The Public Burning Summary
Robert Coover

Everything you need to understand or teach The Public Burning by Robert Coover.

The Public Burning Summary & Study Guide
11 Literature Criticisms
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The Public Burning Summary

Because of its mass and its scope, the novel has a predictably large cast of characters. These can be broken down into three classes: historical victims; historical oppressors, by far the largest group; and personifications of public attributes.

Because one purpose of The Public Burning is to treat that moment in history at which the attitudes of America solidified into an unquestioning monism, Coover treats many historical figures as having mythic proportions.

President...

(read more from the Short Guide)

Study Pack

The The Public Burning Study Pack contains:

The Public Burning Short Guide

Characters

Social Concerns

Techniques

Robert Coover Biographies (2)

Robert (Lowell) Coover

11,220 words, approx. 38 pages

Even before the publication of The Public Burning (1977) made him famous, Robert Coover had already achieved a solid reputation, mostly among academics and college audiences, as one of the most origi... Read more

Robert (Lowell) Coover

8,489 words, approx. 29 pages

Robert Coover is one of America's most distinguished writers. His eminence is to be measured not by the size of his current readership, which remains select, but in terms of the technical resourcefuln... Read more