Literature for Today's Young Adults by Kenneth L. Donelson and Alleen Pace Nilsen (review)

BOOK REVIEWS163 dominance (the same theme at the core of Wordsworth's Prelude), a quest that includes occasional victories but ultimate defeat. The recapturings of Eden surface haphazardly in De Quincey's early writings, chiefly in the "Pleasures of Opium" segment of the original (1822) Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, where "De Quincey's imagination can freely integrate the world around him into a harmonious vision, drawing the heterogeneous into an encompassing pattern of the mind's acts and its possessions" (p. 21). The pleasures of opium invitably give way to the pains, and there is an equal sense of "personal incapacity to regain the lost community" (p. 24) in these works; for De Quincey, the demons can be kept away only so long. De Luca's is a comprehensive study in that it follows this imaginative struggle to its fullest consummation and then chronicles its inevitable demise. The high point of imaginative victory comes quite late in De Quincey's career, in the "dream-fugues" of The English Mail-Coach and Suspiria de Profundis. For the last time in these works, De Quincey was able to bring order from chaos, concord from discord in a "visionary autobiography . . . questing for self-fulfillment and repose in a world which he ultimately finds to one of his own making" (p. 56). From this point on, De Luca posits, imagination faded, leaving De Quincey to makepeace with the external world, to come to terms with the loss of his vision: "Thus in triumphing, as he says he does, over opium addiction ... De Quincey triumphs over imagination itself and reenters the world of ordinary experience" (p. 144). In the later works (such as the revised Con/essions) the epic is finished, and De Quincey settles into a world of mundane repose. One is reminded, in De Luca's narrative of the ascendance and ultimate insufficiency of De Quincey's imaginative vision, of similar pattern in the works of Wordsworth , Coleridge, and others of their time. That fact alone will raise the general estimate of De Quincey, for it allows a look beyond the trivial and the massive in his writings to an essential theme in accord with the ideas of the recognized giants of his literary age. Even though De Luca seems to be working under the constraints of an imposed conciseness (this book often apppears to want more fully to cover topics it merely mentions), he has given De Quincey the sort oftreatment that will definitely help to rescue him from the relative obscurity that his unusual literary course has often imposed upon him. FREDERICK W. SHlLSTONE, Clemson University Kenneth L. Donelson, and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Literaturefor Today's Young Adults. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman, 1980. 484p. Teachers and scholars who have bemoaned the paucity of adequate material — especially a textbook — about adolescent literature havecause to celebrate. Kenneth L. Donelson and Alleen Pace Nilsen have written an eminently readable and scholarly study, Literature for Today's Young Adults. Including not only those books found in the juvenile section of the bookstore but also adult books which adolescents read, the authors organize their book similar to a course outline for adolescent literature, beginning with some assumptions about young adults and reading (in addition to exploding some myths about teenagers and reading), continuing with an informative history, then focusing on contemporary literature, and finally discussing concerns of the teacher such as practical applications, censorship, ethnic books, and interviews with the authors of popular young adult literature. Perhaps most importantly for the adolescent literature enthusiast whose interest is often scoffed at, the authors argue effectively the cause of teaching and 164ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW studying adolescent literature, reminding teachers that an appreciation of literature is a skill which must be developed over years of reading. Their book is effective partly because of the exhaustive list of books which they discuss and the extensive research, which is evident on each page, and partly because of their entertaining and witty writing style, often including acidic attacks; they note of Pollyana: "So sickeningly sweet is the heroine that countless adults and young people could rightfully credit her with their diabetes." Students of adolescent literature courses will find this book...