John Barth
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| - | '''John Simmons Barth''' (born [[May 27]], [[1930]]) is an [[American novel]]ist and short-story writer, known for the [[postmodern literature|postmodernist]] and [[metafiction|metafictive]] quality of his work. | + | '''John Barth''' (1930 – 2024) was an [[American writer]] best known for his [[postmodern literature|postmodern]] and [[metafiction]]al fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include [[The Sot-Weed Factor (novel)|''The Sot-Weed Factor'']], a whimsical retelling of [[Maryland]]'s colonial history, ''[[Giles Goat-Boy]]'', a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the [[Cold War]] world, and ''[[Lost in the Funhouse]]'', a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel [[Chimera (Barth novel)|''Chimera'']]. |
| - | == Biography == | + | ==Bibliography== |
| - | 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]]''). | + | ===Novels=== |
| - | + | *''[[The Floating Opera]]'' (1956) | |
| - | He was a professor at [[Penn State University]] (1953-1965), [[University at Buffalo, The State University of New York|University at Buffalo]] (1965-1973), [[Boston University]] (visiting professor, 1972-1973), and [[Johns Hopkins University]] (1973-1995) before he retired in 1995. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ==Literary work== | + | |
| - | 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. They were straightforward tales; as Barth later remarked, with gentle condescension, they "didn't know they were novels". | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ''[[The Sot-Weed Factor]]'' was an unprecedented leap in literature, an 800-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland based on an actual poet, [[Ebenezer Cook]], who wrote a poem of that name. ''[[The Sot-Weed Factor]]'' was what [[Northrop Frye]] called an ''[[anatomy]]'' — a large, loosely structured work, with digressions, distractions, stories within stories, and lists (such as a lengthy exchange of insulting terms by two prostitutes). The fictional Ebenezer Cooke (repeatedly described as "poet and virgin") is a [[Candide]]-like innocent who sets out to write a heroic epic and is disillusioned enough that the final poem is a biting satire. | + | |
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| - | Barth's next book, ''[[Giles Goat-Boy]]'', of comparable size, was a speculative fiction based on the conceit of the university as universe. It could be described as a fictional gospel about a half-man half-goat who discovers his humanity and becomes a savior in a university that allegorically represents the universe, presented as a computer tape given to John Barth, who denies that it is his work. In the course of the book, Giles carries out all the tasks prescribed by [[Joseph Campbell]] in ''[[The Hero with a Thousand Faces]]''. Barth kept a list of the tasks taped to his wall while he was writing the book. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | The short story collection ''[[Lost in the Funhouse]]'' and the novella collection ''[[Chimera (John Barth novel)|Chimera]]'' were even more [[metafiction]]al than their two predecessors, foregrounding the writing process and presenting achievements such as seven nested quotations. ''[[LETTERS]]'' was yet another tour de force, in which Barth and the characters of his first six books interacted. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | While writing those books, Barth was also pondering and discussing the theoretical problems of fiction writing, most notably in an essay, "[[The Literature of Exhaustion]]" (first printed in the ''[[Atlantic]]'', [[1967]]), that was widely considered to be a statement of "[[the death of the novel]]" (Compare with [[Roland Barthes]]'s "The Death of the Author"). Barth has since insisted that he was merely making clear that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointing to possible directions from there. He later ([[1979]]) wrote a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment", to clarify the point. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | His fiction continues to maintain a precarious balance between postmodern self-consciousness and wordplay on the one hand, and the sympathetic characterisation and "page-turning" plotting commonly ascribed to more traditional genres and subgenres of classic and contemporary storytelling. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | == Awards == | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | 1956 — Nominated for the National Book Award for The Floating Opera. | + | |
| - | 1966 — National Institute of Arts and Letters grant in literature. | + | |
| - | 1965 — The Brandeis University creative arts award in fiction. | + | |
| - | 1965-66 — The Rockefeller Foundation grant in fiction. | + | |
| - | 1968 — Nominated for the National Book Award for Lost in the Funhouse. | + | |
| - | 1972 — Awarded the National Book Award for Chimera. | + | |
| - | 1974 — Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. | + | |
| - | 1974 — Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. | + | |
| - | 1997 — F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Fiction. | + | |
| - | 1998 — Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. | + | |
| - | 1998 — PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. | + | |
