Books by John T. Irwin

When it was first published, Doubling and Incest/Repetition and Revenge proved to be a seminal work in the psychoanalytic study of Faulkner's fiction, especially of The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! This softcover reissue of John Irwin's masterful exposition unwinds the mystery of unconscious desire and doubling that inform the novels.

The first rigorous literary engagement with Weldon Kees's poetry, this book is an astonishing reassessment of one of the twentieth century's most gifted writers.

Along the way, he touches upon a wide range of topics that fascinated people of the day, including the journey to the source of the Nile and ideas about the origin of language.

Irwin seamlessly ties together details from Fitzgerald's life with elements from his entire body of work and considers central themes connected to wealth, class, work, love, jazz, acceptance, family, disillusionment, and life as theatrical performance.

Hart Crane may have lived in Cleveland, Ohio, but, as Irwin masterfully shows, his poems stand among the greatest written in the English language.

Finally, he discusses how these themes persist in contemporary dramatic series on television, representing the conflicted lives of Americans into the twenty-first century.

Irwin mirrors the aesthetic impact of the genre by creating in his study the dynamics of a detective story-the uncovering of mysteries, the accumulation of evidence, the tracing of clues, and the final solution that ties it all together.