Poetry Commons^™

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 4, Richard Wakefield, Keat Murray, James V. Mehl, Helen F. Maxson, Eric Carl Link, Sanford Pinsker, Burton Bradley, Ed Chaberek, Carole Cohen, Sarah Cortez, Martha Greenwald, Patricia Kirkpatrick, Matthew Douglas Mauch, Elizabeth Schultz, Ronald Charles Epstein, Richard Holinger, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

RICHARD WAKEFIELD explores two of Thomas Eakins's paintings and two of Robert Frost's poems to examine the impact of modern life and concludes that the principle characters all "hear the tick of the clock and feel the gaze of Emerson's all-conspiring society." Wakefield teaches American literature at Tacoma Community College and the University of Washington, Tacoma. His writings have appeared in numerous journals, including Robert Frost Review, American Literature, and South Carolina Review, and his poetry has appeared in a variety of venues.

KEAT MURRAY takes readers on Robert Frost's journey in "Acquainted with the Night" in order to demonstrate …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 3, Peter Scheckner, Susan Koprince, Charles Baker, Arthur M. Saltzman, Greg Smith, Janice Barnes Daniel, Virginia Jeans Laas, David Beard, John Blair, Ted Florea, Dennis J. Fogland, Diane Frank, Rita Kiefer, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Varley, Patricia A. Behlar, Ronald Charles Epstein, Keith Mccoy, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Charles Dickens proved himself a careful observer of working-class oppression in Victorian England, both of men and women, and of causes economic, social, and personal. But as PETER SCHECKNER amply demonstrates, Dickens offered them little means of righting the political and economic order that significantly contributed to their plight. A revolutionary Dickens was not. Professor of English at Ramapo College of New Jersey, Scheckner is the author of Class, Politics, and the Individual: A Study of the Major Works of D. H. Lawrence and An Anthology of Chartist Poetry: Poetry of the British Working Class, 1830s-1850s. He has also written …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 2, John G. Parks, Arthur A. Molitierno, Stephen C. Behrendt, Greg Smith, James J. Mcclintock, Jennifer Radtke, David Baker, Dan Campion, Tom Hansen, Margaret Hasse, Ted Kooser, Roseann Lloyd, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Kathleen Norris, Mark Sanders, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Why is there humor in being helpless to counter the forces great (and sometimes small) at work in the world? JOHN G. PARKS traces the idea of the comedy of powerlessness in the works of late twentieth-century writers and concludes that our laughter stirs not from a bitter embrace of this condition but because it is an assertion of free will in the face of those forces. Professor of English at Miami University in Ohio, Parks has, in addition to numerous scholarly articles, published a book on the fiction of E. L. Doctorow. He is currently at work on two …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 1, Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, Thorunn Ruga Mccoy, David Garrison, Mark Mossman, Judith Musser, William Casement, Diane Averill, Baloian Baloian, K. H. Barron, Alan Britt, Mary Crow, Lois Marie Harrod, Fleda Brown Jackson, Kathleen Lynch, Hillary Lyon, Robin Michel, Andrea Moorhead, Pattiann Rogers, Sam Taylor, Paul W. Zagorski, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

