Studies in Classic American Literature by D.H. Lawrence
Published 1923 · 59,356 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Studies in Classic American Literature to read?
Studies in Classic American Literature scores 60 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
- Vivid, idiosyncratic prose mixing colloquialism with sudden aphoristic density.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Psychological and mythic claims about national consciousness at a high level of generality.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- Every paragraph carries interpretive argument but the style is propulsive rather than academic.
- Narrative indirection: 25 out of 100
- Lawrence circles his claims obliquely before striking.
- Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
- Blood, darkness, and the wilderness carry sustained symbolic weight throughout.
- Ironic distance: 28 out of 100
- Deep irony is Lawrence's primary analytical tool against American self-mythologizing.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- Arguments open onto larger claims rather than tidy conclusions.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Twelve chapters each dedicated to a single author, loosely cumulative.
How Studies in Classic American Literature is regarded
Studies in Classic American Literature holds a literary regard score of 81 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.