A Scream Goes Through the House: What Literature Teaches Us About Life - Softcover

"Simply put, A Scream Goes Through the House is a breakthrough book, a triumph of scholarship and writing. What a treat it is to have Weinstein guide us through some of the canonical works of literature and show us what we have intuitively suspected: that literature does more than just entertain; literature educates, literature provides us with a map for our journey, and literature gives the journey meaning. Indeed, A Scream Goes Through the House proves its own thesis by doing just that for the reader. It is a book for the ages."
--Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner and My Own Country

"A Scream Goes Through the House is the crown of Arnold Weinstein's distinguished career as a teacher and writer, a deep response to great works of prose and poetry, art, theater, and film from Sophocles and Shakespeare to a wealth of modern authors. This book is literally a matter of life and death, for it celebrates the bonds between our mortality and our survival, our pain and our sensitivity, our frailty and our strength, our individual and communal selves, the vital bridges only works of imagination can construct. A scream goes through the house, and whether it is the house of art or the house of human-kind, that scream--thanks to Weinstein's insight, eloquence, and courage--pierces the heart, wounding us even as it makes us whole and well. A passionate tribute to the power of art to restore us all."
--Robert Fagles

From the Hardcover edition.

Using examples from the works of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, Proust, Burroughs, DeLillo, Toni Morrison, and other notable writers, this intriguing new approach to literature demonstrates how to read the works of great authors to understand the complexities of human feelings and emotions, especially in moments of pain and suffering. Reprint. 11,000 first printing.