As MICHELLE SCALISE SUGIYAMA shows, author Sandra Cisneros uses women's shoes and feet as potent symbols and actual examples of male manipulation of female sexuality and freedom. An Affiliate of the Institute for Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the University of Oregon and of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sugiyama approaches the universal behavior of storytelling from a cognitive and anthropological perspective. Her work can be found in The Hemingway Review, Human Nature, Mosaic, and Skeptic, and she is completing a book-length study developing an alternative to Freudian literary analysis and its derivatives …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 40 No. 4, David Baker, Kh Barron, Edward E. Boccia, William Borden, J. V. Brummels, Dan Campion, Michael Castro, Paul Christensen, Allison Adelle, Hedge Coke, Robert Cooperman, Maureen Micus Crisick, Mary Crow, Philip Dacey, David Dale, Bryan D. Dietrich, Gene Doty, James Doyle, Jean Dubois, Martha Elizabeth, Jeanne Emmons, Sybil Pittman Estess, Don Finkel, Steve Gehrke, Mark Gibbons, Vicki Graham, Carol Hamilton, Pamela Harrison, Margaret Hasse, Michael Hathaway, Susan Carol Hauser, Michael Heffernan, Philip Heldrich, Frank Higgins, Jonathan Holden, Richard D. Houff, Joseph Hutchison, Mark Irwin, Louis Jenkins, Ted Kooser, Steve Langan, Rustin Larson, Roseann Lloyd, Adrian C. Louis, Mary Mcanally, Janet Mccann, Walt Mcdonald, Freya Manfred, Jack Martin, Edward Micus, John Minczeski, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, George Moore, Sheryl L. Nelms, Kathleen Norris, Michael Paul Novak, Christina Pacosz, Michelle Paulsen, David Pink, Naomi Rachel, David Ray, Judy Ray, Pattiann Rogers, Mark Sanders, Andrew Schelling, Howard Schwartz, Roger Sheffer, William Sheldon, Majorie Stelmach, Francine Sterle, Robert Stewart, Ann Struthers, Richard Terrill, Jim Thomas, Larry D. Thomas, Eamonn Wall, Morrie Warshawski, Laura Lee Washburn, Jane O. Wayne, Kathleene West, Steve Wilson, Jeff Worley, Charles Cagle, Richard Holinger, Anita Chancey, Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

THE GREAT PLAINS POETS Profiles of the poets assembled for this special issue appear in connection with their work Available following the work of each author is information about the poet's professional career and a statement of philosophy.

CHARLES CAGLE, an award-winning creative writer, is Professor of English at Pittsburg State University. In the broader Pittsburg community, he played an active role in the Stilwell Hotel restoration project. His lecture on the life of Arthur Stilwell was printed and used to raise funds for the project.

RICHARD HOLINGER teaches English at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Illinois. His short fiction appears …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 40 No. 3, Robert Wexelblatt, Manfred Weidhorn, James A. Papa Jr., Steve Wilson, Arthur Sherr, Ron Klier, Michele Bowman, Rick Cannon, Craig Challender, Philip Dacey, Nickie J. Gunstrom, William Kloefkorn, Kip Knott, Deborah Landau, Martin Ott, David L. Roberts, Randolph Thomas, Steven Trulock, Bob Vance, Ken Waldman, Sara Willingham, Charles Cagle, Keith L. Mccoy, Harry L. Humphries, Ronald Charles Epstein, Paul W. Zagorski, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

ROBERT WEXELBLATT explores the art of teaching by considering both the ideal and its impact and appreciation by its recipients and those who would exercise authority over teachers. He reaches the uneasy conclusion that true teaching is a precarious balance, less a golden mean in delivery but in outcome, the sum of extremes. Award-winning author of essays and books of fiction, Wexelblatt is a Professor of Humanities at Boston University's College of General Studies. His numerous essays in this journal testify that he is, above all else, a teacher.

MANFRED WEIDHORN traces the concept of motive--Can we know those affecting …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 40 No. 2, Bob J. Frye, John G. Rodden, Martine Delavaux, Mark W. Crilly, Wayne Hanley, James A. Papa Jr., Priscilla Atkins, Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Rick Cannon, Carol Hamilton, William Kloefkorn, Elva Lauter, Lyn Lifshin, Peter Ludwin, Walt Mcdonald, Mark Sanders, Steven Sherill, Lauren Smith, Michael Spring, Susan Terris, Bob Vance, Mark J. Peterson, Ronald Charles Epstein, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

BOB J. FRY beckons readers to look beyond the friendly, folksy Garrison Keillor so many have seen in Lake Wobegon Days to glimpse the satire, both gentle and biting, that Keillor offers. Professor of English at Texas Christian University, editor of a book of critical essays on John Dryden's satire, Mac Flecknoe, and author of articles which have appeared in a number of journals, he has twice received teaching awards during his thirty years at TCU, including most recently the Piper Professor Award in 1994 given to just ten Texas educators annually honoring significant contributions in teaching.

