The Critical Response to Anais Nin
Published on 30. July 1996
Book
Hardback
296 pages
978-0-313-29626-0 (ISBN)
Description
Best known for her diary, Anais Nin was also the author of several novels, short fiction, and a book on D.H. Lawrence. As a woman who made a career of her aesthetic femininity, her works helped shape the future of gender studies and feminist literary criticism. Her writings have challenged numerous critics, while her life has been equally fascinating. The selections in this book represent the critical response to her works, from her first efforts in the 1930s to the posthumous publication of unexpurgated diary volumes beginning in 1986, including the views of major biographers and contemporary critics.
Born in France in 1903, Anais Nin spent her life in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles, where she died in 1977. Like the chaotic passages of her life, her writings have not easily fallen into neat categories. Though she published several novels, short fiction, and erotica, she is best known for her enormous and captivating diary, which sometimes commanded more attention in unpublished form than her published fiction did. As a woman writer who made a career of her aesthetic femininity, her works helped shape the future of gender studies and feminist literary criticism.
The selections in this volume trace the critical response to Nin's works from the 1930s to the present. Though Nin died nearly 20 years ago, the posthumous publication of several of her works, including three unexpurgated diary volumes, has prompted renewed critical attention, including two major biographical studies. Because biographical concerns dominate critical studies, this book contains not only sections on her work in general, her short fiction, and her novels, but also special sections on her monumental diary and on her public and private selves. Within each section, critical articles and reviews are reprinted chronologically, so that the reader may trace the response to Nin over time. A bibliography lists works for further consultation, and an introductory essay explores the direction of critical attention to her writings.
Born in France in 1903, Anais Nin spent her life in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles, where she died in 1977. Like the chaotic passages of her life, her writings have not easily fallen into neat categories. Though she published several novels, short fiction, and erotica, she is best known for her enormous and captivating diary, which sometimes commanded more attention in unpublished form than her published fiction did. As a woman writer who made a career of her aesthetic femininity, her works helped shape the future of gender studies and feminist literary criticism.
The selections in this volume trace the critical response to Nin's works from the 1930s to the present. Though Nin died nearly 20 years ago, the posthumous publication of several of her works, including three unexpurgated diary volumes, has prompted renewed critical attention, including two major biographical studies. Because biographical concerns dominate critical studies, this book contains not only sections on her work in general, her short fiction, and her novels, but also special sections on her monumental diary and on her public and private selves. Within each section, critical articles and reviews are reprinted chronologically, so that the reader may trace the response to Nin over time. A bibliography lists works for further consultation, and an introductory essay explores the direction of critical attention to her writings.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Interest Age: From 7 to 17 years
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
631 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-313-29626-0 (9780313296260)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
PHILIP K. JASON is Professor of English at the United States Naval Academy. His books on Anais Nin include the Anais Nin Reader (1973) and Anais Nin and Her Critics (1993), while his articles have appeared in such journals as Notes and Queries, Mosaic, College English, College Literature, and Anais: An International Journal.
