Archives of Rejection

IF 0.6 2区 文学 0 LITERATURE, AMERICAN
Joshua Kotin
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

What can we learn about unpublished literature—and literature as such—by studying rejected literature? Each of the article’s four sections connects an archival document or set of documents to a topic in literary history and theory. In the first, a ledger tracking submissions to Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1882 leads to a discussion about recovery projects. In the second, a century of Houghton Mifflin reader reports leads to a discussion about evaluation. In the third, a novel submitted to Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company in 1930 leads to a discussion about historical counterfactuals. In the fourth, correspondence from the archives of Amiri Baraka and his agent, Ronald Hobbs, from the 1970s leads to a discussion about taste. Together, these sections introduce a resource and exemplify a method: how attention to small, practical decisions can illuminate large, abstract processes.By attending to editorial debates about poetry, we can understand what artistic value meant to specific people in specific contexts—and thus what it might mean in general. Poetry, in other words, promises to illuminate what’s literary about literary history.
拒绝档案
通过研究被退稿的文学作品,我们能从未发表过的文学作品中了解到什么?文章的四个部分中,每个部分都将一份或一组档案文件与文学史和文学理论中的一个主题联系起来。在第一部分中,1882 年查尔斯-斯克里布纳父子公司(Charles Scribner's Sons)的投稿分类账引发了关于恢复项目的讨论。在第二部分中,一个世纪以来霍顿-米夫林(Houghton Mifflin)的读者报告引发了关于评价的讨论。第三,1930 年提交给莎士比亚公司西尔维亚-比奇(Sylvia Beach)的小说引发了关于历史反事实的讨论。第四部分是阿米里-巴拉卡和他的经纪人罗纳德-霍布斯在 20 世纪 70 年代的通信档案,引发了关于品味的讨论。这些章节共同介绍了一种资源,并示范了一种方法:关注微小、实际的决定如何能够揭示大型、抽象的过程。通过关注有关诗歌的编辑辩论,我们可以了解艺术价值在特定背景下对特定的人意味着什么,进而了解艺术价值在一般情况下可能意味着什么。换句话说,诗歌有望阐明文学史的文学性。
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来源期刊
AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY
AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY LITERATURE, AMERICAN-
CiteScore
0.70
自引率
25.00%
发文量
178
期刊介绍: Recent Americanist scholarship has generated some of the most forceful responses to questions about literary history and theory. Yet too many of the most provocative essays have been scattered among a wide variety of narrowly focused publications. Covering the study of US literature from its origins through the present, American Literary History provides a much-needed forum for the various, often competing voices of contemporary literary inquiry. Along with an annual special issue, the journal features essay-reviews, commentaries, and critical exchanges. It welcomes articles on historical and theoretical problems as well as writers and works. Inter-disciplinary studies from related fields are also invited.
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