Toni Morrison's Beloved: A Casebook

by William L. Andrews (Editor)

With the continued expansion of the literary canon, multicultural works of modern literary fiction and autobiography have assumed an increasing importance for students and scholars of American literature. This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.

This casebook to Morrison's classic novel presents seven essays that represent the best in contemporary criticism of the book. In addition, the book includes a poem and an abolitionist's tra published after a slave named Margaret Garner killed her child to save her from slavery--the very incident Morrison fictionalizes in Beloved .

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

William Leake Andrews (1948-) is an American Professor Emeritus of English at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a scholar of early African-American literature. Wikipedia

Reviews

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have detailed comments on my LT thread, but they read more like book report than a review. What I can say in summary is that this was valuable but difficult and not recommended unless you are doing a research paper. Some essays were excellent, some were jargony and unreadable, some were boring but usually with something of interesting to me. I read it stops and starts, fighting through tough essays, and enjoying others. They did overall add to my appreciation of the book and also contributed a lot to my review of Beloved (which can be found on the same LT thread).

To read more, see post 231 here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/147...