JOHN G. RODDEN …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 40 No. 1, Duane R. Carr, Catherine Cowen Olson, John Rodden, Michael C. C. Adams, Peter Donahue, Jerold Waltman, James Scofield, Corrine De Winter, Jim Thomas, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

DUANE R. CARR critiques the redneck stereotypes who populate the fiction of Cormac McCarthy as poorly developed grotesques providing little wisdom and much contempt for backcountry folk. Currently Adjunct Professor at Western Kentucky University, Carr has published articles on Steinbeck, Albee, Joyce, and Glasgow. The present article is drawn from a broader survey published as A Question of Class: The Redneck Stereotype in Southern Literature.

CATHERINE COWEN OLSON explores Jane Smiley's use of the food characters prepare and eat in A Thousand Acres to expose their feelings and intentions. A teacher of English at Kingwood College in Houston, Texas, she …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 39 No. 4, Thomas Matchie, Elvira Bennet, Stuart Noble-Goodman, Darren J. N. Middleton, Kevin Walzer, Sanford Pinsker, David Lee, Jeanne E. Clark, Susan Ludvigson, Roland Sodowsky, Ronald Charles Epstein, Barbara Lerma, Joanna Weber, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

THOMAS MATCHIE explores a spirituality rooted in goodness, an affirmation of faith and community across the fissures which sometimes separate us, not one expressed in cults, cant, and combat boots, as revealed in four novels set in the Midwest. Professor of English at North Dakota State University in Fargo, Matchie teaches American literature, including midwestem and multicultural authors. He has published numerous articles on the Great Plains, including works by Louise Erdrich, Thomas McGrath, and Lois Hudson. Interested in political issues, he has also served in the North Dakota Senate.

ELVIRA BENNET finds Franz Kafka equally conflicted when confronting women …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 39 No. 3, Victoria Wodzak, A. James Wohlpart, B. H. Gilley, Mathew Miller, Arthur Scheer, Nancy Clasby, Laura Lee Washburn, Priscilla Atkins, Eric Gardner, Kim Horner, Michael Hudson, Gary Lechliter, Robert Lee, Susan Marshall, Dennis Saleh, James Scofield, Lauren Smith, Ronald Wallace, Adonna Zordel Helmig, Kenneth Robbins, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

VICTORIA WODZAK elegantly limns the distance, interaction, and tension between warriors and weavers, the heroic code and the domestic code, in classical epics, notably those of Homer and Beowulf. Wodzak is a Ph.D. candidate in the English program of the University of Missouri-Columbia, teaches composition for that Department, and not least is the mother of seven children, ages one to sixteen, to whom she attributes at least part of the inspiration for her essay. This is her first published scholarly work.

A. JAMES WOHLPART discusses the deft use Mary Shelley made of Frankenstein to comment on the isolation of …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 39 No. 2, Edward M. Griffin, Jessica B. Teisch, William Young, Edward Recchia, David Wright, Robert Lee Mahon, K. H. Barron, Adam Brooke Davis, Christine Delea, Twyla Hansen, Steve Kirchhoff, Errol Miller, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Linda Roth, Tom Sexton, Kathleen Spivack, Susan Terris, Susan Thomas, Fileman Waitts, Steve Wilson, Samuel J. Umland, Richard Holinger, Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

There is no escaping the mentality--or the burden--of e pluribus unum, writes EDWARD M. GRIFFIN, whether there is a oneness or a plural character to being an American or another notion entirely of what kind of people our multicultural backgrounds have fashioned. Whether national policy or educational philosophy, this concept, these concepts, must be confronted. Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Griffin has written widely on such colonial figures as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Chauncy, and he has recently turned his attention to the American poet/playwrights Robert Lowell and William Alfred.

