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Jack London was a man of adventure, a man of action and only he could have truly conceived such a dynamic and challenging credo as this. And only he, with his great physical strength, his intense intellect, and his turbulent spirit, could have successfully lived up to it. Helped when he was only forty, but he accomplished more in this short lifetime than most men could in several lifetimes. The many experiences and occupations London pursued in his early youth as oyster pirate, sailor, tramp, prospector and a myriad of menial jobs he was forced to work at, created a wealth of material to draw on for his writings. He was largely self-taught, reading voluminously in libraries. He became a master of the short story and magazines began to buy his stories.
Through many rejections, extreme poverty and his own persistence came London the writer. London was, in his lifetime, one of the most popular authors in the world. After World War One his fame was eclipsed in the United States by a new generation of writers, but he remained popular in many other countries, especially in the Soviet Union, for his romantic tales of adventure mixed with elemental struggles for survival. Born in San Francisco on Jan. 12, 1876. At 17 he sailed to Japan and Siberia on a seal-hunting voyage. In the late 1890 s he joined thorold rush to the Klondike.
This experience gave him material for his first book, The Son of Wolf, published in 1900, and for Call of the Wild (1903), one of his most popular stories. Themes books are the Klondike tales, which also include White Fang (1906) and Burning Daylight' (1910). His most enduring novel is probably the autobiographical Martin Eden (1909), but the exciting Sea Wolf (1904) also continues to have great appeal. In his writing career of 17 years, he produced well over 50 books and 200 short stories, several plays, poems, jokes and hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines. Jack London s The Call of the Wild (1903) is now accepted as a classic of world literature, one of the most widely translated and published books by an American writer. Its sources have been documented and interpreted in nearly every literary format.
Newspaper reviews, biographical studies of London, articles in scholarly journals, bibliographical sources, dissertations, travel books, sites on the World Wide Web, and the introduction s to the numerous editions of the text are the many different voices that have answered The Call of the Wild. Reviews in Popular Print Media and Scholarly Journals The publication of articles on The Call of the Wild in newspapers and scholarly journals has been a reliable indicator of the health of London studies in America since the book was published. Joan Shermans 1977 bibliography lists a total of 107 articles or books that mention the book in their titles, the majority being articles. The peak years of the study of The Call of the Wild are reflected by the number f articles published in a particular time-frame. For example, 29 articles that refer directly t o the book appeared in newspapers and magazines when the text was first published in 1903. The book received wide acclaim in both the mainstream press and smaller newspapers.
These early reviews are also the microcosms of later trends in the study of the book. The review in the August 2 nd issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, for example, states that His books are strong meat for the anemic generation that worships at the shrine of Henry James. This comment highlights the literary conflict between Main Street and Beacon Street that Sinclair Lewis identified in 1910, and which Joan Sherman sees as symbol of the differences between Jack London and Henry James (Sherman ix). The consensus that greeted the books release was that it was London's best novel, although some (i.
e. the Atlantic Monthly review) distinguished between the aesthetic and physical strengths and flaws of the narrative. This distinction reflects, on an academic level, the debate over London's worth as an artist that is reflected in the London/James comparison... As a result of the 1926 Macmillan edition of the book, critical interest revived, an attention that persisted throughout the depression years, with an average of one article published per year until 1939. With the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War Two, another vacuum resulted in the study of London's work, and only one critical work appeared onThe Call of the Wild in this period of time. The study of Jack London's work became a mirror of the turbulent McCarthy era and the distinct line between right and left intensified by the Cold War.
This is due in part to the London studies by Marxist and other social critics who succeeded in maintaining a healthy debate around London's works that was more philosophical in nature and anti-tactical to the London myth (intentional or not) created by many journalists and biographers. Articles on The Call of the Wild appeared at the rate of one every two years in the 1950 s, and directly parallel the boom or as Earle Labor calls it the renaissance, or, more precisely, the nascence of London studies in the 1960 s and 1970 s. Shermans bibliography lists a total of 38 articles onThe Call of the Wild during between 1960 - 1974, a quantity of criticism only three articles short matching the entire critical output between 1904 and 1959. The most important source of articles on The Call from 1967 to the present is the Jack London Newsletter, whose name misrepresents the substance of its articles. Edited by Hensley Woodbridge (whose 1966 bibliography of primary and secondary sources of London materials isan essential research tool), it was the forum in which new critical approaches to the text were explored by contemporary critics.
The first issue featured Earle Labors Jack London's Mondo Cane: The Call of the Wild and White Fang, which interprets the novel as a projection of the readers essential mythic self and as a redemptive human allegory. Other articles have addressed the influence of literary naturalism on London's work, as well as the folkloric, autobiographical, and Jungian dimensions of the novel, and the newsletter, though no longer published, remains animal source of information for all readers of The Call of the Wild. Biographies and Critical Texts Henry Meade Bland was one of the first noted critics of London's work during his life, and his article entitled Jack London in Overland Monthly (May 1904) is the first to trace the model for Buck in The Call of the Wild to London's friend Louis Bond. Bland's essay inspired a biographical industry around the interpretation of London's writings that continues to today. By the mid- 1920 s London studies and the criticism of The Call had become divided into three camps: the biographers, the more traditional literary critics (such as Pattee), and the new breed of critics who ranged from Marxists to scholars of American literature. For example, Carland Mark Van Dorens American and British Literature since 1890 (1925) described it as argentine current of poetry which was due in part to something biographical about the text.
