Stephen Crane Studies 17.2

Now let's take a look at volume 17, number 2 of Stephen Crane Studies. The first article is "The Sound and the Fury in Stephen Crane's Maggie and George's Mother" by Shunji Kuga. This takes a look at the slang and speech habits of Crane's bowery folk. I'll spoil the surprise for you though...they mostly yell and curse a lot, and utter things like, "What'd hell?". I know many of you do as well.

Next is a piece about "An Unpublished Note and Inscription of Stephen Crane" by George & Jean Houston. The items are on photographs and date from 1897, sent to a man named Eben Alexander. I won't reveal what Crane wrote, you'll have to read Stephen Crane Studies 17.2 to find that out.

"'Our Own Steve Crane' in Chicago," by George Monteiro, samples some funny unsigned parodies of Crane's poetic style that appeared in newspapers during his lifetime. This one was published in the Duluth News-Tribune, August 6,1897:

A man walked along a crooked road.
The road was so twisted that sometimes the man met himself coming back.
"Ah," he said, and smiled. "Nit."
He was a wise man and bought a bottle of Keeley cure.

Last is a review of Patrick Dooley's "A Community of Inquiry: Conversations Between Classical American Philosophy and American Literature" submitted by John Clendenning.

New Issue of Stephen Crane Studies

I received volume 17, number 1 & 2 of Stephen Crane Studies this week. This is published by the Stephen Crane Society and as we've said before, is a must-have subscription for any Crane fan. Ordering info and table of contents for the last few issues can be found here. With this post i'd like to briefly go through #1, and in our next post we'll look at #2.

Enclosed with the issues was a very polite dues renewal notice. The editor, Paul Sorrentino, points out that the subscription/membership fee of $10 is still the same as it was for volume 1 in 1992. He makes a good point so i think i will forward this bill to my financial secretary for review. However it is signed "Paul" in what appears to be blue ink. Since Sorrentino is one of the top Stephen Crane experts i might have to archive this signed bill and add it to my Crane collection.

The look of Stephen Crane Studies hasn't changed much since i started subscribing back in 04-05. It is a slim half-page volume with a creamy cover and a photo of Stephen Crane on the front. The first article in volume 17, #1 is called "New York City Topography of Maggie and George's Mother" by Stanley Wertheim. It is the longest article in here and is an interesting read.

Next article is "Crane's "Red Wafer" Again" by George Monteiro. This is a funny one, as the author cites old school Crane critic John Berryman knocking down Robert W Stallman's theory that the wafer in the Red Badge of Courage is supposed to be sacramental. Instead the red wafer is supposedly inspired by discs used to seal letters back in the day. Which makes a lot more sense considering that Crane was not a religious-minded person. Monteiro ends the brief article by looking at Portuguese, Brazilian, and Spanish translations of Red Badge. He looked at five translations, and only one translates "wafer" as "seal." The other four follow Stallman's thinking and translate "wafer" as "host."

The third article is "The President's Column: In a Jocular Vein" by Tom Clayton of the University of Minnesota. He is talking about Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane, and a course on them he almost taught in '85-'86 but never did. Wow and i thought i was a slacker...get to it, buddy! He mentions a few of Crane's cynical poems and then Bierce's definition of cynic in The Devil's Dictionary. Sorrentino puts an editor's note at the bottom of this article that says, "...Though it deals with more than Crane, readers of Stephen Crane Studies should find it interesting." Luckily for him i do, and i also like Bierce, so i won't get upset and start pressin' charges.

Last thing in #1 is a review of Stephen Crane Remembered, edited by Sorrentino, 2006. The review is by Donald Vanouse, so don't mess around.