Vern Wagner

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The suspension of Henry Adams

I "THE SUSPENSION of Henry Adams: A Study in Manner and Matter" utforskar Vern Wagner den unika stilen och innehållet i Henry Adams verk, en av de mest intressanta figurerna inom amerikansk litteratur. Adams, känd för sin skarpa penna och humoristiska ansats, undersöker i sina skrifter djupgående teman om amerikansk kultur och tänkande. Wagner erbjuder en grundlig analys av Adams fyra huvudverk, där han visar hur författarens stil skiftar beroende på ämnet.

Boken är indelad i tre centrala kapitel: "The Historical Critic," "The Educator," och "The Scientist." Dessa kapitel följer en inledande del där Wagner presenterar sin teori om humor och ger en kort biografi om Adams. Genom att fokusera på Adams unika förmåga att anpassa sin stil till olika teman, belyser Wagner hur Adams framgångsrikt kombinerade humor och allvar i sin skrivkonst.

Wagner tar även upp Adams övriga litterära verk, inklusive romaner, dikter och historiska studier, samt hans omfattande korrespondens. Denna djupgående utvärdering av Adams arbete ger läsaren en ny förståelse för hans betydelse som en litterär konstnär och humorist i den amerikanska intellektuella historien.

För studenter inom humaniora, särskilt de som är intresserade av amerikansk intellektuell historia och prosastil, erbjuder "The Suspension of Henry Adams" en värdefull inblick i en av de mest inflytelserika författarna i amerikansk litteratur. Vern Wagner, med sin akademiska bakgrund och erfarenhet, ger en trovärdig och insiktsfull analys som både entusiaster och forskare kommer att finna givande. Boken är ett viktigt tillskott för alla som vill fördjupa sig i Henry Adams och hans litterära arv.

Henry Adams was a great stylist in American English. His major works deal with the deepest American thought. He was a protestant in the fullest sense. He is one of the few genuine humorists in our literary history. The Suspension of Henry Adams is a book that deals with these statements. It is a study of the style and the substance of the major works in which it is shown that Adams was a humorist, meaning a man who exploits suspension and inconclusion of thought, and a writer using a variety of styles. Professor Wagner shows that Adams remarkable pen produced a different manner for each of the varied subjects of his four major works: the nine volume History of the United States (1891); the essay on late medieval art, poetry, religion, and architecture, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1904); his intellectual autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams (1907); and the final two essays on science and history considered together, "The Rule of Phase Applied to History" (1909) and "A Letter to American Teachers of History" (1910). In each case, Adams is shown to have perfected a special and distinct style of American English called forth by the demands of his different subjects.

The Suspension of Henry Adams presents a detailed examination of the major formal works primarily, considering Adams in three separate chapters as "The Historical Critic," "The Educator," and "The Scientist." These chapters follow "Preliminaries" in which Professor Wagner explains the theory of humor he has developed and provides a brief biographical summary of Adams. Attention is devoted also to the other literary pieces Adams wrote his novels, poems, and historical studies and to his many letters and the studies of other Adams scholars. The result is a complete and new appraisal of the works of Henry Adams that reveal him as a literary artist of commanding attention and as a humorist unique in our intellectual history.

This book will be of interest to college students who read the Education, Adams scholars and enthusiasts, and students of American intellectual history and of American prose style and humor.

Vern Wagner is associate professor of English, Wayne State University and has taught at Nebraska State Teachers College and the University of Washington. He received his degrees from the University of Washington, B.A. (1946), Μ.Α. (1948), and Ph.D. (1950). In 1959-60 he was Fulbright Professor of American Literature, University of Helsinki. The Suspension of Henry Adams was awarded the Hilberry Publication Prize for 1966.