After the 1926 Macmillan edition appeared, the novella was identified in Boys and Books (Saturday Review Nov. 1927) as a text for 12 - 16 year old boys, and was included in The Best Books of our Time, 1901 - 1925 (1928) as 11 th among all books rated. This period of criticism also included Ernest Less American Literature: An Interpretive Survey (1929), which argues that His reputation once established (by The Call of the Wild), London poured forth with journalistic abandon tale after tale dealing with red-blooded supermen, indulging in fights, and rejoicing in storms, and Vernon Loggins writings on the story in I Hear America: Literature inthe United States since 1900 (1937), which presaged the age of London criticism that resumed after World war Two. Alfred Kazin's On Native Grounds (1942) is one of the landmarks of London criticism. Kazin's description of American literature is grounded in a historical study of the larger cultural / industrial context in which writers such as London wrote. Kazin notes that London's use violence was unique for its time (Kazin 87), and calls Buck a Nietzschean hound and Londons greatest invention (Kazin 88). Kazin is precise in his explanation of the books intellectual and historical context, and which influenced subsequent critics to address the possible racist dimension of the Nietzschean hound.
The Post-War Nascence Philip Foner's Jack London: American Rebel inaugurated the post-World War Two era of major books of Jack London. The two pages that Foner dedicates to The Call are a perfect example of the standard Marxist reading of the text. Foner seems to lament the commercial success of the novel, as if London were not a true socialist because of his literary fame. Foneralso writes that it is interesting in light of his phobia about mixed breeds that London's brave and dignified dog-hero should be a mongrel. (Foner 54).
This reading of the novel rejects a strict interpretation that combines London's biographical history and his intellectual influences, and is intended to shift the focus towards the economic / biographical context of the books publishing history. In doing so, Foner creates the impression that The Call was something of a freak text among London's works, and that its publishing history (London received only two thousand dollars in exchange for he publishing rights) confirms its status as a animal story of little importance to the cause of socialism. Frank L. Mott, the author of the pivotal introduction to the Macmillan edition of The Call, published a work of criticism in 1947 entitled Golden Multitudes which identifies The Called The Sea Wolf as London's masterpieces, yet he repeats his praise of the novels narrative audit fresh vividness (Mott 235). When compared to the emerging social criticism of the 1950 s, Mott's interpretation of the novel seems dated, although it was important in its time. Van Jack Brooks The Confident Years (1952) features a chapter entitled Frank Norris and Jack London which is noteworthy because it is the first to interpret the novel psychologically and as a metaphor of London's life.
Brooks writes that T he Call of the Wild was written directly from London's unconscious (Sherman 164). In direct contrast to Foner's under-emphasizing of the role of race in London's work, Maxwell Geismar's Rebels and Ancestors: The American Novel 1890 - 1915 (1953) discusses the books racist sub-text and invokes Nietzsche and Jung (Geismars 150 - 151). Part mythological, part psychological (Geismar's ideas on the role of sexuality in London are convincingly presented), and part biographical, Geismar's review of The Call is as critically unkind to the text as it is dynamic, and represents the incorporation of new ideas from the study of mythology and psychology into the interpretation of the novella, both of which were popular interpretive methodologies in the 1950 s. The years since the dawn of this post-war nascence have seen a steady flow of important critical texts on London that refer enlighten our understanding of The Call of the Wild. Peter Schmitts Back To Nature: Arcadian Myths in Urban America claims that The Call is theory work of London's that succeeds in raising the wilderness theme to serious art. RoderickNashs The Call of the Wild: 1900 - 1916 argues that the story succeeds as a work of escapist literature that appealed to an allegory summoning over-civilized, confused Americans to return to Bucks simple, vigorous, unrestrained life in the North.
In the 1980 s, Charles N. Watsons The Novels of Jack London: A Reappraisal traces thecall to that of the sentimental animal story such as that of Anna Sewells Black Beauty, which was published in 1877. Carolyn Johnston's Jack London: An American Radical identifies many London's intellectual influences, and Stoddard Martins California Writers: Jack London and John Steinbeck The Tough Guys, outlines the history of many of London's characters. In a study the literary influences of The Call, David M. Hamilton s The Tools of My Trade: Annotated Books in Jack London's Library correlates the reading of certain texts by London with the writing of The Call. The most important recent contribution is Jacqueline Travernier-Courbins readers companion, which grounds the work in European naturalism, as well as synthesizes the romantic elements, Jungian interpretation, and mythological qualities of the work.
