized agricultural communities in the rural Midwest. Summary ''Main-Travelled Roads'' contains eleven semi-autobiographical short stories, including "A Branch Road", "Up the Coolly", "Among the Corn-Rows", "The Return of a Private", "Under the Lion's Paw", "The Creamery Man", "A Day's Pleasure", "Mrs. Ripley's Trip", "Uncle Ethan Ripley", "God's Ravens", and "A 'Good Fellow's' Wife". The tales inflect human drama into the harsh, spirit-crushing conditions Garland experienced as a boy, vividly p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1894 Non-fiction Books
Events January–March * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States. * January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts. * February 12 ** French anarchist Émile Henry sets off a bomb in a Paris café, killing one person and wounding twenty. ** The barque ''Elisabeth Rickmers'' of Bremerhaven is wrecked at Haurvig, Denmark, but all crew and passengers are saved. * February 15 ** In Korea, peasant unrest erupts in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, a massive revolt of followers of the Donghak movement. Both China and Japan send military forces, claiming to come to the ruling Joseon dynasty government's aid. ** At 04:51 GMT, French anarchist Martial Bourdin dies of an accidental detonation of his own bomb, next ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Essay Collections
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc. Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's '' An Essay on Criticism'' and '' An Essay on Man''). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's '' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Books Of Literary Criticism
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is '' codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]