Search

Copyright of Ostrava Journal of English Philology is the property of Ostrava Journal of English Philology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper examines the ideological dimension of the reception of John Steinbeck in three post-communist countries, namely Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Slovenia. It discusses the prevalent mode of the writer's interpretation in the Eastern bloc which was governed by the political doctrines of the time. It is therefore often Steinbeck's politics, in the narrow sense of the word, that is scrutinized in the prefaces, afterwords, and reviews of his writings. The literary values are either marginalized or wholly ignored. Consequently, Steinbeck's criticism is determined by political correctness. It fails to consider the complexities of his work and treats the writer as an expedient object employed in the ideological campaign on the literary front. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]