Content
Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Chronology
Introduction by Philip K. Jason
General Assessments
Anais Nin by Frank Baldanza
Anais Nin and the Discovery of Inner Space by Oliver Evans
Anais Nin and the Feminine Quest for Consciousness: The Quelling of the Devouring Mother and the Ascension of the Sophia by Stephanie A. Gauper
Anais Nin: A Critical Evaluation by Estelle C. Jelinek
The Music of the Womb: Anais Nin's 'Feminine Writing' by Sharon Spencer
Nin's Shorter Fiction
Passion in Parenthesis by Stuart Gilbert
Refinements on a Journal by Paul Rosenfeld
'Men...Have No Tenderness': Anais Nin's Winter of Artifice by William Carlos Williams
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Edmund Wilson
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Isaac Rosenfeld
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Violet Lang
The Textual Evolution of the First Section of 'Houseboat' by Benjamin Franklin V
Discourse and Intercourse, Design and Desire in the Erotica of Anais Nin by Smaro Kamboureli
Nin's Novels
Surrealist Soap Opera by Herbert Lyons
Freudian Noah's Ark by Rene Fuelop-Miller
Temperament vs. Conscience by Maxwell Geismar
Humanity Is the Principle by Malcolm Mudrick
Nin: The Topic of Paris by James Korges
Sexuality and the Opposite Sex: Variations on a Theme by Theophile Gautier and Anais Nin by Paul Brians
Lillian Beye's Labyrinth: A Freudian Interpretation of Cities of the Interior by Suzette A. Henke
Nin's Diary
Un Etre Etoilique by Henry Miller
The Charmed Circle of Anais Nin by Karl Shapiro
Free Women by Patricia Meyer Spacks
"Excuse Me, It Was All a Dream": The Diary of Anais Nin, 1944-1947 by Evelyn J. Hinz
The Diaries of Anais Nin by Lynn Luria-Sukenick
Anais Nin in the Diary: The Creation and Development of a Persona by Duane Schneider
Truth and Artistry in The Diary of Anais Nin by Joan B. McLaughlin
Dropping Another Veil: Anais Nin's Henry and June by Philip K. Jason
A Story Never Told Before: Reading the New, Unexpurgated Diaries of Anais Nin by Erica Jong
Nin Herself
Looking Again at Anais Nin by Maxine Molyneux and Julia Casterton
A Mirror of Her Own: Anais Nin's Autobiographical Performances by Elyse Lamm Pineau
Bibliography
Index
Chronology
Introduction by Philip K. Jason
General Assessments
Anais Nin by Frank Baldanza
Anais Nin and the Discovery of Inner Space by Oliver Evans
Anais Nin and the Feminine Quest for Consciousness: The Quelling of the Devouring Mother and the Ascension of the Sophia by Stephanie A. Gauper
Anais Nin: A Critical Evaluation by Estelle C. Jelinek
The Music of the Womb: Anais Nin's 'Feminine Writing' by Sharon Spencer
Nin's Shorter Fiction
Passion in Parenthesis by Stuart Gilbert
Refinements on a Journal by Paul Rosenfeld
'Men...Have No Tenderness': Anais Nin's Winter of Artifice by William Carlos Williams
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Edmund Wilson
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Isaac Rosenfeld
Review of Under a Glass Bell by Violet Lang
The Textual Evolution of the First Section of 'Houseboat' by Benjamin Franklin V
Discourse and Intercourse, Design and Desire in the Erotica of Anais Nin by Smaro Kamboureli
Nin's Novels
Surrealist Soap Opera by Herbert Lyons
Freudian Noah's Ark by Rene Fuelop-Miller
Temperament vs. Conscience by Maxwell Geismar
Humanity Is the Principle by Malcolm Mudrick
Nin: The Topic of Paris by James Korges
Sexuality and the Opposite Sex: Variations on a Theme by Theophile Gautier and Anais Nin by Paul Brians
Lillian Beye's Labyrinth: A Freudian Interpretation of Cities of the Interior by Suzette A. Henke
Nin's Diary
Un Etre Etoilique by Henry Miller
The Charmed Circle of Anais Nin by Karl Shapiro
Free Women by Patricia Meyer Spacks
"Excuse Me, It Was All a Dream": The Diary of Anais Nin, 1944-1947 by Evelyn J. Hinz
The Diaries of Anais Nin by Lynn Luria-Sukenick
Anais Nin in the Diary: The Creation and Development of a Persona by Duane Schneider
Truth and Artistry in The Diary of Anais Nin by Joan B. McLaughlin
Dropping Another Veil: Anais Nin's Henry and June by Philip K. Jason
A Story Never Told Before: Reading the New, Unexpurgated Diaries of Anais Nin by Erica Jong
Nin Herself
Looking Again at Anais Nin by Maxine Molyneux and Julia Casterton
A Mirror of Her Own: Anais Nin's Autobiographical Performances by Elyse Lamm Pineau
Bibliography
Index