A brief reading of "Desire under the Elms" by Eugene O'Neill illustrates how a conventional Oedipal reading of the playscript opens up spaces within the text for deconstructive free-play. In this case, a tension is identified and foregrounded between this conventional application of the Oedipal complex and Freud's interpretation of the…

In John Ehle's "The Winter People," the goddess Persephone is with Hades, and winter is upon the Appalachians in full force. Ehle's novel begins as Wayland Jackson and his daughter, Paula, arrive at the home of Collie Wright and her baby, Jonathan. The Jacksons' truck has broken down on their way from Pennsylvania to Tennessee following…

Reviews two books by Ivan Doig: "This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind" and "English Creek." Notes that both books provide a picture of life in the American West that is not pervaded by Western stereotypes of cowboys and Indians. (MM)

Reviews the contributions of African-American poetry to the development of English literature from the earliest Black orator through the works of Langston Hughes. Emphasizes the work of Phillis Wheatley, Paul Lawrence Dunbar,"The New Negro" writers, and Hughes. (FMW)