Bradbury, Ray (1920—)
Although well-known to and beloved by many as a leading writer of science fiction, Ray Bradbury is a far more complicated subject than most may realize. In the world of sc...
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Biography EssayAlthough Ray Bradbury remains perhaps the best known of all science-fiction writers, and although his stories and themes have permeated all areas of American culture as have those of no...
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Ray Bradbury (born 1920) was among the first authors to combine the concepts of science fiction with a sophisticated prose style. Often described as economical yet poetic, Bradbury's fiction conveys a...
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Ray Bradbury is an interesting writer who has unjustly suffered from critical neglect. In a sense he has been the victim of a genre. To consider his work as "science fiction" or "fantasy"--no matter h...
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[This entry was updated by Gary K. Wolfe (Roosevelt University) from his entry in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, volume 6, pp. 16-33.]Although Ray Bradbury remains perhaps the ...
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Critical Essay by Kingsley Amis
[Despite Bradbury's] regrettable tendency to dime-a-dozen sensitivity, he is a good writer, wider in range than any of his colleagues, capable of seeing life on ...
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Critical Essay by Russell Kirk
Ray Bradbury has drawn the sword against the dreary and corrupting materialism of this century; against society as producer-and-consumer equation, against the hideousnes...
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Critical Essay by John B. Rosenman
Faulkner's "That Evening Sun" (1931) and Bradbury's Dandelion Wine (1957) share an archetypal pattern that Maud Bodkin described in 1934....
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Critical Essay by Wayne L. Johnson
Since "Zero Hour" and "Mushrooms" are both primarily suspense stories, they share a number of structural traits common to such stories. F...
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Critical Essay by Ray Bradbury
[The difference between the genres of science fiction and fantasy is that science] fiction is the art of the possible. There's never anything fantastic about scie...
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In the following review, Disch attacks Bradbury's collected stories as unimaginative and poorly written, asserting that "Mr. Bradbury's failures outnumber his successes. "
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In his review of Bradbury's collected Stories, Card briefly discusses the author's subject matter, noting that his short fiction exceeds the boundaries of the science fiction genre.
Fift...
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In this excerpted essay, Plank offers a variety of interpretations of Bradbury's "April 2000: The Third Expedition," lending insight into other stories collected in The Martian Ch...
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In the excerpt below, King places Bradbury's fantasy fiction in the tradition of American naturalism, adding that the early collection Dark Carnival contains the author's best horror sto...
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In the following essay, Mogen explores mythopoetic elements in Bradbury's space-frontier fiction.
Bradbury's space-colonization fiction integrates two major myth systems to express the s...
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In this essay, Bradbury explains how he wrote many of his short stories, claiming that they evolved out of personal experiences and fears.
Run fast, stand still. This, the lesson from lizards. For all...
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In the essay below, Highet comments on the originality of Bradbury's short fiction.
One of the most difficult things to achieve in writing fiction is individuality. Hundreds of novels, thousand...
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In the following essay, Knight presents a brief overview of Bradbury's early short fiction, noting that his principal subject is childhood.
Ray Bradbury began writing professionally at the floo...
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In the essay below, Kirk alleges that it is Bradbury's preoccupation with the "moral imagination," rather than science and technology, that distinguishes him from other writers of...
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In the essay below, Dimeo uncovers moralism in Bradbury's short fiction.
Although religious thinking in the space age has been largely dominated by Nietzschean apostasy, science fiction itself ...
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In the following excerpt, McNelly purports that Bradbury's short fiction is thematically tied to mainstream American tradition.
Ray Bradbury, hailed as a stylist and a visionary by critics such...
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In the excerpt that follows, Stupple explores the relationship between the past and the future in Bradbury's short stories.
Anyone who has ever watched those classic "Flash Gordon"...
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The following review provides a positive appraisal of Driving Blind.
The 21 stories in Bradbury's new anthology [Driving Blind] are full of sweetness and humanity. Despite bizarre actions and a...
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The following review offers a favorable assessment of the collection One More for the Road.
“You do not build a Time Machine unless you know where you are going.… But I built my Time Mac...
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In the following essay, Wolfe links “the traditional frontier orientation of much of American literature” and Bradbury's science fiction tales.
In an interview in 1961 Ray Bradbur...
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In the following essay, Dimeo maintains that religious concerns play a significant role in Bradbury's short fiction.
Although religious thinking in the space age has been largely dominated by N...
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In the following essay, Wolfe surveys the major characteristics of Bradbury's post-holocaust science fiction.
In Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story “The Highway,” a poor Mexic...
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In the following essay, Bradbury discusses the role of memory in his work.
When I began to write Dandelion Wine (1975), first I rummaged through my mind for words that could describe my personal night...
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In the following essay, Stockwell provides a stylistic analysis of “The Night,” focusing on Bradbury's utilization of language and the story's place within the conventions ...
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Ray Bradbury is one of the greatest fictional writers of all time, but he is so much more than that. He is one of the few authors who has the ability to make readers laugh out loud or burst into tear...
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Having written over 500 short stories, poems, essays, and novels, Ray Bradbury is considered to be one of the greatest writers of the century. Writing with topics ranging from science fiction to real...
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