JESSICA B. TEISCH examines the story …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 39 No. 1, John Churchill, John G. Rodden, Arthur A. Molitierno, James Najarian, Mordecai Roshwald, Abraham Fox, Jim Thomas, Tom Sexton, Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb, Linda Roth, Rick Perry, Sylvan Moe, Janet Mccann, Peter Markus, Lyn Lifshin, William Kloefkorn, John Kennedy, Jeff Halbert, Daniel Gutstein, Rachel Dacus, D. S. Butterworth, David D. Cooper, Walter Shear, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

JOHN CHURCHILL argues that only by providing "exemplars—cases of fit and base behavior in history, fiction, and other fields, narratives of situations and problem-confrontation in which the possible challenges of human life are exhibited and some possible resolutions held up for consideration," can those who would learn deliberate upon and apply abstract principles, and that this is the essence of a liberal education. Along the way Churchill confronts the issue of what is meant by rational argumentation. Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the College, at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, Churchill sums up his many publications, including two …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 38 No. 4, Sonya Yvette Alvarado, Fred Madden, Tom Hansen, Gorman Beauchamp, Sandra M. Guy, Kevin Bezner, Jeanne Murray Walker, David D. Cooper, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

SONYA YVETTE ALVARADO shows the similarities between Owen Wister's Em'ly and Dolly, a hen and a schoolmarm characterized as unnatural for their independence and rejection of motherhood, and the women in Ken's Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, a collection of castrating wives and nurses. Author of an article on David Mamet's "Glengarry Glenn Ross," Alvarado is currently a doctoral student in the Department of English at Texas Tech University, where she teaches Studies in Dramatic Literature, and is researching the use of computers and the Internet as tools in teaching literature.

FRED MADDEN contends that the influence …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 38 No. 3, Steven Vincent, Richard Teleky, Maureen Ryan, Leona M. Dillard, Stacie Lynn Hankinson, Susan M. Matarese, Paul G. Salmon, Laura Bernstein, Laurie Blauner, Susan Clarke, Lenny Dellarocca, Kate Funkhouser, Nickie J. Gunstrom, Therése Halscheid, John D. Hamilton, Thomas Heise, Matthew S. Lapierre, James S. Proffitt, Aurora Reynoso, Mark Rubin, Mark Schimmoeller, Sara Sproles, James M. Boehnlein, Charles Cagle, Walter Shear, Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

STEVEN VINCENT describes his attempt to come to terms with what he has seen in the killing fields of Cambodia, monuments to the Khmer Rouge's systematic destruction of Cambodians who had known or imagined life other than the rural peasant ideal their bloody torturers and murderers envisioned, even if this means not coming to terms with it at all but to accept its unacceptability, not to rationalize the irrational. Currently the senior writer for Art & Auction magazine where he writes about the international art world, and specifically the art market, he also contributes regularly to the Antique Collector, an …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 38 No. 2, Donald Wayne Viney, John E. Atwell, Matthew K. Samra, John Howard Wilson, Avise Nissen, Janice L. Nerger, Wayne Viney, Robert G. Riedel Ii, William Aiken, Michael Carey, Philip Dacey, Ivy Dempsey, Constance Egemo, Ted Genoways, Nickie J. Gunstrom, Gray Jacobik, Nicole Orr, Jack Martin, Michael Pegausch, Barry Sternlieb, Steve Wilson, Bonnie Young, Charles Cagle, Richard Holinger, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

DONALD WAYNE VINEY offers convincing examples that far from being the dour, unsmiling figure often presented of Christ, He exhibited a full range of emotions, including humor upon occasion. Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pittsburg State University, Viney is author of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God (1985), A Philosopher Looks at the Bible (1992), and several articles in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. He is also a member of Midwest Quarterly's Board of Editors.

