Jewett, Sarah Orne. (1849 - 1909).
L i f e
- born and died in a Maine coastal town > a deeply rooted regionalism
- educated by reading in her father’s library and by ‘reading’ the lives of people on the buggy rounds to rural patients of her father-physician
- published in the country’s best magazines, wrote more than 20 volumes of short stories, and enjoyed a large audience in her day
W o r k
- wrote short stories, sketches, and poetry
- a realistic use of settings, people, speech patterns, and modes of life
- her own experience of the shift from a maritime economic system to the industrial America: lives of people shaped both by natural and social conditions
- no rustic idylls about a perfect place and time x but: a celebration of the modest pleasures and virtues of the rural life
Deephaven (1877):
- her 1st collection of stories
A Country Doctor (1884):
- an expression of love to her father
- a celebration of the competence and independence of the female protagonist
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896):
- a loosely structured series of sketches x but: unified by setting and theme
- develops character rather than plot
=> preserves a disappearing way of life and offers a study of the effects of isolation and hardship of the life in the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast
Quote
"A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return".
From Country By-Ways (1881).
Basics
(Picture: Wikipedia).
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Author
Sarah Orne Jewett. (1849 - 1909). American. -
Work
Novelist. Short story writer. Author of The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). -
Genre
Modern fiction. Regionalism.
Literature
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1994.
McQuade, Donald, gen.ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper & Collins, 1996.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.