The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 33 No. 1

Authors

• H. Wendell Howard
• Patrick J. O'Connor
• Clare R. Goldfarb
• Tommy R. Thompson
• Muriel Brown
• David E. Gamble
• Barbara Siegel Carlson
• Mark Cunningham
• Charles Edward Eaton
• Faye George
• Fritz Hamilton
• Margaret Holley
• Sandra Marshburn
• Dionisio D. Martínez
• Susan Peterson
• Ronald F. Smits
• Charles Cagle
• Roger O'Connor
• Dudley T. Cornish
• Midwest Quarterly Editors

Contents

ARTICLES 

A Matter of Life and Death 

Discovering the Rich Differences in the Blues: The Rural and Urban Genres 

Home Sweet Home: Henry James' s Critique of the Cult of Domesticity  

The Resurrection of Thomas Paine in American Popular Magazines 

Growth and Development of the Artist: Willa Cather's My Ántonia 

Loren Eiseley: Wilderness and Moral Transcendence 

POEMS 

Coral  

Visiting the Toledo Zoo  

Swallows  

Manet Mama  

Androcles  

Birthday 

Blood Moon 

Because It's Not 

I Wonder 

Midsummer in Manayunk  

Clock  

In Retreat  

Crimes Attempted in Daylight 

Allhallows Month 

Wolf Creek 

Origins 

REVIEWS 

Jo McDougall; Towns Facing Railroads 

Patrick G. O'Brien and Kenneth L. Peak; Kansas Bootleggers 

Joseph T. Glatthaar; Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers 

Abstract

Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki, as H. WENDELL HOWARD explains, focuses his works on understanding the life that death ends, a preoccupation informed by his Catholicism, Polish birth, and the events in Eastern Europe. Professor of English and Juilliard-trained musician, author of articles on literature and music, Howard has many publications to his credit, including a 1987 essay in these pages.

The roots of blues music, PATRICK J. O'CONNOR shows, were in the rural South, born of the disillusionment with the poverty of post-Civil War freedom and carried into the depths of urban America. Blues music was a direct response to the conditions which shaped the lives of African-Americans. A letter carrier for the past seventeen years, O'Connor is a recent graduate of Wichita State University and has previously published a variety of fiction and non-fiction works.

Far from the nurturing ideal held up by the Victorian age, CLARE R. GOLDFARB shows, the reality of parenthood, if what Henry James depicted can be taken for a mirror, was far from healthy for the children. Professor of English at Western Michigan University, she is author of many articles and, with Russell M. Goldfarb, of Spiritualism and Nineteenth-Century Letters. She is currently working on Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the tum-of-the-century physician and popular novelist.

BARBARA SIEGEL CARLSON of Carver, Massachusetts, has published poems in Kansas Quarterly, Hollins Critic, and The Midwest Quarterly.

MARK CUNNINGHAM has published poems in River City, South Florida Poetry Review, and The Midwest Quarterly. He recently moved from Texas to Opelika, Alabama.

CHARLES EDWARD EATON's poetry and prose has appeared in, among many other journals, Harper's Magazine, Kenyon Review, Salmagundi, The Nation, and numerous times in The Midwest Quarterly. Cornwall Books in 1987 published his New and Selected Poems, 1942-1987, and in 1991 will bring out his eleventh collection of poems. He received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state's highest award, in 1988. He lives in Chapel Hill.

FAYE GEORGE of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, has published poems in Poetry, The Journal of Ohio State University, Yankee, and The Ashland Poetry Press anthology, 80’s on the 80’s, and in other anthologies and journals.

FRITZ HAMILTON of San Francisco does anything he can to get by, from day labor to dishwashing. His recent publications include poems in Kansas Quarterly, Poetry Australia, New York Quarterly, The Midwest Quarterly, and other journals. His seventh book of poems was recently published by Minotaur Press.

MARGARET HOLLEY who works as assistant to the President of Bryn Mawr College, published chapbooks of poetry in 1980 and 1989. In 1988 Cambridge University Press published her critical book on the poetry of Marianne Moore. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, The Laurel Review, and other journals. Her poetry manuscript, “The Smoke Tree,” was selected to receive the Bluestem Award by James Tate and will be published by the Bluestem Press in 1991. Margaret Holley lives in Devon, Pennsylvania.

SANDRA MARSHBURN’s poems have appeared in various journals, including Tar River Poetry, The Laurel Review, and Yankee. A chapbook of her poetry was recently released by Alms House Press. She lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

DIONISIO D. MARTÍNEZ was born in Cuba. His poems and reviews have appeared recently in American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Southern Poetry Review, and other journals, including The Midwest Quarterly. He is an editor of the Organica Press in Tampa, Florida.

