World Elsehere [Paperback]

Richard Poirier’sA World Elsewhere, originally published in 1966 by the Oxford University Press, is a signal book in American literature and literary history. Widely acclaimed upon publication, it has since taken its place among a handful of books considered mandatory reading for all students and scholars in the field. Poirier’s classic work, hailed both for its original thesis and for its stylistic elegance and clarity, is once again made available in this new Wisconsin paperback edition.

Richard Poirier’sA World Elsewhere, originally published in 1966 by the Oxford University Press, is a signal book in American literature and literary history. Widely acclaimed upon publication, it has since taken its place among a handful of books considered mandatory reading for all students and scholars in the field. Poirier’s classic work, hailed both for its original thesis and for its stylistic elegance and clarity, is once again made available in this new Wisconsin paperback edition.

“Mr. Poirier has written a brilliant book. . . . It is continuously exciting, filled with . . . imaginative analyses of the stylistic problems faced by the seminal American writers . . . [and] acute analyses of the incessant war between the artist and American society.”—American Quarterly

“Poirier makes a radical distinction between ‘works that create through language an essentially imaginative environment for the hero and works that mirror an environment already accredited by history and society.’ Although he discusses works of the latter kind for sake of contrast . . . his book principally studies authors who attempt the former. These authors seek to build ‘a world elsewhere.’ They try ‘temporarily to free the here . . . from systems,’ to create for him ‘an environment of freedom,’ the freedom being ‘that reality which lC@