JOHN E. ATWELL examines the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer and finds his views on women more complex than the common portrayal of the …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 38 No. 1, David Cochran, Michael A. Griffith, Drewey Wayne Gunn, Rebecca Thomas, Andrew P. Williams, H. Wendell Howard, Sarah Browning, Robert Coles, Pat Daneman, Joseph M. Ditta, Carol Hamilton, Gray Jacobik, Christine Knoeller, Lyn Lifshin, Hillary Lyon, Jane Mcclellan, Sally Allen Mcnall, Dixie Patridge, Lauren Smith, Steve Wilson, Harry L. Humphries, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

DAVID COCHRAN explores the world Chester Himes has created in his hard-boiled cop series set in Harlem as a reflection of reality and Himes's own experiences. A doctoral candidate in American cultural history at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Cochran has published two articles previously and is working on a dissertation covering popular culture in the Cold War era.

MICHAEL A. GRIFFITH contends that Plato, in Phaedrus, distinguishes between philosophy, as the superior intellectual endeavor, and poetry and rhetoric, as its inferiors, in the same way he would distinguish between love and sex, the one sublin1e and the others obstacles to …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 37 No. 4, William V. Davis, James R. Guthrie, Greg Smith, Celestine W. Liu, Earl J. Ingersoll, Kenneth R. Morefield, Polly Brody, Jim Daniels, Steven Ellis, Carol Goodman, Nickie J. Gunstrom, Fleda Brown Jackson, Joel Long, Walter Mcdonald, Jo Mcdougall, Virginia Slachman, David Tucker, Ronald Wallace, Don Welch, Kristina Wright, David D. Cooper, Richard Holinger, Elizabeth Masoni, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

WILLIAM V. DAVIS evokes James Wright's use of place, both geographic location and personal space, in poems set in the Ohio of his birth and early life. Author of criticism (in books such as Understanding Robert Bly, Critical Essays on Robert Bly, and Miraculous Simplicity: Essays on R. S. Thomas) and poetry (for example, One Way to Reconstruct the Scene, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, The Dark Hours, winner of the Calliope Press Chapbook Prize, published with his full middle name, Virgil), including both criticism and poems in the Midwest Quarterly, Davis is Professor of English …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 37 No. 3, Philip K. Jason, Virginia Oakley Beahrs, Stephanie Gauper, Jean Robertson, Craig Mcdaniel, Debra Goodlett, Nicki L. Young, Diane Averill, Cindy Bosley, Sharon Fain, Charles Freeland, Kathryn Hall, William Joliff, Peter Markus, Maggie Mcdowell, Franco Pagnucci, John Piller, Michele Pizarro, William Snyder Jr., Philip Terman, Mary Tompkins, David Tucker, Richard Holinger, Patricia A. Behlar, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

PHILIP K. JASON presents the sounds of the war in Vietnam through the literature that conflict engendered and in doing so makes this experience all the more real and devastating. Professor of English at the United States Naval Academy, Jason's publications include work in two collections of poetry; the Creative Writer's Handbook (Prentice-Hall); the career study of Anais Nin and Her Critics (Camden House); and two books relevant to the topic here, Fourteen Landing Zones: Approaches to Vietnam War Literature (University of Iowa Press) and The Vietnam War in Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (Salem Press). He is currently …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 37 No. 2, David D. Cooper, Haim Gordon, Harold P. Simmonson, John Fawell, Arthur Scherr, Patrick Joseph O'Connor, Paul Christensen, Henrietta S. Goodman, George Gott, Fleda Brown Jackson, John Kennedy, Robert King, James Mersmann, Geri Rosenzweig, Judith Skillman, Katherine Soniat, James Valvis, Jeanne Murray Walker, Timothy Walsh, Ronald Wardall, Charles Cagle, Susan Carlson, Patricia De La Fuente, Marjorie Donovan, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

