Lawrence Buell

Top-notch for research purposes or personal reading, The Dream Of The Great American Novel has everything to please a true blue book lover: history, perspective and lots and lots of rare or long-forgotten titles for people who love the classics. You don't have to be a former or present English major to love this, but Lawrence Buell's book may make you giddy if you are one! :)

Tough book to read, but well worth it. Good fodder for future reflection:
1. imitation is suicide - when Jesus calls the disciples, something there.
2. how to use language. ability to speak to both connoisseurs and groundlings.
3. omni-spirituality
4. constant flowing imagination
5. perfectionist skepticism
6. more of a thinker than a philosopher
7. scholar - teacher as well as student
8. ruined rather than fallen human
9. active thinking in relation to Howard Thurman

Loads of new words for me. Some of the writing seems a bit archaic which makes it harder to understand. simply said it is not easy going for me.

It goes into many of his work and this makes the works more understandable. I have trouble with some archaic writing and it makes it all the more important that i understand why Emerson said what he said and wrote what he wrote. He was writing for a intellectual audience as he spoke in a more simplified way. It would be interesting to read his talks show more before reading the more complex written works. Oh well. show less