John Steinbeck, The Pastures of Heaven

Michael J. Meyer (DePaul University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1932

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

Steinbeck biographer Jackson J. Benson notes that during the first two decades of the century, American and European authors were being influenced by a great deal of experimental fiction. Citing such works as Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer (1925) and Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and The Dubliners (1916) as representative of the experimentation that was taking place, Benson suggests that during the twenties and thirties, Steinbeck was intrigued by these innovative works; he also maintains that the construction of The Pastures of Heaven, his second novel (1932), may have been influenced by these new structures for fiction, as well as by Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, published in 1919 …

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3267 words

Citation: Meyer, Michael J.. "The Pastures of Heaven". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 April 2007; last revised 28 August 2007. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7353, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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