John Dos Passos, The Grand Design

David C. Dougherty (Loyola University Maryland)

Ed. by Stephen E. Meats, Pittsburg State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1949

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Grand Design is a fitting conclusion to John Dos Passos’s trilogy of disillusionment, District of Columbia, at once more innovative and more despairing than the other two components. During the next decade Dos Passos would concentrate on historical and autobiographical writing; his two novels from that time (Chosen Country, 1951 and Most Likely to Succeed, 1954) would be a substantial decline artistically. The Grand Design is less balanced in tone than the U.S.A. trilogy because Dos Passos has fallen victim to a tendency that is nearly inevitable for political satirists. He has begun to see politics as uniformly good and evil; his characters cease to be multi-dimensional, or real people …

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2902 words

Citation: Dougherty, David C.. "The Grand Design". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2015 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=708, accessed 11 May 2024.]

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