Wrestling with Old Heroes--again: Fourteen Familiar Letters on Classic American Literature

In Wrestling with Old Heroes-Again, Green re-engages with a series of favorite authors in a lifetime of reading and teaching-Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Emily Dickinson-aiming here to share his experience, and theirs, not as a professional literary critic but as the amateur he has always remained, in what he calls "familiar letters" addressed to literate amateurs like himself who read for the sheer love of it-and in this case out of a particular interest in how these very individual writers handled the stretches and strains involved in what Emerson called the "fall of man" into modern consciousness.


BOOK REVIEW

"Letters on Dead White Mostly Male Writers in the American 19th Century. In the forward, Green jokes of having considered and rejected the above title for his collection of letters on Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and Dickinson. It's appropriate, of course, with six of the seven authors being male and all of them white. A professor of English since 1964, Green doesn't stick to a tenure track style in these essays-written in the manner of letters addressed to a family member or friend-he weaves an interesting course in and out of this rich literary landscape. Blunt candor and clarity trump lit-crit pretense-the author is simply interested in elaborating on the essences that make each writer worthy of his or her greatness and Green's admiration. He lays the book's foundation with transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau, then moves on to the ebullient Whitman, romantic Hawthorn, epic Melville and daunting Dickinson, often providing the proper historical and intellectual context for each writer, as well as how and to what extent they influenced one another. The authors frequently speak for themselves, with Green quoting passages of each work discussed. The author set out on this quixotic adventure in amateurish criticism, and while he might hog