The Literary Criticism Web

Call me the Web Man. -- Doesn't sound like a very promising first line of a novel, does it? But perhaps it does fit the persona I've taken on with increasing frequency in recent years. No, the appellation isn't descriptive of a congenital deformity of my appendages. However, I have become a kind of amphibian. At least I have found myself living on the interface between the "old" and the "new" media . . . between the traditional, solid landscape of libraries and literature in cloth or paperback, and the chaotic, insubstantial sea of software and search engines and websites.

Living such an amphibious life seems more and more a necessity today in any field of endeavor. But it is especially a necessity in education, for both student and teacher. Necessities can be burdens, or they can be opportunities. CDROM drives and new software and modems and internet connections are at times all troublesome, but they always offer opportunities. They are the Pinta, the Niña, the Santa Maria, and Apollo 11 and 13 all combined. The sea monsters threaten. The White Whale may eat your hard drive. Disaster is inevitable. But these media can transport us to New Worlds. Or more precisely, they can provide the means to rediscover our World and to recover from it new insights into our human experience. Because of these new media we have a breadth of access to one another as human beings and access to the artifacts of our cultural heritage that was unimagined 25 years ago.

For me the experience of literature -- reading it, talking about it, writing about it -- has always been about making connections. Connections with a dead poet, connections with my own muddled feelings and half-thunk thoughts, even connections with my students. Since the new media amplify our opportunities to connect, my development of a website on literary criticism was perhaps inevitable. I hope you will find materials here that will help you explore your literary connections with new insight.

Certainly in selecting and writing materials for inclusion here, I have learned a lot about literary criticism, even after teaching it for 15 years. But between hammering out glossary definitions and designing navigation schemes and threading hyperlinks, the most important connection I have made has been with my colleague, Jennifer Perkins. Without Jennifer's good-humored persistence and her readiness to journey into terra incognito with a Web Man, this cyberspaced edifice would not have materialized. My thanks to her! She too is an amphibian: Call her Web Girl.

If you've not already disconnected from this webpage and found more interesting waters to swim in, it's nearly time to do so. If you want to visit my official homepage and explore some other academic websites I have established, click the appropriate link below. Or you may be curious about Jennifer's comments on this project or want to scout out an abridged version of the grant proposal that began our work. (We appreciate very much the support provided by the Appalachian College Association!) In any case, now that you're standing on the edge of this Pacific, gazing with what a wild surmise, point and click! Come on in! The water's fine.

updated 08/01/99