James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is like many other works of American non-fiction in that it concentrates on the narrator's successful quest for wholeness of vision, a sense of home, and roots. (DD)

Discusses the emergence of a new kind of criticism which has as its philosophical starting point the rejections of mimesis, and traces the process leading up to the development of this critical theory--a process which began in English criticism of the romantic period. (DD)

Suggests that what makes Charles Johnson's "Middle Passage" significant and eminently teachable is that it is an accessible example of "historiographic metafiction"--bestselling postmodern novels set in the past. Notes that students find the novel "easy" and enjoyable and that teaching the novel with some of its intertexts, such as H. Melville's…

Offers a rereading of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden," finding in it the triumph of Apollonian male rationalism over the Dionysian female cult of nature. Examines images of primitivism and wildness in the book, connecting them to polarities in conceptions of primitivism. (SR)

Explores how oral and print characteristics mesh or clash in "words-in-freedom," a form of visual poetry invented by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Analyzes Marinetti's poster-poem "Apres la Marne, Joffre visita le front en auto," highlighting the different natures of the two media and the coding difficulties occasioned by…

Offers personal observations about the personality, political positions, and literary criticisms of Raymond Williams. Discusses the influences of Williams's Welsh cultural heritage, his religious beliefs, his political activism as a student at Cambridge University, and his criticisms of Orwell, Lawrence, and other contemporaries. (DMM)

Reviews two books by Ivan Doig: "This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind" and "English Creek." Notes that both books provide a picture of life in the American West that is not pervaded by Western stereotypes of cowboys and Indians. (MM)