American Procession
Alfred KazinBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
In this illuminating study of the "crucial century" (1830-1930), Alfred Kazin views the major figures in American writing, beginning when Ralph Waldo Emerson left the church and inspired a national literature on the basis of a religious revolution, and ending with the triumph of modernism - Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - and with the revelation after World War I of the "postponed power" of those who had been modern before their time: Henry Adams, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson.Synopsis
In this illuminating study of the "crucial century" (1830-1930), Alfred Kazin views the major figures in American writing, beginning when Ralph Waldo Emerson left the church and inspired a national literature on the basis of a religious revolution, and ending with the triumph of modernism - Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - and with the revelation after World War I of the "postponed power" of those who had been modern before their time: Henry Adams, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson.
Marcus Cunliffe
I have nothing but praise for ''An American Procession.'' Mr. Kazin may not deal with the entire procession, but what he does cover is consummately well handled. -- New York Times
Editorials
New Republic
The Procession is wonderfully exciting to read...An authentic entrance, as Whitman called the self, to all facts.
— Richard Howard
New York Times Book Review
With An American Procession, Alfred Kazin confirms a reservation in the front tier of the reviewing stand, next to his eminent predecessors Van Wyck Brooks and Edmund Wilson. I have nothing but praise for An American Procession. Alfred Kazin himself can write brilliantly, catching the 'very essence' of an author in an epithet or a phrase...He is a first-rate comprehender, explainer, and savorer. The power of his book lies, in the last analysis, in Mr. Kazin's profound instinct for style.
— Marcus Cunliffe
New Yorker
A sense of caring intimacy lifts Kazin's survey above the usual inventory of masterworks...An American Procession is a refresher in the best sense...It vivaciously refreshes our awareness.
The Atlantic
Kazin is one of the most seasoned and subtle critics of American literature. He has always balanced an awareness of the pressure of external circumstances with a sense that books are also a series of private meetings between authors and ink bottles. He sees writers as at once facing the world and facing their desks.
— Richard Ellmann