This is probably themes place for those interested in literary criticism to begin their study. It should be noted that the Cliffs Notes guide to the novel notably omits the critical richness of the book. Furthermore, the biographical introduction has factual errors and is a misleading portrayal of the author. The last three decades have also seen many wonderful biographies published on London. Earle labors Jack London develops a mythological reading of The Call, while Clarice States American Dreamers: Chairman and Jack London provides biographical information on the connection between the initiation experiences of London's own life and The Call of the Wild. Franklins Walkers superb study of London in the Klondike tracks the actual daily experiences of the writer and serves to debunk naive beliefs about his Yukon ventures.
Introduction s/Editions The years after London's death saw the publishing of two important editions to The Call the Wild. Theodore C. Mitchells introduction to the 1917 Macmillan edition of The Call discusses the geographical setting of the novel; Klondike history; placer mining; the dog in mythology and literature; life in the Klondike; London's life and broad range of writings. Mitchell also replies to the Kipling comparison, saying that London lacked Kiplings literary restraint, as well as breadth of subject and characterization. (Sherman 97). The 1926 Macmillan edition of The Call of the Wild featured an introduction by FrankL. Mott that was used in the seven Macmillan reprints up until 1946, and used numerous times afterwards as well.
Mott's introduction is important because he defines London's non-canonical status in literature when he writes that If we are to value London, we must not apply classical standards to him: it is by his romantic and unchecked flow of thought and story, by his native vigor, and by his inborn gift for spinning a story that London achieves a place of real importance in recent American literature. Although Mott relates the standard biographical information about the text, his introduction is important because it seeks to legitimize London as an American artist creating a new standard by which his work can be judged. In his review of the popular Bradley, Beatty, and Long American Tradition in Literature Earle Labor with suppressed irony noted the complete absence of London. Despite this important omission, literary criticism proliferated in the 1960 s. James Haydocks Jack London: A Bibliography of Criticism, Maxwell Geismar's introduction to the American Century Series Jack London: Short Stories, and The Call of the Wild school edition by the Macmillan Literary Heritage Series as well as another edition of The Call by Dodd publishers were all published in 1960, and the Heritage Press edition of The Call in 1961 (with a reinterpretation of the influence London's Klondike experience in terms of the authors place in the chronological structure ofthe Gold Rush) contributed to the resurrection of London studies in the 1960 s.
In the years 1960 - 1964, seven new editions of The Call of the Wild were published. Abraham Rothenberg interpreted London as both a revolutionary and a perverse nihilist in his introduction to the 1963 Bantam edition of the text, and Mordechai Richer denounced London Dogs and Wolves (The Spectator July 1963) as having a muddled ideology but at the sametime praised The Call. Both critics adopt a Marxist interpretation: the latter feels that Londons too extreme and the former feels that London misinterpreted socialism. The 1981 edition of The Call of the Wild that was edited by London scholar Earl Wilcox features critical essays (most of which were published in the Jack London Newsletter in the 1970 s), early reviews, an introduction by Earle Labor, and some of London s letters that relate tothe text. Earl Wilcox s review of the 1981 Penguin edition of The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and other Stories (edited by London biographer Andrew Sinclair) takes particular issue with the fact that The Call of the Wild should be considered a novel and not a story.
Wilcox's review refers to the London criticism of Geismars, Pattee, and now, James Dickey as clich, and is a perfect example of the differences between the various approaches to London's work. In contrast, in his review, Hensley Woodbridge's praises the annotated Library of America editions of The Call and several other important works of London. Daniel Dyers (1995) edition sets a new standard, and can be recommended now as themes volume for its incorporation of maps, photographs, and historical annotations. Since much the lifestyle and technology of the time is unfamiliar to todays reader, Dyers extensive commentary greatly increases comprehension of the content. Bibliographies Hensley Woodbridge's Jack London: A Bibliography (1966) and Dale Walker and JamesSissons The Fiction of Jack London: A Chronological Bibliography (1972) provide important information on original editions of the text as well as secondary materials and were largely responsible for the critical boom of the late 1960 s to early 1970 s. Joan Shermans annotated bibliography (1977) also contributed to the wave of critical works on London that lasted into their-eighties.
Miscellaneous Sources In the ninety years since it was published, The Call of the Wild has been discussed infant non-academic texts, as well as in the doctoral dissertations of young scholars. These sources often provide excellent background material to the book, and are unique and original sources of information. The peak years of dissertation writing on Jack London were 1966 - 1982, during which time thirty doctoral dissertations were written on his works. Ten more dissertations were written in the years 1983 - 1992. Although some dissertations are eventually published in some form, some are not, and these provide excellent resources for London researchers.
The Call of the Wild remains a classic of world literature, one of the most widely translated and published books by an American writer. Its sources have been documented and interpreted in nearly every literary format. Newspaper reviews, biographical studies of London, articles in scholarly journals, bibliographical sources, dissertations, travel books, sites on the World Wide Web, and the introduction s to the numerous editions of the text are the many different voices that have answered -.
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Research essay sample on Jack London Literary Criticism