SUSAN PETERSON, who lives in rural northeast Wisconsin, is currently working on her second book of poetry. She has recently published poems in Cincinnati Poetry Review, Calliope, Mississippi Valley Review, and other journals.

RONALD F. SMITS teaches English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared recently in Kansas Quarterly, Poet and Critic, and Three Rivers Poetry Journal. His reviews of seven books on the Vietnam War were published in America, in March 1991. A Vietnam veteran, Smits lives in Ford City, Pennsylvania.

Praised and reviled, in his own time and in ours, Thomas Paine, as TOMMY R. THOMPSON shows in his examination of popular press accounts of Paine's writings and life, has not ceased being controversial. Professor of History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Thompson has written a history of his university as well as many articles on colonial Maryland, Nebraska history, and the American frontier.

The story of Ántonia and Jim links creativity and recollection, MURIEL BROWN explains, the one inextricably bound up with the other. Currently Assistant Professor of English at North Dakota State University, Brown's scholarly interests now involve medieval literature and studies of the novel.

Loren Eiseley, as DAVID E. GAMBLE suggests, has in his time striven to find the ideal of living with nature, of respecting the lives of the creatures he encounters even if they will not know of or understand his actions. Teacher of English at Jefferson Community College in Louisville, Kentucky, Gamble has recently been studying contemporary American nature writers.

CHARLES CAGLE teaches fiction writing at PSU. He has published scholarly articles on such poets as Whitman, Verlaine, Auden, Hart Crane, and Ginsberg.

ROGER O'CONNOR is a book/map/document collector, addicted bibliophile, proprietor of "Mostly Books" in downtown Pittsburg, and a specialist in western Americana.

DUDLEY T. CORNISH, PSU emeritus professor of history and Midwest Quarterly book review editor, has been invited to contribute an article on "Black Troops in the Union Army" to the Encyclopedia of the Confederacy projected by Simon & Schuster.

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DECONSTRUCTION: Invitation to Interested Readers

The Midwest Quarterly recently invited Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien to amplify an article critical of certain trends in academia, "Devaluing the University," which he contributed to The Times of London on March 5. Dr. Cruise O'Brien would like to do as we asked, but he feels he needs more information from people--whether for or against deconstruction--who are at present working in American or other universities and research institutes. He would be interested in hearing from any readers who might be willing to describe for him the state of affairs in relation to deconstruction (and allied tendencies) at the writer's university. Any replies would be treated as entirely confidential, in that neither the writer's name nor academic affiliation would be cited. The answers would be used as the bases for a general comment on the overall situation as regards the influence of deconstruction in academia. Extracts would be quoted for pertinent illustration, but care would be taken to see that no quotation could lead to the identification of the respondent or his or her university.

While Dr. Cruise O'Brien would certainly not wish to restrict the area within which any respondent might choose to frame his or her comments on deconstruction, the following is a non-exhaustive list of topics he would like to know about. In the institution at which you work: estimate the proportion of deconstructionists and allies in relevant departments, including English and comparative literature; estimate the relative influence of deconstructionists, anti-deconstructionists, and neutrals in academic policy, including appointments, tenure, and promotions. In the main the information that is requested would concern the particular institution in which the respondent works, but general observations about the perceived strength of these tendencies in, for example, The Modem Language Association and whether such tendencies are growing stronger or weaker would be appreciated.

Send responses to Dr. Cruise O'Brien to The Midwest Quarterly, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas 66762, in care of the Editor, and he will forward them unopened to Ireland in a timely manner.

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While the Editor was in London on sabbatical leave, this journal was produced under the capable direction of Donald Wayne Viney, a colleague of perception and a scholar of distinction. The Editor wishes here to acknowledge his debt of gratitude and to recognize Professor Viney' s continuing services to our readers.

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

Howard, H. Wendell; O'Connor, Patrick J.; Goldfarb, Clare R.; Thompson, Tommy R.; Brown, Muriel; Gamble, David E.; Carlson, Barbara Siegel; Cunningham, Mark; Eaton, Charles Edward; George, Faye; Hamilton, Fritz; Holley, Margaret; Marshburn, Sandra; Martínez, Dionisio D.; Peterson, Susan; Smits, Ronald F.; Cagle, Charles; O'Connor, Roger; Cornish, Dudley T.; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (1991) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 33 No. 1," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 33: Iss. 1, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol33/iss1/1