Intertextual and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cormac McCarthy by Monk, Nicholas;

Short description:

This collection offers a fresh approach to the work of Cormac McCarthy, one of the most important contemporary American authors. Essays focus on his work across the genres and/or in constellation with other writers and artists, presenting not only a different "angle" on the work, but setting him within a broader literary and artistic context. Such an approach offers a view of McCarthy that is strikingly different to previous collections that have dealt with the work in an almost exclusively "single author" and/or "single genre" mode. McCarthy’s novels are increasingly regarded as amongst the most rich, the most complex, and the most insightful of all recent literary responses to prevailing conditions in both the USA and beyond, and this collection recognizes the intertextual and interdisciplinary nature of his work. Contributors draw back the curtain on some of McCarthy’s literary ancestors, revealing and analyzing some of the fiction’s key contemporary intertexts, and showing a complex and previously underestimated hinterland of influence. In addition, they look beyond the novel both to other genres in McCarthy’s oeuvre, and to the way these genres have influenced McCarthy’s writing.

Long description:

This collection offers a fresh approach to the work of Cormac McCarthy, one of the most important contemporary American authors. Essays focus on his work across the genres and/or in constellation with other writers and artists, presenting not only a different "angle" on the work, but setting him within a broader literary and artistic context. Such an approach offers a view of McCarthy that is strikingly different to previous collections that have dealt with the work in an almost exclusively "single author" and/or "single genre" mode. McCarthy’s novels are increasingly regarded as amongst the most rich, the most complex, and the most insightful of all recent literary responses to prevailing conditions in both the USA and beyond, and this collection recognizes the intertextual and interdisciplinary nature of his work. Contributors draw back the curtain on some of McCarthy’s literary ancestors, revealing and analyzing some of the fiction’s key contemporary intertexts, and showing a complex and previously underestimated hinterland of influence. In addition, they look beyond the novel both to other genres in McCarthy’s oeuvre, and to the way these genres have influenced McCarthy’s writing.

"Intertextual and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cormac McCarthy: Borders and Crossings represents an important contribution to Cormac McCarthy scholarship. The diversity of these essays mirrors the maturation and expansion of McCarthy scholarship…the project provides a blueprint for future critical scholarship in McCarthy studies." –William Brannon, Cormac McCarthy Studies

Table of Contents:

Preface Rick Wallach  Acknowledgments   Introduction Nicholas Monk  1. Blood Meridian and Classical Greek Thought David Williams  2. The Ties that Bind: Intertextual Links between All the Pretty Horses and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Megan McGilchrist  3. Cormac McCarthy and the American Literary Tradition: Wording the End" Jan Nordby Gretlund  4. Cormac McCarthy’s House Peter Josyph  5. The Painterly Eye: Waterscapes in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road Dianne C. Luce  6. The Silent Sheriff: No Country for Old Men: A Comparison of Novel and Film John Cant  7. A Namelessness Wheeling in the Night: Shapes of Evil in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and John Carpenter’s Halloween Michael Madsen  8. ‘A Novel in Dramatic Form’: Metaphysical Tension in The Sunset Limited" Ciarán Dowd  9. Believing in The Sunset Limited: A Talk with Tom Cornford on Directing McCarthy Tom Cornford and Peter Josyph  10. Cold Dimensions, Little Worlds: Self, Death, and Motion in Suttree and Beckett's Murphy Euan Gallivan  11. From Blood Meridian to Blue Meridian John Ferer  12. Versions of the Seeleroman: Cormac McCarthy and Leslie Silko Nicholas Monk  Index