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The Kent State University Press - Donald Blume

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423 pages

English

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Ambrose Bierce's In the Midst of Life, the second volume of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, is hailed by critics and scholars alike as his most important literary work. In Ambrose Bierce's Civilians and Soldiers in Context: A Critical Study, Donald T. Blume refutes this and instead identifies Bierce's original 1892 collection as his most definitive and authoritative work. The two subsequent collections, appearing in 1898 and 1909, although containing subtle clues pointing back to the importance of the 1892 collection, are in their primary effect literary red herrings.This new study reveals that the nineteen stories that comprised the original Tales of Soldiers and Civilians consist of carefully developed and interrelated meanings and themes that can only be fully understood by examining the complex circumstances of their original productions. By considering each of the nineteen tales in the order in which they were first published and by drawing heavily on contemporary related materials, Blume re-creates much of the original milieu into which Bierce carefully placed his short stories. Blume systematically examines many of Bierce's editing flaws, exposing that Bierce's decisions often weakened the original literary merits of his stories. Ultimately this story reveals, tale by tale and layer by layer, that the nineteen stories included in Bierce's 1892 collection were masterpieces of fiction, destined to become classics. Historians and Civil War enthusiasts, as well as literary scholars, will welcome this new study.

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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	15 août 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781612773759
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Ambrose Bierce’s Civilians and Soldiers in Context

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Ambrose Bierce’s Civilians and

Soldiers in Context

a c r i t i c a l s t u dy

Donald T. Blume

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The Kent State University Press kent and london

©2004by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio44242 all rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number2003015266 isbn 0-87338-778-3(pbk) isbn 0-87338-790-2(cloth) Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blume, Donald T.,1964– Ambrose Bierce’s Civilians and soldiers in context : a critical study / Donald T. Blume. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-87338-790-2(alk. paper)isbn 0-87338-778-5(pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Bierce, Ambrose,1842–1914? Tales of soldiers and civilians. 2. United States—History—Civil War,1861–1865—Literature and the war. 3. Horror tales, American—History and criticism. 4. War stories, American—History and criticism.5. Supernatural in literature. 6. Soldiers in literature. I. Title. ps1097.t33b57 2003 814'.4—dc22 2003015266

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.

To those who have gone before

and to Professor Joseph R. McElrath Jr.,

my mentor and dissertation director at the Florida State University;

Professor Hershel Parker, my mentor at the University of Delaware;

and my parents, Robert and Dorothy Blume.

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My, friends, we are pigmies and barbarians. We have hardly the rudiments of a true civilization; compared with the splendor of which we catch dim glimpses in the fading past, ours are as an illumination of tallow candles. We know no more than the ancients; we only know other things; but nothing in which is an assurance of perpetuity, and nothing which is truly wisdom. Our vauntedelixir vitaeis the art of printing with movable types. What good will those do when posterity, struck by the inevitable intellectual blight, shall have ceased to read what is printed? Our libraries will become their stables, our books their fuel.

A m b r o s e B i e r c e , “ P r at t l e ”

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Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction 1“A Holy Terror” 2“An Inhabitant of Carcosa” 3“Killed at Resaca” 4“One of the Missing” 5“A Son of the Gods” 6“A Tough Tussle” 7“Chickamauga” 8“The Horseman in the Sky” 9“The Coup de Grâce” 10“The Suitable Surroundings” 11“The A±air at Coulter’s Notch” 12“The Watcher by the Dead” 13“The Man and the Snake” 14“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” 15“The Middle Toe of the Right Foot” 16“Haïta, the Shepherd” 17“James Adderson, Philosopher and Wit” 18“An Heiress from Redhorse” 19“The Boarded Window” 20The Collections Coda Notes Sources Index