DAVID D. COOPER explores the generational storms that swept across university campuses in the 60s-70s and now the 80s-90s and the meaning of a liberal arts education in response to the values articulated by today's students. Associate Professor of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University, Cooper has written half-a-hundred articles on American literature and culture, literary theory, educational philosophy, psychology and religion, composition studies, literacy, and the philosophy of values. Author of Thomas Merton's Art of Denial: The Evolution of a Radical Humanist (University of Georgia Press, 1989), Cooper's next will be "Amending the Heart: An Essay on …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 37 No. 1, Robert Paul Lamb, Richard Kostelanetz, Michael Tager, Thomas Matchie, Sally Ventura, Robert Wexelblatt, Baloian Baloian, Lisa Beskin, Craig Challender, Robert Funge, Edward Haworth-Hoeppner, George Kalamaras, Lyn Lifshin, Kathleen Lynch, Hillary Lyon, Ron Mcfarland, John Mckernan, Martin Ott, Dixie Partridge, Ken Waldman, Gail White, Charles Cagle, Kathy Degrave, Daniel Green, Rebecca N. Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

ROBERT PAUL LAMB revealingly explores the short story writer's use of compression and exact word choice through examples drawn mainly from Ernest Hemingway. Author of articles on Melville, Whitman, Hemingway, and the film Citizen Kane, and a forthcoming essay on James G. Birney and southern abolitionism, Lamb is Assistant Professor of English at Purdue University. He is currently completing a book-length study of "Hemingway and the Short Story."

RICHARD KOSTELANETZ discusses his innovations in poetic form and content and provides three examples of his work. Widely acclaimed for his explorations in new ways to convey written language, Kostelanetz lives independently …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 36 No. 4, Michael Adams, Stanley E. Banks, Walter Bargen, Jim Barnes, Stephen C. Behrendt, Gar Bethel, Gerald N. Callahan, Michael Catherwood, G. S. Sharat Chandra, Jim Cihlar, Bruce Cutler, Leo Dangel, Celia A. Daniels, Joseph M. Ditta, Elizabeth Dodd, Constance Egemo, Michael Finley, John Garmon, Diane Glancy, Patrick Worth Gray, Charles Guenther, Tom Hansen, Twyla Hansen, Neil Harrison, Steven Hind, Art Homer, Michael L. Johnson, Robert King, Robert Kirshbaum, William Kloefkorn, Greg Kuzma, Leonard Lang, Denise Low, James Magorian, David Mason, Jim Mccrary, Jo Mcdougall, J. J. Mckenna, Jennifer Mcnaught, Jay Meek, Bill Meissner, Janice H. Mikesell, James D. Miley, Michael Moos, Mark A. Nowak, Al Ortolani, Elsie Pankowski, Thomas D. Peacock, Cynthia Pederson, Caryl Porter, Kim Ports, Joan Wolf Prefontaine, Trish Reeves, Richard Robbins, Carolann Russell, Marjorie Saiser, Bonny Barry Sanders, Terry Savoie, Roy Scheele, Barbara Schmitz, Jory Sherman, Michael Skau, Roland Sodowsky, Rawdon Tomlinson, Wyatt Townley, Tim Trapp, Patricia Traxler, Bill Tremblay, Robert Tremmel, William Trowbridge, Mark Vinz, Don Welch, Warren Woessner, Joan Yeagley, Lois J. Faucette, Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Information about the poets and their aesthetic concerns can be found with their work.

LOIS J. FAUCETTE is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She holds the Ph.D. degree from Howard University and has also studied at the University of Arkansas, University of Iowa, and Indiana University.

DONALD WAYNE VINEY is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pittsburg State University and serves on the Board of Editors of Midwest Quarterly. He has published books and numerous articles in his field and has a special interest in the philosophy of religion.

ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 36 No. 3, Edward M. Wheat, Malcolm O. Magaw, Darryl Hattenhauer, Elizabeth Dodd, Sanford Pinsker, Francis Donahue, Eve Adamson, Timothy Bellows, Michael Cadnum, Gerald N. Callahan, George Eklund, Sean Enright, Theodore Genoways, Nickie J. Gunstrom, Scott Heim, Linda Keegan, Cathleen A. Long, Jennifer Maier, Biljana D. Obradović, Susan Rea, Katie H. Armitage, Kelly A. Woestman, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

EDWARD M. WHEAT examines the meaning of the post-modem era through the character and world of the "hard-boiled dick," particularly Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op. Author of articles in a variety of scholarly journals, Wheat is Professor of Political Science and Director of the American Studies Program at the University of Southern Mississippi.

