Background
Stillinger, Jack Clifford was born on February 16, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Clifford Benjamin and Ruth Evangeline (Hertzler) Stillinger.
(Jack Stillinger establishes and documents the existence o...)
Jack Stillinger establishes and documents the existence of numerous different authoritative versions of Coleridge's best-known poems: sixteen or more of The Eolian Harp, for example, eighteen of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and comparable numbers for This Lime-Tree Bower, Frost at Midnight, Kubla Khan, Christabel, and Dejection: An Ode. Such multiplicity of versions raises interesting theoretical and practical questions about the constitution of the Coleridge canon, the ontological identity of any specific work in the canon, the editorial treatment of Coleridge's works, and the ways in which multiple versions complicate interpretation of the poems as a unified (or, as the case may be, disunified) body of work. Providing much new information about the texts and production of Coleridge's major poems, Stillinger's study offers intriguing new theories about the nature of authorship and the constitution of literary works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195085833/?tag=2022091-20
( After more than a century of study, we know more about...)
After more than a century of study, we know more about Keats than we do about most writers of the past, but we still cannot frilly grasp the magical processes by which he created some of the most celebrated poems in all of English literature. This volume, containing 140 photographs of Keats's own manuscripts, offers the most concrete evidence we have of the way in which his thoughts and feelings were transmuted into art. The rough first drafts in particular are frill of information about what occurred, if not in Keats's mind, at least on paper when he had pen in hand: the headlong rush of ideas coming so fast that he had no time to punctuate or even form the letters of his words; the stumbling places where he had to begin again several times before the words resumed their flow; the efforts to integrate story, character, and theme with the formal requirements of rhyme and meter. Each revision teaches the inquiring reader something about Keats's poetic practice. Several of the manuscripts are unique authoritative sources, while others constitute our best texts among multiple existing versions. They reveal much about the maturation of the poet's creativity during four years of his brief life, between "On Receiving a Curious Shell" (1815) and "To Autumn" (1819). Above all, they show us what is lost when penmanship yields to the printed page: what Helen Vendler, in her insightfiul essay on the manuscripts, calls "the living hand of Keats." These sharply reproduced facsimiles provide compelling visual evidence of a mortal author in the act of composing immortal works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674477758/?tag=2022091-20
(Using the 180-year history of Keats'sEve of St. Agnes as ...)
Using the 180-year history of Keats'sEve of St. Agnes as a basis for theorizing about the reading process, Stillinger's book explores the nature and whereabouts of "meaning" in complex works. A proponent of authorial intent, Stillinger argues a theoretical compromise between author and reader, applying a theory of interpretive democracy that includes the endlessly multifarious reader's response as well as Keats's guessed-at intent. Stillinger also considers the process of constructing meaning, and posits an answer to why Keats's work is considered canonical, and why it is still being read and admired.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195130227/?tag=2022091-20
( In Romantic Complexity, Jack Stillinger examines three ...)
In Romantic Complexity, Jack Stillinger examines three of the most admired poets of English Romanticism--Keats, Coleridge, and Wordsworth--with a focus on the complexity that results from the multiple authorship, the multiple textual representation, and the multiple reading and interpretation of their best works. Specific topics include the joint authorship of Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Lyrical Ballads, an experiment of 1798 that established the most essential characteristics of modern poetry; Coleridge's creation of eighteen or more different versions of The Ancient Mariner and how this textual multiplicity affects interpretation; the historical collaboration between Keats and his readers to produce fifty-nine separate but entirely legitimate readings of The Eve of St. Agnes; and a number of practical and theoretical matters bearing on the relationships among these writers and their influences on one another. Stillinger shows his deep understanding of the poets' lives, works, and the history of their reception, in chapters rich with intriguing questions and answers sure to engage students and teachers of the world's greatest poetry.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252076370/?tag=2022091-20
(This is a study of the collaborative creation behind lite...)
This is a study of the collaborative creation behind literary works that are usually considered to be written by a single author. Although most theories of interpretation and editing depend on a concept of single authorship, many works are actually developed by more than one author. Stillinger examines case histories from Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mill, and T.S. Eliot, as well as from American fiction, plays, and films, demonstrating that multiple authorship is a widespread phenomenon. He shows that the reality of how an author produces a work is often more complex than is expressed in the romantic notion of the author as solitary genius. The cumulative evidence revealed in this engaging study indicates that collaboration deserves to be included in any account of authorial achievement.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195068610/?tag=2022091-20
Stillinger, Jack Clifford was born on February 16, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Clifford Benjamin and Ruth Evangeline (Hertzler) Stillinger.
Bachelor, University Texas, 1953. Master of Arts, Northwestern University, 1954. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1958.
Teaching fellow in English Harvard University, 1955-1958. Assistant professor University Illinois, Urbana, 1958-1961, associate professor, 1961-1964, professor English, since 1964. Permanent member Center for Advanced Study, since 1970.
(Jack Stillinger establishes and documents the existence o...)
( In Romantic Complexity, Jack Stillinger examines three ...)
( After more than a century of study, we know more about...)
(This is a study of the collaborative creation behind lite...)
(Using the 180-year history of Keats'sEve of St. Agnes as ...)
Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science. Member Modern Language Association, Keats-Shelley Association American (board directors, editorial board Journal, Distinguished Scholar award 1986), Byron Society, Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Shirley Louise Van Wormer, August 30, 1952. Children: Thomas Clifford, Robert William, Susan, Mary. Married Nina Zippin Baym, May 21, 1971.