Writing together/writing apart : collaboration in Western American literature

Author(s)

    • Karell, Linda K.

Bibliographic Information

Writing together/writing apart : collaboration in Western American literature

Linda K. Karell

University of Nebraska Press, c2002

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-210) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this study of collaborative writing in western American literature, Linda K. Karell asks broad and fruitful questions about how writing in general is produced and she challenges the definition of an author as an individual genius who creates original works of art in isolation. It is evident that Shakespeare and other classical writers borrowed heavily from and in fact often incorporated verbatim prior works into their own. Karell provides a close analysis of the various means by which writers work with others to produce their final literary products. The works of western writers illustrate traditional joint writing practices such as ghostwriting, or 'as told to' texts - as in the case of Mourning Dove and ethnographer Lucullus McWhorter; the incorporation of existing diaries or letters from other writers - Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose" with Mary Hallock Foote; dual-authored texts such as those produced by Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris; and writings by Mary Austin, Ivan Doig, Mary Clearman Blew, and William Kittredge. By challenging the seductive myth of the solitary writer within the context of the myth of the independent westerner, Karell makes a compelling argument for the degree to which writers collaborate. Linda Karell is an associate professor of English at Montana State University.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments Introduction: Collaborative Endeavors/Collaborative Texts 1. Writing Together/Writing Apart: The Politics of Collaboration in Western American Literature 2. Partners in Collaboration: Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris 3. A Question of Perspectives: Collaboration and Literary Authority in Mourning Dove's Cogewea 4. Mary Austin, I-Mary, and Mary-by-Herself: Collaboration in Earth Horizon 5. Collaboration and Contradiction in the Western Memoir: Ivan Doig, Mary Clearman Blew, and William Kittredge 6. "Her Future and My Past": Collaborating with History in Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose Afterword: Collaboration and Western Authorship Notes
  • Works Cited
  • Index

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