In crafting Marry Me, argues MALCOLM O. MAGAW, John Updike used geography, topography, and spatial relations to form a symbolic background against which his protagonist Jerry Conant pursues his truths. A specialist on American literature with previous articles on such writers as Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, Warren, Bellow, Walker …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 36 No. 2, Kim Paffenroth, Manfred Weidhorn, William C. Stephenson, Charles S. Brown, William Casement, George Slanger, Richard Callin, Albino Carrillo, James Cushing, Jeffrey Erikson, Nickie J. Gunstrom, Tom Hansen, David James, Walter Mcdonald, Willie Reader, Heather Sellers, Barry Sternlieb, Steve Wilson, Anne Ohman Youngs, Kathleen L. Nichols, Daniel J. Royer, Rebecca Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

KIM PAFFENROTH examines the Judas of the written Gospels and explicates Bach's sensitive musical portrayal of Judas in the recitatives and arias of the "St. Matthew Passion." A graduate student in Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Paffenroth has published articles on the death of Judas, St. Augustine's idea of friendship, and on Romans. His area of concentration is the synoptic gospels.

MANFRED WEIDHORN develops the many meanings of manliness from classical times to the present day through a study of literary and historical figures, with special emphasis on Edward Gibbon's definition. Guterman Professor of English at Yeshiva University, …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 36 No. 1, Christian Michener, Michael S. Allen, Asad Al-Ghalith, Terry Allen Wiggs, Jane Lasarenko, Thomas Michael Norton-Smith, Melinda Baker, Alice G. Brand, Alan Britt, Ruth Daigon, Howard Dupuis, Fritz Hamilton, William Kloefkorn, Michael Lieberman, Donald Morrill, Karl Patten, Allan Peterson, David Ray, James Scofield, James Soular, R. P. Burnham, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

CHRISTIAN MICHENER explores Susan Straight's likening of the black experience in America to an underwater dancer so focused on survival as to remain as dry as the chief setting for most of the stories in the Aquaboogie collection, Rio Seco. A doctoral student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Michener is here publishing his first scholarly work

Arguing that 'patriarchy' fails to reveal the tradition in American literature of male identity, power, and purpose, MICHAEL S. ALLEN examines the role of male bonding and traces it to the early threat of violence each young male faces, …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 35 No. 4, Susan S. Kissel, William T. Liston, Kurt Hochenauer, James R. Jaye, Greg Johnson, Gavriel Ben-Ephraim, Todd Ryan Boss, Rene F. Cardenas, Philip Cioffari, Robert S. King, Martin Lammon, Lyn Lifshin, Errol Miller, Lenard D. Moore, Mark Nowak, Beth Simon, Matthew J. Spireng, Philip Tobin, Ralph Wilson, Steve Wilson, Robert W. Bardeen, Charles Cagle, Kathleen De Grave, Jo Mcdougall

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

For all the angry rejection and amused disinterest she received from Americans then, Frances Trollope, in the view of SUSAN S. KISSEL, masterfully discerned much of the American character that remains as true today as it was in 1832. Associate Professor of English at Northern Kentucky University, Kissel has published a number of articles on Frances Trollope and other British and American writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her book, In Common Cause: The "Conservative" Frances Trollope and the "Radical" Frances Wright, was recently published by The Popular Press of Bowling Green State University.

