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Topic: John Barth


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In the News (Wed 10 Feb 10)

  
  John Barth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Simmons Barth (born May 27, 1930) is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.
John Barth was born in Cambridge, Maryland and briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, receiving a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1952 (for which he wrote a thesis novel, The Shirt of Nessus).
Barth began his career with The Floating Opera and The End of the Road, two short novels that dealt wittily with controversial topics, suicide and abortion respectively.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/John_Barth   (590 words)

  
 January 1998 - Library of Congress Information Bulletin
Barth read, however, was a writing exercise and preamble in which the author tortures himself at length (but with exquisite wordplay) about what he is going to write.
Barth: "To progue is to pick and poke around, to scavenge, to beachcomb where no beach is, to paddle along the lee shore of the bay in leisurely but sharp-eyed pursuit of whatever.
Barth was born May 27, 1930, in Cambridge, Md., and studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he graduated with an M.A. in 1952.
www.loc.gov /loc/lcib/9801/barth.html   (727 words)

  
 From Revolution to Reconstruction: Outlines: Outline of American Literature: American Prose Since 1945: Realism and ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
Barth's intent is to alert the reader to the artificial nature of reading and writing, and to prevent him or her from being drawn into the story as if it were real.
Barth's earlier works, like Saul Bellow's, were questioning and existential, and took up the 1950s themes of escape and wandering.
In Sabbatical: A Romance (1982), Barth uses the popular fiction motif of the spy; this is the story of a woman college professor and her husband, a retired secret agent turned novelist.
odur.let.rug.nl /~usa/LIT/barth.htm   (258 words)

  
 CONTEXT: Charles Harris Reading John Barth
As Barth writes in Chimera, "the truth of fiction is that Fact is fantasy; the made-up story is a model of the world." In works such as Sabbatical and On With the Story, reflexiveness is absorbed into the work's narrative flow.
Barth's assertion in Funhouse that "what goes on" between a man and a woman is "not only the most interesting but the most important thing in the bloody murderous world," may serve as a kind of thematic credo.
In his early fiction, Barth's primary source of metaphors was classical mythology, ancient tale cycles such as A Thousand and One Nights, and myth (e.g., Joseph Campbell, Lord Raglan); at mid-career, he turned to systems theory and, to a lesser extent, literary theory.
www.centerforbookculture.org /context/no5/harris.html   (1565 words)

  
 Scriptorium - John Barth
John Barth is "at that awkward age." He was born May 27, 1930 on B_____ Street in D_____ County, Maryland.
John Barth's love of sailing is replicated by Simon William Behler, the central character in Barth's 1991 novel The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor.
An essay by Dirk Vanderbeke on "Vineland in the Novels of John Barth and Thomas Pynchon" -- the Barth novel in question is The End of the Road.
www.themodernword.com /scriptorium/barth.html   (2458 words)

  
 John Barth
Barth is viewed as one of the inventors of American postmodernist fiction.
John Barth came to the Penn State faculty the semester I was on leave.
What John Barth used to allege as his reason for having moved from State College to Pine Grove Mills was that he didn't want his fiction to be considered academic novels, because they wouldn't be treated as seriously.
www.psu.edu /ur/archives/intercom_1996/April25/CURRENT/barth.html   (686 words)

  
 Online NewsHour: Art of the Story- November 18, 1998
JOHN BARTH: It's one of the things that the stories - it's one of the things that the series of stories is about.
JOHN BARTH: My muse is the muse with the grin more than the one with the grimace, though I respect both forms, as I respect both long and short forms.
JOHN BARTH: When I first was beset by the muse of the short story back in the 1960s, I decided since I'm a long-winded novelist, I'm going to start by writing the shortest story in the English language, which at the same time would be an infinite story that would go on forever.
www.pbs.org /newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec98/barth_11-18.html   (1184 words)

  
 Fiction: John Barth
Choose John Barth Lecture Hall for a virtual lecture hall devoted to all contemplations, musings, and queries concerning Barth.
Barth's early fiction is conventional in form and language, but The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) and Giles Goat-Boy (1966) are very long, experimental comic novels, indebted to the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov.
Barth's experimental pieces suggest that he is self—consciously concerned with what happens when a writer writes, and what happens when a reader reads—"the metaphysical plight of imagination engaging with imagination," as dramatized in the title story from his second collection, On with the Story (1996).
www.bedfordstmartins.com /litlinks/fiction/barth.htm   (306 words)

  
 [No title]
John Simmons Barth was born May 27, 1930, and raised along the Eastern Shore of Maryland in Cambridge.
Barth played the drums and had aspirations of becoming a musician or orchestrator but due to financial constraints, Barth transferred to Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 1947.
It is presumed that John Barth got the idea from visiting the sheep farm in the agricultural department of Penn State University with his children.
www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu /LitMap/bios/Barth__John.html   (1396 words)

