Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Doctorow, E. L. - Stephen Matterson (essay date Winter 1993)

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Stephen Matterson (essay date Winter 1993)

SOURCE: "Why Not Say What Happened? E. L. Doctorow's Lives of the Poets," in Critique, Vol. 34, No. 2, Winter, 1993, pp. 113-25.

[In the following essay, Matterson addresses the ideas about writing suggested by the stories in Doctorow's Lives of the Poets.]

Lives of the Poets, E. L. Doctorow's seventh work, first published in 1984, occupies a unique space in his writings. Its most obvious difference from the other work is announced in its subtitle, A Novella and Six Stories, because, apart from the 1979 play, Drinks before Dinner, Doctorow's previous work had been in the novel form. A case could be made for considering Lives of the Poets almost an aberration within the Doctorow canon. Among its diverse themes and settings the collection becomes an exploration of the nature of writing itself and of the relation of writing to the life of its author. Doctorow had...

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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