Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Doctorow, E. L. - John G. Parks (essay date Winter 1991)

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John G. Parks (essay date Winter 1991)

SOURCE: "The Politics of Polyphony: The Fiction of E. L. Doctorow," in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter, 1991, pp. 454-63.

[In the following essay, Parks applies recent critical theory to a study of the political and historical elements of Doctorow's fiction.]

"The chief business of twentieth-century philosophy," R. G. Collingwood remarks in his Autobiography, "is to reckon with twentieth-century history." In the fifty years since Collingwood wrote those words that "reckoning" with history has become increasingly problematic, especially when considering the situation of the contemporary writer. Describing the writer's alienation from history in the modern period, as well as his loss of faith in the direction of history, Georg Lukàcs, in his work The Historical Novel, observes that history for the writer becomes either "a collection and reproduction of interesting...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Wirt Williams (review date 25 September 1960)
   2. Gwendolyn Brooks (review date 10 July 1966)
   3. Stanley Kauffman (review date 5 June 1971)
   4. Joseph Catinella (review date 17 July 1971)
   5. Patrick Parrinder (review date 4 April 1985)
   6. Richard D. Beards (review date Summer 1985)
   7. Marvin J. LaHood (review date Winter 1987)
   8. Michelle M. Tokarczyk (essay date Fall 1987)
   9. John G. Parks (essay date Winter 1991)
   10. Derek Wright (essay date 1993)
   11. Stephen Matterson (essay date Winter 1993)
   12. Stephen Cooper (essay date May 1993)
   13. Ann V. Miller (essay date Summer 1993)
   14. Stephen Fender (review date 27 May 1994)
   15. John Whitworth (review date 28 May 1994)
   16. Jonathan Franzen (review date 19 June 1994)
   17. Simon Schama (review date 19 June 1994)
   18. Mark Shechner (review date 10 July 1994)
   19. Andrew Delbanco (review date 18 July 1994)
   20. William Hutchings (review date Winter 1995)
   21. E. L. Doctorow with Michelle M. Tokarczyk (interview date Winter 1995)
   22. Michael Wutz (review date Spring 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. E. L. Doctorow