Shadow And Act
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Shadow And Act
''Shadow and Act'' is a 1964 collection of essays by Ralph Ellison. Subject The writings encompass the two decades that began with Ellison's involvement with African-American political activism and print media in Harlem, Ellison's emergence as a highly acclaimed writer with the publication of ''Invisible Man,'' and culminating with his 1964 challenge of Irving Howe's characterization of African-American life, "Black Boys and Native Sons", with his now famous essay, "The World and the Jug". Ellison in his Introduction to the collection described it as exemplary of his "attempt to transform some of the themes, the problems, the enigmas, the contradictions of character and culture native to my predicament, into what André Malraux has described as 'conscious thought'." Title The title of the collection derives from Ellison's 1948 review of the film version of William Faulkner's ''Intruder in the Dust'', entitled "The Shadow and the Act", which expanded upon his critique in "Twe ...
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Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and ''Going to the Territory'' (1986). ''The New York Times'' dubbed him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus." A posthumous novel, ''Juneteenth'', was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death. Early life Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born at 407 NE 1st Street in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913. Oklahoma City's 407 East First Street buzzed with excitement as Ida Ellison, whom close friends called “Brownie,” neared term in early 1913. She and her husband Lewis lived in an apartment in a large rooming house owned by J. D. Randolph and his family. He was the second of ...
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Essay
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 ''An ...
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Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' in the Anglophone world. ''Ulysses'' transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 19 ...
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Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ...
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Invisible Man
''Invisible Man'' is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity. ''Invisible Man'' won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, making Ellison the first African American writer to win the award. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Invisible Man'' 19th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. ''Time'' magazine included the novel in its 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 list, calling it "the quintessential American picaresque of the 20th century," rather than a "race novel, or even a ''bildungsroman''." Malcolm Bradbury and Richard Ruland recognize an existential vision with a "Kafka-like absurdi ...
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Irving Howe
Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of Jewish immigrants from Bessarabia, Nettie (née Goldman) and David Horenstein, who ran a small grocery store that went out of business during the Great Depression. His father became a peddler and eventually a presser in a dress factory. His mother was an operator in the dress trade. Howe attended City College of New York and graduated in 1940, alongside Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol; by the summer of 1940, he had changed his name to Howe for political (as distinct from official) purposes. While at school, he was constantly debating socialism, Stalinism, fascism, and the meaning of Judaism. He served in the US Army during World War II. Upon his return, he began writing literary and cultural criticism for the CIA-backed ''Partisan Revi ...
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André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as information minister (1945–46) and subsequently as France's first cultural affairs minister during de Gaulle's presidency (1959–1969). Early years Malraux was born in Paris in 1901, the son of Fernand-Georges Malraux (1875–1930) and Berthe Félicie Lamy (1877–1932). His parents separated in 1905 and eventually divorced. There are suggestions that Malraux's paternal grandfather committed suicide in 1909."Biographie détaillée"
, André Malraux Website, accessed 3 September 2010
Malraux was raised by his mother, maternal aun ...
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William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. A Nobel Prize laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner's family moved to Oxford, Mississippi when he was a young child. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel '' Soldiers' Pay'' (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote '' Sartoris'' (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published ''The Sound and the Fury''. The following year, he ...
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Intruder In The Dust
''Intruder in the Dust '' is a 1948 crime novel written by American author William Faulkner. Taking place in Mississippi, it revolves around an African American farmer accused of murdering a Caucasian man. Overview The novel focuses on Lucas Beauchamp, a Black people, black farmer accused of murdering a White people, white man. He is exonerated through the efforts of black and white teenagers and a spinster from a long-established Southern United States, Southern family. It was written as Faulkner's response as a Southern writer to the racial problems facing the South. ''Intruder in the Dust'' is notable for its use of stream of consciousness writing, stream of consciousness style of narration. The novel also includes lengthy passages on the Southern memory of the American Civil War, one of which Shelby Foote quoted in Ken Burns' documentary ''The Civil War (TV series), The Civil War''. The characters of Lucas Beauchamp and his wife, Molly, first appeared in Faulkner's col ...
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The Hollow Men
"The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare "Gerontion"), hopelessness, religious conversion, redemption and, some critics argue, his failing marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot.See, for instance, the work of one of Eliot's editors and major critics, Ronald Schuchard. It was published two years before Eliot converted to Anglicanism. Divided into five parts, the poem is 98 lines long. Eliot's ''New York Times'' obituary in 1965 identified the final four as "probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English". Theme and context Eliot wrote that he produced the title "The Hollow Men" by combining the titles of the romance ''The Hollow Land'' by William Morris with the poem "The Broken Men" by Rudyard Kipling; but it is possible that this is one of Eliot's ma ...
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University Press Of Mississippi
The University Press of Mississippi, founded in 1970, is a publisher that is sponsored by the eight state universities in Mississippi. Universities * Alcorn State University *Delta State University *Jackson State University *Mississippi State University *Mississippi University for Women *Mississippi Valley State University *University of Mississippi *The University of Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ... Imprints * Banner Books * Muscadine Books (books about Southern Culture) Notable series Notable series of the Press include: * American Made Music Series * Folk Art and Artists Series * Great Comics Artists Series * Hollywood Legends Series * Studies in Popular Culture Series ** Comics and Popular Culture category References External links ...
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Richard G
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong in rule'. Nicknames include "Richie", "Dick (nickname), Dick", "Dickon", "Dickie (name), Dickie", "Rich (given name), Rich", "Rick (given name), Rick", "Rico (name), Rico", "Ricky (given name), Ricky", and more. Richard is a common English, German and French male name. It's also used in many more languages, particularly Germanic, such as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Dutch, as well as other languages including Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Finnish. Richard is cognate with variants of the name in other European languages, such as the Swedish "Rickard", the Catalan "Ricard" and the Italian "Riccardo", among others (see comprehensive variant list below). People ...
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