  
 Dalkey Archive Press: John Barth
John Barth on Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges: "The Parallels!"
Recapitulating American history as well as the plots of his first six novels, Barth's seventh novel is a witty and profound exploration of the nature of revolution and renewal, rebellion and reenactment, at both the private and public levels.
Sabbatical is quintessential Barth: it involves sailing, twinship, the joy of love and literature, the sorrow of death and disaster, and a playfully complex narrative.
www.centerforbookculture.org /dalkey/backlist/barth.html   (348 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Chimera: Books: John Barth   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
In "CHIMERA" John Barth injects his signature wit into the tales of Scheherezade of the Thousand and One Nights, Perseus, the slayer of Medusa, and Bellerophon, who tamed the winged horse Pegasus.
Barth had a tendency to go off on a tangent at certain parts of the novel and I was found trying to decipher several passages.
Barth's award-winner that involves the re-tellings of three great myths, from the Arabian nights to Perseus in his later days and another hero not usually one of much note,this book shows Barth at the top of his form.
www.amazon.com /Chimera-John-Barth/dp/0618131701   (1607 words)

  
 John Barth (b. 1930)
Yet Barth in "Lost in the Funhouse" and in other works goes out of his way to draw to himself this label that sets him apart from more popular "men's writers" (or "businessmen's writers") like Ernest Hemingway or "women's writers" like Willa Cather.
In giving up the conventional mimesis of realism, Barth, however, elects the contrary powers of what, in Chimera, he terms the Principle of Metaphoric Means, "the investiture by the writer of as many of the elements and aspects of his fiction as possible with emblematic as well as dramatic value" (Chimera 203).
The most useful comparisons for Barth are to the international fictionists whom he cites as inspirations: Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and Italo Calvino; and to the experimental writers who are his fellow postmodernists: Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Raymond Federman, Cynthia Ozick, John Hawkes, Donald Barthelme, Lawrence Durrell, John Fowles, and others.
www.georgetown.edu /faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/barth.html   (1468 words)

  
 The Books: Further Fridays by John Barth   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
Barth shifts easily between the humorous and the erudite; his imagination draws him from postmodern fiction and chaos theory to memory, the arabesque, and the nature of imagination itself.
John Barth is the author of nine novels, as well as a series of short fictions, a volume of novellas, and a previous collection of essays and other nonfiction, The Friday Book.
John Barth is currently Professor Emeritus in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
www.twbookmark.com /books/0/0316083240/index.html   (314 words)

  
 Waggish: John Barth on Calvino and Borges
Barth gives a slight edge to Calvino for his weightless sense of fantasy, which Borges lacks.
Barth's point only seems to be that Calvino was considerably more interested in metafictional conceits than Borges, which is true.
Barth seems to undercut his case by mentioning the two of the most memorable characters in Borges's repertoire, Funes and "The Secret Miracle"'s writer-til-death Jaromir Hladik; are they only pathologies?
www.waggish.org /2003/06/john_barth_on_calvino_and_borges.html   (610 words)

  
 Barth_John_md
Barth attended Juilliard for a short period in an attempt to become a jazz drummer.
Barth is viewed as one of the inventors of American postmodern fiction.
John Barth has taught at the following universities: Junior Instructorship in English at the Johns Hopkins University from 1951-1953, associate professor of English at Penn State University from 1953-1965, professor of English at SUNY Buffalo from 1965-1971, Edward H. Butler professor of English at SUNY from 1972-1973.
www.ncteamericancollection.org /litmap/barth_john_md.htm   (1138 words)

  
 Skellarlist: John Barth
Giles Goat-Boy, Or, the Revised New Syllabus (The Anchor Literary Library); by John Barth.
Death in the Funhouse : John Barth and Poststructural Aesthetics (Studies in Literary Criticism and Theory, Vol 2); by Alan Lindsay.
John Barth and the Anxiety of Continuance (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction); by Patricia Tobin.
www.scenewash.org /contraband/barth.html   (867 words)

  
 PRX » Members » John Barth
John is a longtime public radio producer, reporter and editor.
John was the founding producer of Marketplace, went from there to run all of AOL's news operations and business, and then to the premier spoken-word site, Audible.com.
John was Editorial Director of the Public Radio Collaboration in 2003.
www.prx.org /user/johnprx   (98 words)

  
 Karl_Barth
Karl Barth (1886-1968) has been arguably the most significant and, in one way or another, the most influential theologian of the twentieth century.
If the number of recent publications are anything to measure his continuing importance by, it appears that the twentieth first century cannot forget him either.
The indications are that Barth's shadow still casts itself over much of what passes for theological discourse.
www.geocities.com /johnnymcdowell/Karl_Barth.html   (230 words)

  
 John Barth Interview with Don Swaim   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
John Barth, author of Lost In the Funhouse, talks to Don Swaim in this 1982 interview about his stylistic changes in writing, his feelings on critical acclaim and the role of complexity in his stories.
John Barth, author of Chimera, Floating Opera and the End of the Road, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor talks with Don Swaim in 1991 about Sinbad.
Barth also dicusses how some people feel as if they have read his books and know them even though they had only watched the movies.
wiredforbooks.org /johnbarth   (165 words)

