John Barth - 1930
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I. Personal Biography
John Barth was born May 27.1930 in Cambridge, Maryland. He has an older brother, Bill, and a twin sister, Jill. Later in one of his books, Barth uses the "Jack and
Jill" nursery rhyme. This was because he went by Jack and his sister was Jill. He was married in 1950 and had three children. Barth got a divorce and married Shelly
Rosenberg in 1970. He is constantly dedicating his more recent books to her. Barth attended Juilliard for a short period in an attempt to become a jazz drummer. This was
before he began his journalism career at Johns Hopkins University. Barth has continually written about growing up in Maryland and English professors that love to sail, which
describes him. He explained during an interview that he liked to give his characters a piece of autobiographical fact now and then.
On Fridays, Barth abandons the city for his retreat on the Chesapeake Bay. Usually Barth would write fiction during the week, but on Fridays, he gave that up for writing nonfiction.
Many of his thoughts and ideas for his books have come to him while out on these Fridays. Professor Day, from Washington College in Cambridge, MD, and John Barth are close
friends who take each other out to lunch occasionally. Professor Day talked about "The Three John Barths" in an article in the Washington College newspaper. He states Barth
represents Community since he is still a local writer. He also represents Postmodernism and is a Realist and Parodist. Day talks about Barth's anxiety about why he and the
program he helped to start never achieved a high stature. Barth is equally concerned about his personal future as his career ends. He is afraid he will not be able to write another novel before his death.
Barth has published many novels and short stories, both fiction and nonfiction, during his professional career. Once he was considered one of the most important writers of the 20th
century. However, one reviewer stated these days hardly anyone has heard of John Barth. Therefore, not as many people read his books today. II. Professional Biography
Many people of the early 1960s and 1970s thought John Barth was the most important writer of the twentieth century. He was considered the "hippest" writer in America. Barth
is viewed as one of the inventors of American postmodern fiction. His professional writing career started after he finished college.
John Barth has many publications from novels and limited editions to shorter fiction and nonfiction. The Floating Opera, Lost in the Funhouse, and Chimera were all nominated
for the National Book Award (NBA). The novel, Chimera, was the book that finally won him the award. He was presented the award in 1972. In 1998, Barth won the PEN/Malamud
award for achievement in the art of short story. This award is given in honor of the author, Bernard Malamud.
Some people refer to Barth's style as postmodernism. The debate concerning what exactly is postmodernism has been very long and drawn out. The majority of Barth's writings are
some type of fiction. He has written fourteen novels and various other short stories. His book, Once Upon a Time, has been labeled his most straightforward autobiography. In this
novel, Barth decides to blend fact and fiction so readers do not know what is true and what is not. Barth does not like using the term autobiographical when referring to his work.
Most of his more recent books do seem to be more autobiographical however. Some of the authors who are labeled as being in the same category has Barth are Donald
Barthelme, Thomas Pynchon, Italo Calvino, William H. Gass, Grace Paley, and Robert Coover. Some more recent authors which are compared to Barth are Don DeLillo, Richard
Powers and David Foster Wallace. If you want to read some books as background material for Barth's writing, it would be helpful to read books such as Cervantes' "Don Quixote" or
the Sanskrit "Ocean of Story". Basically, many people inspired Barth's work. John Barth has taught at the following universities: Junior Instructorship in English at the
Johns Hopkins University from 1951-1953, associate professor of English at Penn State University from 1953-1965, professor of English at SUNY Buffalo from 1965-1971, Edward
H. Butler professor of English at SUNY from 1972-1973. He was the Alumni Centennial English and Creative Writing professor at Johns Hopkins from 1973-1990. He was then a
professor from 1990 until his retirement as Professor Emeritus in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins. He helped create and develop this program.
John Barth has strongly influenced the students at the colleges where he taught. He has especially impacted Johns Hopkins students because of his role in developing the Writing
Seminars program. Considering Barth was a professor and did his writing in his spare time, he did surprisingly well as a writer. III. Literary Works The Floating Opera (1956) Region, county, area in which Barth actually wrote. IV. Contact Barth
To Contact John Barth write to him at the following address: John Barth V. Sources
The End of the Road (1958)
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
Giles Goat-Boy, or the Revised New Syllabus (1966)
Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice (1968)
Chimera (1972)
Letters (1979)
Sabbatical: A Romance (1982)
The Friday Book: Essay and Other Nonfiction (1984)
he Tidewater Tales (1987)
The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991)
Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994)
Barth chose to spend much of his writing time around the Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The setting of one of his books was Penn State University.
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http://web.hku.hk/~hrnwlck/postmode.htm
John Barth's writing style has been described as postmodernism. This web site describes
postmodernism. It also tells about postmodernism and how it is used.
http://www.jhu.edu/~writsem
This web site gives a brief history of the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. It also tells about the faculty as well as graduate programs, admission and undergraduate majors.
http://www.cbf.org/index.html
This site provides information about all aspects of the Chesapeake Bay and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. It gives options for helping the Bay, such as simple things
you can do at home. It has a newsletter where students can have their work published.
http://plaza.interport.net/nypsan/freudarc.html
This site gives a list of some of Freud's work. It also gives excerpts from his writings. There is a list of writings done on Freud as well.
http://cac.psu.edu/~dwm7/cw.htm
This site has a large amount of material on the Creative Writing program at Penn State University. It gives ideas of what you can do as an English/Writing major after graduation.
It also provides student resources and information on the Creative Writing faculty.
http://ug.cs.dal.ca/~campbell/kvbiblio.html
s site gives a listing of Kurt Vonnegut's works. The reason this would be helpful is
because Vonnegut and Barth's writing have been compared and thought to be in the same category of writing.
http://www.bookwire.com
The Boston Book Review did a review on some of Barth's books. It compares them to
other works of the same style of writing. It tells what books represent his postmodern way of writing
http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_1996/April25/CURRENT/barth.html
Alan Janesch writes about the books Barth has written and some of the awards they have
received. He includes recollections from professors and students who worked with Barth. This essay was submitted by a student of Joe Taylor, a teacher at Perryville High School in Maryland.