Rebecca Harding: LiFe in the iron MiLLs;
Dickens, Charles: Great expectations; Frank,
Anne: anne Frank: diary oF a younG GirL;
Hersey, John: hiroshiMa; Lawrence, Jerome,
and Robert E. Lee: inherit the wind; Naipaul,
V. S.: bend in the river, a; O’Neill, Eugene:
iceMan coMeth, the; Tolkien, J. R. R.: Lord oF
the rinGs, the; Voltaire: candide.
FURTHER READING
Cartwright, John. “From Aquinas to Zwelethemba:
A Brief History of Hope.” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 592, no. 1
(2004): 166–184.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Pathologies of Hope.” Harper’s
Magazine (February 2007): 9–12.
Eliott, Jaklin. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Hope.
Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers, 2005.
Havel, Václav. Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with
Karel Hvížd ’ala. Translated by Paul Wilson. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
Keyes, Flo. The Literature of Hope in the Middle Ages
and Today: Connections in Medieval Romance, Mod-
ern Fantasy, and Science Fiction. Jefferson, N.C.:
McFarland and Company, 2006.
West, Cornel. Commencement Address at Wesleyan
University. Middletown, Conn., May 30, 1993.
Ellen Moll
identity
The nature of textual creation from a blank page—
of all creation, really—is an exercise in identity poli-
tics: Each entity fashioned depends on inclusions
and exclusions. Thus, literary texts achieve selfhood
via the delicate balance of their various constituent
parts; just as humans are products of their DNA, so
are literary texts the result of the countless phenom-
ena occurring between their covers. They are unique
entities, themselves possessing a sort of identity to
which we, as readers, bring our own experiences and
resultant identities, therewith interacting to pro-
duce a distinct and original product: our individual,
respective interpretations of a text. Hence, literature
serves as a conduit not only to the world in which an
author writes but also to our very selves. Naturally,
this idea of self—of who we are—plays an impor-
tant role in the dissection of literature as it is very
active during our consideration of texts. Examining
this interaction further, literary theorists and critics
add another wrinkle by advocating myriad differ-
ent critical approaches by which to dissect a given
document. Marxists focus on the manner in which
societal institutions determine consciousness, and,
therefore, identity: New Historicists view the text as
a representative product of a certain time and place;
psychoanalysts seek the unwritten text, interpreting
the significance of absence; and many, many more
urge their respective techniques for interrogating
literature, which is, after all, a function of identity
formulation. Regardless of approach, however, one
thing is clear: English letters have, throughout the
years, approached questions of identity in myriad
different ways.
The texts that constitute the genesis of Western
literary studies pose questions of identity via their
rootings in conflict. Homer’s The iLiad and The
odyssey, beowuLF (Anonymous)—the cornerstone
documents of the field wage war with nearly every
word. And while bloodshed presents itself often in
these seminal works, on a more abstract level, it is
the struggle that has prime significance. The drawing
of battle lines and national boundaries affords both
the author and the reader the opportunity to choose
sides—to ask: Where do I stand? With whom am
I? And concurrent to consideration of these spatial
and philosophical concerns is the broader question
of, simply, who am I?
Along with battle, another way humans attempt
to define themselves is through religion, and this
has certainly been demonstrated in literature. Of
course, the significance of the Bible itself cannot be
overstated, but neither can the subsequent works of
fiction that sought to allegorize Christianity for the
purpose of providing direction and, concurrently,
identity to their readers. Texts such as William
Langland’s Piers Plowman and John Bunyan’s The
piLGriM’s proGress feature “everyman” protagonists
struggling against the pressures of temptation and
sin in a post-Fall world, whereas religious ecstasy is
sought in the poetry of George Herbert and Robert
Herrick. Thus, whereas conflict for one’s selfhood
can, as demonstrated by Homer and others, present
itself externally, strife can nevertheless rage within asidentity 53