  
 AllRefer.com - John Barth (American Literature, Biography) - Encyclopedia
John Barth[bArth] Pronunciation Key, 1930–;, American novelist, b.
Cambridge, Md. He attended Johns Hopkins (B.A. 1952), and, beginning in 1973, taught writing at its graduate school for nearly 20 years.
Barth's postmodern novels, experimental, comic, self-referential, and often sprawling, reflect his anger and despair at a world he finds ludicrous and meaningless.
reference.allrefer.com /encyclopedia/B/Barth-Jo.html   (254 words)

  
 Existential Primer: John Barth
Barth was noticeably influenced by Albert Camus in both morality and style.
Barth argued that literature was a confrontation between the writer and all past literary techniques.
One reason Barth was readily accepted in America, while other experimental writers were not, is Barth’s link to academia.
www.tameri.com /csw/exist/barth_j.shtml   (509 words)

  
 John Barth Selected to Chair National Minority Supplier Development Council   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
John M. Barth, chairman and chief executive officer of Johnson Controls, Inc. (NYSE: JCI) has been named as chairman of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC).
Barth’s personal commitment and leadership, with its national "Corporation of the Year" award in October 2003.
Barth is a past chairman of the Michigan Minority Business Development Council, one of the NMSDC’s 39 Regional Councils.
www.johnsoncontrols.com /CorpPR/Releases/corp/release763.asp   (434 words)

  
 The Fahey Files - John Fahey - Liner Notes - Dance of Death
Fahey himself was ill of germ warfare, Barth had suffered a broken foot and I was in shock as a result of direct physical assault.
At its first performance, given at a private party of select people in a suburb of the nation's capitol, the hostess was so overcome that she gave John and his friends 3/4 of a chocolate cake, 2 plates of spagetti, a fifth of bourbon, and 8 penicillin pills.
John learned the song from a group of children whose parents were attending the National Afgan Liberation Day festivities.
www.johnfahey.com /pages/v3note.html   (4322 words)

  
 Trying to Read John Barth’s “Life-Story”:
John Barth: An Introduction, David Morrell cites Barth’s claim that he wanted to “try something quite different” after writing two long novels in nine years (80).
lauds Barth’s “involuted” stories, of which “Life-Story” comes closest to this “dubious ideal” and states that Barth is “one of the most successful of the second generation of postmodernists” (441-42).
The Literature of Exhaustion: Borges, Nabokov, and Barth, John Q. Stark concludes that “Life-Story” is “clearly literature of exhaustion” because of its involuted plot, “containing Chinese boxes, arguing that life is a fiction” (140).
pages.prodigy.net /scifi20/barth.htm   (5019 words)

  
 Library :: Research Guides :: John Barth   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
SCOPE: John Barth has been described as a “concocter of comic novels.” As a contemporary novelist, Barth often takes a pessimistic view of the world.
Barth often resorts to jokes, pranks, parody, and other stylistic devices to make his philosophy palatable.
Books of John Barth’s works are listed in our on-line catalog under, “Barth, John,” and under individual titles.
www.dwc.edu /Library/barth.shtml   (205 words)

  
 John Barth "Spirit of Place" Second Session - 2002 Key West Literary Seminar   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
JOHN BARTH was born in Cambridge, Maryland, in 1930.
Subsequently, sadder but wiser, by happy default he enrolled on scholarship in the newly-established creative writing program at The Johns Hopkins University, where between dance-band gigs he began writing fiction and earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Both his first novel, The Floating Opera, and his first volume of short fiction, Lost in the Funhouse, were finalists for the National Book Award; his novella-triad Chimera won that award in 1973.
www.keywestliteraryseminar.org /spirit2/p_johnbarth.htm   (329 words)

  
 Scriptorium - John Barth
I recently wrote to John Barth to ask him a few questions now that his new novel is imminent.
John Barth: I really don't enjoy interviews -- once every 10 years or so is enough, to measure mind-changes -- and inevitably, with new book from new publisher, there'll be more unavoidable ones than I wish.
The postmodernist novel is aware of itself as words on paper, a made-up story; aware too of its predecession, what Umberto Eco calls "the already said" -- and yet able to say something new, or differently, and to satisfy our so-human pleasure in hearing a good story.
www.themodernword.com /scriptorium/barth_interview.html   (1203 words)

  
 Poets&Writers, Inc.
Most certainly, as an undergraduate and then a grad-student apprentice myself at Johns Hopkins in the latter 1940s and early '50s, I was impressed, entertained, instructed, inspired, and chastened by spectating such èminences grises as W.H. Auden, e.e.
cummings, John Dos Passos, and a decidedly intoxicated Dylan Thomas, who threw up in the wastebasket of our seminar room just prior to his public reading and had to be walked by our department chairman a few turns around the quadrangle to clear his head.
Apprentices especially (I wanted to protest but did not, just then) should be encouraged to acquaint themselves open-mindedly with the literary corpus's whole bag of tricks—what Umberto Eco has memorably called "the already said"—while working out for themselves their own next-stage aesthetic.
www.pw.org /mag/0401/barth.htm   (803 words)

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