Letter to E. Schwartz on dark woods and Freud

This letter (March 26, 1958 on p, 547) by Porter provides her idea of Miranda's vision of Adam's death in the dark woods. It also takes on Freud in a most interesting way, not to mention her take on men for those of you looking at gender in her writing.

Letters: Autobiography, Fiction, and the feud w/ Josie Herbst

Here is the info I have been talking w/you about re: autobiography and fiction. In short, Josie Herbst was writer and good friend of KAP. In an early letter to her (Aug 3, 1934 to Josephine Herbst--note: this is a fragment of a draft, p. 109 in Letters), Porter explains her own approach to using autobiography as a jumping off place for fiction. Ironically, in 1947, Herbst published Somewhere the Tempest Fell, which contains the scene from one of Porter's parties while living in Paris--only the names are changed to fictional ones. To compound Porter's fury with bad writing on the part of her friend, she (Porter) also felt endangered because Herbst had become pro-Stalin, pro-Communist, and was on the FBI watchlist. Porter refused to review the novel. And here is a link to a biography of Porter that discusses her unhappiness with Herbst's "fiction."

NPR: Pale Horse....

You may listen to and read this broadcast on NPR by Alice McDermott, entitled "Why Libraries Should Stock Pale Horse, Pale Rider."

Website for WWI Posters: U.S.

Class: This site has an excellent collection of posters from World War I. It will give you a sense of Miranda's visual world in Pale Horse, Pale Rider.

O'Connor/Porter so far

This posting is really to demonstrate to you how I'd like to see the posts on this blog. You will need to submit and comment on, at the very least, one author's works that we are reading during the week in question. You, of course, are welcome to post comments, questions, outside materials that you've found interesting, and, especially, something that you wish the class to focus on for class discussion.
My preference, then, is that you post your comments before class discussion, preferably by noon on the day of class. Your post-class discussions and insights are also welcome.
I do want the entire class to be reading and responding to postings on a weekly basis. The minimum requirement, then, for Phase I (ending Oct 17)of the course will be 7-9 postings/7-9 responses. That will give you a passing grade of "C" for this phase. A "B" for the phase will consist of 10-12 postings/1responses, and "A," 13 -15 postings/13-15 responses. You will receive your grade according to your number of postings unless a posting is considered sub-standard--I will let you know immediately if that is the case so that you can correct it.
As you post, please provide labels (I call them "tags" ) for the major ideas in your post in the window at the bottom of the window entitled "Labels for this post." Feel free to create your own labels. Please add your name as label as well. The labels for this post will be Kay Cook, Blog instructions.