WILLIAM T. LISTON contends that …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 35 No. 3, Theresa M. Mackey, Dorothy Dodge Robbins, Carolyn Nelson, John L. Dusseau, Nicholas O. Pagan, James A. Stevenson, Lawrence Bradley, Carrie Frasier, Judith Harris, James Hawkins, Lyn Lifshin, Mark Sanders, Rita Signorelli-Pappas, Sara Sproles, William John Watkins, Don Welch, Jeff Worley, Patricia A. Behlar, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Nationalism, both fashionable and deadly once more, is THERESA M. MACKEY's subject as she examines the writings of James Joyce. Rather than anti-nationalist, Mackey finds the later Joyce committed to a position akin to modern radically nationalist republicanism. Professor of English at St. John's College in Annapolis, Mackey is here publishing her first scholarly essay.

DOROTHY DODGE ROBBINS recounts the journey of Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist and how it fits the typology of such adventures in ancient and modern literature. Robbins is a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

How did …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 35 No. 2, Kelly Cherry, Adam Drozdek, Dan Vogel, Donald A. Crosby, Stephen Brockmann, James V. Mehl, Marcia Arrieta, Craig Challender, Philip Dacey, George Estreich, Carol Hamilton, Suzanne Keyworth, William Kloefkorn, Greg Kuzma, Lyn Lifshin, Mathew Murrey, Marjorie Saiser, Coreen Dwyer Wees, James W. Goodrich, Jo Mcdougall, Jared Carter

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Taking seriously C.P. Snow's mid-century caution that scientists and writers had increasingly little understanding of the other, KELLY CHERRY explains how she and other poets have reflected the scientific world. Author of ten books, including God's Loud Hand, a volume of poems to be published this year by Louisiana State University Press, Cherry is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

After Kurt Gödel's proof that no theory can completely explain a system, particularly one involving arithmetic, ADAM DROZDEK suggests, only the intellectually arrogant scientist can presume to understand the nature of humans. Yet many have tried in …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 35 No. 1, Charles Hartshorne, Richard Moore, Patti Capel Swartz, Sanford Pinsker, Brian Conniff, Stephanie Demetrakopoulos, Deborah Athy, Jim Cihlar, Anne Colwell, George Gott, Douglas Gray, Michele Krueger, Rebecca A. Lilly, Linda Pennisi, Bruce Taylor, Charles Cagle, Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Understanding God and that which is not divine has provoked philosophical extremes from the time of the Greeks to the present day. Philosopher CHARLES HARTSHORNE proposes a mathematical schema to sort out their differences and to establish a common ground for discussing deity and humanity. Author of twenty books and more than four hundred scholarly essays, Hartshorne, before his retirement, taught in ten universities, five in the United States and five abroad (Germany, Belgium, Australia, Japan, and India).

Bridging the gulf between the humanities and the sciences by relating the history and practice of art to the geometry of Euclid …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 34 No. 4, D. G. Myers, Terry White, Sheldon W. Liebman, Judith Ann Spector, Mark Allister, Joy L. Davis, Kat Snider Blackbird, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

How should literary critics accomplish their necessary judgments? Robert Penn Warren, though marginalized by some historians of literary criticism in the twentieth century, has, in D. G. MYERS's opinion, an important contribution to our understanding of the discipline. Professor of English at Texas A & M University, Myers has published articles on the history and theory of criticism in a number of journals and is completing a book on the history of creative writing in American literary education.

TERRY WHITE explores the writings of three contemporary authors on the nature of the choices humans face when confronted with evil. Assistant …

The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 34 No. 3, Arthur Scherr, Alfred Cismaru, George W. Shields, William M. Bueler, Wade Sikorski, Earl Lee, Jeanne Murray Walker, Midwest Quarterly Editors

The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

In Candide, argues ARTHUR SCHERR, Voltaire's women are intelligent, resourceful, and erotic individuals, quite the equal of males, if not infrequently their superiors. Having taught history and English at Bernard Baruch College and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, as well as the New York City high schools, Scherr is a self-styled "Renaissance person" who has published articles in a number of scholarly journals.

Human memory is a curious thing: it remembers what it wants to remember and forgets what it is inconvenient to remember or simply refuses to believe a contrary fact. So it is …