The Red Badge of Courage

Description: 

When The Red Badge of Courage appeared in 1895, it won its author immediate critical success; Henry James and Joseph Conrad praised Crane's stylistic abilities. Without ever having experienced battle first-hand, Stephen Crane had rendered with remarkable acuity the thoughts and sensations of a young man at war. Five years later, at age twenty-eight, Crane was dead, and critical attention to his work waned. The 1950s, however, saw a renewed interest in Crane's work, and over a century after its initial publication, Crane's powerful evocation of universal fear and self-discovery speaks to modern readers as strongly as it did to his contemporaries.

The Red Badge of Courage establishes Stephen Crane as a writer formally and solidly within the great tradition established and fostered by Homer, Virgil, Milton, and others. VIVA MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS presents the best current criticism on the most widely read and studied poems, novels and dramas of the Western world, from Oedipus Rex and the Iliad to such modern and contemporary works as William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Don Delillo's White Noise.

Target Audience:

Students of Literature, English Departments & Libraries.