[New-Poetry] Edmund Wilson

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,,2229429,00.html
Reading beyond the lines


Edmund Wilson's perception gave him an unparalleled understanding of American literature and life, says Devin McKinney 

Tuesday December 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited 


Edmund Wilson in 1951. Photograph: Corbis
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Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s
by Edmund Wilson Edited by Lewis M Dabney The Library of America, 958 pp, $40

Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1940s & 50s
by Edmund Wilson Edited by Lewis M. Dabney The Library of America, 979 pp, $40


"You have to learn to load solid matter into notices of ephemeral happenings," was how Edmund Wilson defined the task and the trick of critical journalism. 

With his first publication under the imprimatur of the Library of America - the durable, affordable line of native classics he conceived and founded - we see again how solid was Wilson's matter, how true and continuous his sense of the worthy in art and life. These volumes flex and expand like living things, like lungs, and it's Wilson the intellectual journalist, more than Wilson the accessible academic, that fills them with breath and vigour. 




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