| - | 1999 — Enoch Pratt Society's Lifetime Achievement in Letters Award. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ==Selected works== | + | |
| - | ===Fiction=== | + | |
| - | *''[[The Floating Opera]]'' (1957) | + | |
| *''[[The End of the Road]]'' (1958) | *''[[The End of the Road]]'' (1958) | ||
| - | *''[[The Sot-Weed Factor]]'' (1960) | + | *''[[The Sot-Weed Factor (novel)|The Sot-Weed Factor]]'' (1960) |
| - | *''[[Giles Goat-Boy|Giles Goat-Boy, or, The Revised New Syllabus]]'' (1966) | + | *''[[Giles Goat-Boy]]'' (1966) |
| - | *''[[Lost in the Funhouse|Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice]]'' (stories) (1968) | + | *''[[Chimera (Barth novel)|Chimera]]'' (1972) |
| - | *''[[Chimera (John Barth novel)|Chimera]]'' (three linked novellas) (1972) | + | *''[[LETTERS]]'' (1979) |
| - | *''[[LETTERS (novel)|LETTERS]]'' (1979) | + | |
| *''[[Sabbatical: A Romance]]'' (1982) | *''[[Sabbatical: A Romance]]'' (1982) | ||
| - | *''[[Tidewater Tales|The Tidewater Tales]]'' (1987) | + | *''[[The Tidewater Tales]]'' (1987) |
| *''[[The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor]]'' (1991) | *''[[The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor]]'' (1991) | ||
| - | *''[[Once upon a Time: A Floating Opera]]'' (memoirish novel) (1994) | + | *''[[Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera]]'' (1994) |
| - | *''[[On with the Story]]'' (stories) (1996) | + | *''[[Coming Soon!!!]]: A Narrative'' (2001) |
| - | *''[[Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative]]'' (2001) | + | *''[[Where Three Roads Meet]]'' (2005) |
| - | *''[[The Book of Ten Nights and a Night: Eleven Stories]]'' (2004) | + | *''[[Every Third Thought|Every Third Thought: A Novel in Five Seasons]]'' (2011) |
| - | *''[[Where Three Roads Meet]]'' (three linked novellas) (2005) | + | |
| + | ===Short stories collection=== | ||
| + | *''[[Lost in the Funhouse]]: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice'' (1966) | ||
| + | *''On with the Story'' (1996) | ||
| + | *''The Book of Ten Nights and a Night: Eleven Stories'' (2004) | ||
| + | *''[[The Development]]: Nine Stories'' (2008) | ||
| + | *''Collected Stories'' (2015) | ||
| ===Nonfiction=== | ===Nonfiction=== | ||
| - | *''[[The Friday Book]]'' (1984) | + | *''The Friday Book: Essays and Other Nonfiction'' (1984) |
| - | *''[[Further Fridays]]'' (1995) | + | *''Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction, 1984-1994'' (1995) |
| - | *"Very Like an Elephant: ''Reality vs. Realism''" ''Further Fridays''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995. | + | *''Final Fridays: Essays, Lectures, Tributes & Other Nonfiction, 1995-'' (2012) |
| + | *''Postscripts (or Just Desserts): Some Final Scribblings'' (2022) | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==See also== | ||
| + | * [[Maryland literature]] | ||
| + | |||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 17:59, 4 April 2024
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"John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor is a thoroughly fictional account of the life of real person Ebenezer Cooke, a Maryland colonist who in 1708 wrote the real satirical poem ""The Sot-Weed Factor"". Barth's Cooke is a naive innocent who sets out to write a heroic epic, becomes disillusioned and ends up writing a biting satire." --Sholem Stein "Sterne is perhaps the most blatant forebear of Barth’s brand of parody and self-consciousness about novelistic conventions. The causality of plots, the use of illustrations and footnotes, the demand for moral content, adventures, suspense, the time conventions, the writer’s power, the critic’s demands, chapter divisions, the use of prefaces, cover pages, digressions, stylistic uniformity - these are only a few of Tristram Shandy’s parodied conventions."--Narcissistic Narrative (1980) by Linda Hutcheon |
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Featured: |
John Barth (1930 – 2024) was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include The Sot-Weed Factor, a whimsical retelling of Maryland's colonial history, Giles Goat-Boy, a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the Cold War world, and Lost in the Funhouse, a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel Chimera.
Contents |
Bibliography
Novels
- The Floating Opera (1956)
- The End of the Road (1958)
- The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
- Giles Goat-Boy (1966)
- Chimera (1972)
- LETTERS (1979)
- Sabbatical: A Romance (1982)
- The Tidewater Tales (1987)
- The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991)
- Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994)
- Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative (2001)
- Where Three Roads Meet (2005)
- Every Third Thought: A Novel in Five Seasons (2011)
Short stories collection
- Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice (1966)
- On with the Story (1996)
- The Book of Ten Nights and a Night: Eleven Stories (2004)
- The Development: Nine Stories (2008)
- Collected Stories (2015)
Nonfiction
- The Friday Book: Essays and Other Nonfiction (1984)
- Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction, 1984-1994 (1995)
- Final Fridays: Essays, Lectures, Tributes & Other Nonfiction, 1995- (2012)
- Postscripts (or Just Desserts): Some Final Scribblings (2022)
See also
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "John Barth" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
