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More copies of this ISBNThe Lost Origins of the Essayby John Dagata
Review-A-Day"Every history is a story, a marshaling of evidence to support a particular reading of the past. Of the Silk Road or Nordic myth. Of Alexandria or pirates or the atom bomb. John D'Agata's history is of the essay, that redheaded stepchild of literature which, he laments, is often mistaken for 'a genre that is merely a dispensary of data — not a true expression of one's dreams, ideas, or fears.'" Meehan Crist, The Believer (read the entire Believer review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:An expansive and exhilarating world tour of innovative nonfiction writing I think the reason weve never pinpointed the real beginning to this genre is because weve never agreed on what the genre even is. Do we read nonfiction in order to receive information, or do we read it to experience art? Its not very clear sometimes. This, then, is a book that tries to offer a clear objective: I am here in search of art. I am here to track the origins of an alternative to commerce. John DAgata leaves no tablet unturned in his exploration of the roots of the essay. In this soaring anthology he takes the reader from ancient Mesopotamia to classical Greece and Rome, from fifth-century Japan to nineteenth-century France, to modern Brazil, Germany, Barbados, and beyond. With brief and brilliant introductions to seminal works by Heraclitus, Sei Sho-nagon, Michel de Montaigne, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, Octavio Paz, and more than forty other luminaries, DAgata reexamines the international forebears of todays American nonfiction. This idiosyncratic collection makes a perfect historical companion to DAgatas The Next American Essay, a touchstone among students and practitioners of the lyric essay.
John DAgata is the author of Halls of Fame and the editor of The Next American Essay. He teaches in the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa and is the editor of lyric essays for Seneca Review. John DAgata leaves no tablet unturned in his exploration of the roots of the essay. In this anthology he takes the reader from ancient Mesopotamia to classical Greece and Rome, from fifth-century Japan to nineteenth-century France, to modern Brazil, Germany, Barbados, and beyond. With brief introductions to seminal works by Heraclitus, Sei Sho-nagon, Michel de Montaigne, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, Octavio Paz, and more than forty other luminaries, DAgata reexamines the international forebears of todays American nonfiction. This idiosyncratic collection makes a perfect historical companion to DAgatas The Next American Essay, a touchstone among students and practitioners of the lyric essay. "From Ziusudra of Sumer to Antonin Artaud and beyond, the essay in all its glory is on full display in this ingenious anthology. The title doesn't convey the volume's range—the spirit of factual expression, worked on by the imagination, transplanted into many times and in many cultures. This is a book to dip into or read through, certainly to savor for its diversity. The essay tent is wide, and under D'Agata's editorship and astute eye it includes hybrid forms, from William Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' through the prose poems of Aloysius Bertrand, Baudelaire and Mallarmé to a 'performative essay' on Bob Marley by Kamau Brathwaite. Readers will be familiar with the aphorisms of Francis Bacon, somewhat less familiar with the eccentric virtuosity of Sir Thomas Browne and much more so with Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal.' But readers are perhaps most likely to be turned on for the first time by the prose artistry of Matsuo Basho, the avant-garde musings of Clarice Lispector on the (not-so) simple egg and the obsessive documentary-like musings of Marguerite Duras. Overall, this imaginative international collection showcases the art of short nonfiction at its best."