Algren, Nelson | R. W. Lid (essay date 1975)
R. W. Lid (essay date 1975)
SOURCE: "A World Imagined: The Art of Nelson Algren," in American Literary Naturalism: A Reassessment, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1975, pp. 176-96.
[In the following excerpt, Lid provides an overview of Algren's career and critical reaction to his works. He also discusses the short story "A Bottle of Milk for Mother."]
It is but nature to be shy of a mortal who declares that a thief in jail is as honorable a personage as Gen. George Washington.
—Melville to Hawthorne
It is not so long ago, as literary history goes, that it was convenient to speak of Nelson Algren as a literary naturalist. It gave us direction in reading his works, and provided rubrics by which to measure his achievements. In addition, Algren himself felt a kinship with such writers as Dreiser and Wright, and such personal identification made easy a view of his...
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