The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 4

Authors

• 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

Contents

ARTICLES 

Thomas Eakins and Robert Frost: To Be a Natural Man in a Man-Made World 

Robert Frost's Portrait of a Modern Mind: The Archetypal Resonance of "Acquainted with the Night" 

Drawing Parallels With the Renaissance: Late-Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Possibility of Historical Layering 

Richard Poirier and Edgar Allan Poe: Reassessing the 'World Elsewhere" 

Huck the Thief 

The Tall Tale, American Humor, and America  

MORE GREAT PLAINS POETS 

Hoar Frost on the Range 

eyes of crows 

Missouri July 

Lingo 

Memorandum RE: Garlic Salt 

Recitation in Delivery  

The Green Spreads 

Domestic Sublime 

REVIEWS 

John Wheatcroft; Random Necessities 

David Ray; Demons in the Diner 

Abstract

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 poem's universality as well as its meaning for the character in the poem. A doctoral student at Lehigh University and an English teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Murray previously published an article on "O'Neill's The Hairy Ape and Rodin's The Thinker" in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology.

JAMES V. MEHL suggests that the best vantage to view the current time of transition may be the Renaissance and to see it as layered change, as happening in many different aspects of culture at different rates of change. Professor of Humanities at Missouri Western State College, where he also serves as chairperson of the Communication Studies/Theatre/Humanities department, Mehl publishes primarily in the area of Renaissance and Reformation studies, especially as they relate to contemporary cultural developments. He is Editor-in-Chief of lnterdisciplinary Humanities, the journal of the National Association for Humanities Education. The present essay represents a continuation of thoughts which first appeared in this journal in 1994 regarding historical self-consciousness and current historical thinking and practice.

HELEN F. MAXSON uses the work of Edgar Allan Poe to examine the vision of critic Richard Poirier, whose independence of mind this study amply demonstrates. Associate Professor of English at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Maxson has published critical essays on Wallace Stevens, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf (this one in The Midwest Quarterly), a personal study of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other personal essays. A New Englander transplanted to Oklahoma, she is currently writing about the relationship between Texas poet Walter McDonald and Robert Frost, along with other aspects of McDonald's work.

ERIC CARL LINK establishes that while Huck Finn progresses from petty to grand theft, he becomes aware of the moral issues such behavior entails and of the moral dimension of society around him. Link teaches American literature at North Georgia College and State University. He has published articles on Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Thomas Pynchon, Walker Percy, William Gilmore Simms, and Frank Norris, and is co-author of Neutral Ground: History, Politics, and Ideology in American Romance Theory.

SANFORD PINSKER traces the whopper in America from the earliest days (Seven Cities of Cibola, yes sir!) to the nineteenth century (Davy Crockett to Mark Twain) and Robert Benchley to Woody Allen and assorted other talebearers of modem times. Shadek Professor of Humanities at Franklin and Marshall College and editor of Academic Questions, Pinsker writes widely on American literature and culture, and is currently finishing work on an anthology of American humor. He is a past recipient of the Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Award and has published several essays in this journal.

RONALD CHARLES EPSTEIN is a widely traveled Canadian freelance writer. His reviews and verse can be found in numerous American and Canadian publications, including a Fall 1999 review of Donald Justice's Oblivion: Of Writers & Writing in The Harvard Review. He resides in Toronto.

RICHARD HOLINGER, who teaches English at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Illinois, is a frequent reviewer for The Midwest Quarterly. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has published short fiction, essays, and criticism in a variety of journals. He lives in Geneva, Illinois.

Dr. Eric Carl Link, an English professor at North Georgia College and State University, Dahlonega, Georgia, has been selected as the winner of the Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Award. Professor Link's essay, "Huck the Thief," appears in this issue.

The Emmett Award consists of a $500 honorarium and an invitation to deliver the Emmett Memorial Lecture in September each year. The Emmett Award is sponsored by the Emmett family, The Midwest Quarterly, and the Pittsburg State University English Department.

The late Dr. Victor J. Emmett, Jr., was a member of the English Department at Pittsburg State University for nearly twenty-five years. He also served at various times as Chair of the English Department, Acting Dean of Graduate Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of The Midwest Quarterly. He died in 1990.

ANNOUNCING THE ANNUAL VICTOR J. EMMETT, JR., MEMORIAL PRIZE AND LECTURE

The editors of The Midwest Quarterly invite submission of articles on any literary topic, but preferably on Victorian or Modern British Literature, Literary Criticism, or the Teaching of Literature, to be considered for the annual Emmett Memorial Prize. The winning author will receive an honorarium and will be invited to Pittsburg State University to deliver the annual Emmett Memorial Lecture. This award is given in honor of the late Victor J. Emmett, Jr., who was for many years Professor of English at Pittsburg State University and this journal's Editor-in-Chief.

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

Wakefield, Richard; Murray, Keat; Mehl, James V.; Maxson, Helen F.; Link, Eric Carl; Pinsker, Sanford; Bradley, Burton; Chaberek, Ed; Cohen, Carole; Cortez, Sarah; Greenwald, Martha; Kirkpatrick, Patricia; Mauch, Matthew Douglas; Schultz, Elizabeth; Epstein, Ronald Charles; Holinger, Richard; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (2000) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 41 No. 4," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 41: Iss. 4, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol41/iss4/1