God and the American Writer (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Alfred Kazin
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: Literary criticism and religion
- Principal Characters: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Emily Dickinson, William James, Mark Twain, William Faulkner
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Religion and spirituality
- Subjects: Politics, Race, Authors or writers, Slavery or slaves, Literature, Religion, Christianity, Speeches, Holocaust, Jewish
It is late in God and the American Writer that readers discover Alfred Kazin’s definition of religion:
I think of religion as the most intimate expression of the human heart, as the most secret of personal confessions, where we admit to ourselves alone our fears and our losses, our sense of holy dread and our awe before the unflagging power of a universe that regards us as indeed of “no account” . . .
This is an intriguing moment of definition in a study that explores the undefinable, ambiguous, contradictory, and restless relationship that Kazin’s...
[The entire page is 1925 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
