The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 3

Authors

• 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

Contents

ARTICLES 

Gender and Class in Dickins: Making Connections 

Childless Women in the Plays of William Inge 

"It's the Same Me, Isn't It?" The Language Question and Brian Friel's Translations 

Futility and Robert Fros 

Whitman, Springsteen, and the American Working Class  

Function or Frill: The Quilt as Storyteller in Toni Morrison's Beloved 

"Being My Own Heroine" 

MORE GREAT PLAINS POETS 

Coming Back 

Aunt Jane on the Day of the Dead 

The Wolves Are Coming Back 

Passion Moon 

Dancing at Old Threshers' 

Rain 

From Earth 

One Year 

REVIEWS 

Edward Lazarus; Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court 

J. L. Granatstein; Who Killed Canadian History? 

Melvin G. Holli; The American Mayor: The Best and the Worst of the Big-City Leaders  

Abstract

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 several articles about China, where he taught from 1988- 1989. All these topics have been addressed in three previous articles by Scheckner in The Midwest Quarterly.

Reacting to the postwar stereotype that defined a woman's role as a housewife and mother, playwright William Inge explored the lives of childless women with sensitivity and sympathy, as SUSAN KOPRINCE convincingly delineates. Associate Professor of English at the University of North Dakota, Koprince has published articles in a variety of scholarly journals. Her article on 'William Inge and the Empty Stage" was included in Jackson Bryer's recent edition of Critical Essays on William Inge (G. K. Hall), and she has delivered several papers at the William Inge Theatre Festival and Conference in Independence, Kansas.

For the Irish, the "language question"--must those who reject English oppression also reject English as a means of expression?--has been particularly troubling, as CHARLES BAKER demonstrates by examining the play Translations by Brian Friel. Teacher of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Baker has a previously published essay on Salman Rushdie and has delivered papers on writers as diverse as Dante and Flannery O'Connor.

Responding to William J. Bennett's installation of Robert Frost as a poet whose work embodies the Great American Virtues, ARTHUR M. SALTZMAN suggests the compiler completely missed Frost's evocation of Futility and so woefully misunderstood the icon he pedestalized. Professor of English at Missouri Southern State College, Saltzman's publications include The Fiction of William Gass (Southern Illinois Press), Understanding Raymond Carver, and The Novel in the Balance (the latter two from the Unviersity of South Carolina Press). He has recently completed a book-length study of "This Mad 'Instead': Governing Metaphors in Contemporary American Fiction."

To what extent does rock poet Bruce Springsteen travel the same road Walt Whitman intended to take to become the voice of bedrock Americans? This is the assignment GREG SMITH takes upon himself. Author of an article on Patti Smith, another poet-muse of rock, in the last issue and an earlier essay on John Milton's "Paradise Lost," Smith is a graduate student in English at Western Michigan University.

The quilt, we have recently learned, played a role in guiding slaves to freedom. Toni Morrison's quilt in Beloved, as JANICE BARNES DANIEL points out, provides a narrative backing for shifting perspectives of voice and time, giving clarity to the fragmented pieces of Beloved's story. Currently an Instructor in English at Ashland Community College in Kentucky, Daniel has taught there and at Morehead State University classes in American literature, language arts pedagogy, and composition, including computer-assisted writing and distance learning via interactive compressed video. Her publications include work on Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Harriet Jacobs, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. She is presently working on a study of Sarah Orne Jewett's use of framing strategies.

Violet Blair was an uncommon woman for her times, one who challenges our understanding of women and the role of women and of feminism, as VIRGINIA JEANS LAAS reveals. Laas, now an Associate Professor of History at Missouri Southern State College, began as a history student, became a research assistant for, and ultimately served as collaborator and co-author with Dr. Dudley T. Cornish of Lincoln's Lee (University Press of Kansas). Since that fortuitous meeting of minds, Laas has published three books, Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee (1991, University of Illinois Press), Love and Power in the Nineteenth Century: The Marriage of Violet Blair (1998, University of Arkansas Press), and Bridging Two Eras: The Autobiography of Emily Newell Blair (1999, University of Missouri Press), and is presently at work on a biography of Emily Newell Blair, Missouri feminist and politician, and vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, 1922-1928. This essay is being presented in honor of Dr. Cornish, this journal's first editor, a fine scholar, warm friend and colleague, and inspiration to those he met, whose recent death has given us all an excuse to remember a wonderful person and how he touched our lives.

PATRICIA A. BEHLAR is the Book Review Editor of The Midwest Quarterly. She teaches law-related political science classes at Pittsburg State University, and her article "Public Interest Law" was published in Magill's Legal Guide (1999).

RONALD CHARLES EPSTEIN, a Canadian freelance writer, reviewed Donald Justice's Oblivion in the Fall 1999 issue. His verse has appeared in numerous publications.

KEITH McCOY teaches political science courses at Pittsburg State University. His teaching responsibility includes a course on state and local government.

Tribute to Dudley Cornish by Virginia Jeans Laas

In the spring of 1985, in the. final semester of his teaching career, Dudley Cornish had a new preparation. Well, not quite new. He had taught Early Modern Europe some twenty-five years before. As was his wont, he greeted his assignment with an eager anticipation that belied his seventy years. As we shared an office that term, I marveled at his ability to sustain his enthusiasm. for the task. Dudley could never suppress his love of history or his passion for teaching. I also watched his meticulous scholarship as he crafted book reviews, critiqued book manuscripts, and wrote his numerous retirement speeches. No better lesson or example could I have been given. He. set the bar high, and there are legions of us who will strive to meet his standards for scholarship and teaching.

In later years, when I told him that I was preparing this piece for presentation at the University of Arkansas Phi Alpha Theta chapter meeting and for the annual PSU history banquet, I described the subject and the general theme of the paper. I had tentatively given it a most mundane title which he gently pointed out lacked spirit and interest (which, indeed, it did). He suggested that the subject deserved a title in genuine nineteenth-century style. His delight in playing with words was always catching and, together, we concocted the one that appears over this article.

Permissions to Use

In accordance with database agreements, the full text of the issue is not available for download. Pittsburg State Digital Commons has only provided the front matter for author and publication information.

Recommended Citation

Scheckner, Peter; Koprince, Susan; Baker, Charles; Saltzman, Arthur M.; Smith, Greg; Daniel, Janice Barnes; Laas, Virginia Jeans; Beard, David; Blair, John; Florea, Ted; Fogland, Dennis J.; Frank, Diane; Kiefer, Rita; Nye, Naomi Shihab; Varley, Jane; Behlar, Patricia A.; Epstein, Ronald Charles; McCoy, Keith; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (2000) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 3," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 41: Iss. 3, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol41/iss3/1