—Publishers Weekly TABLE OF CONTENTS To the Reader Prologue Ziusudra of Sumer, The List of Ziusudra 1500 B.C.E.: Ennatum of Akkad, Dalogue of Pessimism 500 B.C.E.: Heraclitus of Ephesus, I Have Looked Diligently at My Own Mind 100 B.C.E.: Theophrastus of Eressos, These Are Them 46: Mestrius Plutrach, Some Information about the Spartans 315: Lucius Seneca, Sick 315: Awinaki Tshipala, Questions and Answers 427: Tao Chien, The Biography of Mr. Five-Willows 790: Li Tsung-Yuan, Is There a God? 858: Li Shang-yin, Miscellany 996: Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book 1281: Yoshida Kenko, In all things I yearn for the past 1336: Francesco Petrarch, My Journey Up the Mountain 1499: Bernardino de Sahagun, Definitions of Earthly Things 1580: Michel de Montaigne, On Some Verses of Virgil 1623: Francis Bacon, Antithesis of Things 1658: Thomas Brown, Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial; or, A Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk 1692: Matsuo Basho, Narrow Road to the Interior 1729: Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public 1763: Christopher Smart, My Cat Jeoffry 1790: William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 1849: Thomas De Quincey, The English Mail-Coach 1860: Aloysius Bertrand, Ondine 1869: Charles Baudelaire, Be Drunk 1873: Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell 1896: Stéphane Mallarmé, A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance 1907: Velimir Khlebnikov, The I-Singer of Universong 1913: Dino Campana, The Night 1924: Saint-John Perse, Anabasis 1930: Antonin Artaud, Eighteen Seconds 1935: Fernando Pessoa, Metaphysics has always struck me as a prolonged form of latent insanity 1941: Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth 1945: Paul Celan, Conversation in the Mountains 1952: Francis Ponge, The Pebble 1955: Edmond Jabè, Dread of One Single End 1957: Ana Hatherly, Tisanes 1959: Octavio Paz, Before Sleep 1960: Marguerite Yourcenar, Fires 1962: Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus 1965: Julio Cortázar, The Instruction Manual 1967: Clarice Lispector, The Egg and the Chicken 1968: Michel Butor, Egypt 1969: Natlia Ginzburg, He and I 1970: Kamau Braithwaite, Trench Town Rock 1971: Peter Handke, Suggestions for Running Amok 1972: Marguerite Duras, The Atlantic Man 1973: Samuel Beckett, Afar a Bird 1974: Lisa Robertson, Seven Walks Epilogue John Berger, What Reconciles Me Review:"From Ziusudra of Sumer to Antonin Artaud and beyond, the essay in all its glory is on full display in this ingenious anthology. The title doesn't convey the volume's range — the spirit of factual expression, worked on by the imagination, transplanted into many times and in many cultures. This is a book to dip into or read through, certainly to savor for its diversity. The essay tent is wide, and under D'Agata's (Halls of Fame) editorship and astute eye it includes hybrid forms, from William Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' through the prose poems of Aloysius Bertrand, Baudelaire and Mallarm to a 'performative essay' on Bob Marley by Kamau Brathwaite. Readers will be familiar with the aphorisms of Francis Bacon, somewhat less familiar with the eccentric virtuosity of Sir Thomas Browne and much more so with Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal.' But readers are perhaps most likely to be turned on for the first time by the prose artistry of Matsuo Basho, the avant-garde musings of Clarice Lispector on the (not-so) simple egg and the obsessive documentarylike musings of Marguerite Duras. Overall, this imaginative international collection showcases the art of short nonfiction at its best." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Synopsis:An expansive and exhilarating world tour of innovative nonfiction writing I think the reason weve never pinpointed the real beginning to this genre is because weve never agreed on what the genre even is. Do we read nonfiction in order to receive information, or do we read it to experience art? Its not very clear sometimes. This, then, is a book that tries to offer a clear objective: I am here in search of art. I am here to track the origins of an alternative to commerce. John DAgata leaves no tablet unturned in his exploration of the roots of the essay. In this soaring anthology he takes the reader from ancient Mesopotamia to classical Greece and Rome, from fifth-century Japan to nineteenth-century France, to modern Brazil, Germany, Barbados, and beyond. With brief and brilliant introductions to seminal works by Heraclitus, Sei Sho-nagon, Michel de Montaigne, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, Octavio Paz, and more than forty other luminaries, DAgata reexamines the international forebears of todays American nonfiction. This idiosyncratic collection makes a perfect historical companion to DAgatas The Next American Essay, a touchstone among students and practitioners of the lyric essay.
About the AuthorJohn DAgata is the author of Halls of Fame and the editor of The Next American Essay. He teaches in the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa and is the editor of lyric essays for Seneca Review. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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