James Chandler - Doing Criticism

James Chandler

This edition first published 2022

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chandler, James, 1948- author.

Title: Doing criticism : across literary and screen arts / James Chandler.

Description: Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: Doing criticism/doing without criticism -- Makings of the critical essay -- Conversations -- Adaptations -- Genres -- Conclusion: Spike Lee’s Joints.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021060387 (print) | LCCN 2021060388 (ebook) | ISBN 9781405177795 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119800637 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119800620 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Criticism.

Classification: LCC PN81 .C54 2022 (print) | LCC PN81 (ebook) | DDC 801/.95--dc23/eng/20220126

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060387LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060388

Cover image: © Ruslan Bordyug/Shutterstock

Cover design by Wiley

Set in 10.5/13 STIX TwoText by Integra Software Services, Pondicherry, India

For my students at the University of Chicago,

1976–2021,

and those yet to come

1 Cover

2 Title page Doing Criticism Doing Criticism: Across Literary and Screen Arts James Chandler

3 Copyright

4 Dedication

5 Preface

6 Acknowledgments

7 PART I Critical Issues CHAPTER 1 Doing Criticism/Doing without Criticism1 Functions of Criticism2 Two Thought Experiments3 Limits of the Lyric Paradigm4 Criticism in the Convenience Store5 Criticism between Page and Screen CHAPTER 2 Makings of the Critical Essay1 Objects, Occasions, Frames of Reference2 Criticism and the Essay Form3 Critical Questions I4 Critical Questions II5 Critical Judgments

8 PART II Criticism in Practice CHAPTER 3 Conversations1 Beyond the Poem Itself2 Coppola Sounds Out Hitchcock3 Austen, Edgeworth, and the Moral Economy of the Novel CHAPTER 4 Adaptations1 Two-Way Street2 Point of View in Fiction and Cinema: The Remains of the Day 3 Frankenstein and Its Adapted Progeny CHAPTER 5 Genres1 Laws of Genre2 Satire across Media: Character and Impersonation3 Melodrama across Media: Character and Personalization CHAPTER 6 Conclusion: Authorship and Seriality—Spike Lee’s Joints1 Authorship, Seriality, and the Case of Spike Lee2 Some Spike Lee Joints: Conversations and Adaptations3 Crossing Genres in Bamboozled

9 Index

10 End User License Agreement

1 Chapter 1Figure 1.1 Prose transcription of Williams Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say,”.Figure 1.2 Manuscript copy of Emily Dickinson’s “Forbidden fruit a flavor has.”...Figure 1.3 Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) discussing...Figure 1.4 Jay (Jason Mewes) sneaking a Twinkie in Clerks .

2 Chapter 3Figure 3.1 Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) eavesdropping at the Jack Tar Hotel in The Conversation ....Figure 3.2 San Francisco cityscape, with Coit Tower, on the wall of Caul’s room at the Jack Tar Hotel in The Conversation .Figure 3.3 The view from the apartment of Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) in Vertigo ....Figure 3.4 Opening credits, Vertigo .Figure 3.5 Scope of microphone targeting the mouth of Ann (Cindy Williams) during the opening credits of The Conversation .Figure 3.6 Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) and her self-portrait as Carlotta Valdez in Vertigo .Figure 3.7 Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in reflection on the shores of Lake Tahoe in The Godfather :...

3 Chapter 4Figure 4.1 Point-of-view shot of a slave ship seen by the young Fanny Price on her journey from Portsmouth...Figure 4.2 Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) presses Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) about a book he is...Figure 4.3 Dr. Frankenstein sees himself as his creature before a mirror in the final scene of...Figure 4.4 The creature (Luke Goss) beholds his unfinished mate in Frankenstein . Source: Frankenstein ...Figure 4.5 Victor Frankenstein’s Irish landing relocated to Bavaria in Frankenstein (2004).