BASC50015 - Stories and Essays of William H. Gass

Course Description

William H. Gass’s In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife and Habitations of the Word

The recently deceased William H. Gass, multi-prize-winning essayist, novelist, critic, photographer, philosopher, master teacher, penetrator, avant-garde-ist creator and classical comprehender - was thrilling. On paper and in person. In recordings and on film. He was at once both the keenest analyst – a discerner and breaker-of-things-into-sense, and the most rigorous and voluptuous shaper of word and image that I have ever experienced. We will explore In the Heart of the Heart of the Country’s edged and liquid early short stories, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife’s astonishing visual / verbal meditation on Imagination and the Eros of entering-in reading, and Habitations of the Word’s insight-summoning essays. In the respected on-line academic source JSTOR, The Kenyon Review article on Gass’s Habitations of the Word lists as topics: Soul, Horses, Oratory, Desire, Poetry, Words, Platonism, Eyes, Demiurge, Beauty.  William H. Gass addresses much. He asks of perceivers attention and Presence. We will find that he rewards with worlds.